Sub 1:50 800m Training

Anthony Colotti wrote:

I think you should coach "knees forward, toes up; straighten your legs" rather than "drive you arms faster! Faster! I think this just leads to a inefficient and metabolically costly stride.

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Much more effective to stretch the quadriceps are active stretches that engage the muscles during the stretch. A great exercise for this is the squat. When you go into a squat, the muscles stretch eccentrically and develop greater tension the lower you go. This helps to maintain joint integrity and at the same time stretches the quadriceps through a fuller range of motion than seen in any form of running, jumping or kicking. Thus not only is it safe but very effective.

AC

Once again, great post...couldnt agree more with the part about stretching your quads. I dont think anyone is strong enough to stretch their quad muscles. The only caveat I will say is that I had some IT Band issues once and visited the now famous Gerard Hartmann down in Gainesville (actually Eamonn Coghlan was there the same week getting treating and we hung out for a few days which just about made my running career worth it). Nothing worked to help it until he showed me a partner stretch to open up the quad...difficult to explain in words, but you are down on your side, and another person is supporting your hip from behind and pull from above the knee to straighten you hip joint to 180 degrees with the knee joint cocked about 90 degrees or a little more. After 3 months banged up I was running in 2 days. Trying to stretch your quad by cranking the knee back all the way never accomplished anything for me as well.

Anthony;

While I agree that the difference between 1st and last at a major championship is minute and anything that can be done to improve would be significant, I think you actually re-make my point by saying that MJ could have run faster with a change in form. I think to suggest to a world record holder that he should work on a form or technique change could have disasterous consequences, unless it was unanimously agreed that there was a flaw. Here is a funny example- We all probably agree that we all could improve Bolt's 100m time by having him hold form for 100m!

However, I would not want to try to advise Bolt at 200m, or Bekele or Gebresalesse at 10k. They are as close to perfection as one can get, and any minor technical change would most likely be offset by a corresponding loss somewhere else.

Just my opinion of course, and as I previously stated, I am more comfortable withadvise and discussionof the workout models.I really like your 600m progression by the way, and in fact used a scaled down version this past year.

Best wishes, and keep posting.

Flow -- responding to tempo running

For me it was 20-40 minutes of steady pace at a speed that would make my guts churn but not fast enough to make my legs burn. While the times might differentiate depending on age/ability/etc I think this is a great way to describe it to runners you are coaching or to try on yourself. The first mile feels OK, but then you start to fatigue and you have to concentrate completely on relaxation.

OldSub4 wrote:

Flow -- responding to tempo running

For me it was 20-40 minutes of steady pace at a speed that would make my guts churn but not fast enough to make my legs burn. While the times might differentiate depending on age/ability/etc I think this is a great way to describe it to runners you are coaching or to try on yourself. The first mile feels OK, but then you start to fatigue and you have to concentrate completely on relaxation.

How many times per week did you do this type of moderate/hard 20-40 minute run? It sounds awfully similar to what I do for about 1/2 of my non-workout runs. Am I running too fast?

I see your point. I am biased as coming from the S&C world, if something in an athletes technique is off, you BETTER fix it, and fix it QUICK!!!!!

Anthony Colotti wrote:

I am biased as coming from the S&C world

Steeple and Chase?

Strength & Conditioning

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

OldSub4 wrote:

Flow -- responding to tempo running

For me it was 20-40 minutes of steady pace at a speed that would make my guts churn but not fast enough to make my legs burn. While the times might differentiate depending on age/ability/etc I think this is a great way to describe it to runners you are coaching or to try on yourself. The first mile feels OK, but then you start to fatigue and you have to concentrate completely on relaxation.

How many times per week did you do this type of moderate/hard 20-40 minute run? It sounds awfully similar to what I do for about 1/2 of my non-workout runs. Am I running too fast?

I'll relate from my own training back in the day, but you can relate the effort to the pace you are running now.

