Sometimes whimsical analogies are useful in understanding how cross country coaches go about their work. To that end, today we will consider a workout ingredient list. When it comes to cross country coaches, it seems there are both cooks and…
Quantifying Training Effort of Middle Distance Runners
Most distance running coaches know that training for a 5-kilometer race involves a mix of aerobic and anaerobic workout sessions that will adaptively lead to improvements in a runner’s metabolic system. The work is varied, combined, and sequenced over a…
Training Aerobic Capacity and Middle Distance Athletes
On the first day of track practice, a ninth-grader named Ryan, shows up to join the team. Ryan wants to be a middle distance runner, maybe run the mile for his school. Ryan admits to having not run much in…
Middle School Training for Cross Country Runners
Middle school training for cross country runners are not just miniature versions of high school runners. Yet, many middle school coaches talk to high school coaches when setting up a training plan and just “scale down” the high school daily…
General Adaptation Syndrome and Cross Country Training
In 1932, physiologist W.A. Engelhardt, for the first time introduced the definition of the training process as a physiological breakdown that serves as a specific stimulus for the subsequent adaptive recovery process. While Engelhardt’s experiments worked with laboratory animals, injected…
Advanced Warmup Routines for Middle Distance Athletes
When middle distance coaches cluster socially or professionally, and the inevitable training talk ensues, the topics generally fall into three broad categories: training mileage, peaking strategy, or warmup routines. While these are all fun to talk about and defend, the…
[Video] How to manage coaching multiple events at the same time…
For high school coaches, managing multiple event groups at the same time (as well as managing training for athletes who compete in multiple event groups) is a significant issue that can drastically impact the individual and group success of your…
Functional Endurance Strength in Cross Country Training
Strength is one of the five primary physical components (speed, endurance, flexibility, strength, coordination) that defines athleticism. Cross country runners, like all athletes, benefit from the improvement of all five physical components to the degree to which their particular sport…
An Endurance Training Session for Middle Distance Athletes
A training session is a block of dedicated time containing various units of work that pertain to the specific demands of the track and field event that the athlete participates in. For a middle distance runner, a session more often…
[Q&A] Cross Country Training During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Coaches have been contacting me asking for cross country training suggestions during the Covid-19 pandemic. I chose the following stance a few weeks ago. This is typical of what I am getting and returning. Your Questions: What do you think…
The most effective way to improve your coaching during the pandemic?
Organized coaches are successful coaches. All coaches could be more organized. And the foundation of every successful coaching system, from sprints to distance, is the specificity and compatibility of their Training Menu / Inventory. With the spring season being cancelled,…
Advanced Coaching Systems: What Really Drives Successful Programs [Zoom Seminar]
On Thursday (4/23) and Friday (4/24) we’re running the 2nd (and final) round of our CTF live Zoom webinar. The first time we ran it, we opened it to the first 100 coaches who signed up and it sold out in…