When it comes to designing training programs for
their athletes, people tend to be all over the map.

But if you follow these three simple ideas, you’ll
make your life a whole lot easier and your athletes
a whole lot better.

1. Simplicity

Some people take this to the extreme, i.e., they
don’t actually create a program.

If you don’t at least outline your training goals
for the entire season before the season starts,
you’re not really creating a training program,
you’re winging it.

If you only focus on ’sport specific’ drills and
movements, that’s not a program, it’s just random
drills and workouts. You shouldn’t expect consistent
performances.

You may avoid sitting down and taking the time to map
out the specifics of your athletes’ training needs
because you’ve made it an enormous process in your
mind.

It will be if you try to make it more complicated
than it is.

And, in truth, it’s not that complicated.

The younger the athletes you work with, the easier
the workout planning. And it’s never all that
complicated if you work with high school, middle
school or pre-teen athletes.

Because these athletes always have basic
problems that require basic solutions. Solutions
rooted in all around (not sport specific) athletic
development.

Your 13 year old who plays soccer doesn’t need special
’soccer’ training and your 15 year old who plays
football doesn’t need special ‘football’ training.

What they do need is to develop foundational movement
skills, strength, coordination, speed, flexibility and
endurance.

This approach will make them better at everything they
do.

Some coaches and parents tend to become obsessive about
their particular sport and forget that their athletes
can’t perform the basics. Without the basics,
technical application of sport specific skills is
not going to happen.

They simply won’t be able to do it right. Everyone
gets frustrated and no one gets better.

Keep it simple and cover all the bases.

Click here if you want to get a better handle on the
basic skills every young athlete needs.

2. Flexibility

When planning workouts, don’t focus on the workout
itself, but think about how you want the workout to
affect the athlete’s speed, strength and/or conditioning.

This means that the structure of the workout is
aimed at the energy system you’re working that day.

For example, repeat 200’s can mean a lot of different
things.

At 70% intensity it’s working the aerobic system.
Well coached high school athletes might be able to do 10
or more intervals in a workout, depending on rest time.

At 80-85% intensity it’s mixed aerobic/anaerobic.
Well coached high school athletes might be able to do 6-8
intervals, depending on rest time.

At 95% intensity it’s a lactic acid workout.
Well coached high school athletes might be able to do 2-3
quality repetitions, depending on rest time.

You have to first decide what the goal of the
workout is and then plug in the particular specifics.

Average coaches do it the other way around. They decide
which workout they want to do and then they hope it
does the trick. And that’s why they don’t get
consistent results or improvements in their athletes.

This idea is critical because this understanding
of how different workouts affect your athletes
allows you to be flexible.

I live in a cold weather environment. If I have
repeat 200s at 80% planned and it snows or is 10
degrees out, I can’t really go outside and do that.

But, because I’m flexible and understand how I want
today’s workout to affect my athletes’ conditioning,
I can do something different and still get the same
result.

But if I’m rigidly attached to a particular workout
at a particular distance for a particular number
of intervals or repetitions on a particular day, then
I’m in serious trouble if (and when) weather doesn’t
allow it, kids are sick, excessively sore, etc.

Be flexible and always have a Plan B. And Plan C.

Click here if you want to learn more about how to
keep your workout planning easy and flexible.
 

3. Variability

The natural tendency of our body is to reach
a balance. Our bodies quickly adapt to whatever
stimulus it repeatedly encounters.

If we give our athletes the same warm up every day,
before long, it no longer has the same effect.

We can’t always go for a 2 mile run on Monday, do
10×30m from a crouch on Tuesday, 2×10×100 @ 75%
on Wednesday, 5 x fly 30 on Thursday and Split
600s on Friday…week after week after week.

Here’s a quick question:

Do you understand why I chose that particular order
of workouts? For example, Why not switch Thursday
and Friday’s workouts?

Answer: Don’t do speed work the day after lactic
work.

Now, you can keep the order of workouts the same (if
you immediately knew the answer to the above question
you are on the right path) but you have to continuously
make the workouts more challenging if you want to
’stimulate an adaptation’, i.e. you want your athletes
too keep getting faster, stronger and in better ’shape’.

This requires changing the volume (amount of work done),
intensity (pace of the work done) and density (amount of
rest between bouts of effort).

Not only does it keep athletes from getting extremely
bored with their training (which reduces performance
in and of itself), but it leads to continuous
improvement, assuming, of course, you effectively
address all the variables involved in your athletes’
traininig.

If you do some basic planning in advance, keep records
of workout results and regularly try to improve your
system, then workout planning gets easier and easier
as time goes on.

If you want to know more about the most effective
methods for writing effective workouts, click here.

I used to get overwhelmed by this entire process. The
way I got better was by not trying to hit a home
run with my workout planning right off the bat.

Instead, I just tried to hit singles and get on base.

My athletes got better, I got better and everyone was
happy.

And you’ll experience similar results when you begin
to apply these ideas to your coaching.

To your success,

Latif Thomas

P.S. We covered a lot of information today. And I hope
it helped give you some ideas on how to improve your
coaching.

If you have questions, post them below.

First, don’t forget I’ve posted Week 7 of
my 12 week preseason 400m training program.

You can check that out by clicking here.

I’ve been getting some great questions about
various elements of coaching sprinters. These
are questions we all should have and/or
specifically address in our programs, so
here are a few of them with my answers:

Howard asks:

With the consistent workout examples you
demonstrated, your examples were approx 8
runs consistently. I realize it varies between
athletes, however, moving forward do you
intend the athletes to produce more consistent
runs at the target time before setting a new
target? Or do you manage both times and targets
together?

