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Showing posts from 2011

Peaking Performance and Christmas Training

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  I had a great weekend, ate too much food and was spoilt with presents. My last blog was about a peaking strategy that I was using with one of my athletes.  Overall his performance was solid.  He run a 0.40 seconds seasons best in the 400m and an average 100m.  The athletes comments showed that the athlete is improving in what we are trying to achieve. In the 100m he gave most of his competitors a metre or so in the first 10m, but he run a brilliant 10 to 40m.  His lack of top end speed and endurance showed the last 30 metres. In the 400m he run the first 200 metres, around 0.50 seconds slower than we had planned. Most athletes have gone back into a short 2 weeks GPP (general preparation phase) over the Christmas and New Year period.  The running squad have to get 100 points every week, with points ranging from 5 to 25 points.  Below is the schedule, they have 16 options and how many times a week they are allowed to do each session.

Performance after peaking phase

The Saturday just finished was one of the biggest events the Athletics community in Hobart has prior to Christmas, the meet is important as it is the meet to allow the athletic fraternity to celebrate and remember our past greats.  As a person I believe it is important that we remember them. After an athlete had followed a 10 day peaking cycle he came out and run 0.40 seconds faster in the 400m.  His comment was he didn't run fast enough in the first 200m, so he could have run faster.  Unfortuately I missed the meet, as I had another function to attend. The question I need to ask as a coach, did the peaking cycle work? What do we need to improve on? As a coach, it is a learning experience with every athlete as they are all slightly individual. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Peaking

This weekend is the first weekend where my athletes are going in with a peaking phase.  The last 2 weeks the volume of running has decreased by over 50% with a small drop in intensity. The plan is a consistent structure and is based on the my blog post http://darrenacoaching.blogspot.com/2011/08/peaking.html .  This phase there have been some changes in the reps and distance, but only minor. This  is the last meet prior to Christmas and 3 months to the State Championships.  Do they need to peak?  Probably not, I look at doing a peak at this time for a number of reasons, as follows; 1. Chance to see if the the peaking works for the athlete(s).  By doing this, it gives us an opportunity to get the peaking structure right when we need it. 2. Go into Christmas, happy and ready to for the new year, with a good performance - hopefully a Seasons Best of Personal Best.  I found as an athlete, if I had a good performance pre Christmas I enjoyed my Christmas/New Year training much more.

Competition Nerves

This weekend, is the first major competition for school aged athletes.  Fortunately I only have two resistance athletes competing. Fortunately I hear you ask. I am a nervous watcher of track and field when athletes I coach are competing.  As an athlete I rarely got nervous, as I knew what work I had done and what I expected from this training.  As a coach, I watch my athlete get ready for an event and the time between wishing them luck to the completion of their race I have no control, I have to hope we have done the work and reduced the work load correctly and satisfactorily to perform at a desired level. That being said, I have never been disappointed at the effort of the athlete, but sometimes the result has been lacking. So to all athletes and coaches, good luck at your competition and hope you achieve the result from the training you have done

Quotes that I use to inspire me in my Coaching

Quotes that I use to inspire me in my Coaching I have been fortunate enough to have a lot of people to help, inspire and mentor me on my coaching journey. This blog is about 2 quotes that I try to follow when coaching athletes and helping other coaches. The two quotes John Quinn “There is no such things as secrets, it is how you use it (the information)” Mike Boyle “God gave me two eyes, two ears and one mouth for a reason” I tried to find a source for these, the best I could come up for Mike Boyle was by Socrates We have been given two ears, two eyes, and one tongue. This means that we should hear and see more than we speak.” Socrates (469 BC–399 BC) John Quinn came to Hobart as the head track and field coach in the early 1990’s, and as an athlete who was also a qualified throws coach I had some contact with him during his 7 years here.   As is the case, you don’t realise how much of an impact someone has on you until they have gone or as you get older and wiser.   At a coaches meeti
It has been awhile since I posted something on this blog. In previous blogs I posted draft training for a 100m and a 400m runner in the GPP and SPP phase.  This blog is going to step away from this and talking about the planning and time required to organise training for a group of athletes who are entering the first meets for the track, or one of major road races or some who are just training. In the next four weeks I have two athletes preparing for regional school events who are both sprinters (400m and below), a middle long distance runner preparing for the the final 10km road race for the year and two athletes who are training but will lose some training time due to travel requirements for study and work. How do I go about organising the weights sessions to help them individually and to make this as easy as possible to manage.  Ultimately, it comes down to preparation and structuring the programmes to allow as much interaction with all athletes. Training for the all athlete

SPP of 100 and 400m

Following is a week in the SPP of the 100m and 400m.  The sessions now become more specific, and the extensive tempo work becomes higher for the 400m runner 100m Specific Preparation Phase The preparation begins to become more specific, in this term I mean specific in running and specific in developing the necessary energy system to perform. Mon           Short Tempo + Bodyweight                           Do 20 push ups then run, then 20 crunches then run etc…                   Set 1: 4 x 100 @ 70%, 3 minutes rest between sets                   Set 2: 1 x 100, 100, 200, 100 @ 70%, 3 minutes rest between sets                   Repeat until 2000m is reached Tue            Special Endurance                   2 x 150m @ 95%, 15 - 20 minutes recovery Wed           Tempo       2000m                   Set 1: 1 x 100, 200, 200, 100 @ 70%, 100 walk between reps and 3 minutes rest                   Set 2: 4 x 200 @ 70%, 100 walk between reps and 3 minutes rest                   Repeat u

Programmes for sprints

18 months ago, I started writing, for myself, programmes for 100, 400 and 800m.  The aim was to allow me to review periodically to see if my ideas and thoughts now had changed from the previous period.  The next few posts I will post the different phases of training, that I believe need to be undertaken to acheive a level of performance.  The programmes I will post are for the 100 and 400m only.  The 100m is suitable for a sub elite experienced athlete, who has a few years of training under the belt.  The 400m is set up for an athlete who is looking at running 48 seconds and have 3 years of full training under the belt. My reason for choosing this type of athlete is that this is what I would consider most athletes of that type be capable of.  If the athlete is not at that level, or cannot do the training, you can change the programme. But for now here is the GPP of the 100m and 400m Any thoughts and feedback is welcome. 100m General Preparation Phase This general training

Peaking

Peaking What is Peaking? Peaking to me is the ensuring all elements involved in sport are working together at their best.   Sometimes this doesn’t mean that these elements are not at their individual peak.   What do I mean by this?   As coaches we deal with humans, who have emotions, get sick, have niggles and sometimes just can’t be stuffed.   We can control training of these athletes, but only have a minor interaction with the other elements discussed.   Sometimes we can perform above expectations because one element is in superior condition, but to achieve optimal performance we need to try and ensure that the mental and physical elements are as high as they can be and that they work together. The table below, is the structure I follow for setting up a peaking phase for sprinters.   The table was initially developed for a hammer thrower, after reading Charlie Francis. The idea of the schedule isn’t to follow the session plan religiously it about ensuring the structure is in place to