Always been curious about this but never really got a good sense of how decathletes train for their running. Are they essentially just training to be solid 400 runners and legging out the longer stuff? Also wondering how feasible some of this training is to incorporate into a more casual running schedule to mix up mid-distance/distance training.
This is coming from the collegiate decathletes I've talked to...they don't really train for the 1500m. Most of them tend to say when asked what's the furthest they're run in regards to training for the 1500m, "One time I ran 40 mins!" I'm not kidding. I'm sure it's different depending on the program, maybe some do an hour or more. I mean, I've had a couple say they run for an hour once or twice a month.
But the decathlon leans towards speed/power and you only have so much time to train so obviously you're training will likely be geared towards speed/power since it translates to the most events. USATF even teaching this in their coaching certs.
crisscrosscountry wrote:
Are they essentially just training to be solid 400 runners and legging out the longer stuff? Also wondering how feasible some of this training is to incorporate into a more casual running schedule to mix up mid-distance/distance training.
Basically, that is what they're doing. Hurdles throws and jumps are a big focus, pole vault...gotta be able to do that. They focus on training the skills that carry over between all throws and all jumps, to get more done in less time.
Probably not very feasible. How are you currently looking at incorporating it?
I’ve had an olympic decathlete in my club (10 th).
He spent 5 hours at the track but 90 percent of the time he was testing poles, stretching, changing shoes, practising starts etc.
Never saw him run more than 60 meters
beep beep wrote:
This is coming from the collegiate decathletes I've talked to...they don't really train for the 1500m. Most of them tend to say when asked what's the furthest they're run in regards to training for the 1500m, "One time I ran 40 mins!" I'm not kidding. I'm sure it's different depending on the program, maybe some do an hour or more. I mean, I've had a couple say they run for an hour once or twice a month.
But the decathlon leans towards speed/power and you only have so much time to train so obviously you're training will likely be geared towards speed/power since it translates to the most events. USATF even teaching this in their coaching certs.
Given the demands of the sport of the decathlon I’m actually shocked that any athlete ran as long as 40 minutes. 40 minutes of slow running is not only useless as training, I’d say it’s downright detrimental. 9 out of 10 events require fast twitch muscles and serious muscular strength, which necessitates muscles mass. 40 minute runs do nothing more than burn calories that could have gone to building stronger upper body muscles, and change the physiology of your leg muscles at the expense of long jump, high jump, 100m, 110h, and 400m performance. And actually at the expense of shot put, hammer, and javelin performance too, as leg strength is important for them too. Given that they spend hours at the track and in the gym everyday on their feet, working out, they will get plenty of low-end cardio in. Hours of throwing, jumping sprinting or lifting weights are relatively good for cardio, your heart rate doesn’t get to recover in between sets. They will obvious have amazing speed reserve and efficiency because they are really fast. They might do like a few sessions of 400 intervals or something in the weeks leading up to it, but they don’t need that much. If you’ve ever watched one too, you’d know nobody ever wins on the 1500 anyway. Which is a damn shame really. It would be exciting for the 1500 to decide the whole meet.
ienjoyracing wrote:
beep beep wrote:
This is coming from the collegiate decathletes I've talked to...they don't really train for the 1500m. Most of them tend to say when asked what's the furthest they're run in regards to training for the 1500m, "One time I ran 40 mins!" I'm not kidding. I'm sure it's different depending on the program, maybe some do an hour or more. I mean, I've had a couple say they run for an hour once or twice a month.
But the decathlon leans towards speed/power and you only have so much time to train so obviously you're training will likely be geared towards speed/power since it translates to the most events. USATF even teaching this in their coaching certs.
Given the demands of the sport of the decathlon I’m actually shocked that any athlete ran as long as 40 minutes. 40 minutes of slow running is not only useless as training, I’d say it’s downright detrimental. 9 out of 10 events require fast twitch muscles and serious muscular strength, which necessitates muscles mass. 40 minute runs do nothing more than burn calories that could have gone to building stronger upper body muscles, and change the physiology of your leg muscles at the expense of long jump, high jump, 100m, 110h, and 400m performance. And actually at the expense of shot put, hammer, and javelin performance too, as leg strength is important for them too.
I think a small amount of 1500m training isn't actually going to make a decathlete worse at the other events. Similarly a small amount of strength training doesn't bulk up a distance runner and make them slower. But the time might be better spent on improving in another event.
I would have thought they would do more 1500m pace running than steady running though.
ienjoyracing wrote:
beep beep wrote:
This is coming from the collegiate decathletes I've talked to...they don't really train for the 1500m. Most of them tend to say when asked what's the furthest they're run in regards to training for the 1500m, "One time I ran 40 mins!" I'm not kidding. I'm sure it's different depending on the program, maybe some do an hour or more. I mean, I've had a couple say they run for an hour once or twice a month.
But the decathlon leans towards speed/power and you only have so much time to train so obviously you're training will likely be geared towards speed/power since it translates to the most events. USATF even teaching this in their coaching certs.
