Planning for continued progress

Diet and Nutrition
1

Christian,
Due to Tom Myslinski’s article on elitefts.com and comments I’ve read by you have made recently in interviews I’ve read I really began to think about how I should organize to focus on sticking to the basics until a plateau is hit. I’m a sprinter and am making great progress now doing basically:

Track work:
Accelerations
top speed work
short speed (both accel and short speed, i.e. 40-60m)
special endurance
Tempo and stationary biking tempo replacements when I can’t run due to weather
Short hill work on grass @ around 90% (i.e. 20*15m with walk back recovery)

General strength work:
Heavy circuit lifting (involving a variety of exercises and reps in the 6-10 range)
Medball and calisthenics circuits
Extra ab work
Tempo and stationary biking tempo replacements when I can’t run due to weather
Recovery weight room circuit work

In the weight room:
Heavy circuit lifting (involving a variety of exercises and reps in the 6-10 range)
Heavy lifting
A small amount of olympic lifting
Recovery weight room circuit work
I will start incorporating slow eccentric reps at past 1RM since my eccentric strength is very low

“Plyos”:
Light calisthenics involving jump rope and light jumps
Light med ball work

Recovery work:
Tempo
Circuits
Ice baths in season

Diet:
Good

Supplementation:
ZMA
Protein powders
Fish oil
Nervous system enhancers in meets

In this way I have the door left open for a few different sprint methods (i.e. different forms of resisted running), a host of weight room methods (bands, chains, accentuated eccentrics, weight releasers, functional isometrics, cluster training, more RFD work), “plyo work” (the entire spectrum except the very easy, both jump and medball/powerball work), general fitness work (very light jogging, extra sesssions of recovery work), recovery work (same as above, plus use of other recovery modalities including massage), and supplementation (glutamine, creatine, nervous system enhancers in some training etc.)’

Does this seem like the right approach to be taking and does it sound like I will be able to use this to layer in different components to break through plateaus that come up?

2

How do you periodize it all? And why only a rep range of 6-10? Lower reps would help with speed as they excite the nervous system to a much greater extent and increase motor recruitment greater than higher reps. Not to mention they would help with acceleration because of increase in max strength

3

numba,
The “heavy lifting” below that is 5 or less rep stuff and is done twice weekly. I think the heavy lifting cirucit in the 6-10 range helps a lot with general fitness though.

As far as periodization my post was long as it was! I am using all elements mentioned in a scheme throughout the year but that takes up about 70 pages and can be found on cf.com under my training journal. I actually did a sum up for my winter track coaches of what I’ve done so far this year so if you’re interested I could send it to you, but you don’t have to feel obligated since I don’t know if what I’ve been doing is all that interesting.

To Christian,
Just as a little addition to my post I wanted to ask this question: You mention beginners using advanced training methodologies to try to make super gains super fast. I understand this but when the gains start coming with less speed in a sprinting/or any sportsmans career how does one know when to add in another element? I can’t imagine it’s just when all gains come to a screeching halt. Is this the art of coaching and needs to be learned from experience?

Also just as a little note I realized after making my post that I was not including a few things that I do during the training year, including entire categories and subcategories but I am hoping what I wrote just gives a general enough picture to answer the question.

4

Bump