What are some of you guy's favorite speed endurance workouts?
What are some of you guy's favorite speed endurance workouts?
4 x 150m. Smooth acceleration on the curve, then relaxed fast on the straight. 5 minute rest.
10 mile or a hour (whichever one comes first) progression run finishing with some shorter reps( a few strides + 4-8 x 200-300 meters) w/ full recovery. Do this during the base phase alternate between flat and hills, preferably over grassy field.
I like how the two suggested workouts so far are completely opposite
cramister wrote:
I like how the two suggested workouts so far are completely opposite
And neither are true speed endurance workouts.
2-3 x 500 @ 800m PR speed, 8-10 min recovery
3 x 250 @ 400m PR speed, 8-10 minutes recovery
3 x 150 @ 200m PR speed, 8-10 minutes recovery
None of these are truly efficacious at this time of the year.
CoachB wrote:
cramister wrote:
I like how the two suggested workouts so far are completely opposite
And neither are true speed endurance workouts.
2-3 x 500 @ 800m PR speed, 8-10 min recovery
3 x 250 @ 400m PR speed, 8-10 minutes recovery
3 x 150 @ 200m PR speed, 8-10 minutes recovery
CoachB (or anyone with knowledge),
Would you clarify? I do realize that the rest I was suggesting for the 4 x 150m session is a little short for true Speed Endurance; I was quoting a workout that I had been assigned in college. I was going to type "10 min rest" but that’s not what I actually did back then. My bad for not being fully accurate.
My understanding is that your suggested 3 x 150 would be a Speed Endurance session -- IIRC true Speed Endurance entails (I think) 3-5 near-top-speed repeats of something like 80-150m (10-20 sec sprints) with 8-10 min rest (not active jogging like distance intervals), for a total workout distance of 300-600m. For lesser trained athletes, my understanding is that shorter recoveries of 5 min can be effective, since these athletes are still developing and are not going to benefit from the additional rest until they are capable of running faster. Hence the "5 min rest" that I originally entered.
My understanding that the 3 x 250 would be a Special Endurance I session; and that the 2-3 x 500 would be a Special Endurance II session. SE1 being (IIRC) repeats of 20-40 sec, total workout 600-900m; SE2 being (again, IIRC) repeats of 40-90 sec, total workout 900-1200m.
Am I missing something? Not an expert and always looking to learn. Thanks!
All this is rattling around in my head from 20+ years ago, after I finished college track with disappointing results and started consulting experts and reading up. Not sure if I recall incorrectly or if things have changed, and a general internet search for "speed endurance" yields a whole lot of conflicting information. Any clarification much appreciated.
a) Agree with the 400m (or 500m )workout.
We usually did 4 x 400m with 400m jog, and that really sets up a good 800m if you run fast,. The first two of the 400s go okay, the 3rd is a struggle and the last 400m is taking off fast for 200m and all guts from there.
b) As to a 150m workout, although I prefer the straightaway because a curve causes bias when trying to run near top speed, I have done a 10 x 150m with about 4 minutes recovery, and they were fast, but not all out.
c) 2 x 600m with 15 minutes recovery, running 1st 400m only about 2 seconds slower than 400m race pace.
d) Ladders: 300-100-200 or 200 - 400 - 200 or similar.
You were correct on saying that 4x150 with 5 min rest was speed endurance.
There is:
- Alactic short speed endurance ASSE
- Glycolytic short speed endurance GSSE
- Speed Endurance SE (Your example fits - good job)
- Long speed endurance LSE or special endurance 1
- Lactacid power LAP or special endurance 2
How about the good ol' 20 minute tempo run?
Wrong. Next question.
CoachB wrote:
cramister wrote:
I like how the two suggested workouts so far are completely opposite
And neither are true speed endurance workouts.
2-3 x 500 @ 800m PR speed, 8-10 min recovery
3 x 250 @ 400m PR speed, 8-10 minutes recovery
3 x 150 @ 200m PR speed, 8-10 minutes recovery
None of these are truly efficacious at this time of the year.
By the way:
2-3x500 @ 800m pr speed is not speed endurance. At best it's Special End 2 But you need 15 minutes minimum rest, needs to be 90+ percent effort and an athlete can only really handle 1200 meters of work for the entire workout.
3x250m can be considered LSE (special 1) but 10-12 minutes rest 90-95% effort
3x150m - Yes, this can be considered SE but 95-100% effort for glycolytic work
I'm not trying to be difficult about this but I think it's important when speaking about workouts and labels that we are all on the same page as to what they are especially when you are saying that someone else got it wrong.
otter wrote:
You were correct on saying that 4x150 with 5 min rest was speed endurance.
There is:
- Alactic short speed endurance ASSE
- Glycolytic short speed endurance GSSE
- Speed Endurance SE (Your example fits - good job)
- Long speed endurance LSE or special endurance 1
- Lactacid power LAP or special endurance 2
Do you have any suggestions for a good resource (textbook or online - it doesn't matter) that encompasses all of this material?
It is a Vern Gambetta and Gary Winckler classification of 1987, so you have to find on these two authors, or on brianmac:
https://www.brianmac.co.uk/sprints/tp100.htm
If you don't understand I'll explain it better up to VO2Max as intensity, in these classifications, under 90% are wrong (2 extensive tempo, and intensive tempo are wrong).
