Sprintgeezer: Sprint training advice

Also I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has contributed so far, you've all kept my spirits up in the face of minimal progress.

This may be the last year that I really have full access to a track so I wanna see what I can do with my speed before I head to the roads

Flo'da, keep up the great work! Your long sessions (50/50 and 1000 on down) are middle distance classics that both maintain aerobic fitness and develop speed and form, in my opinion..

Sprintgeezer, I must apologise but I hit a mad few weeks of work when you replied in so much detail on the weights two pages back, and have only just seen this thread again.

On the twist, I agree 100%. I have learned I need a twist in my routine. I sometimes do the second one, which Pavel (who I'm sure you'll know about) calls the "full contact twist". Barry Ross has his kids do a tough twist on a bench. And from what I can tell, Dan Pfaff has been getting a lot of Brits doing evil twisty things with medicine balls.

The advice on jumps is really interesting. I and a lot of people I know have real trouble 'managing' our calves, as mid distance work can involve a hell of a lot of pounding in spikes - usually too soon after NOT doing so all winter on soft surfaces. I'm honestly unsure whether adding more weekly doses of bounding/rebounding (especially onto aging legs) is smart. But the forwards/upwards jump onto a box makes a lot of sense. Seb Coe did simply massive bunny hops uphill on grass in winter between reps. We have a local biomechanics expert who likes getting people doing forward med ball throws, launching yourself at the same angle as the drive in sprinting. And there is a thread here somewhere about Borzakovskiy's training - the coach like them to do forward rock throws in a river bed. Again, I think it's all the same idea - launching yourself forward/upwards.

Anyway, thanks again. Great stuff!

Flo-

hang in there, amigo. it just takes time. one day, it will just click for you. don't compare yourself to anyone, but well, ...yourself! as far as rowing went/goes, i based all of my workouts on what my pace would be for a 500m row at 85% effort. the following are different workouts what i did/do:

1)10x250m row with 60 sec rest between, gradually working to an occasional workout of 20x250m

2)8x500m- super hard workout, with 2 min rest

3) 250/500/1000/500/250 with 2 min rest between

4) 5000m straight row

essentially, i just alternated between those, rowing 3-4 workouts a week. i also really got into the weight room on SG's prompting, learning olympic lifts- beginning with only a 45# bar and gradually increasing as my body's engrams began to develop with the specific lift technique. between the rowing and lifting, i'm as strong as i've ever been by far.

oh, and eurodonkey: check out flotrack with some of the lifts salazar has rupp doing. there is a few that i have incorporated into my sessions such as a squat where you lift your knee at the end to simulate a sprinting leg motion. once again, what a great thread!

Flo'da--

Timing yourself is tough, as you know. Anytime you try to time yourself in a sprint, you will slow yourself down as you will be thinking about the timing to some extent.

I have found that self-timing is almost useless in the 100, for instance, and basically just as bad in the 200.

So then the question is, how to judge your speed, to see where you are at and where you are going? It's really hard--you will either need some sort of photocell or magnetic timing device, a friend/training partner who is very reliable in their timing ability, enter a bunch of FAT meets, or judge yourself over time against training partners whose speed is more or less known at any time of the season.

Hard, I know. The important and easiest thing is training partners. Fast tempo and drills you can do on your own, but to judge your speed you need others around.

Tying up in a 100--been there, done that! It is totally possible, guys have even done it in Olympic finals. Stride gets short and choppy, moving seems hard, cramping can set in, running feels like fighting.

First, if you did two all-out 200's and then an all-out 100, all in one session, then FOR SURE you will be tying-up in the 100! That's not YOU, that's EVERYBODY.

Heck, you should have been tying-up in the second 200, and no doubt you were.

When doing these "all-out" types of time trials, really go easy on the start. You can go 95-98% of "all-out" just by easing off the start. It might really affect your time in the 100, but it won't be so bad in the 200. Remember to relax, even on the acceleration, and make sure you are breathing the whole time, and that you're not making fists. If you do this, you will be able to do 2x200 really hard during the same session, and maybe even have enough left over for a hard 100 with a "soft start".

When you're doing a 200 or a 100, and if you're not used to competing at that distance, I think that your mind can stop you before you reach your maximum potential velocity--that is, you drive out with a certain stride frequency, and you "cruise" for a short period at the max velocity you can achieve with a particular frequency and stride length, before you have to actively "think", then suddenly transition to either a longer stride, different stride frequency, or both, and the form that enables this new combination.

