17 year old female; great three months of winter training (bsq 115 >>> 185; 40 yd dash improved .2); took ten days off in late March (vacation); returned and pr’ed in 55, 100 and 200; she started complaining of tightness in quads in early April (after the vacation) so we eliminated BSQ and kept A2G (butt to ground with lighter weights) in the training program; stagnant performances since late April; what could be the problem?
she started complaining of heavy legs so we lightened her training load a couple weeks ago but it hasn’t helped. she looked good in one race yesterday and then by the end of the day she looked like she was running in sand. by the way, her training partner is “on fire” with pr’s in the 100 and 200. they have done the same training except for the 10 day vacation. we are 12 days away from the state meet and i would appreciate any helpful insight to get this girl back on track. thanks.
My first reaction was, if she PR’d after a vacation, and she is tired now, give her another vacation. But I am a bit disturbed by the thought that she can run one good race on a day but not two. This might make sense if you were asking her to run a 400 followed by a 4 X 400, but from what you said it seems that 200 is her longest race. It is possible that she is sick. If not, I guess what I would do (like you, I coach HS girls) is give her two or three days completely off then focus on a normal taper with high intensity (95%), relatively short distances, low reps; maybe one session like this this week and one or two early next week. At this time of year, being fresh is most important, IMO, and that should be your focus with her. With my own team, we have district finals this Saturday to attempt to qualify for State. 4 X 400 is our best shot, but one of the girls has a glute pull and is doing no training this week. Another is sick and is doing no training. As long as they are healthy to run on Saturday, I don’t think a week without training is going to be the main issue. If you have a decent base, I think freshness is paramount.
FWIW, my two 4 X 400 girls who are training did 3 X 150 @ 95% with full recovery Monday, tempo on Tues, will do 3 X 60 tomorrow, tempo on Thurs., rest on Friday.
If she’s gone flat like this, I’d want to know what she’s eating, and drinking, and how much she’s sleeping. And since she’s a girl, I’d want to know what her iron/ferritin levels are.
For instance, could she be skipping meals, not drinking any water, and only sleeping 4-5 hours a day. It may be on vacation she got back to three meals and 8+ hours of sleep.
17 year old female; great three months of winter training (bsq 115 >>> 185; 40 yd dash improved .2); took ten days off in late March (vacation); returned and pr’ed in 55, 100 and 200; she started complaining of tightness in quads in early April (after the vacation) so we eliminated BSQ and kept A2G (butt to ground with lighter weights) in the training program; stagnant performances since late April; what could be the problem?
she started complaining of heavy legs so we lightened her training load a couple weeks ago but it hasn’t helped. she looked good in one race yesterday and then by the end of the day she looked like she was running in sand. by the way, her training partner is “on fire” with pr’s in the 100 and 200. they have done the same training except for the 10 day vacation. we are 12 days away from the state meet and i would appreciate any helpful insight to get this girl back on track. thanks.
A. How often is she squatting?
B. What is her weekly training schedule like?
C. Did you replace bsq with a2g?
I think this partially has to do with another currently active thread, but I would suggest replacing a2g with 1/4’s in the latter parts of the season regardless in fact I think it should progress from about parallel to 1/2 to 1/4’s. Even with less weight on a2g you likely could be doing more work than she is prepared to handle. I would even consider taking out all weight room activity with 12 days to state. It’s very likely she is fatigued and as another poster pointed out another vacation would probably do her some good. Stress, Rest, Adapt it goes in that order. The work needed at this point in the season needs to be the most specific type of work.
I wouldn’t add anything new either, but if she has done some hurdle mobility or a dynamic flexibility routine during the season, replace the weight room with a light circuit of those or basic general strength work which can include some static stretching at the end of a workout.
i found out last night that she came down with a cold over the weekend after a long week of schoolwork (AP tests, pre-calc, etc.). that helps explain monday’s performance - but she had plateaued before that.
danimal: she hasn’t squatted in over 10 days. our weekly schedule has been HI on mon and wed and rcovery on tues and thurs and a meet on saturday. the HI days are pure short to long and we just dropped the volume last week. we use the a2g as a warm-up for bsq - so 2 sets of a2g and then 4x3 bsq. but, she hasn’t bsq ‘ed in over a month (she complained of tightness in quads after squatting so we cut it out).
sbones: i think you are on to something. the stress of school and social life may be affecting her sleep habits? we talk a lot about diet - including getting enough iron. she claims she eats red meat and her diet is usually pretty well rounded.
ex400: yeah - it turns out she is sick. i think i wil send her home today after our meeting to get rested up. we are only 10 days away fromour state meet.
My gut reaction about your girl is she peaked already. The 10 day lay off caused a supercomp effect, hence the pr’s. After a peak, there is a valley(staleness). Your other girl is coming in to her own due to the training over break.
I would make sure she is getting adequate rest. Make the workouts as quality as possible, and keep the volume low.
I think this partially has to do with another currently active thread, but I would suggest replacing a2g with 1/4’s in the latter parts of the season regardless in fact I think it should progress from about parallel to 1/2 to 1/4’s. Even with less weight on a2g you likely could be doing more work than she is prepared to handle.
Even in your example the problem is clearly loading parameters (volume and intensity) rather than the exercise itself. For goodness sakes, OLs DEEP squat maximal loads for 3-4 consecutive days prior to championship competitions and it doesn’t seem to hurt them. Likewise, the week before our conference meet and the week of our super-conference meet (IC4As / ECACs) we have DEEP squatted with loads up to 85% and although I don’t have the super conference meet results to report on yet, but at our conference meet we had almost 30 prs.
