Speed Training

[Guest guest]

Green:

< Did not the Soviets and East Germans recommend 80-150 meters

for speed-endurance of 100 meter athletes?>

Carlo:

Speed-endurance for a 100m specialized athlete is mainly trained

with those distances, yet you don't use just those year-round.

<While we are on the topic of training to enhance sprinting

speed, it might be useful to compare the different approaches used

by various speed coaches? >

Carlo:

has a classical approach to periodization, Pfaff, too, as far

as annual plan, but more " Bondarchuk-like " when it comes to the

periodization of biomotor abilities (i.e. starts to work on power

from day one). Francis has that very specialized approach which

starts with shorter sprints and then " stretches " them to overdistance

which I would be curious to know if anybody of the list had success

using with low or mid level sprinters.

<Did Poliquin successfully train explosive athletes like these?>

Carlo:

As far as I know Poliquin is the strength coach of

Nanceen (part of the 4x200 World Record holder US " Blue " team).

Kim Goss:

< But is running 400 meters improving the speed-endurance in the

fibers you want to train? It seems it would be better to run repeat

20-50 meter sprints. This is what Charlie Francis did with his athletes..>

Carlo:

I think this approach would be valid only for an advanced

sprinter specialized in the 100m, although it seems quite restricting

as far as training tools; i.e. if we use 20-50m to train speed-

endurance, what do we use to train maximal speed and starts? We end

up doing the same things 6 times a week, just changing the rest

periods and may be the intensity.

In fact, for what I know, Francis begins to work on speed-endurance

after the indoor season and does it with 80-150m repeats.

Also the dynamics of lactic acid build-up are different between short

reps and longer ones (there is a difference between running a 40m

dash with high lactate and feeling it shooting up in a 150+m run),

furthermore, if it's true that you can get high levels of lactate from

shorter reps, the number of reps and the intensity required would make

it a very taxing session for the CNS.

I think it's hard to transfer the very same training philosophies we

use for strength training to short sprints: there are technical,

physiological and psycological components that make this not so

fruitful.

Francis' approach is a system that, in my opinion, we can't just take

in parts, without the enphasis he puts on regenerative methods, it

brings rapidly to CNS burnouts.

Hope this helps.

Best,

Carlo Buzzichelli

Siena, Italy