Given the demands of the sport of the decathlon I’m actually shocked that any athlete ran as long as 40 minutes. 40 minutes of slow running is not only useless as training, I’d say it’s downright detrimental. 9 out of 10 events require fast twitch muscles and serious muscular strength, which necessitates muscles mass. 40 minute runs do nothing more than burn calories that could have gone to building stronger upper body muscles, and change the physiology of your leg muscles at the expense of long jump, high jump, 100m, 110h, and 400m performance. And actually at the expense of shot put, hammer, and javelin performance too, as leg strength is important for them too. Given that they spend hours at the track and in the gym everyday on their feet, working out, they will get plenty of low-end cardio in. Hours of throwing, jumping sprinting or lifting weights are relatively good for cardio, your heart rate doesn’t get to recover in between sets. They will obvious have amazing speed reserve and efficiency because they are really fast. They might do like a few sessions of 400 intervals or something in the weeks leading up to it, but they don’t need that much. If you’ve ever watched one too, you’d know nobody ever wins on the 1500 anyway. Which is a damn shame really. It would be exciting for the 1500 to decide the whole meet.
I'm sure very few decathletes are worried about their hammer performance suffering...
My Olympic decathlete family member hates and hated running anything that is not basically a sprint. His buddies were all throwers (mostly javelin) and his girlfriends were all sprinters.
The standard of 1500m running in the decathlon is embarrassing. If it was women running this distance and times, they would be horribly criticised. Instead with the decathletes, it's all about how hard it is for them to train fir the different sports.
Maybe the decathlon run should be reduced to. 800m, because seeing slow, heavy athletes lumbering around the track is not proper sport. The top women are running very decent times in the 800m, maybe out their distance up to 1500m and bring the mens duwn to 800m since the latter aren't coping well.
Drew Peacock wrote:
ienjoyracing wrote:
Given the demands of the sport of the decathlon I’m actually shocked that any athlete ran as long as 40 minutes. 40 minutes of slow running is not only useless as training, I’d say it’s downright detrimental. 9 out of 10 events require fast twitch muscles and serious muscular strength, which necessitates muscles mass. 40 minute runs do nothing more than burn calories that could have gone to building stronger upper body muscles, and change the physiology of your leg muscles at the expense of long jump, high jump, 100m, 110h, and 400m performance. And actually at the expense of shot put, hammer, and javelin performance too, as leg strength is important for them too.
I think a small amount of 1500m training isn't actually going to make a decathlete worse at the other events. Similarly a small amount of strength training doesn't bulk up a distance runner and make them slower. But the time might be better spent on improving in another event.
I would have thought they would do more 1500m pace running than steady running though.
Physiology is a fickle pickle. Yes, while Strength training really doesn't impede distance running the opposite can't really be said. Studies have shown distance running impedes strength and power performance. The amount varies and is likely individual. IE: a trained endurance athlete could do more aerobic activity without it impeding strength/power development.
Long Jump, High Jump, Shot Put, Discus, Javelin, Pole Vault....6 events.....all very power focused. You need to generate high amounts of force to propel yourself or an object.
100m, 110m H....are all about speed
400m, 1500m....these are the "distance races".
Jumps, Hurdles, Throws involve a ton of technique and even the sprints involve starting technique.
8 events are under 10-15s of max effort and most are instantaneous max efforts.
Without looking up any sort of decathlon training my guess is they would train like a short sprinter who also does power events. Like a bulked up Carl Lewis who was a sprinter/LJ. That's probably the base of their training along with the various technique work and gym work. From there you address weaknesses. Do you need more sprint training? More power training? The 400 and 1500 are probably the last two events to worry about. You also need long days. Little mini decathlons or similar exercise programming so you train your body for efforts spread out sporadically over two days.
Alan
I recall an interview with BTE, she said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that they basically do very little training for the 8/15.
Drew Peacock wrote:
ienjoyracing wrote:
Given the demands of the sport of the decathlon I’m actually shocked that any athlete ran as long as 40 minutes. 40 minutes of slow running is not only useless as training, I’d say it’s downright detrimental. 9 out of 10 events require fast twitch muscles and serious muscular strength, which necessitates muscles mass. 40 minute runs do nothing more than burn calories that could have gone to building stronger upper body muscles, and change the physiology of your leg muscles at the expense of long jump, high jump, 100m, 110h, and 400m performance. And actually at the expense of shot put, hammer, and javelin performance too, as leg strength is important for them too.
I think a small amount of 1500m training isn't actually going to make a decathlete worse at the other events. Similarly a small amount of strength training doesn't bulk up a distance runner and make them slower. But the time might be better spent on improving in another event.
I would have thought they would do more 1500m pace running than steady running though.
I agree with your whole first paragraph.
Maybe doing 15 x 200m the Easy Interval Method way would be a better idea for them than a steady 40 mins. I'm sure they could benefit from 1 day, every week or 2, doing the 15 x 200m workout or the 10 x 400m workout. I don't think that would be detrimental towards their focus on the other events.
