Training high school kids with no talent?

hey im a sophomore in high school in canada. last year i ran 4:40 1500m with zero training i came 8th and didnt no do very well. over the summer i started running 40-50km a week and began eating super healthy im now one of the top 25 runners in the province and top 3 in my city. i htink you should start trining these kids hard. if they dont have the mental strength and determination to do it then its their loss push them hard and then if they dont want to run they dont have to

they are freshmen. no telling what they will be in a few years.

hard intervals.

Train speed, coordination and general power. A national middle distance leader at the HS level can run more than 450m in <1'. Think of Verzbicas or Fernandez -- their HS 3200m took them roughly 10x the duration of their 4x400m capability. If your athletes are ever going to run well, then speed development is inescapable. If they aren't going to be runners then why not balance the speed and stamina focus in their general conditioning program, keep it fun, leave all the options open should the talent arise.

Teach them proper mechanics, work on leg/hip strength with hills, drills, & lower body weights, and race them in shorter distances (800/400) until they show some turnover and ability to "race" something longer. A big mistake I find is coaches who take slow weak kids and throw them in longer distances. They never learn to run fast, only slow and sloppy. Continue to train them primarily aerobically, but work on form constantly whether it is a race or recovery jog. Make sure they are forefoot striking, and with rapid turnover. Once they show they can "run" shorter distances, then consider moving them up.

What are their 100m times?

If they are slower than 12 seconds, don't even think about increasing their mileage. Keep the mileage at 30 but work on their sprinting

It sounds to me like these kids have low levels of genetic talent. Smart training regimens will make anyone faster... but for these kids, that may mean mid-12's in the 3200 rather than sub-10 like it would for your more genetically gifted kids.

I have found an over-arching elitist belief at LRC that anyone, if they train hard, can be a sub-15 5k runner. I think that attitude is contagious, and is at the heart of the original post. Some kids just weren't born with the goods. There are two facets to genetic running ability--one is genetic baseline, which is how good of a VO2 max you were born with, whether you have a lower leg structure conducive to good running form, etc. The other facet is trainability, an often-overlooked aspect of improvement. Some people show rapid gains through modest training, others show tiny gains in hard training. Different bodies respond to training in different ways... you very well may be training these kids correctly, they just don't have much genetic capacity for improvement. In general terms, I agree with the OP's approach of building a base first. Leg speed from fast twitch fibers is the most genetic (and least improvable) part of running. I am a science teacher and coach, so this is an area of interest for me.

Here is a great article (with links to original research) on the role genes play in running and, more importantly, improvement. Hope this helps.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/training-talent-10000-hours-and-genes.html

Twitched wrote:

What are their 100m times?

If they are slower than 12 seconds, don't even think about increasing their mileage. Keep the mileage at 30 but work on their sprinting

Their speed is most certainly over 12. I'm sure these kids could bust a 13.5 on their best day. I've thought about doing the week similar to this:

Mondays 2's and 3's at 800 pace. Tuesday tempo (the speed the day before will aid the tempo before the DOMS sets in on wednesday). Wed easy/strength. Thursday 800 pace again. Friday strides before a saturday race or time trial. I assign them 60 minutes on sundays. I can't be sure anyone does them though. Yes, this is VERY speed intensive, but even after several months of training these kids will still fall off of 8-8:30 pace for distance runs and I feel like they aren't getting enough accomplished doing 9-10 minute pace. Almost everyday we meet will be a high CNS day and I'll counterbalance that by every third week having one or two less workouts, but I'm hoping that a) short term gains will lead to long term trainability that the rest of the team is doing and b) less mentally taxing work than long slow distance that gets boring as hell as miserable in the summer.

Might be a diet/sleep issue.

Also, practicing 800 pace isn't going to make their raw speed faster. Especially if their 800 pace is around 3 minutes.

They aren't that horrible. Their 800s are between 2:32-2:41. I feel like the weight training we started to do once a week in January has helped that out a lot. I don't think they could have broken 2:45 during xc.

They aren't that horrible, but the coach is. I am a high school kid that don't not a coach like him.

Dont coach my school wrote:

They aren't that horrible, but the coach is. I am a high school kid that don't not a coach like him.

With the way you type I'd be surprised if you were even in middle school yet.

how about doing VO2 max workouts? 800-2k repeats with shorter rest as they go through the season. Start at 3M and move up to 5M of intervals and decrease the rest from 400M to 200M. Frequent strides will help with the speed. See if you can get their mileage up, emphasizing good well groomed dirt trails for as many miles as possible. Gradually the paces will come down as they get in shape. When I was in hs and college, I couldn't go more than two weeks without injury even on 30 mpw, but if they stay healthy, they should improve a great deal in time. It's important that you the coach give them confidence in improvement, because virtually everyone who works at that age will improve dramatically.

