John Patrick O'Connell wrote:
Joe, as you said, plyometrics provide the "edge" for a top athlete.
But what of the runners who cannot run 50 second 400's? This is where the plyometrics add power, etc. All the great runners would not spend so much time on this if it did not provide big performance gains. Webb, Bile, El Guerrouj, Coe, Gebrselassie, Cruz, and so many great middle distance guys mention this. It cannot be merely a minor training concept.
I view form, strength, plyos as an ongoing suppliment. Now if you have an athlete in their first 1-2 years of track/XC then your focus should definitely be on teaching form, increasing specific strength, coaching the ABC'S: Agility, Balance, Coordination and Speed.
I get athletes who come from college or way beyond who are looking for the last breathe to keep going. We need improvement fairly quickly. We focus on aerobic capacity.
I have my female 1500 4:15 runner and my 1:47/3:39/13:49 athlete to reference here. When their aerobic capacity was weak, their form was horrible, they got tired, they ran their last laps slower than their average race pace, just some ugly performances. I count their turnover regularly in workouts. When unfit they tended to have a turnover in the 88 range, once we got them fit (ie increased their aerobic capacity) it increased to 96 or so which indicated increased efficiency at race pace, plus they had a kick at the end of some very fast races which is the point in my mind. Still they did no form work, no plyos, not weightroom work to get this - they trained their butts off like the guys in the 60's and 70's did. Mileage, longer tempos, mile reps, 1k's, 800's, faster work like 200-400's, hill reps, double days, 18 milers on the weekend with the marathoners, 14-16 mideweek just flying, 100 harder faster than you can imagine year round, basic top level distance runner training.
This is what get's you the big improvements. Plyos are icing, this is the cake.
The male I referenced above soloed a 4:00.21 mile. His best 1500 2 years previously was 3:46. He was aerobically fit, but his leg speed was actually slower by 1-2 seconds over 400m when he trained with me. His times when we focused on aerobic capacity in the 800 was 1:47 vs 1:52, his 1500 was 3:39 vs 3:46 and his 5k was 13:49 vs 14:46. But his 400 speed was slower. Now some would argue what if I maintained or actually improved his leg speed? I don't know what would have happened, it wasn't a concern at the time. I was focusing on areas that I viewed as difficient which was aerobic capacity at that time.
Athletes such as those previously mentioned have all the bases covered. You read Paula's training or El G and they are leaving no stone unturned. They have every evergy system covered extremely well. Not the cases with 95% of the athletes in this country. I read authors stating it's altitude or the genes or drugs or any number of things but I look at what many athlete do in training and am convinced they don't have the basis covered. That's where it starts.
The athletes I have have full time jobs. They have careers, they have husbands, wifes, significant others. I ask for an average of 2 hours a day from them. I feel this is reasonable given a 40-60 hour work week (the athletes I have in most cases work 40-60 hours a week) and family obligations or school or even free time to read, nap, relax. The point here is that given my 2 hour limit plyo's don't fit mostly because we don't have the time to do them and the payoff is minor.
Now I'm also fortunate to have people with decent leg speed, but I don't stress it of they don't. I barely broke 60 for the 400 and still ran 14:23 and 2:18. A kid I'm coaching now has a 3:56 1500 PR yet ran 14:14 at Stanford in March and 29:33 at the Hansons meet the other night for 10k. Another example is a local national class triathlete who showed some pretty good speed doing strides. I convinced him to run the 1500 instead of running 54 minute 10 mile road races and he ran 3:47 for the 1500 his first yeat. He ran 3:40 his second year, made the 2001 USATF final in Eugene all with 53-54 speed. He did it off of a focus on aerobic capacity. I didn't think this up. I got the idea from coach Vigil who gave it to me.
Now if I ever get a kid with a $250k a year contract from Blue Ribbon Sports or some other corp, then heck yes we're doing plyos. Lots of 'em after we have established the other training protocals. Unforunately my athletes don't have this luxury. I have to make a choice between an extra 30 minutes with their siginificant other or plyos and I choose the time at home. Why? Because we have other fish to fry. The athletes I get tend to have pretty significant improvements because we just have them train as 85% of the top runners do with the double days, consistent recovery, steady state runs, long runs, 3k-5k paced workouts, strides, accelerations and most importantly, taking responsibility for the fact they want to do this sport and do it to the best of their abilities.
The point in my mind is for 99% of the people reading this don't need plyos. We need to teach people the basics and go from there. The few athletes who need this already know it and are doing it. The rest need to get to work and then means Helsinki 2005, Beijing 2008 starts tomorrow.
What time are you hammering your 18 miler in AM?
Joe