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 chefs. The cook chiefly wants a step by step set of recipes for several different…
Archives for Coach Scott Christensen
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 season in a way that is specific to the energy demands of the 5k race. …
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 his life, but he wants to start today. The middle distance coach sends Ryan out…
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 sessions for their plan. That works to a point with some types of work, but…
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 drugs, and introduced stimuli far above what the animals were accustomed to, this idea became…
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 reality is that there is no right answer to any of these discussions. Mileage talk…
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 demands. Strength training must always be focused on training the movement, rather than the muscle,…
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 than not contains a high degree of endurance work. Thus today we will discuss an…
Intensity – Can It Be Too Much In Middle Distance Training?
Middle distance events in track and field consist of races between 800 and 2000 meters because any races within this range share common energy demand characteristics. The three most common events found in this spread include runs of 800 meters, 1500 meters, and 1600 meters, with the anaerobic contribution of these three races varying between…
Two Peaking Workouts You Must Do with Your Cross Country Athletes
A cross country runner that has a training age of two or more, and who had a pretty good summer of running, can expect about a five percent improvement over the 14 week fall season in their 5k time from start to finish. Those with a training age of less than two years, or who…
Measuring Velocity as Meters Per Second in Cross Country Training
Most cross country coaches have a top training group within their team, whether they actually label it that way or not. This group typically consists of about a dozen runners on bigger teams, but maybe just four or five on a smaller team. These are the runners the head coach keeps the closest eye on. …
Intensity – What It Means for Middle Distance Training
Mitochondria are the aerobic powerhouse organelles of cells. If a type of tissue does little aerobic work, then there are just a few mitochondria in the cells of that tissue, but if the tissue is a real aerobic workhouse, then the cells that constitute it are loaded with mitochondria; with the capacity to build many…