Ask The Coach

 

 

I have been working  on lots of new things for TrackMom.com  during the off season. One  of new features is “Ask The Coach” Ask the Coach will feature various coaches with various perspectives on training and preparing  the Youth Track and Field Athlete. I believe when parents are informed and understand more of the how to of our athletes sport we can better help the coach reach the goals we both have for our youth athletes.When a parent understands what it takes to create a good performance they can respect the hard work  both coach and athlete put in during the track and field season. 

Many youth coaches will contribute to this effort and each new post should bring thought and information to the interested parent of a youth track and field athlete. If you are a coach or know a coach that has something  of value he or she would like to share please contact me at  TrackMom1@gmail.com The only way we help our athletes is to share our resources.I look forward to your comments and questions  below inthe comment section of this and every post I write monthly.

The first article in our new series is from Coach Mike Cunliffe of Seattle Speed. Coach Mike has been the head coach and founder of Seattle speed for 3 years. This year Seattle brought home medals from the 2009  National AAU Junior Olympic Games held In Des Moines, Iowa . His children Hannah and Sam both brought  home National Championships Hannah in the 200m Sub-Youth Division 

100m - 2^nd

• 12.20 meet best, also season best
• 12.43 (-1.4) final)

200m - 1^st

• 24.90 meet best, also season best
• 25.29 (-4.9) final)

4×400

• 3^rd 3:56.62

 Sam in the Long Jump in the Midget Division 

Long Jump - 1^st 16′-10.75″ (season best 17′-1.25″)

 

 Coach Mike is witty, intelligent,and most important progressive  and knowlegable in his approach to training the youth track and field athlete.

 

Training the 400M with Seattle Speed - From the Bottom Up

When asked about training for the 400m, I get into the same discussions as everyone else and hear the same taglines. You need to be fast! You need to be strong! You need to work mechanics! You need to…

Let’s examine the best; Usain Bolt. If I asked 24 months ago would Usain Bolt break the world record if he wanted to in the 400m, most would say probably not. Ironically he ran the 400m as a supplement race to the deuce since 2001 and he never broke 45. At the end of his ‘07 season he changed his training focus for the 200m by supplementing it with the 100m instead of the 400m. And what did he get? Two world records (not including the relay); and this is where the old school mindset of the 80’s and 90’s needs to take notice. Speed wins - every time.

This is track, not soccer. Strong is not fast. Usain’s personal best in the 200m at the end of the 2007 season was 19.75 (June of ‘07 - age 22). Now that is only a .18 improvement since he was a 17 year old (19.93); that is a 5 year span. What happened? He had reached his peak with his current top-end speed. What is the solution? Get faster - raw speed - 60m, 100m faster - 2-8 seconds top-end speed faster - top gear faster - drop your 100m time .4 - .5 faster. I think you get the idea.    

Usain is a 200m specialist, and is the perfect example for this discussion. As a youth he holds the world record in the 200m for the ages of 15 (20.58), 16 (20.13), 17 (19.93) and 18 (19.93). He never ran the 100m at the world level until the ‘08 and ‘09 seasons. Why, because he supplemented with the 400m to make himself “stronger” for the deuce - sound familiar? When I hear this philosophy,(Old School) I hear the Sugar Hill Gang and Heatwave for background music, the late 70’s had some great tunes; OK back from the flashback.  

See here for a complete bio on Usain since 2001 on his world competitions http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/country=JAM/athcode=184599/index.html 

In the last 24 months Usain did not run the 100m to break world records. He began running it to improve his top end speed in order to drop his 200m times (which had been relatively the same for 5 years). He was now taking the bottom up approach. It did not mean he did not do speed endurance work or lactic power on occasion. It meant his 200m was still his primary race, but his supplement race work and thus practice work revolved around the 100m and true top end speed, not lactic power or lactic tolerance which is what you get in the 400m. The results are staring everyone in the face.

Now many people at this point throw previous champions out to make their arguments. None are valid, here’s why. Speed wins. The best 100m runner in history (Usain Bolt) just destroyed the best 400m runner in history (Michael Johnson) in the showdown race - the 200m. And this is very important also; Bolt on average is way faster in the 200, not slightly faster per average race but way faster per average race. If you take a 9.8 100m runner and stretch him for the 400m he will beat most if not all the 400m runners in the world, because he’s fastest.

In fact if you give him the top 400m coaches he’ll probably win gold. Right now we are watching Jeremy Wariner struggle in the 400m because he is racing someone with better top-end speed and he is losing. This is something new for him because he came into college as a 20.80 200m runner from HS; he now has a personal best of 20.17. But he is dealing with someone who has better top end speed (LaShawn Merritt) who has a 200m PB of 19.98. Gold has gone to Silver. When comparing their 200m times this is nearly .2 which at a world class level is quite a ways, 4+ meters. So as they move up - guess who wins - Merritt. Not by much, but he does and he does this consistently. So if we throw in someone running 19.19 (Bolt). Guess who wins - why? - Speed!  

Look at Sebastian Coe from the 80’s - fabulous middle distance champion - but could drop a 400 in a high 46. Think of a guy running a mile with 11 flat 100 speed. It’s over. Coe could run a deuce in a high 21/low 22 something which equates to a high 10/low 11 something in the 100. And he is running middle distance - which results in what? World Class Championships - why, because he’s the fastest (raw speed wise) on the track. Not many mid distance guys have that turn over. 

