Hi guys, long time no speak!

Eventually started training for sprinting again and things started to go well, then got injury, then snow came then picked up flu twice and it has completely thrown things off so aiming to sort it out proper this time. Lost alot of strength, especially consdiering I haven't consistently weight trained since april/may.. Also going to finally try and do something about the thing I struggle with the most- flexibility. Started a journal again because I remember how much having these logs helped me.

Currently weighing in morning approx (70.5/71 kg)

Things are gonna look something like this for next 7 weeks: Weights will go 3 weeks- 1 week active recovery- 3 weeks before I change things

Monday- followed by ems session later on
High bar squat 2's
Partial high bar rack squat 2's
Bench Press 3's
Chin-ups 3's

Tuesday
Circuit session with team (if not at work i will try sesh on my own if time)

Wednesday
Clean pulls

Thursday
Track session

Friday Followed by ems session later on
Behind neck push press 3's
Front squatlock out bounces 5's
Powerhumps
Gymnastic ring dips 8's
Inverted dips

Saturday
Rest

Sunday
Track session/hill sprints

Short jump rope sessions every morning

10/01/11

EDIT: Accidently overwrite this session, it was bollox tho and something like this..

Mobility work

Full oly squat (no belt)
60 x 5
80 x 3
90 x 2
100 x 2
110 x 2 erghhhhhh

High bar high rack squat partials (no belt) -on setting 9-
120 x 2
140 x 2
145 x 2

Bench press
60 x 5
70 x 5
80 x 3
90 x 3
95 x 3

Chin-ups (strict, full hang and full lockout)
bw x 8
10 x 5
20 x 3
30 x 3
35 x 3

Only way is up

I like the look of your training plan, it is very similar to mine and Karlos'. It's good to have another board member doing the same kind of stuff for the same outcome. The power stuff looks good, all snappy exercises with excellent transfer to the track.

WRT to your flexibility once you make a breakthrough on it and see the results it brings both in track performance and lifting ability you will be hooked, Karlos was saying today "how rewarding flexibility and mobility work becomes". We are spending about 30mins at the start of each session working on mobility and it is really making a difference as I am sure Karlos would agree.

followed by ems session

Haha I got one of these for Christmas off my sister, what model is yours? Are you following the Charlie Francis style protocol for it?

Your strength will come back quick I am sure!

haha rilla don't you worry mate, you'll be my bitch again soon enough!!!

coop- what mobility exercises do you go through during those 30mins?
I planned on using the charlie francis protocol for ems but trying to work out how to adjust everything properly on my machine still!! its a NeuroTrac sports XL which isnn't too bad but you should prob get one of those decent globus ones..

Tonight was meant to be Clean pulls but I'm a million miles off them so all I could do was little bit flexibility work and practising technique. Hate olympic lifts so badly Gonna buy myself some oly shoes too to makes things easier and also so can squat easier, gonna set me back like 90 quid though!!!

Flash Sketcha wrote:haha rilla don't you worry mate, you'll be my bitch again soon enough!!!

coop- what mobility exercises do you go through during those 30mins?
I planned on using the charlie francis protocol for ems but trying to work out how to adjust everything properly on my machine still!! its a NeuroTrac sports XL which isnn't too bad but you should prob get one of those decent globus ones..

Tonight was meant to be Clean pulls but I'm a million miles off them so all I could do was little bit flexibility work and practising technique. Hate olympic lifts so badly Gonna buy myself some oly shoes too to makes things easier and also so can squat easier, gonna set me back like 90 quid though!!!

We foam roll; glutes, hamstrings, quads, I,T band.

Stretch hip flexors and quads (not too much but just enough so ROM is good), same for hams

Stretch glutes for ROM and then activate them with sky humps, bird dogs etc

Overhead squats followed by spider man stretches

Thats the usual routine, it's not a real stretching session but I have found my flexibility improving from it.

By the way you won't regret getting yourself a pair of ironworks!

13/01/11

Track
Started off in gym doing some mobility work coz I was hurting so bad from first session back on monday arghhh, never thought would hurt so much from lifting little girl weights!

Fastest sprints on last rep/last 2 reps
30m x 3 1 minute recoveries
5minutes
60m x 3
5 minutes
90m x 3
5 minutes
70m x 5 done in relay style recovery being however long it takes lads to get round (took it slightly slowly)

Ouch! Your hammies are going to hurt tomorrow!

I felt the same about oly lifts. I got very frustrated. My advice is get yourself some lifting shoes (they make a huge difference) and start working on clean pulls, focusing on the 'scoop'. The secret i found is to get your shoulders more over the bar than a deadlift. Then let the hips come up sooner than in a deadlift which will give you the right position to shoot the hips through.

I think RDLs also helped my form, focussing again on ramming the hips through and smacking the bar with your thighs. The up motion is easy and is what most people over-do when they do powercleans wrong, it's the timing and getting hips forward which requires grooming.

