Sprint training - Long to short or short to Long?

ecoli

Hopefully there are enough lurkers to generate a good training thread (been a while since a since a good debate pop up)

Sprinters, what approach do you take starting short working on acceleration and running form progressing to target distance or do you start long and work towards higher intensities at target distance coming into competition phase.

RandyMann

Hey Ecoli, winter training starts off long for me, along with hill training. As the weeks go on the distances become shorter but intensity increases getting closer to competition phase.
Running form is always incorporated into every week throughout the season, from start to finish.

Chivito550

Winter training this year was very long focused. Every Tuesday we would do hills which built up towards 8x300m with jog back recovery. Some days we would do 4x300m with walk back. We'd also sometimes do shorter reps like 150m or 200m, but this winter it has mainly been 300m reps. The previous winter we used a steeper shorter hill and the main sessions were 8x150m or 4x250m with walk back recoveries. Change in approach this year and we have been doing a lot of our hill work with the middle distance guys (mainly 800m runners).

Every Thursday during winter we'd be at the track. Early winter we did winders which is sorter of like fartlek. 5 laps, 4 laps and 3 laps of jog the bends, stride the straights, one lap walk between each set. Horrible stuff but good for getting fit. After awhile that session gets ditched and the one of choice is 500-400-300 with 10 minute recoveries.

On the weekend I'd do a "long run" by myself. Sometimes a mile time trial, sometimes a 4-5km run.

Winter training is all about getting fit. Early winter my gym routine is about building a fitness base, before going into more power based stuff later.

Once competition time comes around we ditch the hills, I ditch my long run, and we are training on the track Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, with competition on Saturdays. The focus becomes shorter and the sessions a lot more varied. Having said that, training for 400m, rather than 100/200 we still do plenty of aerobic power type stuff during the competition season. Some days we will do flat out 60s, and other days we will be doing things like 2 x 600m, or 3 x (3x200m).

With the way the season is down here, with a break at Christmas time, we usually have a "mini-winter" and go back to the hills for a few weeks.

dna_leri

Not a sprinter at the moment but here's my 2c.

The main discussion about short-to-long or long-to-short is for 400m runners.
Most sprinters can incorporate some element of long to short however there are some 100m specialists for whom it makes no sense. There are very few 400m runners who do not benefit from it.

I think Clyde Hart has probably taken this to the extreme as a coach and had success with Jeremy Wariner and Michael Johnson. Johnson in particular was injury prone until he started backing off on the amount of speed work. Speed work was kept to short sub 100m distances and meanwhile he built up his aerobic conditioning.

Hart would start by doing up to 20x 200s in 40s on grass in winter, which must be painfully slow for sub 20s guys. As the season went on pace increases and number of reps decline, down to 4x200m at 24s.

When I ran 400s a few years ago I took this long-to-short approach but I actually ran my fastest masters 400m last year of the back of 800m training followed by a speed development phase.

The 400m is often considered 40-50% aerobic. However if you take it to be only 40% aerobic for a 44s runner and you fully empty the anaerobic reserve by the end; then if you are running 55s for 400m, those extra 11 secs are completely aerobic and therefore over 50% of your 55s are aerobic. For that reason for those of use running 400m at >50s, aerobic conditioning is even more important.

Obviously raw speed is still important and doing a long-to-short approach does not mean neglecting speed work until the end. Speed needs to be developed and maintained throughout the year.

ecoli

I think there is also a valid discussion for 100/200m sprinters and are great examples of both working effectively and training approaches of the likes of Mills, S Francis, C Francis, Jon Drummond and John Smith.

From my own distance background I can see the appeal of a long to short approach in terms on working overall conditioning of a sprinter allowing them to be fit enough to progress to faster speeds with longer recoveries as the season progresses and the training becomes more race specific. I also agree that an athlete should never be too far away from acceleration work and reps of >50m should never be too far away at any stage of the season

With regards the short to long approach I think that for relative novice sprinters it could be possibly a more optimal approach as the distances are short enough to train the body to become more efficient without the issue of fatigue becoming a factor in terms of maintaining correct form at high speeds.