11. August 2024
Speed Training during Pre-Season - Let's do 10 Sessions a Week!
Speed Training during Pre-Season -
Let's do 10 Sessions a Week!
What sounds like complete madness and is against every speed training advice you will ever here, can be exactly what you need to get faster.
Let me explain and give you some context.
When I transitioned from sprinting to bobsleigh in 2014, I didn’t have much time to prepare specifically for the upcoming bobsleigh season – once track season was over, I pretty much went straight to the mountains to slide.
As I came back home after the first weeks of sliding, I got a few days of rest and recovery in before hitting a new personal best in the 30m Fly.
In fact, I improved my training PB from 2.88sec to 2.78sec, indoor. An average of 39,1kph over 30m
Wait, what?!
I trained to be a sprinter for years and years working with a great coach who is one of the smartest coaches I have ever met and now it took me just a few weeks of bobsleigh to boost my speed?
So how was it possible that in such a short time frame I was able to improve so drastically without getting quality speed training in?
For those who are not familiar with how a bobsleigh season is organized – in the first weeks (October/ November) teams spend most of their time sliding, testing equipment, getting plenty of runs in.
This means sliding 1-2x per day with 3-4 runs per session for 6 days straight, before moving on to another track to repeat the same. It’s brutal for the body.
Athletes spend most of their days outside (in the rain) warming up for the next run.
Here’s a typical weekly schedule for bobsleigh pre-season:
This means 10 warm-ups a week for the sliding sessions alone, not to mention the additional sessions in the gym.
If you’re skipping the warm-up, you’re screwed because even if you’re taking it easy during the pushes, you’re pushing downhill, and gravity will force you to get to high intensities every time so you better be ready!
If you are an athlete or a coach from a team sport like soccer/ football, Rugby, GAA etc. a weekly schedule like this will look very familiar to you during pre-season.
Pre-Season is short and there is not enough time to work on everything at the same time, so you better be smart about it.
“But for Speed Training we need quality stimuli to ensure proper adaptations!”
Yes, we do BUT the reality looks more like the weekly schedule shown above, so there’s no time to recover properly for quality speed training. There must be a different solution to make athletes faster.
If you’re forced to get ready for high-speed running/ pushing downhill 10x a week, you will have to train speed 10x a week. Very simple equation. Without moving somewhat fast during the warm-up one cannot ensure readiness for high-speed demands.
This leads me to the “How” because running at 100% twice a day for 6 days straight will very likely lead to overstimulation of the CNS and tissue overuse, meaning injury.
Finding the minimal effective dose is key.
Here is how I did it and would do it for any other sport.
Speed Warm-Ups 10-20min
Sprinting Warm-Up A:
Individual Mobility & Activation Exercises
Technical Drills
A-Skip
A-Skip for Distance
A-Skip for Speed
A-Switch
Double Switch
Sprints with technical focus @90% Intensity
2x10m
2x20m
1x30m
Sprinting Warm-Up B:
Individual Mobility & Activation Exercises
Technical Drills
Ankle Dribbles
Shin Dribbles
Knee Dribbles
Dribble Bleed
Scissor Bounds + Run-Off
Sprints with technical Focus @85-90% Intensity
3x40m
Sprint Warm-Up C
10x40m Starting at 50%, increasing subjective intensity by 5% each rep. Rep 9 & 10 @90%
There is not 1 maximal effort in these sample warm-ups, because athletes will be highly fatigued due to the high training load. However, the intensity is just high enough to make them faster while minimizing the risk of injury connected to speed training. These warm-ups can easily be adapted to the specific speed demands of the sport, instead of running in a straight line for example, you can set-up curved sprints.