5x60m w/ full recovery

I would recommend the hill sprints, done once in a week or in 14 days. After the hill sprints might do a few 100-200meter relaxed accelerations. Just keep it in the program frequently to keep your runners healthy. Hill sprints are great for running spesific power and the high range of movement will break tightness nicely in the hip area etc. I would do them the day before a threshold or tempo run, and after an easy/rest day or an easy-steady long run.

The main emphasis is of course the aerobic capacity improvement, so plenty of mileage and threshold runs varying the pace and intensity, trying to lift the LT closer to the MHR during the base, although you don´t seem to have much time for this. 300-400m hills are fine every other week, done at good effort but not accumulating high lactates.

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M: Easy w/ 60m sprints, recovery at least slow walk back

T: Finnish circuits, lift after

W: Mileage

Th: Easy w/ 4x80

F: Tempo, lift after

If you are able to, I like to do sprinting before workouts and strength right after a workout. Sprinting preps for the workout, and then strength the same day you are consolidating stress on one day and then giving adequate time to recover.

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Thanks for the suggestions. I agree that sprints as part of a warm-up are a good idea. I didn't mention this in the original post, but my team generally does sprint drills and 4 accels building up a little faster each one as part of their pre-workout warm-up routine.

Thanks. This is helpful. Would you suggest keeping with the longer recovery with the 60 m accels done after easy runs or would it be better to just do a walk back recovery to keep the intensity lower on those particular days with the one quality short hills sessions once per wk/2 wks? Should we be doing absolute speed during short hills or accels or just focusing on acceleration during this training phase?

Separate your fartlek and sprint days. If you're doing a hard sprint as part of it, and the hills are at a high quality pace, you're putting a solid strain on the cns system, and need a good 2-3 days with sub - maximal velocities before you'll get a good stimulus from working sprint paces. Also, pair up your lifting with either the sprint day or the fartlek, the pure sprint day is probably your better bet, assuming the lifting is challenging static lifts and/or Olympic stuff.

If I were keeping your training days, it would be

Monday: fartlek

Tuesday: easy

Wednesday: tempo

Thursday: steady

Friday: sprints. (And lift)

Next best imo would be:

Monday: sprints and loft

Tuesday: tempo

Wednesday: easy

Thursday:steady

Friday: fartlek

There isn't any problem going back - to - back sprints into tempo, but given you have the ability to go easy/steady in between each higher quality session there isn't any reason to force them together like that (if some of your weekend training is more than long/easy work that may change).

Whether to do the sprint sessions on a hill or not depends a lot on the parameters of your fartlek session. If they're doing the hills on those sessions at a very high speed, I'd only sparingly do the true sprint day on a hhill.if the fartlek is more 3k-5k-10k efforts and longer distances, the opposite is true. Hill sprints are a bit safer than on the flat, but the only reason the weather should drastically impact their ability to do work outside is if they are doing a poor job warming up or insufficiently dressing.

Young DIII Coach wrote:

Thanks. This is helpful. Would you suggest keeping with the longer recovery with the 60 m accels done after easy runs or would it be better to just do a walk back recovery to keep the intensity lower on those particular days with the one quality short hills sessions once per wk/2 wks? Should we be doing absolute speed during short hills or accels or just focusing on acceleration during this training phase?

I think your terminology is getting a bit mixed. A 60 m sprint is not an acceleration, unless your distance runners are faster than your sprinters, or if they are doing the 60 m as a build up (submaximal, controlled acceleration) which is a whole different type of exercise.

With 60 m sprints, you need nearly full recovery 3:00+ to have them achieving top speed more than once or twice in the workout (which is one of the main points). If you wanted to make it an acceleration workout, you could significantly shorten the rest into the :90 range, and move the rep length down to around 30-40m.

