Long Sprints for Reactive Vertical Power: Part IV

Practical Applications for Training the Reactive Athlete

Training is simple.  Most of the time.

Sometimes though, it is counter-intuitive, mind-racking and confusing, not to mention fuel for incessant arguments amongst defensive coaches, gym rats and internet warriors alike.   The first three articles in this series were designed to show that something often considered counter-intuitive to short response power (long sprinting) can actually be one of the best things you can possibly do to maximize you or your athlete’s reactive potential.  Long sprint training for jumping actually does make some sense when you look at it with the right shade of lens on and an open mind.

Getting this kind of air takes serious reactive strength.  This article will teach considerations in how to apply sprint work towards this short window of force application

In case you didn’t just finish reading the last 3 articles in this series, here is a quick recap of them.

• Long sprint training (repeat 200-400m sprints) has been a staple training method of many world class high jumpers; highly reactive and powerful athletes.
• Reactive strength is developed in under .2 seconds and built on the concepts of muscular stiffness and drive via fairly rigid leg and hip angles
• The benefits of long sprinting really aren’t about any sort of base or work capacity
• To get and maintain reactive strength, a fairly high amount of repetitions are required, which is dissimilar to things which typically define our training efforts such as powerlifting programming
• Similar to long sprinting, team sports carry the repetition and variety to build fantastic reactive strength
• Long sprints build ankle strength
• Long sprints help teach rhythm and relaxation
• Long sprints are still faster than snatches and cleans
• Speed endurance (40-120m)can help high speed coordination
• Long sprints and team sports can help improve workload perception and subsequent recovery
• Long sprints will help get you ripped

So there is the what.

Here is the how.

Actual High Jump Programs

Let’s go into what some actual high jump training programs look like then.  We will cover an “old school” program featuring lots of running, a modern Western program, and an Eastern program coming from a region that has produced loads of successful jumpers.

Warning!  Three major training philosophies of jump programming are highly condensed into the next few pages.

Let’s start with an “old school” high jump training program that represented some forms of training in the late 20^th century in the Western (USA) system of high jump development.  Clearly this program has its flaws, but if it didn’t work at all, whoever used it wouldn’t have been foolish enough to keep using this type of year plan, nor letting it show up in a high level coaching manual.

Here are a few phases of a USA based “old school” high jump program.

Late Preseason:

 Early Season:

 Competitive Season:

Program analysis: Lots of long sprints?

Check…. And double check!

This program has some good things going for it.  Unfortunately, there is just too much long sprint volume to allow this program to be truly effective in getting athletes to their genetic limit via the critical pre/early season areas (I didn’t even show the early pre-season which has 25% more running than the late pre-season).

This type of high volume, sub-maximal work usually helps a good athlete become great, but will rarely allow a great athlete to become elite, and is many times the cause of great athlete moving backwards, because it robs time that the athlete can break the intensity threshold needed to improve. 

I’m not out to hate on programs (life as a hater isn’t much fun), but rather to state principles.

Being good takes a lot of work, being the best takes a lot of well-planned, high quality work

The main issue here is that the “old school” program will certainly allow enough volume for a systematic overload, but the problem is that the athlete will rarely be fresh enough in the course of the microcycle to provide exposure to training intensities that will allow elite development.

In plain English, to get to your highest potential, you must be fresh enough to be at high quality-power levels at least once or twice a week in a training cycle for 90% of the training year.  If you wait until the last 25% of the season to effectively address power…. you have wasted your prior training efforts.  You can still be a bit sore and work power, but trying to do plyos when you are running under 90% of your best capacity is like licking the rear entrance doorknob of a dirty night club when you are already sick.

Case in point, doing things like 5×500 and weights on a Monday will seriously hurt the quality of the plyometric and technical session that Tuesday!  (Even if it is early in the year, no need to “dull the knife” so much)  This concept rings true throughout much of the program, and although a highly motivated and resilient athlete can overcome much of the fatigue through their desire to win, they won’t hit their potential until they are able to get specific and powerful on a somewhat regular basis.

Of interesting note, long sprints are still included in the above program throughout the competitive season!  Through anecdotal experience, keeping some element of long sprinting in a program, all the way to the end of competition is important to maintain elastic strength, just make sure it doesn’t come at the expense of power.  I fully agree with keeping this in a program in some element to the bitter end, so long as it doesn’t mess with power production.

OK, now let’s move to the Eastern World in the vicinity of the Iron Curtain, the world that has dominated high jump on the international scene for quite some time.  I am pulling back the curtain to show you a Ukranian jumps program.

The following is a late high school, early college based training program.  Although it is more of a youth program, this program could still be used with higher level athletes (by simply raising the training effects and volumes of a few of the exercises).

Check out this program built with much more specific training to a jumper, but still addressing the elastic demands of the event through a combination of repeated sprint and plyometric methods.

