Review and Preview of Athletics Season


Finish of the Track and Field Season


The track and field season has finished for me this year.  We have had success and less successful elements to the season.  Overall the season was a success for most athletes, with some athletes succumbing to injuries and illness at times when they were ready to fire.

What was the successful part of the season, from my point of view?  I think the periodisation and planning worked, although some tweaking is needed, using the concurrent approach for the long sprinters and middle distance athletes and the short to long approach for the sprinters.

In my mind the following are the benefits and disadvantages of the concurrent approach.

Benefits of concurrent approach
  • ·          Developing the finish capabilities that are required for the race.
  • ·         Develop speed from acceleration, to maximum speed, and finally speed endurance
  • ·         Easier on the Central Nervous System
Disadvantages of concurrent approach
  • ·         Each bio-motor ability is not specifically developed fully due to limiting factors of developing all systems concurrently.
  • ·         Don’t necessarily see the improvement until the end of the cycle.
Some of the tweaking I think that needs to be done, is move away from acceleration and max speed sooner, and ensure that speed endurance is in place sooner.  This season it was in place 3 weeks prior to the main event, although this was partially caused by athletes not being able to train due to study and other commitments.

Moving Forward

Periodisation

This season we will use a double periodisation plan.  The first peak is dependent on the athlete, but will be either November or December, and the second peak is likely to be late March or early April.

This is based on the usual competition cycle, but could change further down the track when more information is released.

Rest and recovery

The athletes are currently in the rest and recovery phase.  Especially for the athletes who have injuries and health issues at the moment.  Unofficial training commences on 9 April, with athletes commencing 4 weeks of transition training.

Transition

Running athletes are required to undertake a points based training session, inspired by former Tasmanian Institute of Sport high performance coach John Quinn.  They have to get 100 point every week.  Athletes in resistance group have to undertake a basic session that they can design by using some basic rules that have been given.

I guess for want of a better way of saying it, I will re-hash the Nike slogan “Just do it”

General Preparation

The emphasis of this cycle, is not the conditioning but on the development of skills and general elements of the bio-motor abilities.

This will be done by having the technical elements of training, whether it is sprinting or resistance technique (or learning) being first in the training session and then remaining session will be development of speed, strength or stamina without specificity to the athlete’s event.  By that I mean those elements are developed in a general manner.  An example of each maybe,

  • Speed – 2 x 4 x 50m (accelerate for 15m and maintain), walk back/reps, 5-8 minutes/sets
  • Strength – 5 x 30m Sand Bags carries
  • Stamina – 20 minute run

This phase generally lasts no longer than 8 weeks.

The next phase is Special Preparation Phase

Specific Preparation Phase

This phase begins to get specific to the requirements of the event the athlete does.  For Sprinters, we will look at acceleration and maximum speed, maximum strength and extensive tempo.  A sample of these maybe

  • Acceleration – 3 x 4 x 30m and 6 x 15 fast, 10 easy, 15 fast, 4 minutes rest
  • Maximum Speed – 2 x 4 x 55m, 6 minutes rest between rep and 10 minutes between sets
  • Strength – Power Clean 3 x 3
  • Extensive Tempo – 22 x 100 with 30 seconds rest
This cycle may last 8 to 16 weeks

This leads into the competition cycle, which I won’t write about in this blog.

Questions?

Comments

  1. JHarris81628 March 2012 at 03:55

    Hey mate, interested to know your thoughts on what you would do in a long distance athlete as track season progresses. 'Hypothetical' athlete gradually increasing volume from 1500m man to marathon man. How would u periodise a season with this athlete gradually increasing volume, when the general idea is to increase intensity and decrease volume in the later phases of a season.

    ReplyDelete
  2. darren_alomes29 March 2012 at 02:31

    To be honest I am not sure you could do either 1500m or marathon justice.

    A 1500m runner could feasibly look at running a good 10km road race or cross country race. A marathon runner could probably go down to a 10km road race or cross country race. I think the marathon approach is probably the better option out of the two.

    Let’s get back to your question. The assumption I am going to use is the athlete has mileage behind them in training.

    I think the concurrent approach could be used to structure the plan to run accordingly, but as I said above I am not sure the athlete would achieve their best performance in either event.

    Let’s have a look at how I might structure it. Let’s break the season into 2, with the 1500m peak in the first 6 months, and the marathon being at the end of the training year.

    Transition 1

    2 weeks of 100 points system, the sessions would be different in each block

    General Preparation 1

    6 weeks

    Speed Session might be
    6 x run throughs
    2 x 4 x 400m, fast run for 100m, than run 300m
    Strength Session might be bodyweight and gymnastic session
    Stamina 30-45 minutes

    Specific Preparation Phase 1

    16 weeks

    Accelerations 6 x Run-throughs
    Speed 400, 600, 800, 800, 600, 400; with double the time recovery
    Stamina 40-75 minutes

    Competition 1

    2 Weeks

    Transition 2

    1 week of 100 points

    General Preparation Phase 2

    3 weeks

    Speed Session might be
    6 x run throughs
    2 x 4 x 600m, fast run for 100m, run 300m, fast run 100m, run 100m
    Strength Session might be bodyweight and gymnastic session
    Stamina 40 – 75 minutes

    Specific Preparation Phase 2

    20 weeks

    Speed Sessions might range from
    5 x 2000m to a 10km race
    Strength sessions would most likely be continuous circuit type sessions, involving bodyweight, hills and light external resistance.
    Stamina would range from 45 minutes to 3 hours

    Competition

    2 weeks

    I think the closer you get to the extremities of speed or stamina the less of the other you need. By that I mean a 60m racer would need minimal cardio session and would probably not even do continuous cardio session, whereas a marathon or ultra-marathoner speed session might be a fartlek session.

    What do you think?

    ReplyDelete
  3. JHarris81630 March 2012 at 03:05

    Should have clarified that the athlete wants nothing to do with running 1500m, that is just the background, as is the case in most young distance athletes.

    Say the athletes best racing distance is 5-10km, with the goal to run a marathon in say 4 years. Would you increase this in a linear fashion over the 4 years?

    Assuming volume is directly related to marathon performance, and that the athlete has just 1 transition phase following track season.

    Athlete adapts to x volume which is suited to a half marathon over winter. Do you continue to increase this volume throughout a track season and sacrifice potential 5km/10km times with the long term goal in mind, or would you increase intensity in the track season to run a great 5/10km, with a greater jump in volume the following winter?

    Example
    scenario 1: winter 1 ave-140km/week, track 1- ave- 150km/week winter 2- ave 160km/week

    scenario 2: Winter 1 ave- 140km/week, track 1- ave- 120km/week winter 2 ave- 160km/week...

    Hope this explains my thought process better.. Completely agree on how hard it would be to try and run an elite 1500 and marathon. Similar to running a sub 11 100m and a sub 30 10km (not going to happen)

    ReplyDelete
  4. darren_alomes30 March 2012 at 22:11

    I would probably look at performing in the 5-10km races in the season, and perhaps the next season focus on the 10km (with 5km a secondary event).

    Even though linear increase in volume is unlikely that would be my aim, but at a lesser amount of change. Your two examples I would take scenario 2 but probably look at winter 2 being 150 (maybe 155).

    Have a look at this info from Tony Benson

    http://www.benson.com.au/downloads/chp22mar.pdf

    Remember I coach sprinters and middle distance athletes, so what I would do is based off power and speed events.

    ReplyDelete

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