Doing absolute speed in this phase is certainly possible, but it depends a lot on where your athletes are in training and progression. If you came off xc regionals, took a week off, then had 4 weeks of rebuilding mileage and didn't do consistent accel/short hill work, I would use the remaining time before January meets start to get consistent short hill and accel work in. If you have already done 4 weeks of accel work while rebuilding mileage, making every other scheduled sprint session a absolute speed one would be a great idea.

Thanks for clarifying. I should have used a different term instead of accel b/c I didn't mean true acceleration with the 60 meters which made it confusing. I normally would have them do 4x60 meters with the middle 40 at full speed (as much as possible) after their easy days w/ 90 sec rec just to keep speed up during base training (or some days I have them do 4x80 m w/ walk back recovery instead to work a slightly different system of speed), but wasn't sure if I add in the acceleration short hill workout once per wk or once every other wk if I should still have the 90 sec recovery for the post-easy run 60-80 m sprints to make them more quality or if that would be too taxing to the nervous system to do that after easy runs and also as a separate workout.

There have been 100 posts on this thread and somehow the main premise of the short hill sprint workout for speed development seems to have been totally lost.

THIS WORKOUT IS USELESS* IF YOU DON'T REST ENOUGH

We're talking about "5x60m w/ full recovery". Emphasis on the "full recovery". If you decide to make it partial recovery then you've turned it into a completely different workout.

You should be 1.) rested before the workout 2.) rested before each and every rep, and 3.) should not encounter any signs of fatigue during the rep.

1. Don't do another workout right before this one unless you're used to it and know what you're doing. Run a tempo or base mileage after the workout, not before; though, make sure you get in a thorough warmup.

2. If you need to take 5 minutes between each rep that's absolutely fine, even applauded. That's how sprinters train, and this is a workout for speed development, so forget about the endurance component. Reducing the rest will only harm your speed development gains from this workout. You should be 100% fresh for this and capable of hitting your fastest possible acceleration, otherwise it's not worth much.

3. If you can only accelerate for 30m up the hill before you feel yourself slowing and getting fatigued, that's fine. Don't push it into the zone where your legs are slowing - that's not speed development if you're dying during the rep. If you can only get in 10 steps at max acceleration that's fine. In fact it's a good drill to try to propel yourself as explosively as possible in just 10, 5, or even 3 steps.

* The purpose of short hill sprints for speed development is speed development. It's done best on a hill to recruit more muscle groups and maximally engage the neuromuscular system. Ideally, this training will transfer onto sprinting on flat ground where you will subsequently be able to recruit more muscle to sprint more powerfully.

If you're not rested before the workout, you won't be fully engaging the neuromuscular component. If you're not resting enough between reps, you won't be able to hit 100% power, so less of a stimulus. And if you run too long during reps, you'll be hitting excess fatigue with minimal benefit for speed development while enforcing strained mechanics.

This whole thread can be summarized by the following:

Find a hill, any hill. Run fast up it, stop before you get tired or slow down. Rest full recovery. When you're used to it, sprint up at max speed.

I did a similar workout this week but 4x40 & 4x50 while holding your breath.. tough workout tbh I was sore

Young DIII Coach wrote:

Thanks for clarifying. I should have used a different term instead of accel b/c I didn't mean true acceleration with the 60 meters which made it confusing. I normally would have them do 4x60 meters with the middle 40 at full speed (as much as possible) after their easy days w/ 90 sec rec just to keep speed up during base training (or some days I have them do 4x80 m w/ walk back recovery instead to work a slightly different system of speed), but wasn't sure if I add in the acceleration short hill workout once per wk or once every other wk if I should still have the 90 sec recovery for the post-easy run 60-80 m sprints to make them more quality or if that would be too taxing to the nervous system to do that after easy runs and also as a separate workout.

In my opinion you're trying to incorporate too many things in your weeks. Getting cute by mixing in lots of different elements into training days (especially easy days, and especially in early parts of the season) is a trap that a lot of young coaches fall into. With a lot of experience and once you know an individual athlete well, incorporating more elements can be a minor bomus, but for many athletes you learn it simply doesn't work, and unless you are very careful in how you do it, all you end up doing is muddying the waters so that athletes can't get the most out of their quality sessions and the recovery out of their easy sessions. Pick one thing you want to do with your athletes on a given day, and do it really well.

