Adarq.org

I like hearing "soreness in my calves" coming from LBSS. That also probably means Achilles tendon work.

Sounds like the calf to hamstring attachement. Still good.

i should think you'd like them, you basically made them up! not planning to do these on the same day, goal would be on/on/off. one thing i might consider is two-a-days (track morning, gym evening, two days' rest or very light tempo-ish stuff), interested to hear your thoughts on that idea.

tempo will be 100s and 200s for repeats. low intensity (17-18s/100m, rest the remainder of the minute). volume is intentionally very low because all this stuff will be relatively new. even the few bounds and sprints i did on sunday were enough to give me decent soreness in my calves. volume and intensity will build as i get more proficient and work capacity improves.

Two a days are great.  As written you can do the A and B workouts back to back provided the tempo isn't too rough in the A workout.   If your schedule allows morning and evening would be great as well.  Two-a-days are probably the best thing possible for body composition.  I have self dieted and trained to 5.8% bf but I never "felt" as lean and light as after fall training where we would be do drills, bound, sprint, hard tempot, stretch at 5AM-7AM, speed endurance/easy tempo at 3-4pm and then weight training at 430-6pm.   The lasted for three weeks at the start of fall quarter so it was a total of 21 days but still the most rapid transformation I have seen. 

17-18s might be a bit slow for 100m but it really just depends on you.  The intervals need to be sprints... time doesn't matter that much.  But if 18s means your are heel-rolling with a low-arm carriage like a miler... then the benefit of tempo is lost and you might as well mile.  For me that means my straights are always under 15sec but my 200m will stretch out to 30-32 seconds.

i should think you'd like them, you basically made them up! not planning to do these on the same day, goal would be on/on/off. one thing i might consider is two-a-days (track morning, gym evening, two days' rest or very light tempo-ish stuff), interested to hear your thoughts on that idea.

tempo will be 100s and 200s for repeats. low intensity (17-18s/100m, rest the remainder of the minute). volume is intentionally very low because all this stuff will be relatively new. even the few bounds and sprints i did on sunday were enough to give me decent soreness in my calves. volume and intensity will build as i get more proficient and work capacity improves.

I might be doing this same layout pretty soon.

17-18s might be a bit slow for 100m but it really just depends on you.  The intervals need to be sprints... time doesn't matter that much.  But if 18s means your are heel-rolling with a low-arm carriage like a miler... then the benefit of tempo is lost and you might as well mile.  For me that means my straights are always under 15sec but my 200m will stretch out to 30-32 seconds.

Oops, that's very interesting. So buffered ( or too much buffered ) tempo runs have no benefit over steady pace longer distance running?
Let me make this more detailed:
I alternate workouts between 3sets*5*80m tempo runs and 3km steady pace jogging ( pace around 9km/h ). My tempo runs , i prefer not to go max because of the too much stress they cause on me, so i do them buffered. What i feel and consider like 50% is about 20 seconds for 80m , while what feels like in between 50% and max would be about 15 seconds. Those are rough approximations, self-hand-timed measurements. Also runs are not done on track, but outdoors, on a dust/gravel football field actually.
So my tempo runs pace is around there, 20 to 15 seconds for 80m which i consider 50% to 70% intensity correspondingly.
Am i going too slow? Is there a magic number for the buffer to get the benefits out of your tempo runs ( e.g. 70% )? Should i test my max effor times and set my buffered times based on that?

It sounds to me more and more like your worst leg muscle is the hamstring.

Quote from: T0ddday on April 18, 2013, 09:10:49 am

17-18s might be a bit slow for 100m but it really just depends on you.  The intervals need to be sprints... time doesn't matter that much.  But if 18s means your are heel-rolling with a low-arm carriage like a miler... then the benefit of tempo is lost and you might as well mile.  For me that means my straights are always under 15sec but my 200m will stretch out to 30-32 seconds.

Oops, that's very interesting. So buffered ( or too much buffered ) tempo runs have no benefit over steady pace longer distance running?
Let me make this more detailed:
I alternate workouts between 3sets*5*80m tempo runs and 3km steady pace jogging ( pace around 9km/h ). My tempo runs , i prefer not to go max because of the too much stress they cause on me, so i do them buffered. What i feel and consider like 50% is about 20 seconds for 80m , while what feels like in between 50% and max would be about 15 seconds. Those are rough approximations, self-hand-timed measurements. Also runs are not done on track, but outdoors, on a dust/gravel football field actually.
So my tempo runs pace is around there, 20 to 15 seconds for 80m which i consider 50% to 70% intensity correspondingly.
Am i going too slow? Is there a magic number for the buffer to get the benefits out of your tempo runs ( e.g. 70% )? Should i test my max effor times and set my buffered times based on that?

I would say for most people 20 seconds for 80m is REALLY slow.   I also wouldn't do 80m tempo runs though.   There isn't a magic number but rather just different benefits of submaximal sprinting and depending on the pace you choose you will get/lose benefits.  People usually refer intensive tempo as runs closer to 90% (benefit is to build special endurance) and extensive tempo as closer to 75%.     Extensive tempo is what I usually mean when I say tempo-running.  Basically here are the benefits of tempo. 

1) System work   - satisfied probably no matter what intensity
2) Sprint mechanics -  You essentially are not really "sprinting" if you run too slow so pace needs to be decent to get meaningful mechanical work in.
3) Recovery -  Again too slow and you are not hitting the range of motion you do when sprinting, but too fast and you are not recovering.  Too slow is like using calf raises to deload from squatting... too fast is like using 90% of your 1RM to deload. 
4) Special Endurance  - Gotta move pretty fast to get this benefit.  However, it's usually gotten as a sacrifice to recovery... Can't have it all.

One additional thing I would like to say for those using tempo runs is do more than 100m.  I talked to Charlie Francis about this once and he had most people always do something with more than 100m unless recovery was REALLY short.  Reason being is that we use time as a proxy for intensity.   If you watch the olympics you see that Usain Bolt can make 10.1 look like he is jogging.   While nobody is as fast as bolt you can do surprisingly similar with over 90% of your 100m speed.  I can run high 11 with a complete shutdown.   The trick is to drive out really hard and then completely relax.  If I take a bit off of it I can expend very little energy and still run around 14 seconds which is technically 75% of my best 100m.    However, this is cheating.  It's not really a  75% intensity run, it's more like a 95% 50m run coupled with a 40% intensity deceleration.  NOT the point of tempo running.  The point is the entire run should be very submaximal but not shut down.   That's why I recommend you have a curve in your runs.  200m are good because even a beginner will usually have enough fitness for this distance.  In the 200m you have to work the curve so going 75% of your max 200m speed will usually be 75% intensity.   Good luck.