Folders |
Using walking (not time) as a guide for rest in track workouts
Published by
As a coach who has, until recently, primarily been in charge of distance runners, I have always preferred to use active rest (jogging) between reps. There would rarely be a workout where I would even allow walking, though that would occur in instance where we were performing much higher-level efforts and I wanted the quality of those workouts higher. (In those instances I found walking would allow the nervous system more time to recover, even if jogging would have cleared metabolic wastes better.) But as I have begun spending more time coaching in the world of the one-lappers, I have had to re-examine the rest between reps in order to get what I want from them in their efforts. Almost always when we read workouts that others prescribe, it is this many reps, at this pace, with this much time rest. For example, 8x200m @28 w/3min rest. But as we all know, some days that workout is harder than other day: sometimes the athlete will get to the athlete at 3min and need an extra 30seconds or so, and vice-versa there are days where that athlete will be ready to go a little quicker than expected. It's easy to make those adjustments when you're administering only one workout. But in the cases where there are multiple workouts going on at once, it becomes more difficult to manage stopwatches and check rest times. Recently I have really started liking a set distance walking as a guide for the rest with my sprinters, rather than a set time. Here are the reasons:
As I have been doing workouts like this, it has helped remind me to examine my 'tried and true' distance workouts. For example, I've always liked doing sets of 5x200m w/100m jog at mile pace for my mid-distance athletes. However, with a few of my athletes here, ESPECIALLY those coming from a sprinting background where jogging is not the norm for them, their jogs were much slower than I wanted. It wasn't that they weren't recovering in 100m worth of jogging, it was just that they were jogging much too slowly. In those instances, I've learned that doing 4-5x200m with a 50m jog got me the same 'time' I was looking for... and without beating my head against a wall by yelling more during the rest time than during the workout portion. Send your comments/arguments/discussions... RIAA, Coach Matt
|