Big difference huh?

For this particular program, the sprint volume is there when you add it up between the repeated 80’s on Monday, the 100’s and 150’s on Tuesday, and the slow running and team sport play; it is just not as suffocating as the old school program, and for a good reason.

Although sprinting is certainly present, you will notice that the approach to this program is not sprinting, but a balanced approach between short (60m) and long (150m) speed efforts that don’t delve too far into the fatigue realm, jumping, lifting and general work, as well as games.  The focus here is also on jumping, which is in the program in some form each training day.

One perennial difference between the Euro and American training systems is that the Eastern method tends to place a premium on movement, while the Western world tends to take a strength brush (more weights, more long sprints) to paint over movements and specific work.  Looking at the results of field events at various world championships and Olympics, we can see which system has yielded more medals and yield of available talent.

Fortunately for the Americans, their jump training has evolved into an effective model over time to what I would call “The standard American program”, forged by bright minds such as the legendary Boo Shexnayder.  This programming is similar to the Charlie Francis “Hi-Lo” model of sprint training.

Typical Modern USA Jump Programming

 The theme of this program is one of neuromuscular work, alternated with days that condition the athlete.  This program shows us that there is much more to conditioning than running, as running only shows up as intensive tempo on Saturday.  But the point is…. The running is still THERE.  Clearly it is doing something, or it probably wouldn’t still be there through the point of trial and error, as well as the modern information age.

With this programming, it is interesting to me that intensive tempo is on Saturday, but it makes total sense based on the Sunday rest day.  According to the late Charlie Francis, intensive tempo is a nether region based workout, which takes longer than 24 hours to recover from and thus isn’t included in a standard training work-week.  As long as you have Sunday off, might as well throw in some higher speed long sprint work!  If you notice, this program allows a lot of work to be done, and 48 hours recovery between intense CNS sessions.  The premium is on power!

So there you have some established training programs!  From checking out these three philosophies, we can deduce the following

• Some form of long sprint training is present in each program
• The effects of long sprint training can be replaced to a degree via team sport play, higher volume plyometric or jump work, general strength and conditioning work, bounding and endurance bounding.
• It is probably best to put any draining sprint work towards the tail end of the week when an athlete has more than 24 hours to recover prior to the next session.
• Team sport play is a useful way to get some elastic work and general movement patterns addressed.  Looking at the Eastern systems that place a high value on human movement skill, some form of team sport play is usually present.

Conclusions and Application

I’ll end this rather long article (and series) with a few ideas and suggestions.  The first is that power is the 500lb gorilla of training.  You don’t mess with it.  You should always be getting more powerful or moving better in some sort of capacity throughout the training year.

Aside from that, I have found that long sprints are important to stay reactive in a program, so if you are going to use it, it should be in the program in some capacity through the whole year, not just for a base.

Also, I have found that some athletes seem to simply be “bred to work”, similar to the huskies in the Iditarod (these dogs are bred for speed and work ethic).  Just like those dogs are miserable without pulling a sled, some athletes just need to work.  If you are going to have them do extra work, it might as well be something that doesn’t beat up their CNS, and if some long sprints, stadiums, trail runs, extra conditioning make them feel good, it really isn’t all that bad.

Some athletes are just bred to work.  Just make sure it is work that doesn’t burn up their CNS

With anything longer and more demanding, it can often be useful to “disguise” it.  What I mean by this is add things that take away from the exhausting feeling to some degree.  Team sport play is the easiest way to do this, but things such as adding low hurdles into a long sprint or doing up-back based work is a useful way to distract an athlete from monotony and keep their skill bank a bit more full.

A hack I have used during the week when I want to sneak some longer work in but keep power at a premium is place something like 3-6x100m on the tail end of a weights session.  It helps to shake out the neuromuscular effect of the weights in terms of force retention and gives the workout an elastic flavor, as well as building some extra capacity.  The same thing can be done with various skips, jumps and lower end plyometrics.  Any quick/fast and somewhat repeated work at the end of a power session usually ends up being a good thing for a lot of athletic qualities.

There is also a tipping point at which this work will hinder power.  I have found that once adapted, athletes can perform up to 1200m of sprint volume and still come back with some good power the next day, so long as those sprints were controlled in pace.  Sprints that are fast and long are a detriment to power over the next couple of days due to lactate buildup and the dis-coordination of the CNS.  A little lactate buildup is OK… a lot is not.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot more that can be said here: strong vs. weak nervous systems, testing measures, vertical integration considerations, and potentiation based weekly templates, but this article is long enough as it is and kudos to you for making it this far!  If you have any questions, please leave a comment.  Also, if you want to know more, keep an eye out for my book that I’ll be releasing soon on vertical jump and explosive athletic development!

Until next time.

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