Scipo,
Was that the 400 Meters or the 440 yard dash you ran? In 69’ didn’t they use a quarter mile track? I know they did when I ran in 72’ adn 73’.
Bicep~
There is a ton of information here and a lot of it is pretty good.
I coached the 400 and 4x4 for 8 years (6 high school and 2 college) before gettinga job that could actually pay the bills.
The best way to train for the 400 is to RUN the 400. Not saying that you drop speed days (ladders, 200 repeats) or endurance days (hi ladders, 8s, fartleks). But the only way to REALLY be ready for 400 races is to train at 400m at close to race pace for multiple reps. Mix in other workouts to build your stength and inncrease your turnover but make the bul of your workouts actual 400s.
I was a 5’5" stocky white kid training to run against 6’1" gazel looking black guys. My first ‘quarter’ coach ran us to death, here are some of the ‘accesory workouts’ as he called them:
~16x200 @26 sec with 90 sec rest
~50, quick jog 50, 100, quick jog 100…up to 400 and back down (that’s 2100 meters one way)
~20x100 sprint, 10 pushups after each rep, no break till after number 10
~big ladder:1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2,1
Every workout started with a minimum 1/2 mile quick warmup, except ‘400 days’.
They consisted of 4x400 at slightly sub race pace with approximately 5 minutes rest between reps.
We puked a lot (I learned to eat earlier in the AFTERNOON), ached a lot, and called him a sadist BUT it got everything out of us that our bodies could muster and got me down to a 51 and change 400 PR.
Good luck. Hope some of this helps~
Sprout
One more thing…don’t overtrain, give your body the rest it needs.
The workouts should shock your system (like lifting does) so it learns how to overcome and become faster and stronger. BUT it can’t do that if you don’t have off days and get the rest and nutrition you need.
…
yea, this is all just suggestions and ideas, not saying this is the Way or anything.
I definitely, and always agree on the overtraining part. In my HS, as well as most, I believe many many teams overtrain. A typical season usually involves a league meet on the weekday and an Invitational on the weekend. So these 2 would count as “speed work” as your going all out. Heres a brief example of our teams week.
Mon- speed 10x400s at 63-65s,
Tue- light distance, easy pace 3,4or 5 miles
Wed- meet
Thu- workout 6x300s?
Fri- distance 4or 5 miles
Sat- meet
that in my mind is tons of speed work all week. Also, when i said distance, for a 400m runner, I dont mean DISTANCE. Something like an easy 3 miles or so. Definitely no more than 5 miles unless you have more of a thinner frame and you can handle the distance.
But definitely I am biased as I am a distance runner, but I am no way saying totally fall into my side of running. Theres always bits and pieces of everything you pick up and the right combination for YOU will work.
and all of the other guys who are coaches, probably have more experience with athletes, but sometimes, I feel that the coaches need good feedback from the athletes, and they forget how it is to run and train. Our coaches sometimes seem like they are stuck in their mindset and push us through and end up pushing us too hard and into injuries. … but thats just my experience with my coaches.
Listen to the guys here they have great information.
i agree with sonik as far as coaches and athletes needing to liten to input from one another
as you develope as an athlete you need to get in tune with your running, recognizing what your weaknesses are and relaying that to your coach, who should already be on the same page with you
whether you are working with a coach or on your own, you need to listen to your body,take rest when it is needed and pick it up when you feel yourself get past plateaus
as far as workouts go, like lifting, there are thousand of ideas and variations
so find something, try it and if it gives you results stick with it
in 8 years i never gave a workout that i either didn’t or couldn’t finish
as i got older i couldn’t finish them as fast as my kids but i could always get through them
hell of a motivation factor, nobody wants to quit on a workout that their coach can do
good luck bicep and let us know how things workout
sprout
Check out this website. This is where CT is selling his current book. www.charliefrancis.com this might help.
I am a “serious recreational” track athlete and I coach high school track athletes as well. I am going to share my thoughts on what has been said so far in this thread as well as provide my own training suggestions.
First, I disagree with the suggestion that steady-state aerobic running is beneficial for a 400m specialist. Distance running will improve your aerobic capacity and prepare you for more intense interval workouts (i.e. improve your ability to recover between intervals), but it will do very little to improve your performance in a single all-out 400m effort, which is the GOAL. If you only have four months to train before your goal race, then your training should be as event-specific as possible.
Secondly, I spend a lot of time on charliefrancis.com and, while I think Charlie is a great sprint coach, I disagree with his approach to 400m training. He believes in training 400m runners similarly to 100m runners, which a large emphasis on max speed development and only a slightly greater emphasis on speed-endurance and tempo volume. While maximum speed is a good indicator of 400m potential, I do not think that max speed training is really important for 400m runners because (1) you are only training your CNS to recruit more motor units for a breif few seconds, which does not necessarily improve your SPEED RESERVE, and (2) you never come close to your top speed in a 400m anyway, so it’s not a limiting factor.
