Michael Johnson's Training
Air Lyndon
on Michael Johnson's training. This is definitely not a running mag, but it
described both his weight program and his track work.
BACKGROUND
It probably should be mentioned that true aerobic training has very little use
for 400 meters and shorter. Brooks Johnson, the 2-time coach of the U.S.
Olympic track tream recommends that 400 runners do one 20-minute aerobic run a
week. That's it. Some sprint coaches in the U.S. consider something like 10 X
200 with short rest to be an AEROBIC workout. In the U.K., Mark Richardson
does 6 X 600 as an AEROBIC workout. "Sportspeed" recomends that sprinters do 2
X 800 hard for conditioning and as I recall it does not recommend any jogging.
These interval workouts are only done in the early season build-up, not during
main track training. In the 60's many of the 400 guys including Lee Evans ran
x-c (Lee did 10-milers and could do about a 4:30 mile during his base period),
but these days most sprint coaches recommend that "jogging" be avoided by
sprinters, especially the 100/200 guys, because it messes up your turnover
rate.
Nevertheless, there have been some previous magazine articles where Michael
Johnson described some of his conditioning. Since much of what MJ has said
about running any distance has come in Runners World (with a clear bias toward
running long and slow), I wonder if the RW articles blew what MJ said about
conditioning way beyond context. In the Muscular Development article, MJ did
not mention ANY distance running. He does some aerobic 3 mile runs early in
his buildup. He also has said in one of the RW articles that he runs a mile
once a week for some period.
MJ uses weight somewhat different from most sprinters. When MJ has tried to
compete as a pure sprinter (100/200 instead of 200/400), he has had injury
problems. He had a lot of injuries early in his career, and he began working
with weights somewhere around the early 90's to try to avoid injuries. In one
of his RW interviews, MJ said that during track season he is able to bench
press 300 pounds and that is program is "not a lot of weight, but a lot of
reps." But in the Muscular Development article, MJ said that he works with
heavy weights early in the season to gain strength, then later he does more
reps/lower weight simply to prevent injuries during the track season. As with
the talk about distance running during his early buildup, it would appear that
the RW articles were not telling the whole story about MJs weight work and
cannot be taken seriously (at least by a sprinter).
WEIGHT TRAINING
Michael Johnson does weight work 3 times a week during track season. As
mentioned previously, he does heavy weights/few reps early in the year to build
strength, and later he does lighter weights/many reps later to prevent
injuries. It appears that he does his weight work on the same days that he
does sprint training on the track. He does starts twice a week, and on those
days he also does short speed, so it is likely that he does his weights on the
days that he does (just) his longer stuff on the track.
These are the listed workouts:
DAY 1: Squat, 1-Leg Squat, Push Press & Abdominal
DAY 2: Clean Pull (floor), Stiff Leg Deadlift, Bent Barbell Row &
Abdominal
DAY 3: Squat, 1-Leg Squat, Push Press & Abdominal
TRACK TRAINING
MJ does combined training for 200 & 400; i.e., he trains for both events at the
same time. He feels that the additional speed for the 200 helps his 400, and
the additional strength for the 400 helps his 200. He does sprint training 6
days a week, but he does not do a lot of work on any one day.
Many sprinters (myself included) do max speed sessions like fly-ins (runs of
30-60 meters off a 15-30 meter flying start with long rest between repeats)
plus strength sessions (repeats of 200-600 meters with long rest or short
repeats with VERY short rest). Owing to his injury problems, MJ appears to
concentrate on strength on the track, and he does little if any pure speed.
In the Muscular Development article, MJ gave his rest period in terms of
intensity and work:rest ration expressed as a table. To try to make this
readable by the majority of newsreaders, I will express this as follows:
Day; Reps X Distance; @intensity (percent); work time: rest time
Anyone wanting a more readable version, please email me for a copy. Below is
the listed track training for a sample week:
Monday; 6 X 200; @90%; 1:7
Tuesday; 2 X 385; @90%; 1:5
Wednesday; Starts + 1 X (60+70+80+90+80+70+60); @95%; 1:10
Thursday; 2 X 500; @85%; 1:4
Friday; Starts + 5 X 100; @90%; 1:8
Saturday; 3 X 275; @95%; 1:6
Sunday: Rest
Enjoy,
Lyndon
Lyndon
both his weight program and his track work.
BACKGROUND
It probably should mention that true aerobic training has very little use for
400 meters and shorter. Brooks Johnson, the 2-time coach of the U.S. Olympic
track tream recommends that 400 runners do one 20-minute aerobic run a week.
