Its gonna take time to run a sub 50…The 400 in particular is an combination of fitness through the years. You have to keep conditioning your body to build up tolerance levels to lactic,and speed endurance. Cant get no faster in the 400 unless your doing the running.
[quote]djrobins wrote:
JoeMorello.
I don’t think this guy has ever “really ran” yet as evidenced by the 24" vertical.
I’m not trying to be negative, but on a pure technical sense.
I feel if he was able to tap into his explosive power that the vert would be over 30".
Why I said, I felt vertical jump and plyo training will help him tap into the power.
and hopefully it will carry back to the sprinting.
On the previous split times, I’m not lying or exaggerating. The guys at my school never ran as fast as they could, just that the other districts had better programs.
He’ll figure it out…[/quote]
I don’t get the obsession with a 30" vertical. My roommate freshman year of college, who is a D1 decathlete, ran a sub 49 400 and couldn’t jump 30".
I doesn’t seem like improving vert is the optimal way to improve 400 time.
Well lifting weights is like anything you should never just go out and do Max Efforts. If you haven’t been lifting up until now then there is no need for a max, yes you should take your time learn to lift correctly with higher rep ranges 5-10. You will gain strength quickly once you start to plateau or after a few weeks you can worry about ME.
As far as having no weights, its hard to believe there are NO hole in the wall gyms in your area with a inexpensive $30 enrollment student membership.
I’ve seen people do bodyweight exercises accomplish just as much as weightlifting.
Also pushing/lifting cars and Sprint training is great for leg strength. 10 95% 50’s builds leg strength as well as double leg bounding. Just becareful with these things, as it’s not about how much you can do but how intense you do them. Push-ups and One handed pushups will work the upper body well.
Purebreeze and Airtruth -
I agree its going to take concentrated effort over the years to pull all you can out of the 400M. Even then, so many HS atheletes go to college and drop another 2 to 4 seconds…
Some where saying it matter what ages you did it at, I contend it doesnt but being older makes it more likely you are in tune with your body.
The truth is its going to take several years of concentrated effort to get most of your potential out of the race. The same with the shorter sprints.
Some of us are saying, it just might be easier to get faster overall on the short sprints FIRST, and apply that speed reserve to the 400M.
you already have good endurance over these sprints as evidenced by the times, just need more base speed.
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
Well lifting weights is like anything you should never just go out and do Max Efforts. If you haven’t been lifting up until now then there is no need for a max, yes you should take your time learn to lift correctly with higher rep ranges 5-10. You will gain strength quickly once you start to plateau or after a few weeks you can worry about ME.
As far as having no weights, its hard to believe there are NO hole in the wall gyms in your area with a inexpensive $30 enrollment student membership.
I’ve seen people do bodyweight exercises accomplish just as much as weightlifting.
Also pushing/lifting cars and Sprint training is great for leg strength. 10 95% 50’s builds leg strength as well as double leg bounding. Just becareful with these things, as it’s not about how much you can do but how intense you do them. Push-ups and One handed pushups will work the upper body well. [/quote]
Ah! Great suggestion! I remember pushing cars in high school and that really kicks your ass.
There are plenty of bodyweight exercises to do. Obviously, it won’t be max strength training, but its far better than nothing.
If you don’t have access to a weight room, you could just tack on bodyweight exercises at the end of your running workouts. You could also have a hard plyo day, like lots of vert jumps, frog jumps, depth jumps, rather than just bounding.
Some great bodyweight exercises are lunges (these could be walking for like 50-100M, or like part of plyos as lunge jumps), one-legged squats, one legged BW deadlifts, push-ups, handstand push-ups, clapping push-ups, pull ups, all manner of core exercises.
There’s plenty of great stuff to do, but like someone said, there are often gyms that have student memberships. Or if you can just find some dumbbells, then all these bodyweight exercises can be even more effective.
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
As far as having no weights, its hard to believe there are NO hole in the wall gyms in your area with a inexpensive $30 enrollment student membership.[/quote]
I’m in the uk, and not in a big city. There are plenty of lifestyle type places doing ?30/month (pretty much the going rate), but they tend to be very inflexible about not taking out a whole year membership, and don’t all have free weights. I’ve never come across a ‘hole in the wall’ - maybe someone in the uk can advise me on this? I’ll do sprints, hills, med ball and bodyweight if I can’t find anything.
Thanks all for your input.
[quote]djrobins wrote:
JoeMorello.
I don’t think this guy has ever “really ran” yet as evidenced by the 24" vertical.
I’m not trying to be negative, but on a pure technical sense.
I feel if he was able to tap into his explosive power that the vert would be over 30".
Why I said, I felt vertical jump and plyo training will help him tap into the power.
and hopefully it will carry back to the sprinting.
On the previous split times, I’m not lying or exaggerating. The guys at my school never ran as fast as they could, just that the other districts had better programs.
He’ll figure it out…[/quote]
I’m talking sprint times and open 400 hundred times-not splits. You do realize that a 400 split(if from legs 2-4) can be between .7 to 1 second faster than an open time due to the running start? I never saw you referring to those reported 400 times as splits until this last post.
Also what about your statement of a legit, proven 11.8/23.8 guy being able to run as fast as 48.5? You still believe this? This could not happen even as a split.
Though plyo training can certainly be a part of the training, I don’t think that focussing on the vertical jump, primarily, is necessarily going to provide any great benefits since this guy is lacking, by his own admission in pure strength work. One should worry about the power development more after some initial strength work has been done. The typical sequence of power development has intensive strength work preceeding more intensive jump training. Sure some can be done early on but volume should probably be low early on.
