Question for the Readership 001

Posted on September 8, 2009 by CoachJay

I like Scott Simmon’s take on the training principle of progression. In Take the Lead he adds progression to the common list of four training principles – specificity, overload, recovery and adaptation – to bring the total to five principles distance coaches need to follow. He’s done a great job developing athletes everywhere he’s coached and in my limited understanding of this training I would say he does a tremendous job of implementing the principle of progression into his training.

So here is my question. “What elements of training should we write progressions for?”

I’m asking this because I’m starting to write some progressions, specifically I’m updating the 1st 20 routine (click here for a PDF), keeping the length 20 minutes, keeping the progression of challenging to easy (i.e. produce some lactate in the first 8 minutes then just blood flow and mobility in the last 10-12 minutes) but making all of the exercises reps of 20 so that the athletes can think less.

I am confident that I can write the 1st 20, the 2nd 20 and the 3rd 20 this week. But can I write 1,500m specificity workouts the same way? Can I write long runs for a marathoner over a three year cycle the same way? Can I write 400′s on a 2 min cycle the same way?

You tell me, “What elements of training should we write progressions for?” I will contribute as well, in the comments section, with my answer to the question.

…and one more thing. Should this series be “Questions for the Readers” or “Questions for the Readership”? I’m not sure what to call you folks, but I love ya!!!

This entry was posted in For Everyone and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • PeytonH

    I think progression should be a key aspect of every part of training throughout one's career as a competitive runner. Ninth graders should not be doing the same work as twelfth graders, college Freshmen should not do all that the Seniors are doing, and post-collegians should still aim to progress their workload each year. This applies to total volume, type/duration/density of hard workouts, and each individuals own adaptive rate. For instance, using a good college team for example, I feel optimal progression on a hypotheitcal Tueday afternoon workout would be as follows for Freshmen through Seniors: Freshmen- 60min Moderate Aerobic Run + 10x50m Hill Sprints and Pedestal; Sophomore- Warm-up, 40min Steady State Run @ Marathon Effort, Cooldown w/ Hill Sprints, GS; Junior- Same as Above except 50min Steady State and more intense GS; Senior- Warm-up, 50-60min Steady State, 4x200m @ 1500m Effort, Hill Sprints, Cooldown + GS. This gradually allows one's athletes to develop from year to year, avoid injury as their body's get stronger, and run fastest when they are most capable of reaching their collegiate potential (ie- Senior year)

  • http://atwoodcreations.com/ Mike

    Jay,
    Great question you posed. I read it a few times before I could develop an answer, and after some thought, I have a response.

    I would like to see a steeplechase drill progression, starting with an athlete who has never competed in it before, let's say a college freshman, and progressing to an elite runner (8:30). Chick Hislop has some great drills and his book is loaded with info, and there are a variety of resources available, and while I have experimented personally and on my athletes, I do not have a nailed-down progression for steeplechasers, nor do i have a current assessment to test their ability after a given amount of time, before i can move them on to something a little more difficult.

    what i envision is a series of drills done throughout the year, teaching an athlete how to hurdle properly, how to negotiate the water jump properly, moving on to workout integration, and ending with year-round implementation of hurdles. That's my vision and an on-going project that i stated in 2006, and have yet to complete.

  • Pingback: Latest Blog Entry From Jay Johnson: Question for the Readership 001

  • thomas_t

    Great question Jay, and I don't think I have an answer. I think it's probably easier to write progressions for stuff like general strength than it is for specific running aspects of training. Having said that, some people I think are great at writing progressions for running (Steve Magness's sprint training for example is very clear and self-explanatory–and efficacious I would imagine). But to paraphrase Yogi Berra, Running is 90% mental, the rest is all physical. And, as we know the mind is a terrible thing to waste. By this I mean that, I, personally, as a runner, would hate to know that this week we are going to do x amount of intervals at y speed and know there was a whole mathematical mapped out for me from today to the end of the season. I find no comfort in formula's but I'm an English major so maybe that's just me.

    The more I think about it, a component that Simmons may have overlooked is variety. I think this is where a great coach is like an artist or a great chef: there is the constant need for improvisation.* I think progressions should be more subtle. I think a good coach should be able to write a variety of workouts that progress the athlete but in the manner of a mountain road rather than an escalator (English major, again, sorry). Not that I'm that coach…yet. Anyway, to sum up: Progression–Important, yes. But don't overlook variety. Maybe have a couple key benchmarks through the year so kids can see that they are improving.

    Thos

    *I hope this is making sense, its been a long two day week already and we have a big meet tomorrow

  • http://coachjayjohnson.com CoachJay

    Love the idea and if you email Robert Gary at Ohio State I'm sure he'll share his progressions on steeple specific work with you.

    Great example of something that lends itself to a progression.

  • http://coachjayjohnson.com CoachJay

    Thanks Thos and please know that the english major in you will no doubt help you in your coaching. Daniel Pink's “A Whole New Mind” is a great read and will no doubt reinforce the idea that right brain abilities are extremely important in the art of coaching.

