middle school track workouts

Indian Sprints and relay races with batons if you have enough.

I remember in middle school our coach have us do these workouts/games for us:

1. 75 meter all out sprints with little rest (30 seconds), did about 10 of these, they got pretty tiring, when I was only 11 years old, I thought I was going to die or something!

2. 4-5x800 meter intervals on grass (on some type of soccer, football, lacrosse fields), we did these pretty hard, just fast enough so we could do the whole workout, we wouldn't do this every week. Got about a 3-5 minute rest (we waited until the next group after us got back from their set)

3. Capture the flag, awesome game

4. 6-3-6 workout (if you were a good runner, you would do 6-6-6). This is where you would warm up for six minutes, run all out for three minutes, and rest for 6 minutes, we would usually do only 2 of these)

5. We would always do pushups, situps, crunches, or any other strengthening exercise, do this with the athletes.

6. We would spend about 2-4 weeks of "conditioning" doing these hard workouts about every other day, when the meets came around, we eased back a little. On easy days, we would warm up a mile, and play a game like capture the flag or run around for 15-25 minutes

After looking back on it, these workouts were easy as shit. But it's a good start for many younger runners like I was.

citius5000 wrote:

Indian Sprints and relay races with batons if you have enough.

oh yes we did this as well

Keep them busy and keep it short and sweet. Hard workouts some days, a day of fun relays or games as a reward for good behavior. This is a challenging age, just make sure that there is no down time....run a very organized practice....

I ran sub 5 in middle school. Most days we would run 20-25 minutes. We'd do a lot of short hills, a lot of drills, and raced once a week during the season. I only remember doing two hard track workouts. One was a small ladder, 300-500-800-500-300. It was hard as hell. The other was 4x400, each at 70 seconds, this was right before I ran sub 5.

Without cell phones,texting, I pods, Internet. Sounds cruel.

bump

bump again. just started middle school track today for the distance kids. Indian runs and fartleks are good ideas. anything else?

I like to have the kids do a running and stretching warm-up. Then do a short, short workout. Then play a game.

The kids like to play tag on the outdoor b-ball court (it is a bit smaller than regulation). The small space makes them do short litle sprints. We paly for about 15 minutes.

Sometimes we play "Devil-Take-the-Hindmost". The kids run a short course -- 150 to 200 meters. The last person to complete the lap is out. Normally, the "out" kid is done, but they still need to be doing a workout. Those "out" kids then are "it" and have to do the course backwards. In a certain area of the course, the "it" kids can tag the runners in the other direction. The specific tagging area is so that the "it" kids have to hustle to get in that area. Once the runners pass, they have to continue doing the course backward to the start. The kids tagged and the last to cross the line are the "it" kids. The "it" kids group grows quickly. Runners have to do short sprints at a few times -- getting away from taggers and at the end when they don't want to be last. We play the game a few times.

A fun disguise for intervals is to vary the length by rolling dice or using a board game spinner.

Spin a 3 and you run 300m. Spin a 6 and the group goes 600m. Control the range however you like. The kids get into the game of chance and cheer and groan depending on the outcome.

Try playing either "Carlotte" (Don't know if i spelled it correctly) or "Zoolotte" and Carlotte is an indoor game where kids are assigned a number and when that number is called they get up and well... they chase each other around with dodgeballs until one person is left and then a new number is called. Zoolotte is different though, in this game children are assigned an animal (Lion, Tiger, Zebra, Monkey, Etc.) and for each animal one to three taggers are assigned and like Carlotte you call out an animal and they run across the field (Btw this is an outdoor activity) while the taggers chase them but if the runners get to the other side of the field fast enough then they are safe. If a runner is tagged then they sit down and wait until you say everyone's in.

Some good ideas in here.

Soccer field diagonals are a good one. Jog the sides and push the diagonals for X number of minutes. Pull em when they look wiped. A lot of kids will want to improve the next time you do it.

Vary up your relays. Hill relays, sprint-medley type relays, or even modified DMRs, 4x4s, etc. Mix up the genders, pair the fastest kids with the slowest kids, etc. They'll race the reps, so be sure to give rest.

Prediction runs.

Handicapped races. Will require a bit of work on your end, but set a distance and start the slowest kid first. Figure out the handicap and start your next slowest, then third, etc. If you time it right, it can results in some really fun kicks at the end.

Any of these are made better with prizes, even if it's something simple like Gatorade or snacks.

60 min steady over a hilly course finish with strides and 16 x 200m up a grassy hill

The "Devil Dog" No clue why its called that.. basically a ladder on track.. each lap is done w a percentage of fast then easy running.. 100 hard 300 easy. 200hard 200 easy. 300 hard 100 easy 400 hard WALK 400 then back down... Easy workout, all kids together on the track for supervision.. can be used for sprinters and distance kids.. Kids can go at their paces.. many kids "hard 400" is VERY SLOW...

5 person relays with baton.. each kid runs a 100 and does a handoff in the correct zone... They basically sprint a 100 then rest while 4 separate teammates do a 100.. it can keep going continuously.

For a 13 and 8 yr old what would you recommend them run for training for track sprinting?

Here's what's worked for me: reach your team a dynamic warm up and drills, doing agility drills using ladders and cones, give your kids different jobs to stay engaged (kids love to help!), and incorporate games and relays into nearly every practice. I do relays around the track, tic-tac-toe relays (google it, it's fun and kinda ends up being a bunch of short sprints), pacing games like run as fast as a smail, pig, rabbit, horse, etc and I bounce between slow and faster efforts (some of my kids love this one), and the biggest favorite is infection tag...this can result in kids running around continuously for up to 10 minutes before we take a break and start over. I also teach them other basics, like strides. Mileage doesn't have to be much and I wouldn't have them doing more than 15 miles a week.

Whoops...just noticed how old this thread is!!

Thank you