Don't be satisfied! IF you ever "catch yourself" in this pattern, do something to break it. The transition and/or mid/late acceleration is a much-neglected part of the race, but is maybe the most critical. It is easy to get stuck below actual max, because you are already going fast, and it feels like you have already expended lots of energy because you have started and accelerated from zero.

Some guys get up into their final running posture earlier, so that their "sudden transition" happens sooner, so that they lose as little time as possible at below-max speed. Some try to break the cycle through training things like accelerating downhill, which depending on the slope will force you to reach your max velocity and beyond. Don't go too steep, otherwise you will have to slow yourself down and/or kill yourself, and it will be counter-productive. Learn the feeling of getting ALL THE WAY to max velocity smoothly, without any break along the way.

That is kind of an advanced thing, though, for people with good top-end but a sticking point along the way.

If you don't think your max speed is all that and still need to improve it before you have a problem like the above one, think particularly about stride length, and how to achieve it, during the majority of the 100m distance. At the start and early acceleration, you can practice using short, quick steps to get yourself moving while coming out fairly upright, which is something you will be doing if you haven't got sprinter power yet in the legs. tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat coming out of the blocks, or out of your 3-point stance. Quick. Gets you moving, short quick steps. Keep the arm action restricted, too, you don't want to slow down your legs, or burn too much energy.

But after that, after you have gotten out, you can get up into your running position fairly quickly, and accelerate while in that position, rather than accelerating in a "drive phase" position like trained sprinters. Concentrate on stride length early, earlier than you might think worthwhile. To get a good stride length, try, of all things, running lower, closer to the ground, and making sure you get good knee lift. Too many people try to run too high IMHO, and spend a lot of energy flailing their limbs in the air, where they're not productive.

Stay low, and L-O-N-G. In this phase, concentrate on arm action, bringing your hand up pretty high and driving the knees forward. Run feeling like you are "curled forward", rather than sticking your chest out forwards, and your butt out backwards. Concentrate on holding your form through the finish, not just TO the finish, especially in the 200. Don't worry so much about turnover, leave that for the early acceleration.

Especially if you have felt like you are accelerating all the way out to 80m, this suggests a lack of focus as to where you are in the race, and the level of effort you're applying.

Alternatively, if you want to see how this works out in comparison to the above, stay in a "drive phase" until something like 60m, no kidding. Keep your head/eyes down, looking at the track, slightly more forwards as you speed up, but don't look forward until, say, 60m--then at that point, breathe and relax, and let the momentum you have developed carry you through the line. Or, if you feel like you have extra to give, then really try to hit that top speed between 60-100m.

Hard to tell what will work, as I have no idea who you are, but try those 2 opposite things and see what happens relatively to your time--coming up and looking forward and striding longer sooner than you think is right and from a position you think is maybe lower than optimal, or staying down in drive phase and looking at the track way longer than you think is right, then breathing and relaxing through the line, and only going hard if you still feel like you have a lot to give.

[quote]Sprintgeezer wrote:

Anybody out there?

I have a son who is at heart a basketball player(guard). Raced the 100 & 200 as a junior last year...managed a 11.77 FAT and 23.84. Barely trained. The coach has had him run 100, 200, 4x100 & 4x200 in meets. I think that's to much?

Now, I know you serious sprinters think that 11.77 is quite pedestrian, but I think he's capable of low 11s at least. He was always very fast relative to his peers. Since I'm a distance runner I wish he would do the 800m...but as we know distance races are for folks who actually enjoy running for at least a few minutes. Never could get him to go on runs with me. He's 5'8", 150 and bench 200 lbs.

Do you think it's possible for him to break 11.5 this season based on his past performances?

Unless his form is naturally perfect, I have little doubt that he can go under 11.5, with a bit of coaching.

He could probably lose that .3 just on the start/early acceleration, if he doesn't really train.

I would ask, was the 11.77 a one-off, or did he have a series of 100m results last year, and if so, what happened?

Ask the coach to just focus on his starts/accelerations, if you want a decent and maybe quick gain--likely he has enough hormones and adrenaline coursing through his body to carry him through the line, if he is decently fit from basketball.