4x80m (10-12min)
or
3x120m (15)
or
3x120 ins and outs (15)
sdfkjbndsbvksndfklvnskdfvkj;sdfnvdfslvbn wrote:
otter wrote:
You were correct on saying that 4x150 with 5 min rest was speed endurance.
There is:
- Alactic short speed endurance ASSE
- Glycolytic short speed endurance GSSE
- Speed Endurance SE (Your example fits - good job)
- Long speed endurance LSE or special endurance 1
- Lactacid power LAP or special endurance 2
Do you have any suggestions for a good resource (textbook or online - it doesn't matter) that encompasses all of this material?
I’m not sure. It was well covered through the USATF and IAAF education.
I can try to pull it up and post it here later.
You nailed all of it here: rep distance, rest, intensity, volume. Distance runners/coaches are usually in love with quantification it sometimes amazes me how different our definitions can be when we say things like "speed" or "speed endurance."
Everything you described is in-line with what you would see in USTFCCCA which is about as good a standard as any for making all of our language be on the same page.
As far as the recoveries for less experienced athletes, I think you're spot on. Speed endurance is tough to nail properly. A lot of young athletes aren't capable of really hitting these kinds of sessions with the intensity needed to always require the +8 minutes you might see from an elite sprinter. This is doubly so for distance runners. Some of us are very fast, but most don't have the machinery to really put ourselves in the hurt locker when running fast for such a "short" time.
I would transition out of shorter recoveries pretty quickly. the high coordinative demand usually lets athletes learn from these sessions quickly enough that within a few workouts they finally learn how to dial themselves in enough that a longer recovery can be all that you need to make the workout harder just by them squeezing out the last few tenths of a second that they couldn't before.
This is a great thread so far, I'd be interested in hearing other coaches thoughts on programming these sessions, the workouts that surround them, or if they've found some good rules of thumb for how they apply them to particular athletes or events.
Ultimately speed endurance work is about maintaining top end (or close to top end) speed.
That's not to say there isn't a place for workouts targeting specific endurance (i.e. race pace) or special endurance (maintaining a sub-max speed), but they are not speed endurance sessions.
Yeah, Sorry. I kind of pulled those numbers out of my butt yesterday. The 2-3 x 500 workout certainly isn't speed endurance in the textbook sense, but rather the type of endurance that allows 800m athletes to maintain a pace NEAR 400m speed for an entire 800. I shouldn't have included that.
However, I would argue that the 3 x 250 with 8-10 minutes recovery still totally fits the bill, especially after reviewing the table in the document embedded above and that for distance kids, it might be a better speed endurance workout than either doing shorter reps or longer rest. Most distance kids that might step DOWN to a 400 have the aerobic capacity to fully recovery from a maximal 250 (we're looking at 32-35 seconds for a moderately talented boy) in 8-10 minutes. Maybe a talented sprint type athlete that is running his 250s in 29-30 seconds and doesn't train to race past 400m might need more recovery, but your distance type probably won't.
That being said, I rarely have my athletes do this type of work. We might do a few of these workouts early in the season as we are transitioning from short sprints with full recovery to more race specific types of training. As far as programming those types of sessions into a training block, this is what we were doing last track season prior to Covid. This progression is what we did with our 400/800 kids, not our distance crew
December/January: The speed focus was on short reps with full recovery. Starting with 5 x 40m and every week adding 10m until we reached 80m. The rest gradually creeped out as well. It was around 3 minutes when doing the 40s and 4-5 minutes when doing the 80s.
February: We started bringing in 10 x 100 with a 300 SLOW jog @ about 400m (or slightly faster) race pace. We did that twice.
Later February: 3 x 250 @ 400m goal pace (preceded by 2k of CV type intervals)
When we got to our first race, our 800m kids were setting PRs all over the place. We give awards to kids who put up a mark that equals a top 6 placing at the league finals meet (average of the top 6 finishers for the previous 3 years). In the first 2 weeks of competition, we were able to give that award to 6 different boys and 2 girls in the 800.
The other major weekly sessions (for the metabolic aspect) were stuff like reps of 600-800 @ vVO2 with 4 min recovery, 5 minute Tempo intervals at 85% of vVO2 with 1 minute recovery. 3 minute CV paced reps at 90% vVO2 with 60-90 seconds recovery. Lots of Circuit type training.
Here's the folder of all of our workouts. The kids that were doing speed endurance type of stuff early on are in the "Long Sprint" group. Their sessions would be labeled LS, week 1 etc.... The documents start on our first day of CIF organized practice and do not reflect what we had been doing previously during our athletic PE period.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R36oldvAbJaNCuFXotAK6FdyODMwSOOAF7n1nI7GUBo/edit?usp=sharingHere's our team page with some videos of some of the circuit sessions that are listed (the Amarok, Fenrir, Chechen Wolf and Werewolf circuits are lifting circuits and I haven't had a chance to make a video of them yet, since Covid has locked us out of the weight room)
http://hughsoncc.blogspot.com/p/training-and-racing-videos.htmlLet me try this again. The folder is in my school drive folder. I changed the permissions and it should work now.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1W-kMpsyuMlXEkkzw6TUSNmtjXo7xLWNm?usp=sharing