My friend is having 100-200 runners come out for cross country to build strength for the 400?

WinnytheBish wrote:

He is having his short sprinters and short hurdlers come out for cross country that he thinks are going to move up in distance. How should I respond to something like this?

Is there any sort of physiological truth to this? If I ever had somebody come out for cross country it would be just simply to keep them in general fitness.

As far as his training plan goes, he is not doing a 400 fall segment, rather they are just running "less" than everybody else overall.

If he is having them come out to actually seriously race xc, then bad.

If they are doing more base training for sprints and helping them build endurance to do 10 events in a day come regionals, then I am all for it. (3-6 long jump attempts; 100 & 200 -Prelim, Semi, Finals; 4x1 Relay prelim and Final)

1600m506pr:-/ wrote:

WinnytheBish wrote:

He is having his short sprinters and short hurdlers come out for cross country that he thinks are going to move up in distance. How should I respond to something like this?

Is there any sort of physiological truth to this? If I ever had somebody come out for cross country it would be just simply to keep them in general fitness.

As far as his training plan goes, he is not doing a 400 fall segment, rather they are just running "less" than everybody else overall.

If he is having them come out to actually seriously race xc, then bad.

If they are doing more base training for sprints and helping them build endurance to do 10 events in a day come regionals, then I am all for it. (3-6 long jump attempts; 100 & 200 -Prelim, Semi, Finals; 4x1 Relay prelim and Final)

That isn't how sprint endurance works.

Disagree 100%, especially when we're talking about HS athletes and younger. I already agreed 100% that this is obviously not the ideal off-season program for developing sprinters. High school coaches are not looking to build world record setters as much as building a well-rounded team and helping guide kids as they develop. Would you rather have your track athletes sitting around eating pizza and playing video games (no training) or out running a few easy miles every day for 2 months? If you take a kid that thinks, "I'm a sprinter. I only run 100/200," it's sometimes because they can't wrap their brain around running hard for 400m let alone 800m. If they come out and run easy miles, soon they find out that a mile isn't really that far, and it opens up an opportunity to branch out and try some longer track races.

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

Obviously not, but any training is better than no training.

Heck, you might get some who develop into strong mid distance runners.

.

No training is better than training that hurts you. XC training is getting close to that line for a pure 100m/200m guy.

You can go look at Clyde Harts 400m training for about as "high mileage" for the 400m as they come. There were a few 30-45 min runs but also a ton of shorter stuff throughout the fall. If you are willing to adapt your XC program (i.e. these kids do the races and maybe 1-2 easy runs of 30-45 mins and the other days you do more 400s specific stuff like 100m hills and 200s on track) sure. And yeah maybe it will turn out that a couple of these kids are really 800m/1500m guys.

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

No training is better than training that hurts you.

Say what?!