Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

Hi all,
This is a question for anyone with coaching experiance or some runners who could share their coaches philosophy with me.

I'm a high school track athlete (my main event is LJ, but this question pertains alot towards sprinters), our indoor season starts on friday, but our team isn't going to an indoor meet until March 13th. Outdoor season starts the first week of May. We have a new coach this year who says right now we shouldn't work hard. He seems to be worried about us burning out by the end of the year. I disagree with this, because the past couple years we worked very hard in the off season and I peaked at the league meet. Could anyone tell me if I'm wrong for disagreeing. I've always been told it's important to work hard in the off season as you can't work as hard when you have 2 meets a week during the regualr season.

PS a typical workout week for us is
Mon- mid sprints easy pace (200's or 300's) then lift
Tuesday- plyometrics( for about 20 min) then lift
Thursday- short sprints fast pace (40's-55's @ 75-80%)

I believe this is too easy seeing as we've been working out since jan 1st and the season starts soon. What do you all think?

First, I'd ask the coach what the plan for the whole season is.  There might be a method to the madness that you don't know about.  Second, we don't really have a history of what you've done so far and what you are capable of.

I think you need to look at the big picture of when your important meets are and set up a season plan working back from then.

Finally, my preference would be to move the short sprints to early in the week and run at full speed.  Add in some easier Tempo work on Tuesday.  Plyo's could be done on Monday as they are similar in their energy demands.  I'd also look at number of contacts, not time in the plyos.

Hopefully some other people will chime in as there are plenty of great sprint minds on this list.

Good luck:D

As trackrat495 said, I don't know exactly what your coach is trying to do but without knowing, it seems as if their is no real speed or acceleration development. The runs on Monday are too long and too easy to work on speed development and the short sprints on Thursday seem too low intensity to get the best training effect for acceleration development. Also, whenever jumping is done for a set time rather than reps (as it appears to be the case in your situation….I may be mistaken?), the emphasis is ussually on general conditioning rather than explosiveness. In and of itself, this isn't a problem and I use jumps in this manner from time to time but it isn't directly going to make you a faster sprinter.