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594481717?ie=…

    Good luck tomorrow and when I write my thoughts tomorrow I'll address the variation issue too.

  • http://coachjayjohnson.com CoachJay

    Should have put this in the main post, but these two posts from Vern Gambetta's blog are important.

    http://www.functionalpathtrainingblog.com/2009/…

    and

    http://www.functionalpathtrainingblog.com/2009/…

  • http://www.highaltitudehealth.com/ drrichardhansen

    Hey Jay, I definately think that progression is an essential part of training for an endurance runner. Too much too fast can lead to over-reaching, overtraining, or worse, injury. Most of the time with progression, we think weight-lifting (eg. # or reps, sets, weight, and decrease in rest). But, I think it has its place when addressing the running aspects of training (namely with intensity, overall volume, length of reps, and decrease in rest periods) and racing (when is an athlete able to move up in distance). Like previous posters have mentioned, a lot of this will depend on the athlete's age and experience. But, I think part of it has to come with ability and durability to handle the load increases without showing a drop in performance. The tricky part comes with which aspects to adjust during the progression and in what order. With beginner runners and long distance event athletes (5k and above), I think the progression has to start with an increase in overall volume before lengthening repeats, decreasing rest periods, and ramping up intensity, and vice versa with middle distance and transitioning runners (high school to college). I don't think you can simultaneously adjust each aspect linearly as bone growth and muscle development need time to adapt to each progression. Variation is, of course, a key component in each progression. I think as the athlete becomes adjusted to the current level of training and prepares to make the jump to the next level, variation at the end of each progression focus becomes even more important to prevent training from becoming stale. The coach's responsibility is to recognize the strengths and limits of each individual athlete, play to those strengths but continue developing and progressing weak areas, and be able to identify when the athlete is ready for the next progression or when training needs to be altered as overreaching by the athlete becomes an issue. But along those lines, should the coach decide to focus on the weaknesses (such as endurance, strength, finishing leg speed, economy, etc) of the athlete while risking progression of the strengths, or focus on the strengths making the weaknesses even more of an issue? I think this is also for the coach to decide during each level of progression and where variation comes in to play. The athlete who has sufficient overall leg speed but lacks the stamina in longer distances can begin to add more tempo and steady state runs as they transition from more intensity to more overall volume in their progression. Likewise, the athlete with better stamina who lacks leg speed can begin to add more speed drills, finishing strides, etc as they progress toward the higher intensity aspect of training. Bottom line, progression is a key component of any training program. With endurance runners, of any age and ability, progression through the various phases and to the next cycles should be event and experience specific to develop both strengths and weaknesses. This will help keep athletes healthy and engaged, as well as prepared for when they make the progression to a different event or competition level.

  • billzeebub

    Jay, as i've mentioned previously, i value training progression as an essential tool in the building of any athlete.

    I love the idea of having mapped progressions for supplementary training elements, such as any strength & conditioning or as Mike suggests, technical work and skills, such as hurdling. I can definately see the benefit of planning progressions for HS teams, as training can afford to be relatively generic for many teams, with alterations and exceptions being made on an individual basis when neccessary. This would ensure that kids did get go through the correct development route, without skipping any steps, just because they may have gone through a huge growth spurt during a semester and is suddenly a different animal in training. If you skip the basics, then it's like skipping the foundations on your homebuild…..yes, the house will be fine for a few years, but it won't survive for long without collapsing.

    However, with older athletes, lets say 16yrs+, i would find it very difficult to use pre-determined progressions for our 'running' sessions throughout each season. It would be virtually impossible to make this work, without turning your program into a one-size-fits-all type program, where you do not allow athletes to explore their abilty range or to ever surprise you with their training results. I like to treat each athlete as an individual unit and i assess them as a seperate case from the others. This allows me to set each one a program that's tailored to suit them as individuals. It's a lot of work and can be a nightmare to manage sometimes, but it works for us.

    Also, unless we're talking under 16yrs high schoolers, i wouldn't encourage anybody to put set limitations on just what an athlete can or should be achieving in training by simply using their age as the benchmark. I hate to see this, as it suggests that the coach does not truely understand what level each individual athlete is at and what their current training requirements really are. Surely it's the training age and current training, racing and experience levels, weighed up against the athletes own physical attributes and training ability that will always determine the what, when, why, how and where of their training program for each year?

    What happens when as a college coach, you sign up a 3:42 Freshman, whose training is already as advanced as many seniors? How many coaches would regress his training just to fit the team's 'progression of a freshman' template? Not very many, i'm sure.

    Great topic…….i'm sure you'll see 100 different answers!