Also make sure he gets a great sleep before a meet, and doesn't burn himself out throughout the day, or in warmup at the meet. Critical.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Also make sure he gets a great sleep before a meet, and doesn't burn himself out throughout the day, or in warmup at the meet. Critical.

Hey, I tried to talk him out of pick-up basketball with his former team mates (he was a starter just a few weeks ago on his team that made it to the regionals)about 2 hours ago. He has a track meet tomorrow! And raced Saturday (relays only). He says he's not sore, but will ask the coach to let him skip at least one of the four races.

He's a senior now, last year, he did 11.8, 11.6, 11.75, 11.95FAT, 11.6, 11.77FAT & 11.5.

It's a bit frustrating because I believe he can go much faster if he was really serious. But of course everyone is not into running like some of us.

Yeah I may have overdone it a bit with the all-outs haha

And I think I'll try those different starts when I get a chance next.

Training partners are a problem. I have a friend who is significantly faster than me (ran D1 for a while) but is big into rowing now so he's not up for track work. Others are too slow/not interested. So I'm running solo unfortunately for now.

I don't know if I have a place to try that long acceleration jump but maybe one will pop up.

Also:

Monday night: (morning did the 200s, 100)

3x500m row

Box jumps (6x6)

2x500m row

Tues: Off

Today: 1-1.5 mile jog to track

2x400 (69, 71)

2x200 (32,33)

jog home

Keep on pluggin

Those results show that he has a baseline of around 11.8

If he continued to do what he is doing, and good a good tailwind and had a great race, there is every reason to believe he could pop out an 11.6

But to get significantly better than one's normal baseline that comes from something like basketball, takes dedication and work. He could get some small gains pretty quickly just from a good coach teaching him some basic block and drive technique, but what in particular makes you think he could go "much faster"?

And how much faster do you mean, when you say "much" faster?

Let me ask you this: in what position did he typically finish in those meets you listed the times for, and where was he relative to both the leaders and "the field"?

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Those results show that he has a baseline of around 11.8

If he continued to do what he is doing, and good a good tailwind and had a great race, there is every reason to believe he could pop out an 11.6

But to get significantly better than one's normal baseline that comes from something like basketball, takes dedication and work. He could get some small gains pretty quickly just from a good coach teaching him some basic block and drive technique, but what in particular makes you think he could go "much faster"?

And how much faster do you mean, when you say "much" faster?

Let me ask you this: in what position did he typically finish in those meets you listed the times for, and where was he relative to both the leaders and "the field"?

I agree, about 11.6 is probably the best that can be had this season. He has been 3rd in small meets and middle of the field in a big invitation.

I suspect that if he was serious for a few years, he could improve about 6-10%.

Thanks for the thoughts.

subfive wrote:

[quote]Sprintgeezer

I suspect that if he was serious for a few years, he could improve about 6-10%.

.

.

Check that, maybe an improvement of 4 to 7% after several years is more realistic?

Agreed this is a great thread. i dont mean to hijack it...but im a distance guy thats been thrown in charge of sprinters. im not a troll. i desperately need help w starts. any suggestions? Also, i have a sophomore thats gone 11.4, 22.3, and 50.8 relay (several reliabke watches)...but ge runs with his shoulders at his ears. cant get him to loisen up. help? Please?

subfive--

6-10% over what baseline? His time of 11.8?

6% would put him around 11.1, but 10% would put him at around 10.6, which is getting fast.

10.6 would win him a bunch of regional meets, and put him up with some really good HS sprinters. Since virtually no HS sprinters are really well-trained from what I have seen, many are running fairly close to their "baseline"--for instance, I would suspect that a 10.5-10.6 HS sprinter has a sub-11 baseline--that is, based on training other than specific sprint training, they could go maybe 10.8-11.0 from the blocks.

11.1 might actually be realistic, though, assuming that right now if he got lucky he could go maybe 11.6

In my experience there is a sort of step-function right below about 11.15, guys running that sort of time are at the upper-end of the 10.75-11.2 time zone. The "next" "time zone" is around 11.2-11.7 (talking out my a$$).

Moving between time zones is tough, but moving within a time zone is possible. 11.1-11.2 would be somewhere around the good end of the time zone he is probably in right now, I would think it would be the very best you could hope for, given some solid training, barring any future physiologic development--which may, in fact, come in time. When I'm saying 11.1-11.2, I'm talking with the physical athlete you have right now, with excellent training, rather than with just basketball and minimal sprint training.