Just train them the same way you would train any other runner. If any of these guys are truly motivated there is a very good chance they will far exceed your expectations. I personally ran 5:40 and 2:30 off of ~25 mpw my freshman year and 1:58 off of ~40 mpw my senior year. Another hs teammate in my year dropped from 5:20 to 9:32. One of my college teammates went from 5:30 to 4:25. Plenty of runners just take a little while to show some glimmer of talent (or learn how to race, or learn what it takes to succeed). Also, about younger teammates running faster then them- that was a huge factor for me personally in learning how to run faster. By the time I was a sophomore I was in about the same place as the better freshman on the team, and since the older runners lavished attention on them and educated them about how to train, I just did what they were doing.

Make sure you know why the kids are running/training. If there isn't a performance component at the core of their motivation, don't expect much improvement even with an increase in their mileage.

When kids truly get movitated to train, they ask questions, they push themselves in workouts, they train on the weekends, they do strength work, they eat right, they sleep right, etc. Not all kids are interested in really finding out what they can do, especially as freshman.

At this point in their careers, create opportunities for them to feel success and recognize it when it occurs even if it's just with a nod and a handshake. Don't increase their mileage beyond what they are physically and emotionally ready for. Don't try to force them through workouts.

Meet them where they're at. Provide the opportunity and guidance necessary to feel success based on their efforts. As long as they're near the flame, they will eventually catch fire even if it's not as bright as you would like.

Anyone who has coached for a fair amount of time has plenty of stories about kids who didn't do much for their first couple years and then dropped loads of time in their last year or two.

Be patient and encouraging. They will survive being beaten by guys younger than them. In the end, these clysdales may provide your best coaching memories when your career is done. Just don't let your expectations get too far in front of theirs.

Heh. I couldn't break 6min in the mile until the very end of my freshman year of high school, and I ended up nearly breaking 15 in the 5k in college. Consistent training, some hard interval workouts, and hills are probably what give you the "kick in the pants" to start improving initially. Mileage isn't ALWAYS the end all be all. I've read younger kids initially improve most in VO2 max and the like (versus efficiency, capillarization, etc).

A couple thoughts... wrote:

It sounds to me like these kids have low levels of genetic talent....

....Here is a great article (with links to original research) on the role genes play in running and, more importantly, improvement. Hope this helps.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/training-talent-10000-hours-and-genes.html

That article says that it is inconclusive whether performance is dependent on genes. That is the opposite of what you're saying, no?

Wow, I can't believe how wrong everyone is on this thread. Increase their leg speed? improve their 100m time? etc. These kids have NO talent for running. Trying to increase their speed will not help them. They are naturally SLOW. Don't focus on trying to improve a weakness. Focus on what could be a strength. Just train them like the other kids, increasing their mileage over the next 3 years. Maybe a few of them respond better to higher mileage and surprise you. A low mileage/high quality plan will not work for untalented kids.

I think you need to rethink your premise. You state you are training kids with, "no talent."

I certainly would not want a couch who perceived the group as having no talent. They have talent but it may be minimal, modest, or just untapped.

I would not want someone to coach my child who deemed them completely talentless. How sad.

I would go further to say that someone who feels this way about their athletes might want to rethink coaching.

Maybe they need someone with hope as the minimum requirement to help them.

don't give up on them. They might really enjoy track. My freshman year I was a 14 min 2 mile guy and a 6:15 mile guy (didn't break 23:30 in xc on a 3 mile course). I steadily improved, by senior year I was consistently running 5:0X for the mile.

To me it sounds like these guys don't have much endurance, and you should work on this. Does everyone start out together on distance runs? If so consider starting the slow guys out first, tell them instead of running 7:20 pace for the first half mile and then slowing down to a crawl, try getting them to run 8:00 pace the whole way. These guys can still make gains running in the low 8s per mile. Don't abandon the distance run. However, you are right 9-10 min per mile will not yield much. Try making their distance runs shorter (if they can't maintain low 8 pace on them), and start them out such the whole group finishes together.

66 for a 400 isn't that slow for a time trial. I know several people who can't run much faster than that but can run a 5:30 mile or 12:00 two mile. To me it doesn't sound like sprint speed is their biggest problem, as slow as a 66 seems its way better than a 13+ 2 mile.