1. high school kids are rarely doing the same number of reps as professional runners.
2. you should train your runners with workouts that are in THEIR wheelhouse. Sometimes this takes a couple months or years to figure out. Obviously, if you are giving them professional level workouts, they will not complete them (or get hurt) and you should adapt!
figure out what they can do, and then try to progress one or more of the variables over time.
I agree with this to some extent. I think there are plenty of coaches out there, who trying their best, that see a pro workout & assign it to their runners at whatever pace they think their athlete(s) can handle. Missing from that equation is volume + time of year.
I don't think your two examples are right tho. 10 x 400 @ mile & 5 x 1k @ 5k are two good workouts for HS athletes. If you have a 5:00 miler, they have to run the workout @ current fitness, even if they have 4:20 potential down the road.
Ah. Maybe you will realize that you are failing. A 4 minute race and 5 minute race aren't the same but you want both guys to do 1 minute repeats to train for different length races. A 5 minute guy is racing 25% longer so his reps should be 25% longer. Amazingly, 75 seconds is 25% longer than 60 seconds..
The way you adapt workouts from elite athletes to your HS athletes is not by having them do it at a slower pace.
Running 10 x 400m in 75 seconds for a 5:00 mile runner is not the same as a 4:00 mile runner running 10 x 400m in 60 seconds.
Saying things like "Run 5 x1000m at 5K pace" shows a big lack of understanding of why the pros are doing that workout.
Also, think about the long term goals of the athlete. If you truly think that the absolute maximum potential of an athlete is 5:00 for a mile, then by all means train to run that, but if you have a kid who is currently running 5:00, but you think they can run 4:20 eventually, then start designing workouts to get them to 4:20.
I understand. I'm sorry that most people don't get this.
Ah. Maybe you will realize that you are failing. A 4 minute race and 5 minute race aren't the same but you want both guys to do 1 minute repeats to train for different length races. A 5 minute guy is racing 25% longer so his reps should be 25% longer. Amazingly, 75 seconds is 25% longer than 60 seconds..
We're getting a little sidetracked with the math debate. As a result, you're missing my main point from my posts.
You are saying that a mile is a mile, and everyone should run the same types of workouts to get better at the mile.
I'm saying that someone racing a 3:50 mile and a 7:30 mile are asking their bodies to perform very different tasks, and the training should therefore be different.
This is exacerbated even more with an event like the 5000m. A 12:40 5K and a 22:00 5K are very different. It's myopic as a coach to take a "staple" 5K workout like 5 x 1K at 5K pace and apply that to both runners. One is going to be running reps that are 2:32 long and the other is running reps that are 4:24 long. Extremely different workouts.
All I'm saying is that when we translate elite workouts to non-elite runners, we should really analyze what and why they are running those workouts. We make sure that we match as much of the true identity of that workout when we translate it. Just changing the pace and calling it a day is lazy design.
What can be observed here is that having an athlete run 10 x 75 seconds at mile pace would be a similar stress as having a 4:00 miler run 10 x 500m in 75 seconds.
Not the same. 4-minute race pace is at a higher relative intensity than 5-minute race pace.
Anyway, if it were true that high school coaches simply copied the workouts of pros and collegiate runners as you describe, that would, in fact, be bad. But they don't. In particular, coaches who actually know who pro runners are and what workouts they're doing are significantly more educated than the average high school coach, and they're definitely not just copying the workouts.
I think a good solution for this is having bridge workouts.
8x400m @ mile pace is never a bad workout regardless of fitness level (as long as you can run 8 400s)
My HS coach wanted sub 4:20 milers so decided he’d just demand 8x400m in 65 for the entire varsity squad. We’d make it through 3-4 reps and start bombing without fail.
Id say do a session like 8-10x400m @ most recent mile pace one day of the week, but then do something 12x200m 2 seconds per 200m faster than they did for the 400m workout, just to introduce a new pace, and see where they are at race to race and adjust from there.
A typical week at my program is 12x400m @3k, recovery, 4-5 mile tempo or a 6-10 mile steady state run, recovery, and then 200s or 300s at 800m pace, sometimes 50s and 150s all out instead, and that produces a lot of very strong guys 800m-5k. Obviously it’s a different dedication level and talent pool at the collegiate level, so this won’t translate perfectly to highschool athletes.
Youve gotta focus on developing a highschoolers mechanics and proper aerobic strength to make them run fast, not just force them to train like an athlete they aren’t yet.
Having them run faster, as you seem to be suggesting, is still advising them to run the intervals at “X race pace”. The X just changed, not the methodology of communicating the workout.
I don't disagree that the method of communicating is unchanged. Using pace targets for workouts is a common language. I am more taking issue with how a HS athlete might look at a workout performed by Jakob Ingebrigtsen or Drew Bosley and modify it for their athletes.
Here's how you apply what I was talking about. It will highlight how your interpretation of what I said was not what I was trying to get across:
I'm not simply saying you should have athletes run faster in workouts. I'm saying that many HS coaches look at what NCAA or pro athletes are doing in workouts and they identify the variable as the athlete's current race pace. They change that value and consider their coaching job done.