As the above relates to what you have, if your athletes are getting up to top speed on a given day, it is by definition not an easy or recovery day. There can be some benefit, primarily as an enhancement for range of motion on stiff tired legs, to doing strides on an easy day, but acceleration needs to be very gradual and the highest speed they hit extremely modest (mile pace would be sufficient). You develop and retain speed out of competition season by working maximal speed and acceleration efforts on sufficient rest (both in reps and within the microcycle) to make each one full quality. Blasting out what speed you can muster on depleted legs may recruit all those different fast twitch fibers, but there will be no coordination training, which is what you're really after.

V had some good specific progressions and how they fit into a microcycle and macrocycle a few pages ago. Cliff notes would be:

Work true accels once a micro (25-30m uphill, 25-40m on a flat) for a month early in your macro.

Next work top speed once a micro for a month+ until race season starts (30-40m on an uphill, 50-70m on a flat).

If you can't fit these in every micro, every other is ok, but you should still get 3-4 sessions before progressing from accel to max velocity, even though you won't get to max velocity till later in the season.

JRinaldi wrote:

A typical session would look like this:

- 2 laps jog (800m)

- Faisal stretching (10 min)

- 30min of Pfaff Drills (20-30m up and back each drill) you can find these drills on youtube (Wup Set A Dwain is a good example)

- Dynamic stretching (5 min)

Then move in to the sprinting (we do each sprint individually so the athlete is only focusing on there cues). There is no set recovery between reps, but it's typically 3-4min, after each athlete runs and recieves feed back)

- 3x30m

- 4x60m

10 min rest then a long rep

- 1x200m or 1x250 or 1x300 for example. The 1:44/45 guys would hit 21.7 with a standing start when if peak shape.

- 10 min cool down jog

JR

Great Post. How early do you normally start incorporating the longer rep at the end of the session? We usually have a dedicated day to speed dev and a separate to speed endurance, but that looks like a great way to transition into speed endurance or to get a bit of maintenance work in on both when you don't always have the days to spare.

(thinking out loud as I write) The single long rep at the end is a very clever way to get in speed endurance while primed and without any real metabolic fatigue because the previous sprints are alactic and isn't enough to hurt the next day. And the order makes a lot of sense so that neither the alactic or the glycolytic reps inhibit one another while switching the order hurts the alactic reps.

I'll definitely have to try incorporating it beyond the usual maintenance days where I can't fit both in.

Thanks again JR

Rudisha800 wrote:

I did a similar workout this week but 4x40 & 4x50 while holding your breath.. tough workout tbh I was sore

holding your breath makes no difference

its anaerobic and so short

This has been a great thread. I'm really happy to see people sharing knowledge and keeping everything constructive and thoughtful. It's been great to be a part of

Thanks. This and your above post that I somehow missed before were both very helpful. While reading all this exercise physiology is helpful, it can also lead to me overthinking and over-complicating things more than I need to do when often keeping things simple if easier and more effective.

That single long rep toward the end is pretty smart indeed.

I never thought it through, so I won't claim to have thought of it, but I used to sometimes end these workouts with a really flying fast 30 seconds or so on ~flat road.

I'd often get the sense that I was running faster during that rep than ever before, maybe there's something to that "neuromuscular priming". Maybe not, it still feels good to run fast anyway so why not do it regardless.

I'd also begin and end these workout with a few moderate reps up the same hill. As a warmup, these got me used to the hill that I would soon be sprinting up at full speed. As a cooldown, these served as some extra strengthening to the tendons and musculature for uphill running so that these would be less of a limiting factor for future workouts.