My answer:

Good question. The answer is both. I have to
manage them together. Just because an athlete
is inconsistent does not mean they are not
getting in shape or capable of progressing
in volume, intensity or both. Most kids have
never been consistently given target times.
They just run. So they’re not thinking about
intensity or pace or thinking specifically
about memorizing what it feels like to run a
30 second 200 *and* be at exactly 15 seconds
at the 100 meter mark. It’s a new skill for
them to learn and like any skill it takes
time and repetition. But they must learn it
so they can do race modeling later or know
how to run, for example, fast enough in a
trial to get a good lane in the final, but
not so fast they burn themselves out of the
final, but not so slow they don’t make the
final or get a bad lane.

_______

Kenneth asks:

How do you record the times when you have a
large group? Do you have each athlete run
individually or are you eyeballing and
estimating times with a stop watch as the
large group runs?

My answer:

I put athletes in groups of 5-8 for my varsity
and borderline varsity athletes. I will put
the lower tier athletes in bigger groups if
necessary. I give each ‘varsity’ kid a specific
time I want them to hit for the intervals in
the workout. I send the groups off every 3
seconds and call out the times as they finish.

If you’re in the second group you know to add
3 seconds to the time I call out when you
finish. Then I either write the times myself
or have an injured athlete, manager, etc.
record the times. Once a kid misses their
time by a certain amount twice in a row, the
workout is over for that athlete and they
either walk for the remainder of the workout
or move on to the next part of their practice.

They already know what is next because I always
explain the goals and parameters of each practice
before it starts, every day.

By looking at these numbers after practice, I
can figure out which kids I gave the wrong
times to and adjust them. I can look for
trends in where kids fell of the pace to
determine if the volume or intensity is too
high (or low) or if the rest is too long or
short.

This is how I evolve my workouts to be both
more effective and efficient because I’m not
just guessing. Well, I am guessing. We’re
all guessing. Those who guess most accurately
get the best results. I just try to minimize
the errors I make in guessing volume, intensity
and rest by keeping and analyzing my notes.
You’d be amazed how much you can learn about
an athlete just by looking at their workout
times, even if you’ve never seen them run.

But it always comes back to testing, retesting
and experimenting with how you build your
workouts.

Got questions? Post them in the blog.

To your success,

Latif Thomas

P.S. Indoor track is surprisingly close! If you
want to do a better job of workout planning
this season, click here for the resource I
recommend.

If you’re more interested in video of the
drills and exercises you’ll use day in and
day out, click here.

 Tonight I’m putting Lee Taft’s feet to the fire
in our webinar on developing multidirectional
speed and agility.

So if you work with field sport and/or court
sport athletes, tuning into this webinar is a
no brainer.

Because I’m going to get Lee to tell you everything
he knows on the topic. And believe me, I known
Lee for years. He knows A LOT.

So if you haven’t registered yet, you can do
so here:

http://tinyurl.com/ybq8rj4

Once you register, you’ll get all the info
you need to log onto the broadcast.

This is my final reminder and if you don’t
register, you won’t get to hear me grill Lee
and make him give up all his secrets.

And what fun would that be?

–> http://tinyurl.com/ybq8rj4

Until tonight -

Latif Thomas

Each Monday, for the next 5 weeks (and a total
of 12 weeks), I’ll be posting a preseason
training program for developmental 400m
runners.

I get so many questions about this event I’ve
decided to share what I’m doing. This way
you can copy it, pick it apart (respectfully),
or flat out steal it. Use it and see just
how much your athletes improve.

Of course, feel free post your comments and
questions below. I can’t guarantee I’ll
answer all of them, but I’ll do my best.

If you want more detailed information about
program design for 55-400m sprinters,
click here.

For Week 1 workouts, click here.
For Week 2 workouts, click here.
For Week 3 workouts, click here.
For Week 4 workouts, click here.
For Week 5 workouts, click here.
For Week 6 workouts, click here.

M: 7 x 40m from crouch, 3 or 4 point stance or
   rollover start

   7 x Standing triple jump

   Lift Day 1:

   2 x 12 – circuit format – rest
   between sets exercises is 60-90”

   Lunges
   DB bench press
   Lat pull
   Split squat
   Dips
   One arm row
   Leg extension

T: 4 x 300m hills R= walk back recovery

   Mile warmdown at slightly faster than
   conversation pace. Last 400m - barefoot
  
   Hurdle mobility

   Core - stabilization

   10′ static stretch

W: 3 x 8 x 100m  R= 45″reps/3′ sets
   B = 15.5 - 16.5
   G = 18.5 - 19.5

   10′ warmdown run barefoot on grass
   @ conversational pace

   Core - athlete’s choice

TH: 3 x 500m R = 5′
    B = 1:25 - 1:29, G = 1:40 - 1:45

    Lift Day 2:

    2 x 8 – circuit format– rest
    between exercises is 60-90”
    between sets is 3′

    Back squat
    DB incline
    Chin ups
    Bulgarian split squat (back leg up on bench single leg lunge)
    Clap pushups
    Seated Row
    Hamstring curls

F:  10-12 x 200, R = 2′

    B: 34 - 35
    G: 38 - 39

    800m barefoot warmdown (walk) on grass
   
    Core - stabilization

    Lift Day 1:

    2 x 10 – circuit format – rest
    between sets exercises is 60-90”

    Lunges
    DB bench press
    Lat pull
    Split squat
    Dips
    One arm row
    Leg extension

    15′ static stretch

Weekly Audio:

Remember: You can steal these workouts and use
them with your athletes. And you’ll be surprised
when they’re running lifetime bests before
the season even starts.

But if you don’t understand why the progressions
are what they are or how they fit into the
bigger picture, results will tail off before
they reach their major meets.

And you won’t know how to continue their
training once the 12 weeks is up.

To discover how you can improve your workout
planning results, click here.

To your success,

Latif Thomas