Here are some of the many variables you have to work with when you are adapting a workout. I will use the example of someone running 10 x 400 in 60 seconds with 60 second rest in preparation of running a 4:00 mile.
Rep distance: 400m Rep time: 60 seconds Rest interval time: 60 seconds % of rest to rep time: 100% Race time: 4:00 Total workout time: 19:00 % of workout time to race time: 475%
When a coach changes up just the variable of rep time, here is what happens to the rest of the workout:
Rep distance: 400m Rep time: 75 seconds Rest interval time: 60 seconds % of rest to rep time: 80% Race time: 5:00 Total workout time: 21:30 % of workout time to race time: 430%
What can be observed here is that having an athlete run 10 x 75 seconds at mile pace would be a similar stress as having a 4:00 miler run 10 x 500m in 75 seconds. That would be a immensely hard workout that I doubt many NCAA and elite athletes could manage. Furthermore, the HS workout is a full 2:30 minutes (13%) longer in duration to the elite workout. Those are two metrics that indicate that modifying workouts in this way for HS athletes actually means you are giving them workouts that are more difficult to their relative fitness than that of the elite athlete. If anything, you should be modifying them so that they are more achievable for more novice runners.
Well that's not how you articulated your complaint at all at first. But fine, I don't agree that the above is as common as you seem to propose but yes of course you should be tailoring your workouts to be realistic for high school development.
Also, I've never met a 5 minute high school guy whose intervals are perfect representations of a communicated target from their coach. It will work itself out based on the athlete's fitness.
There is some truth in what you say, but I think you may be working under the false premise that this is super common. Yes, we may take college or pro workouts and modify the speed proportionally to the college/pro workout speed. But more often we make calculations or use calculators (eg, Daniels or Schwartz) for our high school athletes that are based on Vo2max and/or physiological research. The most common approach to rest intervals is to use a percentage of work bout (corresponding to the workout type). And the idea that we assign the same volume in workouts that college and pro coaches do is simply wrong. With rare exceptions, it's not close. It may be in a single workout here and there, but on the whole it is not even close for 95% (+) of HS coaches.
Also, your "total workout time" statistic is fairly meaningless. No one would say that an 8x400 workout with 1 minute jog recovery is easier than an 8x400 with 3 minutes recovery, and yet the "total workout time" for the latter is more than twice as long.
Also, your "total workout time" statistic is fairly meaningless. No one would say that an 8x400 workout with 1 minute jog recovery is easier than an 8x400 with 3 minutes recovery, and yet the "total workout time" for the latter is more than twice as long.
Those two workouts have completely different paces and purposes. When comparing apples to apples, total workout time is something to keep in mind and I am sure most coaches already do. As simple as giving slower runners less or shorter reps.
Anyways, interesting thread after a start that I assumed was trolling.
Seems to work pretty well for a lot of people. My school does this exact type of training and we have sent multiple individuals to xc nationals in the last 10 years
This type of thinking is what gets people injured. Go squat 500lbs. Seb Coe did it so it must work for everyone. Jeez!
Also, your "total workout time" statistic is fairly meaningless. No one would say that an 8x400 workout with 1 minute jog recovery is easier than an 8x400 with 3 minutes recovery, and yet the "total workout time" for the latter is more than twice as long.
I agree. A better metric is total time at X intensity.
Overall, I like OP's analytical approach in the sense that it gets you to think about ALL of the variable surrounding a workout. Lots of ways to manipulate the variables to get the desired training response. Being thoughtful about the variables and what else could be considered is a great approach.
For HS/MS coaching vs pros, it mostly comes down to what is practical. Typically, pros have very small groups and very individualized coaching. Coaching a school team means you have a large group of kids (maybe a very large group), with a wide range of abilities and goals. You can't realistically setup a workout where you have five separate groups running 400m, 380m, 350m, 320m, and 280m for each rep. We use the standard distances for convenience. We use time and distance ratios like 400m rep, 400m recovery or 400m/60s because they are easy to measure. Same for lots of other variables like total workout volume.
Also the more complicated (or unusual) the workout, the more difficult it's going to be for young runners to execute correctly.
So I'll argue that it's not so much HS coaches being uneducated as much as a practical limitation of coaching a team vs coaching an individual.
The OP is anti analytical. He keeps stating that a 5 minute miler should be doing less percentage that a 4 minute miler. There is plenty of data to show what works. He has none. A 5 minute miler should be doing 400 meter reps at his mile pace just like the 4 minute miler. And both should take equal rest. A 5 minute miler races 25% longer at the same heart rate as the 4 minute miler.
My biggest problem with HS coaching are the overwhelming number of coaches that don't TRY at all or refuse to learn anything and thing they know it all. I try to learn every day and am constantly looking at my plan and dialing it in.
Do some workouts for time, some for distance, do some with both time and distance.
Keep in mind training too hard, too frequently with race effort and distance could use your race effort at practice. Then you don't have anything meet day.