I really don't think you should be sore after this workout. I usually felt amazingly good afterward, much better than if I had just done an easy run, as if I could go run a PR in a race 30 min later. Sometimes I'd run tempos after hill sprints and run close to hypothetical race pace at the time, really surprising. If you get sore maybe try getting used to the hill by running more reps, but shorter with more recovery and not at max speed.

I've done something in the past kinda like the long rep at the end.

Our coach had us mid distance kids do 12x50m hill sprints with the sprinters (~2min rest). So not pure Speed or acceleration but it was pretty tough. Then after a decent rest (5+ minutes) we did an all out 400, 300, 200 with long rests. The 300 and 200 are irrelevant because they were tough because of the 400.

But the 400 was actually really easy. I went into it exhausted from the hill sprints, and I felt like I was running on jello legs the first 100m, then we went through in 25 for 200 like it was a jog and me and my teammate were able to cruise in for a 52 second 400 after the hill sprints. And my PR at this point was a 50.4 split, so I wasn't far off.

I think the hard reps at the of the shorter sprints is a good idea. The sprints don't really take away any quality, and you can get in two separate stimuli. We we're about a month out from our last races and he wanted us to obviously work on our speed endurance with those long hard reps but he also wanted us to work on our top speed and power for the 400 with those short hill sprints

Yes, when the intensity of the accelerations is lover the walk back rec is ok I think. In the top speed hill sprints the intensity should be relaxed maximum to recruit plenty of muscle fibers, just progress with caution. Once per 14 days of this intense sprints are plenty, and you can you vary these with the lighter accelerations every other week. Do these intense sprints when you/they are warmed up thoroughly. Use some drills and lunge walks and before the actual top speed sprints perform some lighter hill accelerations focusing on the technique so that you wake up the right muscles and proper technique before the actual workout. Distance runners will need a longer and more intense warm up than sprinters to be able to reach a high power output. If you notice that they´re starting to strain and slow down during the workout, stop.

So after the w/u something like 3-5x 8-10sec light accelerations w/ walk down recovery, after these 2-3´rec and then ~4-6x6-8sec at relaxed maximum effort with rolling start/2-3´rec/5-6´rec and ~3-5x100-200m level ground accelerations at ~90% speed /3-5´rec, to touch the anaerobic glycolytic system. This will take about 40 minutes at most, including the warm ups and you won´t get too sore to do the threshold run or so the day after. I even did 5k´s at low threshold for maintenance right after the sprints sometimes and felt great.

JRinaldi wrote:

- 3x30m

- 4x60m

10 min rest then a long rep

- 1x200m or 1x250 or 1x300 for example. The 1:44/45 guys would hit 21.7 with a standing start when if peak shape.

- 10 min cool down jog

I've been doing something similar with our sprinters. We'll do a warmup, then accelerations to get ready for sprints. Plyos with vertical emphasis. Then sprints. We had built up to 3x70m full recovery (8-10+min for these ladies).

Since I want to do one day of max v, one "metabolic" day, and one acceleration day per week with the sprint group, There wasn't a lot of room for the anaerobic capacity-type runs. We'll transition to it in pre-comp, but I wanted a sprinkle of it in there.

So we made the last rep a little longer.

70, 70, 100 week 1

70, 70, 120 week 2

70, 70 150 week 3.

Then we maintained it for another week before break. We'll bring it down to 3x50m when we come back (it should be a lot colder at that point) and then get back up to 3x70m. Since season will be approaching, I'll probably go to 14-day cycle alternating acceleration and some capacity runs.

Not sure if this is as good as it could be, but I like using a small menu for progression purposes.

Any critique is welcome.

Thinking of doing something similar with my 800 runners.

Texas coach, why plyos with a vertical emphasis if acceleration is primarily horizontal? Would slj type stuff and hip hinging movements not be enough?

I don't mean to speak for Texas Coach, but the accelerations he has are just as a warm-up. After that he goes into 70m reps.

You're definitely right that horizonal pairs better with acceleration and vertical with speed dev.