Let me explain, the concept of aerobic base is fine, but the pursuit of an aerobic base can be counterproductive. The key to any conditioning program should be to prepare the athlete to play their sport. Asking athletes who compete in sprint dominant sports (team sports) to develop a ‘base' through long steady state activity can lead to negative physiological changes at a cellular level and to muscle degradation in length, range of motion and overuse. Athletes need to accelerate and decelerate to properly condition the muscles and the muscles need to move in a motor pattern that is similar to the pattern used at top speed.
The obvious question is then how do you develop a base? You work backwards, instead of beginning with steady state running, begin with small amounts of extensive tempo running and progressively increase the amount of running and therefore the amount of time.
Tempo Running
Extensive Tempo
Extensive tempo running is not sprinting or jogging, but it is periods of striding interspersed with periods of walking and jogging.Extensive Tempo is just a slower version of Intensive Tempo. The major difference is that during Extensive Tempo runs you deliberately try and avoid excessive build up of lactic acid. While Intensive Tempo is painful Extensive Tempo simply causes you to loose your breath because it operates using oxygen as the main fuel source, making it aerobic in nature.
Example workouts can include runs of varying distances at around 60-75% separated by short periods of rest, light jogging or walking. A few examples could be:
- 10 x 100 m walk back recovery
- 2 x (100 + 200 + 300 + 200 + 100) walking 50ms between reps and 100m between sets
- 10 x (run 200m + walk 200m)
Intensive tempo
Intensive Tempo is often used to describe runs at 75-95% Intensive Tempo is fast enough to require the body to use lactic acid as fuel. Hence, it can be especially useful for developing the body's ability to operate efficiently under the lactic conditions that occurs during longer bursts of play.Examples of Intensive Tempo sessions could include:
- 10 x 150 -175m with 3-5 minutes between reps
- 20 x 50-75m with 1-4 minutes between reps
- 2x (100m walk 100m run, 200m walk 200m run, 300m walk 300m run)
Note that the rest breaks are short so recovery is incomplete leading to heavy build up of lactic acid. Intensive Tempo sessions are generally the most painful sessions and athlete will come across in training!
From intensive tempo I move towards special endurance or specific endurance for field sports this means a progression to shuttle runs.
Shuttle Runs
Shuttle runs emphasize acceleration and deceleration and change of direction. I use 150 m shuttles using a 50 m course. This means that the athletes change direction only twice and acceleration and decelerate three times in each run. One thing to consider with this training phase is to compensate for the increased muscular stress of the shuttle runs. The progression that this phase of training follows is to reduce the course that the 150 m is run over. Reduce is to a 25 m course, meaning that the number of acceleration and decelerations the athletes makes is increase. The ultimate course that I run the athletes over is a 5-10-15-20-25 m course.
Speed Work
The term ‘Speed Work' describes runs of near maximal intensity carried out under alactic conditions. As a rule of thumb, running efforts of near maximal intensity will remain alactic if they do not exceed around seven seconds in duration and if full recovery is permitted between consecutive runs. However, it is important to note that an athlete's performance level plays a big part in determining what can be achieved via alactic means. Highly trained athletes will be able to run for longer before the run stops being alactic and consequently will require longer rest between runs. Full recovery is required.
Speed work in field sport setting cannot be treated exclusively the same as it is in track and field, straight line speed is important, however the maximum distance that a field sport athlete will cover in an all out sprint is probably around 40 metres. As such the average distance covered is around 15-20 metres. Considering the phasing of sprinting from a standing start the athlete will not be out of the acceleration phase which is 0-20 metres, and speed work should focus on this aspect. Maximum velocity and acceleration mechanics are different.
The speed and agility phase of the program should be broken down into linear and lateral, multi directional speed days. The warm up is an important aspect to consider it should be designed with the either linear or lateral and multi directional aspects.
Lateral movement, the distances covered are drastically reduced. 5 to 10 metres distances will be sufficient; the progressions would be resisted movement though the application of bungy resisted runs. This is important injury prevention as the condition of abductors and adductors hip flexors, will drastically reduce the occurrence of groin strains.
Conditioning Summary
† Energy System Intensity Duration Recovery
Phase 4 Speed and Agility Work Alactic
(ATP/PC) 95-100% Up to 7s Complete (3-15 min)
Phase 3 Speed Endurance Lactic 95-100% 7-15s Complete (5-10 min)
Phase 3 Special Endurance Lactic 95-100% Type I: 15-30s
†
Type II: 30s + Complete or Incomplete
(1-15min)
Phase 2 Intensive Tempo Lactic 75-95% Any Incomplete
(0-8 min)
Phase 1 Extensive Tempo Aerobic 75% or less Any Incomplete
(0-8 min)
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