57 to 50-52 400m improvement in a year?

You need to run lot more than 5-10mpw

Thats what our coach has us on

You’re gonna have a ton of time to work over the next 7-8 months, and that’s a good thing. You can build a good foundation and run a fast 400m next year if you stick to it.

The 400m is a sprint yes, but it does have an aerobic component. You want to train your lungs to use oxygen well and for your muscles to be able to absorb it. Over the summer and fall, I want you to make a goal to log somewhere between 15-20 miles a week. A 20-25 minute easy jog on the treadmill before your lifts and a 10-15 minute warmup jog before your track work will get you there just fine. If you have a watch that can take your HR, aim for 145-165 bpm on these runs. That should give you an effort range of being able to talk, maybe getting a bit difficult to talk, and little to no strain in the muscles, you may feel a bit of fatigue moving into the high 150s to low 160s but nothing awful.

Lifting, over the off season you need to be lifting 3 times a week consistently. Muscular strength improves your ability to hold your form when fatigued, it allows you to put more force into the ground with less fatigue which makes your stride larger and cadence faster. It also reduces your risk of muscular injury over time.

Workouts, 50s, 150s, and 300s, are your best friends for the off season. Your 50 meter sprints should be on a hill half of the time, and you drive hard with exaggerated arm swing to really help you build power. With 150m reps, you want to drive hard for 50m and then relax into a floating sprint for the final 100m. For 300m repeats you want to float sprint for the whole thing, never really feeling like you’re jamming your foot on the gas pedal, rather just running as smooth as possible while maintaining a fast pace. 2 maybe 3 workouts a week will be perfect along with your slower jogging and lifting. Here’s a couple example workouts to do during the off-season

6x50m, 2x150m, full rest

2x(3x150m), 2-3 minutes between reps, full rest between sets. When executed correctly, your first 2 reps should feel great and your last rep might get a bit hard each set.

4-6x300m, 5 minutes to full rest between sets, play it by ear, you can dig a really deep hole on this workout if you go too hard and don’t rest enough. Remember, it’s relaxed sprinting, if you’re a 57 guy hitting 48-50 seconds on these (maybe breaking 45 on the last one if you’re feeling good) is a good plan.

You can always play around with workout patterns too, like getting yourself tired with a few 300s and then trying to run some fast 50s/150s to help prepare you for that final 100m of the 400m.

look up "Clyde Hart 400m Training"

He's the baylor coach and one of the greatest 400m coaches of all time, and all of his training is public.

Your times are not bad imo. But you should still do xc again. It'll probably be more training than you'd do on your own and it could still help with speed endurance in the 400m. Unless you got bullied or something there is no harm. Xc can be really fun when expectations are low. Just use it to supplement your track goals.

Thank you so much, this was really helpful! Another question I had was should I still do cross country in the fall? I don't enjoy running xc and i have a bad relationship with the coach but i dont know how it would help in terms of running the 400 in spring track.

Id say if you want to run XC go for it, but if you don’t like XC or the environment you shouldn’t.

XC won’t negatively impact your 400m, but it won’t exactly be positive either. You’d be better off getting yourself primed to sprint in the fall. 800m and mile repeats at 3-5k pace just isn’t going to do a ton for you as a sprinter.

Getting faster in the 400 is mostly about speed. Some of the slower endurance workouts like 6x200 at 800 pace with 3 minutes of rest are only to prepare you for real 400 workouts like 3x300. The faster you run a 200, the faster your 400 will be. The faster you run a 100 , the faster your 200 should be .

If he can run 25.x but only muster a 57.5 400m, his problem is endurance. I'm slow af but could run a 54.2 400m off a 25.8 200m pr from practice, but that's bc I also had 159/421 800/mile endurance. OP should be at least running 56 flat with that 200m speed.

That said, train all speeds OP. Don't neglect any pace in training, including max speed. Practice starts and top end flying 20s

thanks for the advice, I agree that endurance is definitely a problem. The fastest kid on my team runs 24.1 but can only go 55.1, another kid runs 24.8 but only 65.2 in the 400 and I understand why now