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When Athletes Hit a Plateau – Change Distance or Change Training?

Posted: 17 Mar 2011 01:00 AM PDT

Last year, I wrote about the 400 meter sprinter moving up to the 800 meters.

Unless you are a pole vaulter, gone are the days where you can just focus on one event. Usually, you have to double up in events, especially in the High School and College ranks. And then there are relays! Points are points!

So my million euro question for the day is:

What advice do I have in making changes to their event choice OR do I their change training methods?

A common question I get from email is for 400 meter sprinters. When they lack progression over several seasons, do you change from long-to-short to short-to-long (or vice versa)? Or do you move them up to the 800 meters (and, YIKES, add cross country)?

The answer: You need comparable effort tables or formulas.

Let's look at the 200/400 athlete (but this applies to any combination of events like 800/Mile or 400/800 or Mile/3000 meters or even long jump & triple jump, and shot put/discus throw)

Example

You have a male Junior College guy running 22.9 for 200m and 51.0 for 400m.

What does that tell you?

Formula: double 200 time plus 3.5 seconds = 400 meter potential

That means he has the potential to run (22.9 x 2) + 3.5 = 49.3. Even a conservative double plus 4 would give you 49.8. (keep this number in mind below) Add 0.24 and that makes 50.04 for 400 meters.

So, initially, you might start to "panic", thinking he hasn't lived up to his seasonal potential. You have 3 options.

Option #1: Change Event distance: you can argue he should stick to the 200m and maybe add the 100 for speed. You will need lots of acceleration development work from Day 1 in September (or October). Work on short speed of up to 30 meters in the first periodization block, followed by distances up to 60 meters in the second periodization block.

*OR*

Option #2: Change Training methods: you can argue he should do more lactate tolerance workouts, and consider a Long-to-Sort program (i.e. Clyde Hart training), since this athlete clearly has "some speed" (it's all relative). I have no problem with a Long-to-Short program, but you are aware your limitation will always be based on his 200 meter speed (and then potential limited to his 100 meter speed… you another reason to check out the Marc Mangiacotti Master Class).

Just be advised that there are few success stories with running even splits or negative splits in a 400 meters, such as Butch Reynolds or Mike Larabee. Today, Renny Quow is the best example of a successful even split quarter miler.

*OR*

Option #3: Change Coach: Let's not go there yet (** cough cough VCB cough cough **). I'm joking but I'm not joking.

Still confused?

Let's look at some comparable effort tables.

Mercier Scoring Tables

In Canada, we are in love with the Mercier Tables. Don't ask me why.

The Mercier Tables were devised by Daniel Mercier, which are a statistical comparison of all performances in Track and Field. It is used for the purposes of National Team selection and Carding for Athletics Canada (among other uses)

THE TABLES HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RUNNING POTENTIAL. It compares comparable performances and "calculates" your better event for rankings and ultimately position. Because at the end of the day, you want your athlete to finish in the highest position possible and winning medals, even if means Race Walking (to my buddy Don Young, are you reading this?)

Basically, the tables are the weighted (linear) average of the 5th, 10th, 20th, 50th, and 100th World-ranked performances in each event over the past 4 years.

The tables are property of Athletics Canada but you can use the online calculators here:

http://myweb.lmu.edu/jmureika/track/Mercier/index.html or http://myweb.lmu.edu/jmureika/track/Mercier/window7.html

In my example of a 22.9 for 200m (23.14) and 51.0 for 400m (51.24), we get:

200 –> 400: 611 points with a comparable time of 52.12

400 –> 200: 646 points with a comparable time of 22.80

Very interesting results, to say the least, don't you think? Hold on, I'm not done yet…

Comparable Effort Tables

For distance events, you can use the Purdy tables, or use the VDOT tables in Jack Daniels’ Running Formula.

Just to compare, for a 22.9 (using 23.14) 200 meters, the Purdy Tables gives two results of 52.31 and 51.38, with the Hungarian table a time of 51.58.