They do train the 400m.
From what I have heard in interviews, they throw in a few longer intervals preparing for the 1500m occasionally and in winter. There are also differences between athletes; Niklas Kaul is not running 4:15 at the and of a decathlon without training for this while the athletes jogging a 4:50 probably have not trained much.
I am not looking it up but while the winner is sometimes clear ahead, it is not so rare that international medals are decided in the 1500m, it was not the case in Tokyo but one recent example was worlds 2019.
And in Tokyo Williams lost bronze in the heptathlon in the 800m.
beep beep wrote:
This is coming from the collegiate decathletes I've talked to...they don't really train for the 1500m. Most of them tend to say when asked what's the furthest they're run in regards to training for the 1500m, "One time I ran 40 mins!" I'm not kidding. I'm sure it's different depending on the program, maybe some do an hour or more. I mean, I've had a couple say they run for an hour once or twice a month.
But the decathlon leans towards speed/power and you only have so much time to train so obviously you're training will likely be geared towards speed/power since it translates to the most events. USATF even teaching this in their coaching certs.
Rather than time limitations, there is an inverse relationship between preparing for throws and for the 1500m. Most of them are just too muscular to run well in the 1500m. The fast-twich muscles they need for the 100m, hurdles and LJ are are not going to be useful for distance running.
ienjoyracing wrote:
beep beep wrote:
This is coming from the collegiate decathletes I've talked to...they don't really train for the 1500m. Most of them tend to say when asked what's the furthest they're run in regards to training for the 1500m, "One time I ran 40 mins!" I'm not kidding. I'm sure it's different depending on the program, maybe some do an hour or more. I mean, I've had a couple say they run for an hour once or twice a month.
But the decathlon leans towards speed/power and you only have so much time to train so obviously you're training will likely be geared towards speed/power since it translates to the most events. USATF even teaching this in their coaching certs.
Given the demands of the sport of the decathlon I’m actually shocked that any athlete ran as long as 40 minutes. 40 minutes of slow running is not only useless as training, I’d say it’s downright detrimental. 9 out of 10 events require fast twitch muscles and serious muscular strength, which necessitates muscles mass. 40 minute runs do nothing more than burn calories that could have gone to building stronger upper body muscles, and change the physiology of your leg muscles at the expense of long jump, high jump, 100m, 110h, and 400m performance. And actually at the expense of shot put, hammer, and javelin performance too, as leg strength is important for them too. Given that they spend hours at the track and in the gym everyday on their feet, working out, they will get plenty of low-end cardio in. Hours of throwing, jumping sprinting or lifting weights are relatively good for cardio, your heart rate doesn’t get to recover in between sets. They will obvious have amazing speed reserve and efficiency because they are really fast. They might do like a few sessions of 400 intervals or something in the weeks leading up to it, but they don’t need that much. If you’ve ever watched one too, you’d know nobody ever wins on the 1500 anyway. Which is a damn shame really. It would be exciting for the 1500 to decide the whole meet.
Obviously the 1500 is not a priority, but I don't think, for example, Jenner could have run this without any endurance training at all:
https://youtu.be/1dBNMJF7ZOQget rid of the javelin and put in a 5k
Despacitoe's Toes wrote:
The standard of 1500m running in the decathlon is embarrassing. If it was women running this distance and times, they would be horribly criticised. Instead with the decathletes, it's all about how hard it is for them to train fir the different sports.
Maybe the decathlon run should be reduced to. 800m, because seeing slow, heavy athletes lumbering around the track is not proper sport. The top women are running very decent times in the 800m, maybe out their distance up to 1500m and bring the mens duwn to 800m since the latter aren't coping well.
Give the women several years notice of changing to the decathlon (they would need time to practice the pole vault).
I remember coming across a review stating that the ideal distance for training for a multi was 300m. These are explosive athletes (those at the highest level) that do not have time to train for the 1500 or the 800. Repeats at the end of practice is what I have seen.
Here's one view:
They highlight the idea that you focus on the hurdles, discus, and pole vault, developing the key strength and skill for those events, and that development translates best to the other events.
crisscrosscountry wrote:
Always been curious about this but never really got a good sense of how decathletes train for their running. Are they essentially just training to be solid 400 runners and legging out the longer stuff? Also wondering how feasible some of this training is to incorporate into a more casual running schedule to mix up mid-distance/distance training.
Yes. Basically most camps train like 400m runners. However, it isn't unusual for them to throw in some easy jogging once a week or so, say 30 to 40 minutes. This isn't so much to help the 1500 as it is to create a bit of strength for their training in general, because most days involve working on multiple events over many hours.
That being said, they often train like a mixture of a Clyde hart style of 400m runner and a more traditional speed based 400m runner. That Hart influence brings some longer repeats out to as long as 500 or 600m during the off and early season.
When you're doing repeats Basically every day, even thought they're not focused on the 1500, it can take you reasonably close to your potential for the 1500. I was about 20 seconds slower as a dec than I was when I trained for 8/15.