For me the spiderman stretch (is that the real name for it? ), glutes and hip flexors are the most useful stretches. Still require more work, but my knee lift is a lot better and i can now squat deep without tucking .

cheers for advice pal, i'm gonna try get my mate to buy some from this shop tomoz near him coz really want some oly shoes for monday! What is this spiderman stretch btw?! lol


Legs are in PIECES, especially my hamstrings. I forgot i had to get missus from training station today so had to skip my mobility work and only do 2 exercises, gonna do the two upder body ones tommoro morning and miss the powerhumps this week. Also missing the EMS this week because i'm just way way way too tight this week back

14/01/10
Behind neck push press
40 x 5
50 x 5
60 x 3
70 x 3
80 x 3

Rebound squat lockouts into calf raise
this is instead of the front squat thing i was gonna do as flexibility too far off for the grip.. was kind of experimenting with is exercise, what you think coop/karlos/anyone else?
Finally got into more of rhythm with it at end, it should be continuous throughout set
80 x 5
100 x 5
110 x 5
120 x 5

I'll do the gymnastic ring dips and reverse dips tommorow and will start the good ol powerhuymps next week

Rilla- EMS is electrical muscle stimulation- there is increasing evidence for it use in athletes in power/speed sports, i'll try upload a journal artical soon...

There are a few schools of thoughts out there with regard to olympic lifting and from what I have found the majority of sprint coaches are against them mainly because they can't actually do the lifts themselves. All the top sprint coaches (Charlie Francis, Dan Pfaff) are big time users of olympic lifts.
From my experience (so long as power to weight ratio is either maintained or improved) my sprint times are directly related to my power clean times.
I am doing a far more comprehensive olympic lifting programme this year with key targets and goals clean and jerk, power snatch and possibly full snatch and also power clean. So long as I keep my weight below 100kg and it is lean mass I am really confident that as I reach each of these targets (especially jerk and snatch) my sprint times will follow.

It may take a few months to get the technique but once you get it you will be hooked. So it really is a great investment of time!

Here is some inspiration!

http://totalphysiqueonline.com/2008/08/ ... -all-time/

Love this vid!

yeah you're right coop, although I think you can replace alot of benefits of oly lifts by slight variations, you can't replace the clean pull IMO... Which is why I badly want to be able to do it.

16/10/11
Track-towing session

75m + 12.5kg chains
75m + 7kg chains
75m + 12.5kg chains
75m + 7kg chains

Longer rest

75m + 7kg chains
75m + 12.5kg chains
75m + 7kg chains
75m Unresisted

Longer rest

15-20m high knees + 7kg chains
15-20m high knees + 12.5kg chains
15-20m high knees + 7kg chains

What is the benefits of towing for 75m? I have always thought that resisted work is for acceleration so anything over 35-45m would be possibly changing sprint mechanics?

its still partly off season training although its is gradually moving over now. Not my sessions, these are coaches session. I find it helps and doesnt actually change my mechanics to much tbh, prefer chains than sleds. Preston track team don't worry too as much about the indoor season (especially early part of it) compared to some other teams i've heard.

Body is fucked after first week back gonna try get a decent massage tommorow. Was also meant to have oly shoes for tommorows session but the shop ran out of my size

17/01/11

Squats were absolutly disgusting! Tops off my shit day which includes losing my fekkin fone aswell arghhh

Mobility work

Full oly squat (no belt)
60 x 5
70 x 5
80 x 3
90 x 2
100 x 2
115 x 1 failed second, gonna be seriously long road back

High bar high rack squat partials (no belt) -on setting 0- one setting higher than last week to suit its purpose better, only gonna do this exercise for one cycle.
110 x 2
130 x 2
150 x 2
170 x 2
190 x 2
210 x 2

Bench press
60 x 8
70 x 4
80 x 3
90 x 3
97.5 x 3 just


Chin-ups (strict, full hang and full lockout)
bw x 5
9.8kg chains x 5
18.5kg chains x 3
18.5kg chains +10kg x 3
18.5kg chains + 20kg x 3

Just used chains for a laugh but they feel much better than plates

What kind of rep range are you planning on working for the squats?

Was today just a tester?

was planning on doing just 2's for this first phase as tbh i should be able to increase a little bit every week for a while co i'm starting off at such lower weights compared to what have done before. Was gonna have 3 weeks/1 week deload/3 weeks then a decent deload before moving on to something like 5 reps x 3 sets then moving weights on move rate of force development stuff.

Why don't you try a similar approach to what me and karlos are doing?

We are waveloading our working sets of 3 reps at a % that allows us to do quality reps every time with good form and good speed. This has better carry over due to the speed of recruitment but also because you aren't fatiguing yourself every session. I am really enjoying this set up and can feel how cutting out grinders and increasing the amount of good quality sets is going to make a difference.

We got the idea from the Christian Thibedetau article on T-nation, it's called high performance mass and it is his training programme from when he was an olympic lifter. I have seen a few other athletes use this approach too. Plus if it is the way olympic lifters train then it can't be bad for the kind of work you want it for i.e strength transfer into speed.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... essing&cr=

Re the earlier post re the 'sccop' in olympic lifts - It's a bit old but this video shows a really good proponent of it especially the slowmo bits...

That's impressive as it look virtually like an ATG Overhead Squat at 205kg.

Agree with Coop's notion of quality reps, esp for you track athletes. It makes sense to perform low reps (<=5, although 2 or 3 is ideal imo) on squats with weights that are explosive. NO GRINDERS; that will make you s l o w.

That is of course if you are in the right phase to do such training. For example, if it's off-season and you want to get stronger then there are better progs to follow with regards to squatting. Same for if you want to add some muscle mass. Both of the aforementioned goals would be the main goal; there's always a trade off.