In Season Training Overview

The following provides an overview of our training and some specifics about what we do and why. What I am not showing is the complete, day-by-day season plan. It consists of everything noted below and will be posted on our Google Classroom week by week. With this said, I will be adjusting workouts as I go. The workouts may change during the week, the day of practice, or even mid-workout, and will be based on observable variables. I will primarily be looking at such things as where athletes are with their fitness level and how they are responding to the prescribed workouts. Furthermore, not everyone will be doing the same thing each day, as they are not all in the same place with regards to fitness level and/or ability level...and that’s ok.

HOW?

Phase I : Base building. Primarily through summer mileage and camp, but we will continue to build on this when the season starts.

Phase II : Strength phase while continuing to build.

Phase III : Sharpen with speed.

*Each phase will still have components of the other phases, but he emphasis will be allocated/proportioned differently.

WHY?

The following answers are in fairly simple terms, but should provide a good idea for the types of tasks we will do and purpose.

Progression/Tempo Runs: They are great for building stamina, mental strength, and teaching the body to run increasingly faster at the end of a race.

(Up)Hill Repeats: They are an excellent way for runners to build strength, improve their speed, and build their mental strength and confidence in hill running.

(Down)Hill Repeats: They improve your running form, economy, and leg turnover to help you run more efficiently

Long Runs: They allow more oxygen to be delivered to working muscles. You also strengthen your muscles, tendons and ligaments. Additionally, they build confidence and mental toughness.

Maintenance/Recovery Runs: They provide an opportunity to actively engage the soft tissue — muscles, tendons and ligaments — by promoting blood flow without over-stressing muscle fibers.

Intervals/Repeats: They build speed, endurance, strength, and get your legs used to a faster turnover. They also help you sharpen your racing and pacing skills.

Strides: They encourage you to run fast for short periods of time, they help reinforce proper running form without creating an overwhelming amount of fatigue. They prepare you to run faster, both mentally and physically.

Sprints: They will help build muscle and increase your metabolism so you can push through those final miles of a race. Besides the muscle recruitment aspects of sprinting, there are mechanical benefits too. Sprinting provides an excellent platform to work on and improve running mechanics.

Spin Bikes: They allow you to stay away from high impact training, which reduces the chances of overuse injuries without omitting a high-intensity workout. It’s also a great form of ‘active recovery,’ which is an easy exercise session after a hard run that can move blood into muscles, helping them repair. It boost circulation, prevent soreness, and can help relieve it, by bringing warmth to your muscles.

Body Strength Work: They reduce injury risk and to strengthen your stride and maintain better posture through each run.

Running Drills: They improve communication between your brain and legs to help you become more efficient. They also strengthen both the muscles and joints needed for powerful, fast running. improve coordination, balance and to help you become a better athlete.

Dynamic Warm-up Routine: Because it maintains warmth in your body and muscles. It also prepares the muscles and joints in a more sport specific manner than static stretching.