So one formula says at least 49.8 (or 50.04 FAT), and another one calculates 51.38 [and 52.31], with a third study of 51.58. That's quite a range. (The Mercier 52.12 is based on previous rankings)

I'll save the post mortem analysis for another post, because I think I'm getting carried away. Looks like this will become another one of those Lyle McDonald multi-part articles.

Please discuss in the comments below.

Marc Mangiacotti Speed Training Principles

Posted: 16 Mar 2011 02:30 PM PDT

Yesterday's post on 100 Meter Training Videos with Marc Mangiacotti raised the question:

Who the heck is Marc Mangiacotti?

Here's a chance to get a transcribed 1 hour interview with Coach Mangiacotti and Latif Thomas of Complete Speed Training. It's over 29 pages long which should take you less than an hour to read, depending on your ability to speed read.

There's no "selling" or self promotion of his 100 meter program during the interview. They just phoned and talked track for about an hour. (I do that constantly with other coaches)

You can get the interview, no strings attached, by clicking on the home page and entering your email address in the beginning. The 29 page PDF will be sent to you by email. No strings attached. You will be put on their mailing list, but you can easily unsubscribe right after.

Here is a snippet of the interview to show you the track talk between two coaches. Because it's a transcribed version, incorrect grammar and slang may be present, so be warned.

Latif Thomas: Getting back to the speed work. Can you give us an example of one of your favorite acceleration drills or workouts that you use to develop the technique in efficiency that we talked about a little earlier?

Coach Mangiacotti: Well really my favorite drill that I use for acceleration is a straight leg bound into a buildup. And I generally use the straight leg bound because the athlete is gonna spend longer on the ground and less in the air, just like they would feel when they're in acceleration.

And as they transition into higher speeds and start running, they're gonna start feeling like they spend less time on the ground and more time in the air so it's more like max velocity. So they can understand the feeling of both parts of the race.

And so that's something I use quite a bit. And after they master that I put them in a set of blocks where I ask them to get a little bit bound-y or kind of extend themselves during the first ten meters of the block start. And then start to build on that and move into what we call max velocity mechanics. And by them understanding the straight leg bound first, the feeling of it is gonna make it easier to transition and carry over into the actual race out of block.

And then after they can push for ten meters and then transition for ten meters and use max velocity mechanics for ten meters, as time goes on we can adjust those distances to whatever amount or distance we want them to push transition and use max velocity mechanics later on.

And so for instance, at some point in the year, I'll switch the first component of 50 meters from the blocks. So they'll push for 15, and then they'll transition for 15 meters, which is the first 30 meters which we call the acceleration phase.

And then I can move the final cone 10 meters from the second cone or 15 or 20 meters, whatever distance I want so they'll feel the max velocity part of it as well. So they can really transition from doing a fairly simple drill which is a straight leg bound into a build up into something that's highly advanced.

<snip>

Latif Thomas: Talking about acceleration and transitioning maximum velocity and obviously max velocity is a critical component of the 100 meter race as well, what should coaches be focusing on when it's time to transition to max velocity? In terms of queuing and anything on the topic. And how is it different than teaching acceleration?

Coach Mangiacotti: One of the things I talked about before was that in acceleration we spend more time on the ground and less time in the air and then max velocity is the exact opposite. So one of the things that we talk about is the arms and I talk a lot about with max velocity about their arms because whatever your arms do your legs are gonna do.

So during acceleration we talk about doing arms the full range of motion so that your legs go through a full range of motion. And when we get to max velocity we talk about arms moving from – well I should say your hands moving from cheek to cheek.

So that we get our body in the correct position and our lower body in the correct position to push on the track. So a lot of the times what we're doing is really focusing on what our arms are doing but reminding what we want our legs to be doing at the same time.

And how range of motion can be dictated by what you're doing with your arms because as Sir Isaac Newton said there is an equal and opposite reaction. If your arms are moving through a specific range of motion your legs are going to go through that same range of motion.

Click here to get the full interview Marc Mangiacotti.