elitefts™ Sunday Edition

On your website, you gave an example of your team doing pool tempos. How does one manage that or set parameters accounting for the difference between that and land? For instance, if a world record had 1,400 meters of tempo on land one day (separated into 20 x 70), how does that differ to pool work? Is it more time-related since distance obviously cannot be tracked?

Thank you,

- JJ

JJ,

There are many different ways to perform the pool tempo. The question is, "what is the desired effect?" For recovery, nearly any method of execution is effective, so long as the efforts remain aerobic. For rehabilitation, towards alactic efforts, the efforts will be higher intensity yet still alactic via the control of duration.

To approximate ground-based tempo, one method is to double the length of the work interval and half the length of the rest interval (due to the lessened speed/force involved with running in the water), as is done with bike tempo; however, this work can become very challenging at the muscular level in the pool.

My use of pool tempo has essentially been one in which the efforts range between 15-30 seconds, as do the recoveries. We typically do sets of 10. In this way, the goal is not to approximate ground-based tempo but to foster recovery as well as similar adaptations through a different route. What you see in that video is when we were in South America and used the pool to facilitate recovery after a plane flight.

-The Thinker

Thinker,

What do you recommend for getting one's 300-meter times down? It's part of my physical for the police test and my only real weakness. I have a good three months before the test.

Thanks!

- Jeff

Jeff,

This is one of the most interesting questions I've received in a long time, as track & field is a passion of mine. The answer, however, is complicated in its detail.

From a big picture standpoint, you must have a look at where your strengths lie relative to the nature of the demands of the 300 meter, and then decide whether to employ a short-to-long or long-to-short approach to your preparation. In any regard, you'll have to make sure to employ supplementary volumes of acceleration (<30m) and max velocity (<60M) work to coincide with your special endurance runs—which in the case of long-to-short, may start as long as 1,000 meters or more... or, in the case of short-to-long, may be as short as split 60 meters.

As I stated, the details are comprehensive. You are welcome to email me through my site if you feel your preparation warrants distance coaching. If I were to guess, the fact that you're reading this site indicates that you are a strength enthusiast. If I'm correct, then you'll probably respond more favorably to a short-to-long program.

Good to know that at least Law Enforcement in your region is getting away from meaningless long distance runs.

-The Thinker

Visit The Thinker's website: Power Development Inc.