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You're still in your winter session in July, over here they start season around April start of may. Isn't it too hot to do that.

Um, I live in the Southern Hemisphere in case you hadn't noticed. So are you already in season? Why the hell aren't you competing?

Why do you do ankle weighted runs? The only benefits I can see from that is hip flexor strengthening, with a ton of downsides.

Nah we just do ankle weighted drills, not the runs.

Yeah it's just not realistic to think that modifying your arm swing speed is an easy fix. Improving your approach is something that needs to be built up from the ground up over time with drills, exercises like the repeated 2-leg bounds that Raptor prescribes and lots of low-intensity practice run-ups.

What times are you aiming for this year?
How many pro meets are you gonna compete in?

I think a realistic goal for the 100 would be around 11.60+/-0.1sec. I ran 12.10 last year but already I feel a lot better than that. We'll see. Would be happy with a 24.5sec 200m but not too fussed. The pro circuit will be all new to me so I'm just aiming to do as many as I can to get more experienced.

results of my race last weekend are up and i'm not posting that shit because it's straight-up embarrassing. 13.30. the more i think about it, the more i realize how terrible that is. i finished behind five women and three men 50 years old or older. the wind was -0.2 for my heat, so, negligible. my only consolation is that i beat one other young guy.

will post link to results when i've beaten all the 50-year-olds. 

sub-12 would have gotten me into the top 20 out of the 97 people who entered. fastest time was 11.07; fastest 200 was 22.20. fastest woman ran 12.08/24.37.

Oh come on. It's not that bad really. So what if I ran faster than that at 12 years old? 

But seriously, low 13s is pretty much spot on based on your background and recent training. It takes a long time to build up the fitness to run fast for the full distance, as I found out when returning to the sport.

Last week of training:

Tues - fitness circuit, very windy and ran about 10sec slower in the 1600m run, but so did everyone else.

Wed - didn't do the proper session, I stupidly cut the side of my foot earlier in the day and took a bit of skin off. It doesn't hurt much but I can't really run on it in shoes. The shoe presses right against it and it needs to heal over before I can really run on it. So annoying. So I just did the HIIT bike session for basically the rest of the week whenever there was running to do.

Thurs - bike + fitness circuit

Sat - bike/upper body/core weights

Sun - same as above

It's not so bad though, you really work hard on the bike and it definitely helps your fitness. Just sucks with no jumping.

thanks for the response and you're absolutely right: long-term planning is ideal. my problem with it has always been work travel, which interrupts whatever i'm doing. when i get back from a trip, even if i've been consistent about exercising while in dushanbe (relatively easy) or kabul (less easy) or wherever, there's always a reentry period. and work doesn't care if i was close to peaking or having a great few weeks in training.

whine whine, cry cry, my job is cool and sends me to crazy places. i'm not complaining. it would help if travel were predictable, though. also, i'm thinking seriously now about moving overseas, starting to reach out to some contacts and apply for a few jobs just to see what's out there and where i might fit in. depending on where i go, that'll obviously have a huge impact on what training i can do. if i end up in afghanistan, i'll basically have to import a squat rack and some weights and get strong and jump a lot of rope as there's basically nowhere to work out outside. other places (santiago, for example) might be more flexible.

/hijack, future thoughts will go in my own journal. 

Nah I never mind when it's relevant discussion. Come to Melbourne! Haha.

jesus, sounds like a lot. all of those exercises in sequence are one set? or each group of three is one set? your training seems to have mostly focused on fitness, above everything else. how do you think that's working out? do you think you'd be better off doing lower volume and higher intensity? i've been doing much lower volume but higher intensity stuff (every sprint i do is 100% effort) and i'm not convinced it's making me faster or able to jump higher or anything. i'm torn between thinking that i'm being a pansy and should kill myself with workouts like that, and thinking that i'm so close to my goal as-is that if i start to kill myself to "get in shape" it'll detract from the main purpose of my training, much as squatting did for so long.

Yep, that's one set. It's a beast that's for sure. I definitely hear what you're saying, I have been thinking A LOT about whether this approach is the best. I guess I have essentially bought into the idea of year-round periodisation, rather than the half-assed shit I was doing previously. SO right now I'm in probably the least specific phase of the year as it relates to my own goals, but I think it also adds an element that was lacking in my previous training. And in a couple of months it becomes more in-line with everything again when we hit the gym and start 100% efforts with less running distance during the week etc.

Sometimes I do think it would be better to do more high intensity stuff and max effort jumping/lifting all the time, but I'm starting to think that even amateurs like us training 'individually', so to speak, really need a more well-rounded approach, which incorporates practising the main activity (jumping) and strengthening the right muscle groups, but also a significant level of 'other' stuff like fitness and conditioning. Realistically, we're not genetically or structurally gifted enough where we can just keep practising jumps at pickup games until we can dunk any day of the year with not much other training (it would have happened by now obviously). We need to have a strong periodisation approach like most modern athletic programs where we might be lucky enough to peak at the right time during the year and be able to throw down.

So to answer your question, I would think about building in more fitness stuff, even if practically it just means that you are able to practice max effort jumps slightly longer and have a less chance of injury. BUT to ensure it doesn't become the focus, draw out the plan for the short-term and long-term and be satisfied that it fits in with the overarching aims. I'm sure T0ddday and Coach Robert Ruxandrescu could help you devise a really nice plan for the next year and make the whole training component become more focused (I'm sure everything else you do is completely fine e.g. nutrition, recovery, sleep etc). I really can't emphasise how much less stressful it is to know that someone else has all your training planned out and will have you peaking at the right time.

i can't wait to dunk so i can shift focus to something else.

x1000, I'm definitely becoming more comfortable with the idea that dunking (if it happens) will be something I do a few times during the year rather than becoming a permanent ability that I keep working at. Another interesting part of sprinting is that I could potentially actually win a bit of $$ running as a 70m specialist at pro meets, wherease I don't think I'll be winning any dunk comps in the future.

i think it's "fartlek," fwiw.

Lol, I was actually having a mini-argument with a guy at training saying it was spelt "fartlek". Then I realised I've been writing fartleg in all my posts! 

Sat - sled dragging

1200m jog, dynamic warmup, submax broad jumps and standing TJ

7 sets of 80m sled drag@26kgs with 10m fast high knees at end

7x50m accelerations

250m sprint

Cooldown weights

Sun - gym

Jumps, skipping, core, med ball throws, SL/DL bounds, more core, mobility stuff

BW: 78kgs (losing a bit of weight over last few weeks)

We alternate between the hills sessions and sled dragging each block. The next block looks like this:

Mon: technical track work (using hoops for stride frequency/length stuff)

Tues: long-distance run (4 laps increasing to 5), then fitness circuit and fartleg

Wed: speed endurance supersetted with hoops

Thurs: same as Tues

Fri: rest

Sat: sled dragging

Sun: jumps/med ball/core etc.

This is getting into the peak of fitness and strength building for the off-season. After this we start heading back to the gym and doing front squats and power cleans/full clean and jerk  . It's quite a high frequency of training obviously. As I've mentioned probably too often, the coach is an old Olympic coach for Australia and he just does the same sessions he used to do with his elite athletes for our group. A lot of new people joined at the start of Winter but the numbers really dropped off after a few weeks because they just found it too hard or got hurt. It's a real battle of attrition. I may not do every session (particularly thinking of skipping Tues) just because I'm already red-lining in terms of recovery and I think 6 sessions/week would push me a bit far. See how it goes.