Once per week....we would start in the fall at 5:30 pace, drop down through the winter to 5:10s for 6 miles. We would start to drop the distance and pace toward the spring and do a couple of 3 milers in 14:30 by mid-late April. --we were shooting for a June peek for US Nationals. As a miler I would do 4 mile tempos in the spring.

non-workout days were comfortably hard....mabye some sub 6 min pace toward the end but in general starting out around 6:30pace for a 1 hour run in the PM. You should feel like you have to keep breathing but you shouldnt be feeling much distress or your legs will have a hard time recovering as you turn the quality dial up. There were only 3 non workout days...we had three hard days and one long day per week. I saw where Cram would run a number of days sub 6 pace, but it also looked like he only had two organized hard days per week and snuck the third one in doing fartlek whenever he felt good on the other 5 days.

I remember (particularly now that I am trying to get back into some shape) that your body also goes through macro cycles...there are weeks where you feel great everyday and days you feel terrible all the time. I dont know the philosophy on whether you should just go for it when you feel good, but I do know that you really have to be careful when you are going through a downer---you get physically & mentally fatigued = mechanics break down = injury. It can come on fast. Hammering off days is clearly not a great strategy for the whole year (either your hard days arent fatiguing you or your general mileage load might be too light)

Remember, I am speaking only for athletes gearing for 800m....anything above that requires more steady aerobic work through the year. Love to hear everyone elses thoughts on this...

Actually my latest thing is repeats on a dirt trail by the side of a road that is 1/3 of a mile long. Doing workouts like

6X(1/3 mile effort, focusing on form,1/3 moderate)

or

16-24X1/3 with 10-20 seconds recovery(starting at tempo effort working down to 5k pace seems to be a good workout, but doesn't tire me out or beat up the legs too much). It is good to get away from the track and always having to run 200s and 400s.

Most of my "normal runs" end up being fartlek/progressions-start easy and go harder for a few minutes at a time if I am feeling good until the last few miles are fairly fast. But if I don't feel good then I will go easy or even cut the run short at 4-5 miles if need be.

I definitly agree about the macrocycle thing. Good days are not random and rarely appear alone, they usually appear in chunks of 2-3 days. Example-I felt fantastic Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week but am now in a slight funk. I think it is because most people run harder when they feel good and run easy when they feel worse, but the fatigue/recovery takes a couple days to show up sometimes.

So you feel good wednesday, run hard then, still feel good thursday, run hard, STILL feel good friday, run hard. Then the fatigue catches up to you and you feel bad Saturday,Sunday, Monday, but take those days easy and are good to go by Tuesday, and have gained fitness. Rinse and repeat.

I've always noticed two very different types of down days/weeks. One you can get out of by doing a session like 6-10X10second all out hills with full recovery or a heavy weight session (leg presses/squats)to "jump start" the legs into working.

The other requires rest, nothing else seems to work.

hi i kind of knew you knew this sorry, i typed that stuff late and cut it close to the bone ie without thought of blending it for peoples ears.

I'm interested in your falling down guy - did you mean as in leaning so far forward he pretty much fell around the track?

And i agree with you technique can't be changed too far. Sure minor technical points like heel lift or knee lift or hip height or arm motion but nothing like removing MJ's arch.

Track and field requires too much naturalness and changing technique wantonly has only ever shortened a talented athletes career in my opinion. However, i have met enough experienced coaches to know that technique can be altered in any way without negative side-effects if one knows what they are doing. Funnily enough such changes are being made over 2 or even 3 years. I guess it takes high experience and wisdom to achieve this though.

Yes, the guy was leaning so far forward that it looked like

he might fall down. It also looked like he was overstriding, but it was most likely correct for him.

As I said, it would be interesting if anyone knew of(even anecdotally) a world class runner whose coaches had made a fundamental change in form or technique that had resulted in a massive breakthrough.( I appreciate that 100m coaches talk of form and technique more than some other events, and I can imagine that a talented 10.3 runner could polish form and technique to 10.0)

Final thought- I wonder if Canova discusses form much with his big stars?

I do not know the details but I have heard that George Gandy completely changed Lisa Dobriskey's (spl?) technique when he started coaching her. She has since gone from an injury prone youngster to a world class 1500m runner.

flow wrote:

Track and field requires too much naturalness and changing technique wantonly has only ever shortened a talented athletes career in my opinion. However, i have met enough experienced coaches to know that technique can be altered in any way without negative side-effects if one knows what they are doing. Funnily enough such changes are being made over 2 or even 3 years. I guess it takes high experience and wisdom to achieve this though.

