Good going, Fisky. It's encouraging to see the experimentation and borrowing from different philosophies going on.
I tend to find that I am fairly even on 100m tempos (+/-0.25 hand timed) but it takes me at least one, sometimes more, fast efforts to get everything firing correctly. So for 6x20flys, the last four are good. This might be due to my body not yet being used to running so quickly (everything takes longer to acclimatise to...). There's also an element of coordination that's a bit suspect at the start.
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Recovery was 70-80m walk for the 50s and 100m walk for the 80m reps. Rest between sets and before the final 100m was 5-6 minutes. I'm still experimenting with these workouts.
I do a lot of modified Billat workouts. The classic Billat is 17-24 reps of 30sec at mile pace with 30 seconds jogging as recovery. It's a proven alternative to tempo runs. When I can handle the volume, I do 2 sets of 12x30/35. When I want to go faster, I'll do 15-20sec reps with 40 seconds recovery. One of the great advantages of Billats is that if you can't handle speed that day, you can use it a bit like an organized fartlek... just picking up the pace or slowing down every 30-35 seconds.
I've noticed that since I've started a more intense warm up routine, I can go fast from rep #1. I try to pace myself so the last two reps are faster than the previous reps and the last rep is the fastest.
The Bidlow and X-factor drills use a lot more "stomp" and "strike" movements than my normal warmup skips, lunges, etc. The pro is that I can run faster and especially faster on rep 1 after these "Stomp and strike" drills. The downside is that even with a very long warm up, the hard impacts can aggravate old foot and leg injuries.
When the OP specified sprint training and then talked about throws and jumps, I took it to mean that he was looking for feedback about explosiveness-related training, not so-called "long sprints", mile pace, mid-d whatever, etc.
On that topic, I also do box jumps, but only up, not down. Real sprints are a series of takeoffs, not landings. Train that way and you will help avoid injury, in my experience.
sprintgeezer, yes i am very interested in getting some leg power back. Yes, I do pentathlon, ran a 6m39 by myself for 1500 today, but the other four events are much more important. I think i will run 29 for 200m, long jump around 4.4, throw discus 32m and maybe jav 30m next month, but i know all five events will improve vastly if I can get some leg power back.
I would also be interested some ideas on explosiveness, Sprintgeezer.
Closest I get to this sort of work is some in-place jumping (aiming for height) and bounding (hopping) up the stadium steps, both double and single legged. I also do drop downs - both passive and reactive.
I can't do much in the way of heavy weights (medical stuff) so all other options considered!
Here are some exercises I did today to improve leg power. At Planet Fitness, I set the adjustable height step up platform to about 20". I did a few step ups with each leg to warm up. Then, I did 8xstep ups holding two 15lb kettlebells... two sets for each leg. Then, without weights, I did step ups by slamming my right foot down on the step and exploding up, swinging my arms to end in a runners' pose. I did two sets of five reps with each leg. This is contrast training... a strength exercise followed immediately by a power exercise.
Next, I flipped the narrow red resistance band over the overhead horizontal ladder and used the band for assisted split squats. I did three squats with my right leg forward and on the fourth rep, I jumped into the air and reversed my leg position. I did three more split squats with the left leg in front and on the fourth rep, I jumped in the air and reversed leg position again. You might not need the band assistance, but knee arthritis makes it difficult for me to do unassisted split squats.
Planet Fitness has a room with a dozen or so 6" high step benches. Every PF has a room like this. After warming up with some hops, I would hop onto a step, off the step, hop diagonally to the next step, off the step, forward to the next step and so on until I got to the end. Then, I'd do a 180 degree hop in the air and repeat the hops going back to the starting point. I do this until my form breaks down... maybe 20-30 hops. Two sets. This is a great exercise because as you get stronger, you can just do more hops of more sets of hops.
fisky, yes stepups are one of my favourites, albeit i normally do them as a conditioning exercise rather than explosively. Have stopped doing them last few months in favour of hopping and sleds but should have kept them going.
I would love to do sleds, but I no longer have access since c_vid. I have my own sled, but getting it to a soccer field is a hassle. I have way too many foot/ankle injuries to risk doing hard accelerations on uneven terrain. I plan to attach a 25 lb plate to a rope and hook the rope to my waist harness and try some accelerations at a nearby soccer field soon.
Masters sprinters should check out Cody Bidlow's Athlete.X challenge or search youtube for contrast training. In the following video, Bidlow starts with a heavy squat (STRENGTH MOVE) and then progresses to a light jump squat while holding a plate (POWER MOVE). Notice how he pre-loads the muscles/tendons with a tiny hop before jumping. I personally call this a "strike" jump in my written log to separate it from merely jumping from the squat position.
Bidlow doesn't explain Contrast training in this video, or if he does, it's buried somewhere in the 20+ minutes and I didn't look for it. I'll find another video that explains contrast training and link to it in another post.
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In this video, Shea Pierre explains WHAT contrast training is, but he doesn't go into the science of WHY it works. Also, Pierre does massive volumes of sets and reps. I personally can't handle that volume. Masters sprinters should probably do fewer sets/reps. He also shills for some shoe brand early in the video. I just ignore that part.
Oh, Pierre shows 4 stages of Contrast training. I think studies show that you benefit even if you only use two. I'd have to look it up. Also, other people use different names for the stages. I think it's better to think of contrast training as a continuum that moves like this...
Strength => Strength/Power => Power => Power/Speed => Speed => Pure Speed
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Sprint training is relatively new to me so I'd love to get opinions from career sprinters. Thoughts?