I saw your further post of 4-7% or something like that. Probably totally doable, but it will require dedication.

More is possible IF: 1) he receives excellent coaching, 2) he continues to develop physiologically, 3) his current form is so terrible that huge gains in efficiency can be made quickly.

Regarding his placement, thanks for that. Had he been winning everything, that might have indicated to me that he was doing just enough to win, as he is largely untrained, and that he had a faster baseline than indicated (see below for my underlying logic)--however, the fact that he is finishing in the pack does NOT indicate that he is only as fast as he has run.

Sprinting from the front is distinctly different than sprinting anywhere else. First of all, when some sprinters see other guys in front of them, they pace off them, whether they know it or not. It is difficult for many to "run their own race". It is a natural sort of phenomenon, IMO. He may be one of those guys, and may be faster than times he achieves when he "settles into" a place in a race.

Sometimes, guys running in a field run to their maximum potential, because they are keying off guys who are faster than they are. It is hard to tell which of these situations is applicable, if there are no first-place finish times to reference.

Sprinting from, and at, the FRONT is a totally different animal, at least for me personally. I have been in both situations.

When you're out in front, you are really alone.

And when you are alone, you are with your god.

It becomes you and the universe, you don't know where the limits are, there may as well be none. You have to resist the tendency to float, you must have something against which to measure your level of performance If you are untrained, that measuring stick becomes the performance level that you find comfortable, and you float. OTOH, if you are well-trained, that measuring stick becomes your absolute potential.

That is why, IMHO, great sprinters shouldn't train beside each other at the same time. They need to explore their own potential, and not worry about the guy next to them, or read off them.

The best sprinters--those performing to their potential--are those who, among other things, are able to focus during a race, and "run their own race", EVEN IF THEY ARE DOWN AT SOME POINT IN THE RACE.

This feeling of sprinting alone, at the front, is something I haven't experienced in years. I recently ran our indoor "state champs", where although only in baseline and not having trained for months, I got bronze. (The fastest guy, a friend of mine, couldn't make it to the meet, lol!)

Anyway, I was competitive for the win--so competitive, that I was out in front until maybe 45-50m. I have always had a killer start, but when driving, you're not really aware of anybody else's position in the race. When you come up, you are then aware. I came up, and there was nobody around, which sometimes happens to me--however, there didn't appear to be anybody around even at 50m. It was surreal. I haven't felt that in, I don't know, 20 years. Because the feeling took me by surprise, and because I hadn't been training and was in only "basketball baseline", I floated. 2 guys passed me in the last 10m.

Had I been trained, I could have laid down an absolutely smoking time, but I wasn't used to sprinting from the front. Had it been later in the year and that had happened, after training, I might have won.

The point of all this? Sprinters, especially younger ones, and athletes in general, are IMHO surprisingly unaware of their own potential. They need to explore themselves, athletically. Good training/coaching will enable this. Finishing in 11.8 in the pack means to me that if he received decent training/coaching and he was ever in a race where he was leading, he could go significantly faster than 11.8, likely to around that 11.1/11.2 area, but he would have to learn how to get the most from himself.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

subfive--

6-10% over what baseline? His time of 11.8?

6% would put him around 11.1, but 10% would put him at around 10.6, which is getting fast.

His baseline is 11.8 as you suggested (he's actually done 11.77FAT).

It's my speculation, that he could possibly get down to 10.6...if he was fully devoted to achieving that goal...but not in H.S. I'm talking about after some years of very serious training. Now a 10% improvement is quite a lot. A 6% (11.1)improvement is much more probable.

I base these estimates on a general observation, serious training over a sufficient amount of time normally leads to a significant improvement in nearly any activity. 4 to 10% seems reasonable based on my own running and what I've seen others do.

How much did you improve from your "baseline"? How long did it take to reach your PR? What is your PR and your best now at 100M?

Short note:

10.6 is in my time zone of 10.3-10.75

It is very fast.

All FAT, my non-track baseline was probably around 10.9x; my multi's-trained baseline was 10.7x, my multi's-trained best was only just sub-10.5, and last year I could do around 11.6 but went 11.8 not going 100% saving it for last meet by which time I got injured...although my goal for this year is 11.4x which would age-grade to my PR. Wishful thinking.