That's it. Some sprint coaches in the U.S. consider something like 10 X 200
with short rest to be an AEROBIC workout. In the U.K., Mark Richardson does 6
X 600 as an AEROBIC workout. "Sportspeed" recomends that sprinters do 2 X 800
hard for conditioning and it does not recommend any jogging. These are only
done in the early season build-up, not during main track training. In the 60's
many of the 400 guys including Lee Evans ran x-c (Lee did 10-milers and could
do about a 4:30 mile during his base period), but these days most sprint
coaches recommend that "jogging" be avoided by sprinters, especially the
100/200 guys, because it messes up your turnover rate.
Some previous magazine articles about Michael Johnson have described some of
his conditioning. Since much of what MJ has said about running distances has
come in Runners World (with a clear bias toward running long and slow), I
suspec the RW articles blew what MJ said about conditioning way beyond context.
airl...@my-deja.com
weight program and his track work.
BACKGROUND
Some previous magazine articles about Michael Johnson have described
some of his conditioning. Since much of what MJ has said about running
distances has come in Runners World (with a clear bias toward long and
slow), this may have taken what MJ said about conditioning way beyond
context. In the Muscular Development article, MJ did not mention ANY
distance running. He does some aerobic 3 mile runs early in his
buildup. He also has said in one of the RW articles that he runs a
mile once a week for some period in his early buildup.
True aerobic training has very little use for 400 meters and shorter,
except to get one into shape for track training. Brooks Johnson, the 2-
time coach of the U.S. Olympic track team, recommends that 400 runners
do one 20-minute aerobic run a week. That's it. Some sprint coaches
in the U.S. consider something like 10 X 200 with short rest to be an
AEROBIC workout. In the U.K., Mark Richardson considers 6 X 600 to be
an AEROBIC workout. The book "Sportspeed" recomends that sprinters do 2
X 800 hard for conditioning and it does not recommend any jogging as I
recall. In the 60's some of the 400 guys including Lee Evans ran x-c
(Lee did 10-milers and could do about a 4:30 mile during his base
period), but these days many sprint coaches recommend that "jogging" be
avoided by sprinters, especially the 100/200 guys, because it messes up
your turnover rate.
MJ uses weight somewhat different from most sprinters. When MJ has
tried to compete as a pure sprinter (100/200 instead of 200/400), he
has had injury problems. He had a lot of injuries early in his career,
and he began working with weights somewhere around the early 90's to
try to avoid injuries. In one of his RW interviews, MJ said that
during track season he is able to bench press 300 pounds and that is
program is "not a lot of weight, but a lot of reps." But in the
Muscular Development article, MJ said that he works with heavy weights
early in the season to gain strength, then later he does more
reps/lower weight simply to prevent injuries during the track season.
As with the talk about distance running during his early buildup, it
would appear that the RW articles were not telling the whole story
about MJs weight work and cannot be taken seriously (at least by a
sprinter).
WEIGHT TRAINING
Michael Johnson does weight work 3 times a week during track season.
As mentioned previously, he does heavy weights early in the year to
build strength, and later he does lighter weights/more reps later to
prevent injuries. It appears that he does his weight work on the same
days that he does sprint training on the track. He does starts twice a
week, and on those days he also does short speed, so it is likely that
he does his weights on the days that he does (just) his longer stuff on
the track.
These are the listed workouts:
DAY 1: Squat, 1-Leg Squat, Push Press & Abdominal
DAY 2: Clean Pull (floor), Stiff Leg Deadlift, Bent Barbell Row &
Abdominal
DAY 3: Squat, 1-Leg Squat, Push Press & Abdominal
TRACK TRAINING
MJ does combined training for 200 & 400; i.e., he trains for both
events at the same time. He feels that the additional speed for the
200 helps his 400, and the additional strength for the 400 helps his
200. He does sprint training 6 days a week, but he does not do a lot
of work on any one day. The "training mileage" (not counting warmups
and cooldowns) comes to about 3 miles/wk.
Many sprinters do max speed sessions like fly-ins (runs of 30-60 meters
off a 15-30 meter flying start with long rest between repeats) plus
strength sessions (repeats of 200-600 meters with long rest or short
repeats with VERY short rest). Owing to his injury problems, MJ
appears to concentrate on the strength sessions on the track.
In the Muscular Development article, MJ gave his rest period in terms
of intensity and work:rest ration expressed as a table. To try to make
this readable by the majority of newsreaders, I will express this as
follows:
Day; Reps X Distance; @intensity (percent); work time: rest
time
Anyone wanting a more readable version, please email me for a copy.
Below is the listed track training for a sample week:
Monday; 6 X 200; @90%; 1:7
Tuesday; 2 X 385; @90%; 1:5
Wednesday; Starts + 1 X (60+70+80+90+80+70+60); @95%; 1:10
Thursday; 2 X 500; @85%; 1:4
Friday; Starts + 5 X 100; @90%; 1:8
Saturday; 3 X 275; @95%; 1:6
Sunday: Rest
Enjoy,
Lyndon
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
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