I’m with Chad….the forced layoff caused an early peak. This is why I’ll try to get them back to training as soon as possible and modify training to do so.
I think this partially has to do with another currently active thread, but I would suggest replacing a2g with 1/4’s in the latter parts of the season regardless in fact I think it should progress from about parallel to 1/2 to 1/4’s. Even with less weight on a2g you likely could be doing more work than she is prepared to handle.
Even in your example the problem is clearly loading parameters (volume and intensity) rather than the exercise itself. For goodness sakes, OLs DEEP squat maximal loads for 3-4 consecutive days prior to championship competitions and it doesn’t seem to hurt them. Likewise, the week before our conference meet and the week of our super-conference meet (IC4As / ECACs) we have DEEP squatted with loads up to 85% and although I don’t have the super conference meet results to report on yet, but at our conference meet we had almost 30 prs.
I’m with Chad….the forced layoff caused an early peak. This is why I’ll try to get them back to training as soon as possible and modify training to do so.
I never said it wasn’t a loading problem, but to keep working someone who is clearly suffering does nothing but make them worse. He found out she had a cold, likely from a depressed immune system. The cold is symptom or it may be just random, but her load had to be reduced or totally eliminated. Her fatigue levels were too high compared to her stress levels and therefore fitness suffered.
You can agree with Chad all you want, but spring break was at least 6 weeks ago and that’s enough time for at least 1 adaption and a super compensation likely doesn’t explain 6 weeks of staleness.
I am glad your training program works for you Mike, but there are many roads to Rome and mine works for me. I cannot believe that you would continue working a stale athlete at prior loads when it’s clearly not working.
Read my post and stop interpretting what you want to hear. I said there never would have been a major layoff in the first place. I never said I would have worked them when they were stale. Unless the athlete has a neck amputation or some other catastrophic injury the load NEVER has to be eliminated. I’ve likewise never said that I have the only “way to Rome”....in fact I frequently get on ET and talk about how intensive tempo based programs are clearly effective even though they are the polar opposite from my speed-power based setups. I’ll say similar things about other effective but contrary programs.
My contention is when someone makes claims and doesn’t back them up even when repeatedly asked to do so or when people get on here and talk down to others.
so ... we should give her some rest days, add in a couple low volume HI days (95%) and hope for the best. how about ...
W-Off
R-4x1 and 4x2
F-Recovery
S-Off
S-Off
M-4x1 exchanges (120m) and 1x80m@95%
T-Recov
W-Off
R-Pre Meet Training (full warm-up and med ball throws)
F-Prelims 4x1 and 4x2
S-Finals 4x1 and 4x2
that is 4 rest days and 2 recovery days in the next 11 days with 3 days of competition. thoughts?
That looks good to me. When you write “120 M” for exchange practice, I assume you are talking about something like 3 or 4 exchanges totalling 120 M of running.
Read my post and stop interpretting what you want to hear. I said there never would have been a major layoff in the first place. I never said I would have worked them when they were stale. Unless the athlete has a neck amputation or some other catastrophic injury the load NEVER has to be eliminated. I’ve likewise never said that I have the only “way to Rome”....in fact I frequently get on ET and talk about how intensive tempo based programs are clearly effective even though they are the polar opposite from my speed-power based setups. I’ll say similar things about other effective but contrary programs.
My contention is when someone makes claims and doesn’t back them up even when repeatedly asked to do so or when people get on here and talk down to others.
Mike:
I am sorry you feel this way, but if you want you can refer to the literature of Bannister on Fitness-Fatigue models. It will explain the reason for super compensation, and it will also explain why staleness shouldn’t last 6 weeks. In this instance it’s hard to see a benefit with stressing her even more less than 2 weeks from her final meet. In fact after such a super compensation it’s better to rebuild from scratch as fitness was lost, but fatigue levels drop at a greater rate.
If you feel I am talking down to people here I will leave. I don’t want to be considered as such a person and if that is the type of person I am here then it’s best for me and the site. However, I also don’t want to have to cite something on every post either. I don’t care if people accept my opinion or knowledge or even speculation, but I will put it out there and stand by it. I don’t see a huge problem with that unless I am putting someone at risk and I am pretty sure that is not happening here. It’s your forum and site, you decide.
so ... we should give her some rest days, add in a couple low volume HI days (95%) and hope for the best. how about ...
W-Off
R-4x1 and 4x2
F-Recovery
S-Off
S-Off
M-4x1 exchanges (120m) and 1x80m@95%
T-Recov
W-Off
R-Pre Meet Training (full warm-up and med ball throws)
F-Prelims 4x1 and 4x2
S-Finals 4x1 and 4x2
that is 4 rest days and 2 recovery days in the next 11 days with 3 days of competition. thoughts?
You could probably do dynamic flex or hurdle mobility on the off days and even some med ball throws. Nothing too stressful, but enough to keep her semi-active. Maybe even some build-ups on the recovery or off days.
yes - 120m of exchanges. she is the second leg so we try to do 1-2 exchanges with the #1 leg and #3 leg. thanks for the help and something i should have mentioned earlier ... she tied a pr 100m on monday and then 10 minutes later ran a terrible 4x2 leg. after that she was well below par. maybe there are a number of factors at play here ... untimely vacation, illness, too many competitions, lack of recovery time b/w races, etc. all of which has played a role in her stagnant performances.