 

So what have we learned? First be fast then stretch it, now this is important - first be fast. In other words if you are a 400m runner and love the race, slow down, take a breath and develop speed. Take a full season to do so. Be fast, and then begin to stretch it. Now let’s take a look at Seattle Speed and one of its athletes; when we take on an athlete we look at developing them in a 2 year cycle, in regards to medals, records, national championships, etc. we are competitive and like all those things listed, but our focus is more long term - those things are a by-product of training correctly. In the case of the 400 we will take a year (yes a year) to develop someone’s speed. Many of our first year 400m runners you see on the track only have 1 day a week, sometimes 1 every 2 weeks when they do a 400m workout.

The rest of the time is spent with our sprinters; developing speed. They become fast. They run the 400 in meets to “get used to the race” and learn race tactics their first year. In year 2 depending on where they are we move them into more speed endurance work. I did not say lactic work; they are still getting 1 lactic power/30-45 sec intervals or lactic capacity/45-90 sec intervals every 7-10 days like in year 1. Note: pre-pubescent athletes have a lower tolerance of lactic acid and their aerobic capacity is not as high as post-pubescent athletes. After going through puberty athletes (and all people for that matter) get a natural increase in their Vo2 max capacity (8 pts on average).

 

One of our athletes, Jada was a bantam in 2006 and said she wanted to get a medal at nationals in the 400m. So I trained her with the sprinters most of year, ran her in the 400m in meets, and stretched her over the last 8 weeks. This is what I saw: In early March she could run a 14.89 100m and a 1:10+ 400m. Taking the 14.9 you multiply by 4 and add 7 seconds to get an idea of a perfect 400 for a 9-12 yr old. And nothing is ever perfect so figure anther .5 - .75 for a perfect race. So Jada with all things clicking with a 14.89 100 would be at best a high 1:06 - 1:07+ 400m runner. Not good enough for a medal. We need to secure the medal prior to the JO’s. How? We dropped her 100 over a 4+ month window to 14.13. Now let’s take a look: (14.13 x 4) + 7 = 1:03.52 for a perfect race. Here are her times from the JO’s (USATF, Baltimore) that year: Prelims 1:04.13 and the finals 1:04.28 (3^rd in the Country). If Jada was not “made faster” sheer effort would not make her run this fast. In other words, repeat 300’s, repeat 200’s, lactic stacks (250, 350, 450, etc) would not make her “faster” - they would make her stronger but you can only get “so strong.” You reach an aerobic capacity (so to speak) and that’s where you sit. Note: Dropping the 100 time is not done by “doing some speed work with the 400m training” it is done by training for the 100m first.  Then once you reach your goal time you switch to your 400m focus in your training.   

 

Some other world class examples; Sanya Richards, the woman with more sub 50 400m races in history was developed as what as a youth? A sprinter, she was made fast then stretched later in life. Patience was used. What this means is she had fresher legs/less miles on her legs and a much better turn over/was exponentially faster than her new rivals in the 400m. When Sanya would hit that 200m point in the 400 her speed reserve was much better than her competition - because she was faster (not stronger). Being a mid 11 sprinter (100m) in HS she could nail her first 200m in the race at 25.5 and be 2 seconds (1.8 sec) over her top end speed, that is quit a speed reserve for a HS 400m runner.  

 

Natural speed is also present in athletes; take for instance Ana Guevara IAAF profile is here: http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/sports/22news_athlete/wwlp_sports_miriam_mboya_athlete_of_the_week_200901211730_rev1

Someone might say Ana never focused on the 100m and ran a 48.56 Personal Best in the 400m. You are right she sure did. But she did not need to train her speed gear she could run sub 12 in the 100m at will. How do I know? Look at her biography above, her best 300m at world competitions is 35.30 that means she ran 3 sub 12.00 100m in a row. In fact it equates to 11.766 100m x 3 = 35.298. So Guevara in an open 100m could drop an 11.4+ pretty easily.

 

What we have talked about is philosophy/the approach to the 400 not about specific workouts or coaching. What we wanted to show was - in order to hit a specific 400m time - it is simple math based on your raw speed. Therefore to get faster evaluate and train from the bottom up. Seattle Speed’s 400m coaches (Coach Kris and Coach Ted) both were 45 sec 400m runners in the PAC-10. Coach Kris at WSU and Coach Ted at UCLA back in the 80’s; once they make the athlete fast they need to stretch them and this is where coaching comes in. How to maintain and balance the speed that has been developed with stretching it; also each athlete is different. We have a mid distance athlete where we tested his Vo2 Max and it is off the chart. The need for this athlete to do the same amount of lactic work as the other athletes is not required. So he is given more speed/speed endurance work because he already has a huge oxygen uptake naturally. Factor in goals, age, etc.

 

Conclusion: So we are back to where we started. It’s 3^rd grade math - (100m time x 4) + 5-7.5 seconds = 400m time; this is physiological fact. No woman running 12.00 in the 100m will ever run 50 flat in the 400m. If you want to target 50 flat you need to run 11.4+ in the 100m. If you have a unique genetic advantage with a large Vo2 capacity (60+) you could violate this rule but would still need to be an 11.7 100m runner - and most of the population just does not have that type of Vo2.  The 400m is a race which is an extension of someone’s speed. First what is the goal time that needs to be run? Second, what is the athlete’s current speed (60m or 100m FAT time)? Start training accordingly - from the bottom up.  Then stretch it.

 

All the Best,

Coach Mike

Head Coach

Seattle Speed Track Club

AAU & USATF Elite Youth

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3. Parent and Coach Misconduct
4. Ask Coach Henry…What Are Spikes For? Do I Need Them?
5. Who Wins…. The Sprinter Or The Middle Distance Runner?