Raider Track's Blog

Sprinter Workouts – Week 3 General Prep Phase March 29, 2010

We’re in week three of our general preparation phase of the season.  Still working on pretty general strength, conditioning, and developing proper acceleration mechanics.  Those of you who watched the video from the email link that went out last Friday saw what proper acceleration mechanics look like.  We’ve got a ways to go, but will work on it every day during dynamic warm up to our speed days. 

The Shrine Invitational served a few purposes for us at this point in our season – 1) it gave us a baseline for the kids, 2) it provided an opportunity to get in a good speed endurance workout – most of our sprinters did 100/200 or 200/400, and 3) it gave the kids some competition, which is always fun.

This week we’re going to do three speed days – a little more quality work since the weather will be really nice and we don’t have another meet for three weeks.

Here is what we’ll be doing this week:

Monday – Speed day

• 7-10 X 25M from diff positions, 2-3’ rest.  Focus on driving down and pushing ground down and away, aggressive arm action.
• Plyos, strength

Tuesday – Aerobic conditioning day

• 2 X General Strength Circuit of 10 exercises (50M jog after each)

Wednesday – Speed endurance day

• 3-4 X 25/25/25M w/ 10 burpees, 3-4’ rest.
• Core, strength

Thursday – Aerobic conditioning day

• 5-8 X 300M @ 75%, 3’ rest  on football field. (We’re increasing volume and intensity a bit as they get in better shape.  This workout works well for both short and long sprinters.)
• Core, strength

Friday – Speed day

• 7-10 X 25M uphill (in neighborhood), 3’ rest
• Core, strength

Feel free to email me at tgorman@trademaster.cc if you have any questions.

Sprint Workouts – Week 2 General Prep (03/22) March 21, 2010

We got very lucky with the weather last week.  Our usual first week weather is rainy/snowy and cold.  With the warm temps we were able to make a good amount of progress on getting the athletes into shape and teaching them proper acceleration and max velocity mechanics.  It will take quite a bit of repetition to build muscle memory, but it was a good start.  I know a lot of our athletes are sore.  That’s to be expected since we are working muscles that don’t often get worked, like hip flexors and abductors.  The soreness will start to go away soon. 

Here are the workouts for the coming week.  We’ll use the Shrine Invitational on Saturday for a third speed/speed endurance day for the 7th/8th graders.  Looking forward to another good week!

Monday – Speed day

• 6-10 X 20M from 3-pt and push up positions (alternate), 2-3’ rest
• Plyos, core circuit
  • Rocket jump X 10
  • Sprinter X 10 each leg
  • Mountain climber X 10 each leg
  • Bicycles X 12 each leg
  • Squat jump X 8
  • Single leg slides X 10 each leg
  • Burpees X 8

Tuesday – Aerobic conditioning

• 2 X general strength circuit (Jog 50M between exercises.)  2’ rest between sets.
  • Push ups – 4 X 5-10
  • Single leg slides (core)  X 10 each leg
  • Fire hydrants (hips) X 12 each leg
  • Sprinters (core) X 12 each leg
  • Up and back (glutes) X 15 each leg
  • Planks (core) – front X 45sec; R side X 20sec; L side X 20sec
  • Side leg raises (hips) X 10 each leg
  • Cobra (back) X 8
  • Squats (hamstrings/glutes) – prisoner X 8; plia X 8
  • Burpees (general) X 10

Wednesday – Speed endurance day

• 3-4 X 20/20/20M w/ 10 rocket jumps.
• Core
  • Side L raises X 8 each side
  • Russian twists X 15 each side
  • Planks – straight X 45sec; R side X 20sec; L side X 20sec

Thursday – Aerobic conditioning day

• 3 X (5-10 push ups; 10 sprinters)/800M run @ 70%.
• 3 X (5-10 push ups; 10 bicycles)/800M
• (10 prisoner squats + 15 russian twists; 10 plia squats + 15 russian twists; 10 split squats + 15 russian twists)/800M

Friday – Aerobic conditioning day

• 6-10 X 100M @ 70%, 1’ rest.
• Core, hip/glute circuit (50M jog after each)
  • Bicycles (core) X 12 each leg
  • Trail leg (hips) X 10 each leg
  • Russian twists (core) 2 X 12 each side
  • Squats (hamstrings/glutes) – split X 10 each leg; 10 prisoner
  • Cobra (back) X 8
  • Diagonal lunge (hamstrings/glutes) X 12 each leg

Saturday – Speed endurance day for 7^th/8^th – Shrine Invitational

Modifications to Week 1 for Sprinters March 16, 2010

Since the weather is so great this first week, we’re going to introduce the field events.  The 7th/8th graders are on a more accelerated schedule than the 5th/6th graders since 7th/8th has their first meet on the 27th – The Shrine Invitational.  We’ll still stick to the workout plan for the rest of this week.  But we’ll have less time for sprinter drills since we’re allocating that time to the field events.

Sprint Workouts for Week 1 – General Prep. (Mar 15) March 15, 2010

Today we start our General Prep phase of training – weeks 1-4 of the season.  Our sprinter objectives in General Prep are to build aerobic capacity, general strength and flexibility, and to begin teaching our athletes proper technique for acceleration and max velocity running.  We’ll also be teaching a lot of technical skills like field events, hand offs, and block starts.  Your kids might find themselves with some sore muscles they didn’t know they had!  I doubt many will have done a lot of work on their hip and glute muscles.  Well, strength in the hips, glutes, and hamstrings is key to being able to step over and drive down into the ground.  The more force our sprinters exert into the ground, the farther each step is going to propel them forward.

All our practices will start with 800M of warm up jog followed by 15-20 minutes of dynamic warm up exercises.  Some of the dynamic exercises are designed to stretch the muscles; others to get blood flowing and loosen up the muscles.  The workout for the day will follow the dynamic warm up.  We will always end practice with 800M jog to warm down and 2-3 minutes of stretching.  The warm down and stretching are important to help get any lactic acid out of the legs to prevent soreness.

Most days we will mix in arm action drills, body angle drills, and speed drills to begin teaching our athletes proper sprinting technique.  Over time their bodies will develop muscle memory for the proper way to run and they will get faster.  Although in the first few weeks some will probably get slower as they retrain their bodies and change their running mechanics.

Here are the workouts for our sprinters for Week 1:

Monday: Aerobic conditioning/general strength – 10 X 100M @ 70% intensity, 1m rest.  5-8 core and general strength exercises with a 50M jog after each. 

Tuesday: Speed day – 6-10 X 20M @ 100% from 3-pt stance, 2-3m active recovery (walking around).  Core and general strength exercises.

Wednesday: Aerobic conditioning/general strength – 5-10 X 200M @ 70%, 2m rest; 5-8 core and general strength exercises w/ 50M jog after each.

Thursday: Aerobic conditioning/ general strength – 20 push ups + 800M run @ 70%; 50 core reps (bicycles, russian twists,etc.) + 800M run; 25 squats + 800M run; Hurdle mobility drills to increase hip flexibility.

Friday: Aerobic conditioning/general strength – 2 X (5-6 X 100M) @ 70%, 1m rest, 2m rest between sets.  2 X general strength circuit (5-8 exercises, jog 50M after each), 3m rest between circuits.

As you can see, we are focusing on general conditioning and beginning to teach running mechanics this first week.  Starting in week 2 we’ll add another speed day.  We look forward to starting off another good season for Raider Track!