Once again, generalizing, but look at any elite race and what you will notice is that they all run with very similiar form. There is not a great deal of variation. Regardless of age or geography when you look at the Olympic 800m or 1500m finals you see footstrikes underneath and long backstrokes, relaxed upper bodies until 150m to go and scooping arm movement with low hands. Hips forward, chin down, etc. There will be exceptions, but unless someone is a phenom, I think you have to teach younger runners good form, or runners with injury problems proper, less risky form. It looks different on different runners since we are all different shapes and sizes, but for everyone that I ever saw at the elite level it was the same. You should be practicing your form on every step of every run...toe striking, arm swinging, no shoulder rotation, picking up feet, using core muscles for stability not outside tendons, etc. I see younger runners going out for a distance run all hunched over, sitting in their stride and I tell them they are not getting the work done to get faster...

You are going to get 1 out of 10 that is the exception at the elite level, and that is being generous....everyone else should be working each year to correct their form = my opinion.

Dwain Chambers technique is much tidier since he has returned from his drugs ban. He was much more ragged beforehand. It's hard to tell how much of an effect this has had as he's raced so little since his return one cannot really say what he is now capable of running.

OldSub4,

I am impressed by your depth of knowledge and have a few questions for you.

Would you recommend doing the short hill repeats throughout the entire year(excluding competition time), and how often would you do them, once every 2/3 weeks?

Do you know much about differential workouts, ie. 120m(1min rest),140m(2min),160m(3min)......200m(5min),180m(4min).......? These reps would be done flat out.

In relation to weights/plyometrics, would you do these together in one session or separately?, and how often?

Do you see any point in doing workouts in muddy conditions, because where I live we have wet winters and do a lot our workouts in mucky/slippery conditions. Is there any benefits from doing this or would I be better of finding drier patches to do the workout?

I don't know if I am interpreting you correctly but I'll take a stab at it regardless. A agree with everything you have been saying, but I think with the backkick and resultants from other stride patterns are just the natural result of the more functional parts of the stride. I like how you descrived "sitting in" with the hips, I feel this is the best way to cue this because it forces the legs to make more of a piston like movement than "clawing" motion as some advocate. With the lengthy duration spent in the Creatine Phosphate system durring the 800 I belive piston type running is the most effecient application of force. I will try and look up the study tonight but I read somewhere that more force is spent overcoming vertical gravitational forces durring running than in horizontal velocity application, thus bennfiting sitters or piston like strikers.

I think we are all in agreement on this point-once you get to elite or near elite status the similarity in form is amazing. Have you ever sat with, or overheard uninformed fans watch a 5k or 10k and wonder out loud why they are just jogging(at 64 pace).(in case anyone is missing the point I am making, it is that the elite 5k runners are so fluid that 64 does look slow to the untrained eye)

But you are also right that younger runners must focus on form all the time in order to ingrain it. This past winter I stressed landing with soft feet to a talented girl who pounded every step.

If Asafa Powell can run 9.77 with a low back kick, I don't think it is needed for the 800m. Look at the side view in the last 20 seconds of the video-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEUD_LwsDUI

here are a couple articles that talk about form

http://www.completespeedtraining.com/sprinting-problems.html

http://www.completespeedtraining.com/4-important-speed.html

I think that how much back kick you have is dependent on the ratio of hamstring/glute power vs hip flexor power/abdominal strength.

Stronger glutes and hamstrings=higher back kick as the leg gets completely extended behind.

Stronger hip flexors and abs pulling the leg forward and the foot doesn't have enough time to "float" up towards the hips before being pulled forward.

I hate to get off topic but at last years elite sprint summit in Las Vegas Ralph Mann presented results from research done over an extensive period of time regarding sprint mechanics. The conclusion based on their findings was that there is virtually no differance betweeen world class sprinters and high school sprinters with regads to backend mechanics.

There is a differance in front end mechanics.

I think we are getting caught up in minutia. The training is far more important than the athletes running mechanics.