  • http://hamiltontrack.blogspot.com hamiltontrack

    to me progressions fall into several categories…

    1. Large Scale (over a season, year or career)
    2. Medium Scale (over a week, month or season)
    3. Small Scale (over a workout, day or month)
    4. Skill Progressions (introduction to mastery)

    There are times as coaches we are teachers… explaining skills and showing technique, and there are times we are task masters… setting up workouts and following them through…
    The above progressions have to be present in everything we do. The coaches job is to keep the eye on the prize. That might mean making adjustments, that might mean being disciplined enough to keep to the plan.

    With my team we have used the periodization model to map out our entire school year. Using that as a framework we work backwards and create the training goals for our event groups to fit that frame. Continuing backwards we then create the workouts that would achieve that goal.

    We work from simple to complex and from low intensity to high. We keep the athletes focused on the “task at hand” (to quote another great coach) and try our best to explain to them the rationale for what we are doing when…

    I think the GS routines that are from your DVDs and the ones we have created ourselves work great as a progression also. I took those routines and broke them down into the different phases of the training year, adjusting the reps and sets to match the goals of that phase…

    I hope this rambling makes some sense… in theory it is simple, but we all know that “simple aint easy”

    I have posted SOME of our progressions for the General Strength Work here:

    http://drop.io/HamiltonTrackWorksheets

    feel free to take, change, edit and share…(if people like them i will post more…)

    -
    rich

  • http://coachjayjohnson.com CoachJay

    Disclaimer: I've not read any of the other comments as I wanted to answer before my thoughts we're influenced – no doubt positively – by the comments thus far.

    “What elements of training should we write progressions for?”

    All elements of training should have a progression written for.

    “How many of these progression will a coach and athlete follow exactly as written, in an annual macrocycle?”

    None.

    “Then what training elements best lend themselves to progressions?”

    Warm-ups
    General Strength Circuits
    Cool Downs
    Weight lifting mesocycles

    …and why isn't weekly volume, long run volume, threshold run pace and threshold run volume, vVo2max interval volume (and pace from one year to the next), race spacificity volume and recovery intervals in my list? Because these are the things that, as my college coach would often say, need to be “written in pencil.” A pencil comes with an eraser and when the time comes in the season where the coach needs to deviate from the progression, she will – because of the eraser – have an easier time changing the workout.

    Another way to think about this is that the training elements that are problematic if a coach sticks to the progression are the elements where the “next logical step” (again, a term I learned from my college coach) is less obvious. If a kid did a 6k threshold run at 6:00 pace two weeks ago on the track, yet had three papers due by the end of this week then it's not clear what a good workout for her is. And if one of those papers is in a class that the kid may fail, then you could argue that the best choice is to bag the workout.

    …or you could argue that the kid should be able to separate life stress from training and be able to run 6:00 pace for the 6k time trial.

    I don't know the answer, but I do know that in that scenario there is no reason they can't do the GS routines similar to the progression below.

    http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=…

    I'll write a long post on this topic after I've read the other comments. This is an important topic for us all and that, plus the fact that I need to write several progressions in the next 3-4 weeks, makes this an extremely beneficial exchange for me. Thank you.

  • http://stevemagness.blogspot.com stevemagness

    Just my opinion here, but I think progression should be done in almost everything.

    But you have to remember that there are many many ways how to progress a workout.

    It also should not be written in stone or even in pen. I think the one critique I have of Simmons progressions is that they tend to progress in one direction most of the time and there is very little variety.

    Progression allows for gradual adaptation to the stimulus.

    The best way to progress workouts is to start at the end and work back. If a person has a goal time, then obviously he is going to have to be able to do certain things in practice to be able to reach that goal. So start with those key things and then work backwords figuring out how to get him to that point.

    As an example, for specific end for someone running a 5k, my key last workout might be 1k,1200,1200,1k, 600 w/ 1:30-45 b/t at 5min pace. Well to get him there I'll go through a progression starting with short intervals at that specific pace (i.e. 400's w/ short rest in 75) and progress those by extension to longer reps. And in another direction come with alternations of 5k pace and steady, progressively lengthening the specific pace (i.e maybe 5miles of 400 at 75/800m at 2:50ish towards 800m at 2:30, 600m at 6min pace for 4mi). All the while supporting with other workouts around it that eventually tie together.

    I could go on and on about this topic. But I think it's best showed in training. Below is an entire season (formatted horribly but u can still read it) of workouts done by good HS kids. you can see the progressions AND connections for various factors in performance (high end aerobic running, specific endurance, aerobic support, anaerobic support, and strength endurance workouts all have progression of some sort).

    http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B1vfZ7tD21q…

  • thomas_t

    Jay–to answer your final question about the series title, Questions for Readership is probably more accurate since 'readership' refers to a specific audience whereas 'readers' would refer to those who choose to exercise their literacy. Out of the two, however, I prefer readers, in spite of the seeming loss of precision. If you allow me to throw out a suggestion: Question for the Community. Community is more personal than both reader(ship) and you almost get some alliteration in there. Thanks for the well wishes, we took them and ran with them (excuse the pun) and it was a successful meet on many levels. thos

  • Pingback: Mailbag 004