Is speed development a waste of time?

I'm not American so do you mind telling me who he is? Is he a S & C coach who coaches baseball and soccer?

How many sprinters in the 10.0-10.4 range has he coached?

Finally someone said it. Huge breath of fresh air. Somewhat related, but it's just as annoying whenever someone says "I ran a sub 14 5k but my 400 pr was only 63 seconds!" to make a point when we all know they could run closer to 53 secs bare minimum if they cared to try.

WOW.. somebody is showing their age! 440! That hasnt been contested in almost 50 years.

There is no point in doing 60m sprints for middle distance runner. Middle distance runners need speed but its never an all out 60-100m dash. It is much more effective for them to train at speed at intervals from 200-400. Much more applicable for them in races. These 90% efforts improve their anaerobic capacity which is more important. Middle distance runners need to be able to hold speed while fatigued. That is not achieved doing anything less than 100m. Also, any time they are running things like 150s, 200s 300s etc it is usally at the end of the workout. These faster reps are then completed under fatigue which provides more direct benefit.

Skill issue

It could be that doing faster reps, not sprints, helps preserve speed rather than improve it. What I learned years ago is that distance running alone can to a certain degree hurt speed. Speed has to be practiced. Is what it is. Explosive movements and conditioning yourself to move your body at a high rate of speed, and learn to accelerate, isn't to be taken lightly. All those little muscles and muscle memory have to be exercised. Think football players, and how defensive backs condition. Basically, it's explosive movements, lots of sprinting and running during football practice and games. They have to be able to cover the field quite fast, and they tend to do so the entire game with only brief breaks. Notice they don't do 5 mile easy runs in football practice. See what I mean?! Or soccer players.. whatever.

How it shakes out... I don't see how a guy can be elite and not focus on speed and getting faster or at least preserving the speed they have, unless they're soo damn fast that it doesn't matter.. or they're too afraid to injure themselves. I don't buy it. Is it possible that every iconic runner in every distance is at least fast, and that the faster you are, the faster you'll run under fatigue? So it certainly matters.

In terms of workouts for middle distance runners, I've heard of weight assisted treadmill runs where weight is lifted/taken off of you so your mind and body get used to running at a faster pace. There's also middle distance runners who may do 300m uphill reps.

It's really not a slow sport, otherwise they'd get rid of the timer and everyone would get a trophy.

in terms of programming this for middle distance, search for Justin Rinaldi’s training approach (there are multiple LR threads, several he’s commented on directly). right after running 3:47 and winning Millrose Cam Myers mentioned he does a modified weekly speed dev workout modeled after Rinaldi’s framework. as others have rightly said, it’s one form of stimulus among many, there is a place for it in training, and the more you can raise your top end speed the more economical you can run sub-max paces

Anybody have more info on this?

For older guys, how would you introduce speed development in a safe way? V mentions gradual overload in his post from 2+ years ago. He’s a great poster and would love to hear from him as well.

Thomas does sprint dev, as does Mike Smith. I suspect all the listed guys also do it. They may not do sprint dev year round, but thats because they’re pros already can reach top speed, so they are only doing return to peak speeds in their specific phases.

example, Smith does 6-8s max hills with long recoveries independent of larger workouts.

To point out an error though, I don’t think doing sprint “dev” after a threshold run precludes it from being sprinting. These pros are barely if at all using their anaerobic system to run 10xk. Sprint dev is purely anaerobic and neuromuscular. The reason sprinters don’t do long runs before they sprint is because distance running is not specific at all to the system used in sprinting, but for distance runner they need to be able to do both in a race.

Magness just did a great podcast on this in “on coaching.” I’ll paraphrase here what i think would apply well to safe progression for older athletes:

- start with weight lifting, specifically hypertrophy to build supporting muscle in specific areas (ie glute bridges, squats)

- progress to plyo

- try to run on surfaces other than road or track (ie trail) regularly to build stability muscles

- implement hill sprints before flat sprints. I think this is key also, hill sprints are so much less risky due to reduced impact.

as an aside, i’d add super shoes if you do flat sprints. They take away some of that impact that’s most likely to get you hurt.