**************************

What you bring up about significant improvement from training in nearly any activity is interesting. I don't know that the same thing applies to the 100m, although it very well might.

Here's the thing: some things like basketball, depending on how he plays, can be decent sprint conditioning, so improvements would have to come from very specific sprint conditioning, form work, or both.

The problem is that so much of it is neurologic. That's why you can have some really thin guys go really fast, guys like Ndure. There is a whole universe of Casey Combests out there.

Baseline will tell you a lot about neurology. There are lots of strong, well-muscled guys who will never do any damage in the 100m because they don't have the neurology--and on the flipside, there are some guys out there who don't need to do that much, they just have that high-speed neurology with a good power-to-weight ratio.

And neurology acts, of course, in concert with musculature, endocrine system, and body proportions.

Your guy might be at the point where his neurology is advantageous. If that's the case, and he shows good baseline resistance to sprint fatigue, and if you guys think you can make a go of it, you should start soon, so that he doesn't lose what he now has, and so you can build on that base.

But in my experience, sprint training gains are not like endurance running training gains--at least not for me. I can get a lot worse, and a lot better, training or not training longer distance. Heck, IIRC, in a single winter treadmill season, I went from something like a 23-24 min 5k, to around 19:30, and then when I got sick and lost a bunch of weight, to around 18:40--but my healthy-weight best was always around 19:20-19:30

I have never experienced that kind of a swing in sprinting. Even when I don't do anything for 6-7 months, I can still bust out a good sprint, an "all-american" 60m time; and even when I train hard, I can never experience that kind of gain over my baseline. Let's say it was a 15-20% improvement over a training season, that is HUGE. Unachievable in sprinting for me, or for anybody I have ever heard of, even the completely untrained (excluding the morbidly obese).

Last year I took it smoothly, and dropped .10 in each of 4 meets, and never went 100%. Let's say I would have gone 11.6 at 100%--that would have been a seasonal improvement of 0.60, which would be a 5% improvement. As it is, it was around 4% (in an absolute sense).

Now he's on his way up, and I'm on my way down, so I would think that for him, 4% would be a reasonable expectation over a season, and that maybe even 10% would be achievable, although probably not over a single season.

Relative improvement might be more telling, however, using times referenced to something like the WR, or to 10-flat for convenience.

I would ask you why you wish to focus on 100m time--what about his 800m or 400m? Does he ever run them? Ask him what he thinks of Rudisha or Symmonds.

@Sprintgeezer:

What does "multi's-trained" baseline mean?

Presumably, you ran a 100m while a teenager? What was your initial time in the 100? Sub 10.5 means you're at the world class level. And if you can do 11.4 now, which age grades to your pr, you're probably about 45 years old?

My son will not even consider trying the 400, much less anything beyond that. He's barely interested track & field. I would love to see him try the 800. To make the basketball team as a junior, he ran a 5:35 mile. And he does not even enjoy running.

I'm the distance runner. For many years my goal was a sub 16 5k. I never did it to my satisfaction. But ran low 16s many times. Now, I'm dabbling with the 800. I'm sub 2:30 in the 55-59 ag. I do plan to try the 5k later this year, hoping for a low 19.

Yesterday: varied sprints 50-100m some all out with hard starts some with soft starts, and some were just strides. Then dead lifts then attempting squats with the bar. My form for the squats is horrible and I have trouble.

Today: 20 minute jog and some stair "sprints" then later gym with bench and incline bench.

Thanks again Geezer for your contributions. I too am curious what you ran in high school. Also as Flo'da boy I wonder of you have any thoughts on the recent Arroyo phenomenon.

And sub five its too bad four son isn't interested in distance. A 535 for basketball with that speed says he'd be a good 400/800 IMO

Been keeping up with pretty much the same routine, short sprints and weights. Last week I got in two 30 minute runs too (I'm in hideous aerobic shape).

Two workouts I did recently to check progress:

A few days ago: 300m in 47s +some 150's (sprint-float-sprint)

I think this shows at least some marginal progress (last all out 300 I ran was 48 I think)

Today I did 2x200m all out (29.8, 30.5) + 600m tempo +2x150 (sprint-float-sprint). I think the 200s also indicated slight slight progress

that's what I keep telling myself haha

Sprintgeezer,

Your opinion is hereby requested on this thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5148593

Thanks.