Having problems with message search?
Just an update on some ideas I am developing this year that may be of interest.
Our season ended in April (Australia) and my squad have been in early background training. We have really gone back to basic for the first 6 weeks and done heaps of variety of conditioning activities including:
- sandpit mini-bounces barefoot
- heel/toe walking straight ahead/feet pointed out/feet pointed in
- a large range of hurdle drills - lateral swings, walk overs of various kinds
- backwards step over drill, ankling, forward wall slide drill
- med ball exercises - a large variety
- swiss ball sessions (at home following a video)
- pilates sessions (at home following a video) - great for improving control and mobility. pilates people learn drills faster than anyone else.
- Gym - step ups, cleans, squats, hang snatches, bench, incline bench, woodchops with cable, swiss ball resited crucnhes, back extension, eccentric calves, curls, standing dumbell vertical press, pullups, Roman chaor , russian twists.
- Gym - step ups, cleans, squats, hang snatches, bench, incline bench, woodchops with cable, swiss ball resited crucnhes, back extension, eccentric calves, curls, standing dumbell vertical press, pullups, Roman chaor , russian twists.
- variety of hills - some have been 500m circuits that include some running up hill- some bounding up hill (40m0 some flat jogging- some running smoothly downhill (without overstriding)
- some hills we have also alternated running and bounding for up to 160m with a total of 2 x 30m bound each hill
- early year we do a variety of aerobic sessions and a common one lately has been 3 x 1500m on a dirt trail with a rest of 5min.
- last weekend we went on a 6 hr bushwalk near a tourist city near Sydney called Katoomba. The walk involved walking down into a valley floor and climbing a rocky mountain ridge to a well known isolated mountain having lunch and returning home. this type of activity trains basic stamina and also gives strength. We only do 2-3 bushwalks a year and I consider them great background training without the harshness to joints of long runs of over 20km
This year my squad are going to really mix up the weight training and will be switching from hypertrophy to strength to power in a cycle. We are starting the year with 9 weeks hypertrophy then about 9 weeks of strength focus phasing in to power and then repeating the whole process again. As our peak season approaches we will be in the final power phase. The opinion I have on weight training for MD athletes is that the effect of endurance training on the effect of the weights will be to arrive at a good balance for our event of strength and endurance. The research is showing that if anything the endurance training will have a negative effect on the strength development and NOT the other way around. I also have arrived at the opnion that excess hypertrophy will be avoided by training with good aerobic volumes. In fact the hypertrophy phase may even be the best time to do higher volume aerobic training because of the lower safer loads that are used. We will be during certain periods working to develop maximum strength and also power using higher intensity plyometrics than we usually do. The way i am thinking is that this would be the best time to decrease mechanical loads slightly so that performance can be optimized in the power work and also to avoid injury.
Note: we almost never do weight training for endurance. I prefer to do med ball like that for upper body and with the legs I consider that hills and plyo hills are much better than anything we can do in the gym. Plus we willbe using the EMS devices to add more strength ndurance to the muscles at the appropriate time. We rarely do sets of any exercises of more than 15. Mostly choosing to work under 10 in each set. With the step ups last year we mostly did sets of 4.
The aim is develop good all round levels of fitness and gradually accustom the athlete to higher volumes of aerobic training while improving overall strength levels. Then to plateau the volume for a couple of months and focus on power while maintain good levels of aerobic ability. This will allow the athlete to reach a higher level of "ease of speed" mid year from which even more aerobic strength can be added on to. This is not the same as peaking twice because we are not doing high level anaerobic lactic work and optimizing lactic tolerance (in fact we will be doing a minimal amount of 400/800 pace work that is further than 30s in the mid-year power phase). After the mid-year power phase is over the training will shift toward increased volume toward maximum in mid November which is just before the start of our serious season.
Some coaches would say to waste the mid year not increasing volume further is a mistake. I believe we need to look carefully at the reasons we are doing longer runs and high volumes of training. The reason I believe is to gradually optimze muscle mitochondria and capillarization. This will gradually improve muscle endurance and efficiency. I have recently found another potentially much quicker way to do it using Electro muscular stimulation (www.oztrack.com/compex.htm), the literature says that effects can occur from specific modes of stimulation that may cause significant development of extra capillarization within a week. If this is true then wouldnt it be nice not to have to do 100-200km of running per week to get this effect. The extra adaptation resources could then be put into making the athlete more powerful and more efficient.
Ps. We are having great positive effect using these EMS devices in recovery but have not used them long enough yet to confirm other positive effects.
My squad will be doing a small amount of plyometrics all year and will be doing a hill session at least 2 weeks in 3 until mid November. The plyometrics mostly consists of measuring how far they can go for 6 alternate bounding steps on mondo in racing flats and they do up to a maximum of 5 sets of 6. the focus is on landing flat footed with an active quick strike that is well under the body. During the power phases they will do some hopping and regular testing of other activties like standing triple jump. Hill bounding is also a regular thing. It gives a great glute workout and seems quite a bit less hrsh on the lower legs than any bounding on the flat.
Just in case people are thinking where is the aerobic power work in the next 6 weeks the athletes will doing sessions like
3-4 x 1500m rest 5min , 5-6 x 800m rest 3min, 3-4 x 1000m rest 3min, 20-30 x (30s +jog 30s) doing these sessions I have a number of guys in the low-mid 1:50s, and 6 girls around 2:10 in the 800m
regards
Steve Bennett
www.oztrack.com
Offline 
Send Email