You can’t always tell that much about a training background based upon the performance of one test but rather looking at many tests as indicators for future training shifts towards maintaining strengths and addressing weaknesses. For example I had a kid who trained for two years and lifted only in weight training class(I had no control of what he did in this class) vertical jumped only 26 1/2 yet ran 10.90 FAT. There is nothing magical about a vertical with regards to speed. Sure, it can help but actually I believe a slj is more relevant to sprinting and of course, most specifically acceleration.
I think its more likley for a 23.8 200M guy to run 51 to 55 seconds in the 1/4
[quote]djrobins wrote:
.
Some of us are saying, it just might be easier to get faster overall on the short sprints FIRST, and apply that speed reserve to the 400M.
… just need more base speed.[/quote]
I could not agree any more. Basic speed is so often neglected in the training of 400m guys.
Speed reserve can be a major factor in 400 success and of course it, just as you say, is based upon speed.
[quote]el0gic wrote:
As earlier the potential improvements you mention 52-47 would be more likely from ages 15-18 but this guy is 19 and unless he only ran one time for each race and he has almost zero training background you are very unlikely to see such improvements. Not impossible but not very likely even for a “late bloomer”.
Not saying he can’t improve and improve a lot just that is less likely to have an older athlete with a decent training background make drastic improvements. Not impossible but just not as likely as the younger kid.
I wouldn’t say I had a decent training background. Sporty, sure, but I didn’t start sprinting until last october, and that was off-season 400 stuff. There was a year and a bit of xc before that, but no sprinting. So, in total, I’ve run 4 400’s and some relays, then I had to stop because of injury.
Djrobins, thanks for your optimism. I’ll get on the short sprints over the summer.
The reason I was asking about weights to start with was that over the summer, I will not have access to a weight room as I can’t afford it. I can move heavy things around at home, but otherwise it’ll have to be bodyweight. When I start uni again in october, I’ll have weights again, for about 10-12 weeks, then another break (shorter). I’m just not sure how hard I can hit the weights, given that I need to be efficient with my time.
As Airtruth said, I probably do know my own body better. However, I still don’t know how quickly I can start doing max strength on those weights. I know that it’s probably not too much of a factor, but I’d hate to get injured again and not run to my potential.
[/quote]
Just so you understand my point. I was not trying to slam on your dreams/aspirations just trying to keep things realistic. That said, it certainly does not mean you can’t improve significantly if you want to really pursue success and just by being here and posting regularly you have demonstrated that.
I agree that continued work on your basic speed can pay big dividends later and that at times(particularly in an off season or in a prepartory period) a concentration on developing strength can lead to later speed gains. This, especially so, when you have entered into a maintenance phase.
Re:heavy strength training. If you have little background in this you would probably need a(using a linear strategy)a fairly length AA/hypertrophy period. This for the reason(s) you mentioned-conditioning of the connective tissue/tendons as well as provide a base of muscle size/structure for later strength gains. I would guess up to 6 wks total before getting into a max strength phase perhaps carried out ala Charlie Francis with a 3/1/3 approach but no need to really go heavy at this point, just heavier.
If, on the other hand, you have a background in hypertrophy perhaps only 3-4 wks before heading into a strength phase. I have use the following in the past:3-4 wks hypertrophy/3 wks basic strength/2-3 wks hyper/5-7 wks MAX strength(including 1 wk unload) and then into maintenance. If into a comp phase then staying with maintenance if still in prep. phases go into maintenance for at least 2 wks before going back to hyper for possibly 1-2 wks(if necessary) and possibly a 3-4 wk max.strength phase before entering into a likely comp. phase.
You’d likely have to be in a comp. phase at this point if not sooner. Of course which strategy used is largely dependent upon both the individuals’ background with regards to training and how the training year can best fit in with alloted time-competitions.
Good luck to you and feel free to ask for assistance if you need it.
JoeMorello - El0gic.
“realistic” for El0gic is some point greater than he is at today.
I personally say do whats necessary to get to 11.0 in the 100M. He can worry about what to do next after he gets there. If he makes it to 11.25 its still enough speed for his endeavor.
[quote]djrobins wrote:
JoeMorello - El0gic.
“realistic” for El0gic is some point greater than he is at today.
I personally say do whats necessary to get to 11.0 in the 100M. He can worry about what to do next after he gets there. If he makes it to 11.25 its still enough speed for his endeavor.[/quote]
Realistic would be something like an low 11 maybe even a high 10, though that’s likely pushing it, with a number of years to train properly. Unrealistic would likely be anything low to mid 10.
It’s appropriate to set both long term and shorter term goals to bridge the current ability to the potential one. Any improvement in basic speed should help him to come closer to achieving his goals to improve his 400 by creating a better/bigger speed reserve.
Truly no one KNOWS his potential though you can begin to make educated guesses on his potential based upon his current p.r.'s, his training background, and his age.
The good thing , is he mentioned his age, but said he only ran several races.
So he started the speed maturation process and is rather low down on the steps.
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
JoeMorello wrote:
You should devote part of your yearly schedule to some max strength work in the absence of too many other simultaneous physical demands since too much stress of the adaptive resources can limit your gains in any one area.
Good post. What would a week look like for this period of the year?
[/quote]
Sorry for the delay.
The response to elOgic(four posts above this one)would be one way to carry out a strength program for the year or a period of training in the off-season focussing only on strenth work could be very effective.
I’ve done this with a few high school kids in the summer where they were doing little if any other training so they were able to concentrate all of their efforts in this area as well as keeping their adaptive resources available for potentially greater gains.
Of course you could also do the same with a conjugate period with people possessing a bit more training backgrouund.