Third, you will almost certainly have to decrease your volume and/or frequency of weight training in order to train for the 400m concurrently (as opposed to weight training exclusively).
With all that said, I am going to describe several training elements that I consider the most important for 400m training:
EXTENSIVE TEMPO: this consists of runs of about 100-400m @ 60-80% of best effort for the given distance. So, if your best 100m time is 11.0, you would run 100m about 15-19 sec for extensive tempo. The recovery is short; usually a walk of 50-100% of the run distance. Total volume for a 400m runner should be about 2000m-4000m total. This is an EASY workout used for recovery and aerobic conditioning… it should not be highly stressful.
INTENSIVE TEMPO: consists of harder runs of 80-90% best effort. In a really hard IT workout, you would aim to complete the whole unit of work as fast as possible (i.e. achieve the fastest average time possible). Recovery is longer, about 3:1 work/rest (time) ratio. Total volume is 1000-2000m. This is a much harder workout, and lactate buildup is high. It conditions both the aerobic and anaerobic systems and prepares you for the truly high-intensity workouts.
SPECIAL ENDURANCE: this refers to training for the specific speed-endurance demands of the 400m. It consists of all-out (95-100%) runs of 200-600m (the closer to 400m the better, but other distances can be used for variety) with a LONG recovery (full 20-30 min) and a LOW total volume (no more than 500m-1000m). This is the most important training element; it is what prepares you to run that single, all-out race effort.
I got to go, will post more later
s is what truly prepares you to race.
Biceps, lots of very good info sofar but what is your weak point? Speed or lacticacid tresh hold?
Obviously you have to work on your weakness. For lacticacid training you can try 15-15 as my old coach called it. Run 12 sec at max speed, that distance you run in 15 sec, rest 15 sec, for the time you set beforehand. We usually had to do 15 minutes. We also had to do alot of 400-600 m intervals. I was a 100 m runner so I had to work quite hard for my lacticacid tolefance but managed a 48,5 in the end.
Good luck
Biceps, lots of very good info sofar but what is your weak point? Speed or lacticacid tresh hold?
Obviously you have to work on your weakness. For lacticacid training you can try 15-15 as my old coach called it. Run 12 sec at max speed, that distance you run in 15 sec, rest 15 sec, for the time you set beforehand. We usually had to do 15 minutes. We also had to do alot of 400-600 m intervals. I was a 100 m runner so I had to work quite hard for my lacticacid tolefance but managed a 48,5 in the end.
Good luck
We got high school kids giving out information. haha. Yeah i ran track as a freshman but i didnt like the coach so i quit. haha. I wish i had a dollar for every time ive heard that someone quit a sport in high school because they didnt like the coach or the coach didnt like them. More times than not, if it werent for the coach, they would have been an all american.
Just to add to Belligerent’s excellent post.
Linford Christies 400m runners which include Katherine Merry, Jamie Baulch and Matt Elias never run more than 500m in their training runs.
Mark Richardson the only european athlete ever to beat Michael Johnson over 400m also never ran more than 600m in training.
And definitely the best 400m runners are very fast. Michael Johnson 2 years before setting the 200m WR ran 100m in 10.09!
Just saw two UK 400m runners take part in Superstars (TV programme pitting tops sportsmen of all disciplines against one another) run 10.5 for 100m on tarmac whilst taunting each other during the race!
I didnt quit I just didnt come back the next year, and it wasn’t because of the coach, I decided to focus on football, and just because Im in high school doesnt mean I dont know anything…
its ok. HS or not even if the remark was meant to be humorous. I think we can learn from everyone and everything as long as they have some reasoning behind their “theories” I think belligerent makes great points. As i am still learning through trial and error, I definitely dont know whats the best way especially since its different for everyone.
I do like the point about pure speed, how you never hit full speed anyway, but how about this. Say when you run 11s 100m as your fastest, you use up 95% energy. If you are able to get that time down to 10.5, through strength, form, speed, (and not just a better start or wind aided) and you ran a 11s 100m, wouldnt you use less energy say 90%? and couldnt that relate through the 400m? however its all just theory.
Yea i do agree, with only a few months, you need the most direct approach and maybe doing distance may take too long. But as I believe and according to the Tudor Bompa book im reading right now, doing endurance work does not directly slow down your speed. As long as you do both it can only help you as you keep or improve your speed and or strength as well as increase aerobic.
I like this topic, as I have tried the hands on approach through my own experience as well as my teammates, but now I am seeking science( kinesiology physiology?) to help me progress further into my training. As pure no pain no gain doesnt cut it when you need every advantage. As i believe training smarter may be as good as if not better than just training harder.