Many years (okay decades) after being a small-college, basically self-coached, quarter miler I now find myself coaching high-school 400 runners. I am unfamiliar with terminology I read here. Can somebody provide a concise glossary of these terms and maybe some thoughts on how they apply to coaching average high school runners. Thanks.
low-to-high, high-to-low, ends-to-middle??
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Participant
Many years (okay decades) after being a small-college, basically self-coached, quarter miler I now find myself coaching high-school 400 runners. I am unfamiliar with terminology I read here. Can somebody provide a concise glossary of these terms and maybe some thoughts on how they apply to coaching average high school runners. Thanks.
I've been doing a lot of catching up myself, reading about energy systems and learning the difference between special end I and II etc. If you don't get all your terms defined for you by the more knowledgeable of the board, post a list of terms and phrases and I'll do my best to answer them for you.
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Participant
Ex400
I'm in a similar setting to you. Here's my takes:
low to high is usually called short to long here. One begins with acceleration & short speed endurance -> max velocity -> longer speed endurance -> special endurance I & II
high to low is called long to short. For the 400, one would begin with longer over distance runs and extensive tempo and gradually decrease the volume and raise the intensity the intensive tempo runs and add in really fast work nearer the end of the season.
I've seen ends to the middle used to describe a program in which the speed work is short to long while the tempo work is long to short. This is what I'm using with my group. In the past couple of weeks, our speed days have focused on acceleration and either short speed endurance or short ins and outs. Our tempo days have been all extensive (75%) and the 400 guys will reach 3000m volume per session next week. After two weeks of that, we're going to start running fewer reps at a faster pace on the tempo days which will lead to true intensive tempo sessions later in the season.
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Participant
Thanks, Bones. Your explanation was pretty much what my intuition was telling me. From wandering around these forums, I get the impression that there is no agreement among the experts on which approach is best.
My impression, from this and other sites and lots of reading and conversation, is that there is something of a consensus around this idea: unless you are coaching athletes with great natural speed, and especially if you are coaching beginners as you and I are, short to long is the better approach.
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