This study below compares traditional strength training (TST) to complex contrast training (CCT). Basically, TST resulted in bigger muscles and increased 1 rep max. CCT resulted in higher vertical jump and increased shuttle sprint performance.
My takeaway is that complex contrast training is superior to traditional strength training for sprinters. TST is superior for bodybuilders who want bigger muscles or guys who want to look good at the beach. As a pentathlete, the OP should look into contrast training.
In the rainy and cold winter here, my main quality sprint/power sessions are on hills. My most frequented is a fairly steep (with good runup of 50m lower gradient) neighborhood hill which I have run hundreds of times over the recent years. I "time trial" both the full hill and a "broken" version where I run it in three parts wit two strict one-minute rests, allowing near all-out sprint efforts.
I have been very consistent in my overall training this winter, no niggles whatsoever due to some of the factors I discussed upthread. However I have had few/none "unloading" weeks where I can allow my gains to gel properly. My body intervened by picking up a nasty little stomach bug over the weekend which pretty much laid me out for 3-4 days. By Monday I felt better but still a bit weak, so postponed my hill session until last night. The result was the smashing of my previous best times for both versions by a substantial amount, 55.0 to 53.2 for the full and 47.6 to 45.9(minus the two rest minutes) for the broken version. The previous records were six months and a year old, respectively, and quite solid due to regular trialing. My whole body felt wonderfully strong and snappy.
I also measured out a nice flat 50m segment on the cross street at the bottom so now I can time both the hill and integrated flat sprints in my circuits, Lydiard-style. Overall session was: 4x50m (all sprints with good recovery) the two PR runs, 50m hard, 100m hard, full 10 minute rest, then a rolling fartlek of 4x full hill with 2x 50m done on a 6:00 overall circuit. Effort on the hills and 50s was roughly 1500 pace. Final hill finished hard but not crushed in terms of effort.
Overall hard effort but with supershoes, all this hard running on pavement leaves me with healthy legs that felt great on the 30 minute morning bike spin. Today will be an hour of easy jogging with some easy drills including hops and short hurdle runs over a traffic cone on a soccer turf.
Chris lewis, this has been a great thread. I was taking notes of some key points in my journal when I noticed your comment excerpted above.
In my opinion, your workout would be faster if you reversed the order. Do low volume hops, jumps, etc., first, then do your 5x100m workout.
I have added x-factor drills to my warmup routine and I'm running faster, especially from rep #1 whereas before it could be rep 3 or 4 before I could really go hard.
Specifically, I do about a dozen traditional sprinter warmup drills... 10 minute jog, lunges, A skips, toe walk, good mornings, carioca, leg swings front/back and then side/side, a yoga adductor movement, fast feet, another set of A skips, etc. Then, once I'm warmed up a bit, I do more aggressive drills... "strike" A skips, 1 leg hops, stadium "stomp" stairs, straight leg hops, stomp march, boom boom boom, etc. I don't do the drills nonstop. I'll add in some progressively faster 50m strides towards the end of the drills. After drills are done, I'll do more progressive 50m strides. If I struggle with strides at my desired 50m pace, then I abort the workout. Including the jog, my warmup takes 45-60 minutes.
Let me stress that I'm not a sprinter so I'm looking forward to feedback from letsrunners who have a background in sprinting or coaching.
I think a major benefit of this type of session for you in particular, is that doing it in supershoes especially (although sometimes I use my minimal racing flats), and every other week alternating with your hard track sessions, injury risk drops dramatically. Along those lines I will highlight that before and during the session, on the recovery jog/walk down the hill, I did segments of about 40m backwards, which really releases tension in the posterior chain, as well as keeping knee alignment. After my hamstring problem last spring, I have emphasized this and the X-factor stuff and not even a peep as long as I do so. And the foot or achilles issues that used to plague me in my forties and ended/suspended my career at 50, are a distant bad memory.
Yet another note: I have always been relatively diligent in keeping training logs (I have mine going back over 30 years, plus some from high school/college almost 50 years ago). Tony puts a big emphasis on "Time and record" to the extent that he is practically racing his "cats" every other day (over very short efforts, so recovery not an issue through the week) and putting up the results for all to see, in order to keep motivation high.
Although I do about half my quality sessions alone, my intensity is still high as I am always going to go after "PR's" any time I feel relatively snappy. After getting a PR in the initial "broken set", I took a good long recovery and batted the full rep out of the park. The euphoric effect reminds me of why I do this stuff, and keeps it so fun. If I had relied on my 66-year old memory , I would have been vaguely thinking "That was pretty fast, now what did I run for this last year?". Not the same level of motivating...at all. I knew well as I did the session what my targets were.
I am also going to experiment with my "broken" format as a priming set for time trials or races. So a format like: (for 400) 3x100 near all out with 60 sec standing rest, followed by 10 min stretching, light jog and light drills, then race or trial.
Bottom line is that I record "PRs" for hills all over my neighborhood, as well as for the different tracks I train on (some are faster than others). This is kind of a variation of "Strava segments" that distance peeps like to pursue. I feel like I could do this the rest of my life, the freshness is still as high as when I used to be more competitive on the regional/national level. It also infuses ideas that keep my coaching evolving and varied.
These types of "games" have allowed me to challenge at the AG world record level in my other sport, rock climbing. A lot of cross-pollination going on with that.
Thanks very much fisky and xy. Sadly, my lower back is shot, probably from do faster strides after the 1500m without adequate stretching. I never seem to learn about the importance of a proper warmup.
Hoping to recover and compete on grass track athletics comp saturday. long jump, javelin, discus and 200m.