Advice on developing speed for extreme slow twitch athlete

If he really is an extreme slow twitcher, then there is nothing you can do with his basic speed. There are no fast fibres to train. I coached a female marathon runner who ran the marathon in 2007 WC and she couldn´t break 32 for 200 meters with a flying start. She started out as a soccer player in her early teens, but after a few years she gave up. She was just too slow. All the speed and explosiveness training they did in the soccer team didn´t help her one bit.

When she ran 5k´s she said afterwards that she felt like she could have run it again at the same pace. When there was km repeats on the schedule it didn´t matter if the rest was 1 or 3 minutes. Her pace was the same.

I partly agree with the above poster, but it might be worth exploring if you can get the athlete to get more bouncy.

Don't know if I'm right, but I'm imagining a grindy puller who somewhat overstrides and maybe sits too much with quad-dominant running. If so, you _might_ be able to improve speed by working on getting the stride more pushing under the athlete, and working on elasticity. Maybe some kind of vertical bounding combined with working more on power and reactivity than strength in the weight room.

I don't think extending the length of the sprints will do much, and may interfere with those workouts that he thrives on and help most with his primary events.

If you are an extreme slow twitcher, you need total body strength workouts in the gym including calisthenic exercises. Lifting grows your fast twitch and your slow twitch fibers, to get more fast twitch training a simple 5x5 with heavy weights is great for this. Deadlift squat bench row overhead press for 5 sets of 5 reps. There are other ways to train and you should also include lighter exercises like jumping jacks as well as a stretching routine and accessory lifts (arnold press instead of overhead press, pushups instead of bench, pullups instead of deadlifts cable rows instead of barbell rows and leg press instead of squat) to avoid overuse injury or imbalance.

But yeah if youre an extreme slow twitcher improving your power will improve your speed. Deadlifts are a great functional lift but, squats, bench press, push press are better mass builders which normally you wouldnt want, but an extreme slow twitcher that light can afford to add 5 lb of muscle. Jumping rope to warm up and cool down from weights is a good way to keep the workout similar to the range of motion used in running. If injury prevents this rowing machine or slow jogging is a good warmup too.

You can see gains with this athlete if you increase his volume by about 10 miles or more. A lot of runs that are longer in nature below threshold levels. Add some surges to the longer runs. The longer aerobic work you are doing with him is perfect. Don’t stop doing that.

He already can deadlift twice his body weight. I would never recommend lifting to put on weight. You not only have to push that weight along during a race, it has to also allow you to run faster. Unless he is weak which he is not this does not work.

Work on his form, and if he "feels nothing" in hill sprints then he's not trying hard enough. Get him running as fast as possible, as often as possible. 150s cutting down from 800 effort to all out, 200s at 800, strides and/or hill repeats after every single run and workout. Add box jumps to his lifting schedule, and improve his flexibility and range of motion. If none of this works to bring him under 60, just resign yourself to extending that 63-64 speed as long as it can go, until he can maintain that for a mile or more.

I think you're absolutely right to pursue longer "sprints" with full rest. Even if you've maxed out his speed at 30 sec/200, he should be able to run faster than 76/lap for a 1600, especially for a runner with his strength / longer distance orientation. I suspect his anaerobic capacity is lacking. I would give him sessions like 4x400 or 3x500 at max effort with 3-5 minute standing recoveries. These can be done on hills as well, with a slow walk down. Get the lactate as high as possible. I wouldn't do this type of work more than once every 2 weeks, but it should help a lot. I would also continue the 10 second hill sprints, flying 40s, etc.

Have him do some downhill strides. Also look up David Moorcroft training. He started at with only one gear according to his coach. So his coach had him work on his speed year around. Not a lot of volume, but it was at a good effort. For example his during his base phase he would do stuff like 4-6 x 150m.

Thank you for all the responses!

This is exactly what I've been thinking of doing moving forward. Even though it goes against my gut and what I believe , I'm trying to step out of my comfort zone in this situation. I was moving from 8x200 > 5x300 > 4x400 > 3x500 > 2x600 w/ full rest over the course of now through April or so. Basically as you say, extend that speed he does have. And yes, definitely continuing the short sprints.

Thank you for the reference! Definitely will look into some gradual downhill strides, we have a perfect place to do them by our school. I also want to transition the short hill sprints into a weekly thing of 4-6 x 150 like you say, at max effort.

Definitely looking at adding some technical form drills and plyometric style exercises / hill circuits (just read up on some of this one the old giant Canova thread) and I think it will be helpful. He is strong, just not able to use that to power him forward.

My fear with the hard, anaerobic capacity work as mentioned above was this - losing some of the aerobic end. So I'm going to try to find that balance. Once every 2 weeks should be okay as long as he gets in some nice quality aerobic long runs in the interim?

And lastly to respond to the guy who said he isn't trying - normally I'd agree with you if an athlete would say that, but this kid is one of the hardest workers and toughest guys we've ever had. He has a desire to be great, and his effort is clearly visible.

