Week 4 or 16 depending on which ever way you want to look at it, but has a slight change in programming now, only minor but should bring on a few attributes rather nicely that are required especially for the gruelling demands of the 400m. Check Out Week 3 HERE

I’ve seen a few posts recently quoting residual effects of training from Issurin, which is great! Well-done, but I truly hope people have actually read his work in full rather than quoting the little social media meme type images (below as an example table of residual effects).

Not only should you consider your programming around Residual effects, but mostly you need to know how long these take to acquire and under what load and frequency, as an example you can see that Strength can be maintained for up to 30 days, that doesn’t mean only 1 strength input every 30 days in enough to gain the required ability in the 1^st place!  Knowing what secondary elements of training can cross over and support the development is crucial in working out any periodisation.

There is a “trend” at the moment for “Feed The Cats” type of training, this training methodology is great…. For team sport players! This methodology is a minimalist approach to speed, short fast sessions with athlete only doing either a very short acceleration type session or a only less than a hand full of top speed runs of distance as short as 10 yards.

Yes this FTC is being highly used in American high schools, but a few things on that. Firstly, most teenagers are playing other sports and so get their conditioning element from that, secondly, the athletes are only with the coach for merely weeks and also competing 2 times a week, so I assure you doing only short speed work is your only option! For THESE Athletes.  The problem with this short fast intensity training is what we call Peak, the athlete will reach a peak very quickly following this stimulus, the problem then remains where does the athlete go from there!  We can see from the residual effects they are hitting that stim often enough to not lose, but without the supplementary input of training the athletes ceiling has already been reached.(unless….. they are completing the elements of training within another sport) so its vitally important to understand your athletes and FULL training load.

Anyway that’s this week’s ranting of an Old but no so Old, Young but no so Young man!

On to the training week, it’s been a tough one, balancing work requirements this week has been hard tbh, a few things happening that has meant a fair amount of stress and indeed raised cortisol levels, and in order to help myself adapt I’ve increased my protein intake about an extra 70g per day (so no weight loss this week lol).

Important to remember, all warm ups include dynamic mobility drills, some standard activation and proprioception drills prior to some Plyometric explosive type exercises.

Each session always then moves into an Acceleration focus as shown above before moving the main element as written and commented below

• Sunday, Track + Gym. – 8x20m ½ bodyweight sleds (split 2×4, first set ran alone working on shin angle attack and extension, 2^nd set competitive with other runners). Followed in the gym with Hang Cleans (80kg)and Olympic Deadlift (130kg)
• Monday, Gym. – Full Clean 2×5 80kg, Full Squat 5×2 110kg (unfortunate I do have a long standing knee issue which effects my patella and so going deep and heavy is an issue, I changed the last set up for 2 sets of High Box Squat, 230kg and 260kg) Bench Press 3×6 80kg, Kettlebell swings 4×4 35 kg
• Tuesday, Track. – I wasn’t able to finish the session. So I ended up with 3x200m 4min recovery 25.5 / 25.1 / 25.1, 2×150 18.6 / 19.4
• Wednesday, Off.
• Thursday, Track + GYM. – 2x8x100m starting on the minute! No times for this part of the session, 200m fast run 24.1 Followed by Gym, Hip thrusts 3×6 140kg, Fast bench 3×6 60kg
• Friday, Track. – As always as I post this, this session is due this evening. 2x3x300m 4 min recover and 10 between sets (fingers crossed)

Update: 42.7 / 41.9 / 42.3 — 42.5 / 43.1 / XX I struggled last rep due to lane congestion, when kicked to catch up my legs gave way lol

 

Now also worth a mention, the squad for some strange reason decided to start a Youtube channel, I think this is just a way for them to embarrass me, and keep themselves amused ? But it does follow parts of the training sessions and shows that actually we are a big family and have fun whilst also training hard! Go check it out! HERE

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