The last few weeks, I’ve been discussing how my daughter, Anna, dropped her time and improved her speed over her four years of high school.  If you have been tuning me out, you really shouldn’t.  If I got HER speed to improve, then chances are I can do that for your athlete.

The beauty of track is that because of the automatic timing systems, you can get definitive times on each race.  Thus, you can know for certain how an individual improves or gets worse over time.

How did Anna’s time drop so significantly over the years?

Here is what happened:

FRESHMAN YEAR:

  • The two months prior to her freshman year beginning Anna was doing speed/strength work 3x/week.  The speed work at this time was working on explosive first steps and change of direction to mimic what might be met during a soccer game.
  • Anna was trying out for the soccer team that year so two months is a decent amount of time to get ready, but not where her big gains came.
  • Once the soccer season started in August, I did nothing with her.  Whatever training/lifting the soccer team was going to do, Anna did with her team.
  • Soccer ends about late October and she restarts her weight training and speed development for 3x/week.  This will go until outdoor season starts around the beginning of March.
  • Plyometric work is heavy as well as continued work on mechanics and explosive starts.  
  • The goal with the strength training is to increase the strength and power as much as possible these 4 months.
  • When the outdoor season started, she shifted to in-season lifting going 2x/week through mid-May when the tournament starts.  We shifted to once a week at that point.
  • Her PR’s this year were the following: 60M – 8.34, 100M – 12.85, 200M – 27.38, Deadlift for 1 Rep – 185

SOPHOMORE YEAR:

  • Once track ended, she was given a week off and then started 3x/week lifting and speed work for soccer again.  Like freshman year, it was 2 months of this and bringing back lateral/change of direction work for the speed.
  • Beginning of August comes and she is all in on soccer.  Whatever they do for in-season work that is what she is doing.  Nothing at all for track.
  • Soccer ends and like the previous year, 3x/week for strength and speed work. Starting in late October.   Because we were doing more speed work at the school, we would start complimenting at the facility.  Basically, if top end work was not done with the high school team, then we would do it at the facility.
  • Like last year, once outdoor started in early March she was doing in-season work 2x/week.  It would drop to 1x/week once districts came all the way through the state meet.  In-season lifting was focusing on lighter explosive lifting and low volume.  In and out quick.
  • Finished the year at the state meet in the 100M (9th).  
  • Her PR’s became the following: 60M – 8.03, 100M – 12.45, 200M – 25.86, Deadlift for 1 Rep Max – 205 

JUNIOR YEAR

  • She trained for a couple months over the summer for soccer, but opted not to pursue the sport.  So we took August completely off.
  • With no fall sport and track not starting right away, we focused on strength/power development with a couple speed workouts mixed in.  This began the beginning of September.  
  • The speed work was now block starts and more speedwork we could do on a track.
  • We continued to develop the strength and then December created a new strength program to really maximize strength/power development that will help with speed.  The program was heavy weight, longer rests, and plyometrics mixed in.  Still 3x/week.
  • We had 10 days of outdoor practicing before Covid shut it down.  The rest of the spring was a mess.  The kids did some running workouts on their own as I provided, but it wasn’t the same.  Some lifting, but eventually that stopped as well.
  • Finished the year at the Indoor State Meet in the 60M (13th), 4x200M (11th), and 4x400M (9th).  Covid shut down the outdoor season. 
  • Her PR’s were now: 60M – 7.87, no outdoor time for 100M or 200M, Deadlift for 1 Rep Max – 235

SENIOR YEAR

  • The summer began doing some lifting to get back into it and track workouts 4x/week through the end of July.
  • August, she took some time off and got back into the high school thing.  Started full-time into lifting 3x/week and some sprint work on the track 2-3x/week.  If it was someone who really needed mechanical work, we would have done 3x, but being the fall and hers was pretty polished, it was just sprint work when we could.
  • We did 6 months of lifting 3x/week, altering the program to compliment the increased speed training she was doing.  This took us to the end of March right before outdoor season started.
  • In-season lifting we went 2x/week, but kept the volume low yet the intensity high.  I’m talking sub-maximal.  We mixed it with plyometrics to keep the fast twitch firing and I think this was a HUGE reason why times kept dropping during the season.
  • Had to deal with a cold before league meet and a hamstring ache that didn’t last long, but otherwise that was it.
  • Finished the Indoor season at the State Meet in the 60M (4th), 4x200M (State Champ), and 4x400M (State Runner-Up).
  • Finished the Outdoor Season at the State Meet in the 100M (5th), 200M (8th), 4x100M (4th), and 4x200M (State Champ).  
  • Her current PR’s: 60M – 7.69, 100M – 11.77, 200M – 25.01, Deadlift for 1 Rep Max – 260 (with her bodyweight being 120 lbs).

If you notice, when she was playing another sport the focus was on that sport.  But, that was because I knew the 4 months right before track season she would be free to lift and train.  If she was playing a sport in the winter, I would probably have figured out how to get her to lift since getting stronger is key for a sprinter.

There were built in rests, but we took advantage of the time we had to get some solid training cycles in.  That’s how you have to do it.  NO EXCUSES.

Next week, I’ll discuss some of the nutrition and recovery strategies that we did.