Running Times Circuits – Rationale

Posted on July 9, 2010 by CoachJay

I’m fortunate that Running Times has asked me to produce a series of circuit workouts for them. Below is the rationale for the circuits and if you have time I recommend you watch the video before you watch any of the circuit videos. The series won’t come out for a couple of weeks but I will be sharing a password with everyone who is signed on our email list, allowing them to watch the videos on Monday, July 12th. Once Running Times releases the workout I’ll share that video on this site as well. Finally, last spring I did a series of posts that explained how a circuit workout can fit into a training day. You can check out that series here.

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  • Pingback: Running Times Circuits – Parts 1, 2 and 3

  • thomas_t

    Hey Jay

    I like the idea about a good way to come back from injury. A couple questions though: 1) why no jump/plyometric component to the burpies but then rocket jumps? Aren't those pretty plyometric? 2) Suggestion: to make the blog more user friendly it would be nice to have a list of the various exercises in the circuits for easy reference instead of having to watch the videos to copy it all down and then copy it all down again when you lose the piece of scrap paper you wrote it on. 3) Finally: I know you are a big fan of Vern Gambetta, so I was wondering what you thought of this blog entry about General Strength. blog entry about General Strength. I *think* I know why we do what we do in practice, but Gambetta has written more books about exercise physiology than I have read so, understandably, it makes me wonder if what we are doing as a team isn't just “bad movements” with “no discernible pattern.” And a fine time to read it too, the week before XC practice starts. Anyway, good stuff here as always.

    Thanks, Thos

  • http://coachjayjohnson.com CoachJay

    Thanks for the thoughtful comment Thos, which I've come to expect each time I see the duck icon in the comments.

    The thought behind not jumping during the burpies is that the athlete is fatigued and likely not going to pay attention to their feet when landing during each burpie. Conversely, I think it's fair to ask an athlete to focus 5 times, even when they are fatigued, during the rocket jump. So that's the main rationale is don't ask the athlete to focus on foot contacts 10 times during burpies, but do ask them to focus for 5 reps on the rocket jumps. The second issue is that by keeping the burpies sans jump it's a general exercises, while the rocket jump is a specific exercise. So in my mind all of the circuits in the RunningTimes series are comprised of general exercises, minus the rockies and the rocket jumps. Now, are we missing some steps between say a body squat and a rocket jump? Probably. But if you've done the first two circuits several times, and you've done the general strength progression prior to the circuits, then you should be able to jump into 5 rocket jumps (or 10 if you go through the circuit twice).

    No doubt someone will say this is unsound and that those contacts are inappropriate, yet I'm confident that the progression within the circuits is sound and, to be honest, I wanted to put one “sexy” exercise in there so that people would feel like they've progressed to something cool if they got to the third circuit.

    On thing I would like to point out is that people often hop into hurdle drills such as these and don't think of the plyometric component of that work, yet they think 5 rocket jumps are extremely intense. 5 rocket jumps are intense if you've not do some good body weight work before it, but going up and down a set of 5-6 hurdles a couple times a week before your ready, especially in the frontal plane, a plane of movement runners don't move in, is probably a riskier activity.

    Just a thought.

    The PDF idea is a great one. I don't have the time right now but I understand that need. That said, part of me wonders if by doing that I hurt my ability to produce DVDs that are user friendly, with the PDFs included in the DVD-ROMs. Again, the issue now is simply time.

    Third point is a good one and I don't have a good answer now, yet I'll try to come up with one in the coming days and post on that subject. I use General Strength in capital letters all the time and I use it as a catch all term, even though many of the exercises and routines would have a different name. Again, that topic – including a rebuttal of sorts to Vern's post – deserves it's own post.

    Thanks again Thos for your comments – they make the site richer.

  • http://twitter.com/randybatc Randybatc

    I think that Vern's biggest complaint is that “general strength” programs aren't utilized correctly. Its become a catch-all term, that often involves just what your talking about. Coaches copying down routines from others, then just haphazardly giving them out to their athletes with no understanding of the context, purpose, or most importantly the correct form and application. It becomes mindless work and volume with no direction or purpose other than the coach wants to say they are doing general work. Knowing what I do about Jay, I don't think thats the case with him, but for a lot of others, this is completely true. I've seen it way too many times first hand myself, from the HS to recreational to the elite level. As a coach, you must know context, purpose, correct form, etc, for it to be a useful tool. Also, if you know Vern, he wants his plan to have a functional component, in regards to body position, wt, bearing, upright, etc. I thought Vern did a pretty good job explaining his reasoning behind these things myself.

  • thomas_t

    ay, Thanks for the response. I'm sure the girls on the team would be thrilled to hear their moniker for me (Mother Duck) has gained a small amount of internet notoriety. The athlete needing to concentrate on fewer landings makes sense, especially if you look at all the other movements going on in a burpie compared to a rocket jump. What is the physiology behind the neutral landing by the way? I get the idea of the midfoot landing versus heel striking when running but it seems the tendency in burpies/rocket jumps is to land on the toes. Either way, the girls will be thrilled again to learn they don't have to jump in their burpies!

    As far as the pdf goes, I was suggesting just a list in the post, not what comes with the running dvds. Really, its just me being lazy. I need to me more type a about my note taking is all.

    I look forward to your future post. Like I said, I feel good about why we do what we do (and there are specifics to General Strength: back, range of motion; pedestal, posture…) but ofttimes I come away from the functional path feeling like the yogi at the top of the mountain is asking me if a dog has buddha nature (incidentally, a better question is whether a horse has buddha nature since dogs in china say “no” instead of barking and horses say “neigh”).

    Be well, Thos