Speed vs ‘Strength’ For 400 Runners
Some people argue that the best way to develop your 400m runners is with a ‘strength’ (aka long to short) approach. This says that in order to get fast, we should run at sub-maximal paces at higher volumes and for longer distances.
To me, this is a ‘run slow to get fast’ approach. And that seems to violate all the Laws of Specificity.
In my opinion, the majority of great 400m runners succeed at this distance because of their ‘Speed Reserve’. So developing this speed reserve is the crux of 400m training.
Check out this article where I explain this concept (and why it works) in more detail:
http://www.athletesacceleration.com/developspeedreserve.html
To your success,
Latif Thomas