No such person as extra slow twitch. There are people a lot slower than 30/63 200/400. Sprinting fast is like hitting a baseball, ballet/point and playing the violin. It's neuromuscular coordination. To do well, the earlier one starts, the better. One can improve as a sprinter. It is difficult to try to improve one's 5000m time and 200m time simultaneously.

downhill strides wrote:

Have him do some downhill strides. Also look up David Moorcroft training. He started at with only one gear according to his coach. So his coach had him work on his speed year around. Not a lot of volume, but it was at a good effort. For example his during his base phase he would do stuff like 4-6 x 150m.

Ditto to this.

Han Solo wrote:

And lastly to respond to the guy who said he isn't trying - normally I'd agree with you if an athlete would say that, but this kid is one of the hardest workers and toughest guys we've ever had. He has a desire to be great, and his effort is clearly visible.

I'm not surprised to see this side of it. It's not like you don't need to be tough to be a good sprinter, but sometimes it can't get in the way if an athlete isn't a natural sprinter. Sprinting needs to flow.

If I were you, I would decrease the number of reps of sprinting he's doing, increase the rest even more, and also try to make sure he isn't "trying too hard". Use the "crush" standard. The prettiest girl in school (say) is just walking by, and his goal for each sprint isn't to go as fast as possible, but to impress her. That sort of idea, and also making the sprint workout easier and less structured, can help him relax and just go for it.

Downhill strides/sprints are also good. I could call it a "downhill roll" though; the hill should carry him down rather than him powering down the hill.

Lastly, if he's committed to running, I'd have him pare the lifting way down, and make the lifts themselves lower weight and much more explosive. You'd think moving heavy weights builds fast twitch muscles, but sometimes it just trains the athlete to move a lot of weight slowly.

All the anaerobic work in the world will not change his muscle fiber composition so you have to work with what he has. Sure you can make him a little quicker but it is not what is important right now. Concentrate on his long term development with building his aerobic capacity

You can try to help him with some short speed like 30 meter fly's / strides, surges during long runs, even some coordination drills if you want... but if you do too much of that you are going to turn your back on his aerobic development. I would even leave out the 100's.

We are talking about a 17 year old kid that has a peak mileage in the 40's! He is nowhere near someone like Moorcroft at his stage of development. There is a difference between being able to do the workouts than having the ability to gain fitness from them. It's an old Lydiard principal that is still true today.

Focus on his aerobic capacity. Bring his volume up slowly to 55-65. Type 1 fiber dependent type runners respond better to a dose of higher mileage than type 2a fiber dependent endurance runners.

The most important part of coaching is knowing your athlete and you are already on the right track with the tempo's and progression runs. Don't turn your back on that.

You can only train what you've got.

He is not even making the most of the speed he has so trying to get faster as far as raw speed goes is not important.

Galloway was 96% slow twitch wrote:

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Any one know what was Salazar slow to fast twitch ratio? From what I understand, he could barely run under 60 seconds all out for 400m, yet he ran a 7:43 3000m and a 13:11 5000m.

how much slow twitch was salazar wrote:

Galloway was 96% slow twitch wrote:

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Any one know what was Salazar slow to fast twitch ratio? From what I understand, he could barely run under 60 seconds all out for 400m, yet he ran a 7:43 3000m and a 13:11 5000m.

Are you sure? 7:43 is 62 per 400

the salad bar wrote:

how much slow twitch was salazar wrote:

Any one know what was Salazar slow to fast twitch ratio? From what I understand, he could barely run under 60 seconds all out for 400m, yet he ran a 7:43 3000m and a 13:11 5000m.

Are you sure? 7:43 is 62 per 400

That is what it says on his IAAF profile. If I recall correctly, his best 400m time was 57 seconds. So his 3000m PR was about 91% of his 400m pace. How does that compare to other elite 5000m/10000m runners? I remember reading Alberto Cova, who had a fantastic kick in the last 400m of 10000m races. That his all out 400m time totally fresh, was no different from his 400m time in the last lap of a 10000m race.

iaaf profile wrote:

the salad bar wrote:

Are you sure? 7:43 is 62 per 400

That is what it says on his IAAF profile. If I recall correctly, his best 400m time was 57 seconds. So his 3000m PR was about 91% of his 400m pace. How does that compare to other elite 5000m/10000m runners? I remember reading Alberto Cova, who had a fantastic kick in the last 400m of 10000m races. That his all out 400m time totally fresh, was no different from his 400m time in the last lap of a 10000m race.

https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/united-states/alberto-salazar-7013

That's pretty amazing but I wonder if that was in a workout? I mean I'm sure he could have run 55 or better if that's what he set out to do.

the salad bar wrote:

iaaf profile wrote:

That is what it says on his IAAF profile. If I recall correctly, his best 400m time was 57 seconds. So his 3000m PR was about 91% of his 400m pace. How does that compare to other elite 5000m/10000m runners? I remember reading Alberto Cova, who had a fantastic kick in the last 400m of 10000m races. That his all out 400m time totally fresh, was no different from his 400m time in the last lap of a 10000m race.

https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/united-states/alberto-salazar-7013

That's pretty amazing but I wonder if that was in a workout? I mean I'm sure he could have run 55 or better if that's what he set out to do.

Even if he could have the OP is still not running near the limits of his basic speed.