Melissa Witmer: Priorities For Her Speed Block
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Loading ...Any training self-planner, whether fledgling or veteran, would do well to heed her words on priorities and flexibility – both are keys to success for we amateur (yet comitted) athletes for whom life can get in the way of what’s ideal.
Thanks, Melissa!
Six Weeks of Speed Training
Like Mackey I’ve been shifting from a strength training emphasis mode to more sport-specific training. I just finished a training block in which my main emphasis was speed and acceleration. Next I’ll be focusing on agility and vertical jumping. I’m placing less emphasis on my work capacity (endurance), strength, and core work. I need to maintain those qualities but am not going to worry a lot about improving them for the moment.
So how am I fitting in everything I need to do? It is challenging, no doubt.
Here is my ideal weekly plan:
- Monday: linear plyos. speed.
- Tuesday: option a: lower body strength. jump rope or tempo intervals
Tuesday: option b: throwing. shuttle runs - Wednesday: option a: lateral plyos. upper body strength training. (or full body if no strength training Tuesday). lateral conditioning
- Thursday: linear plyos. speed.
- Friday: lateral plyos. strength training (full body or lower). lateral conditioning
- Saturday: strength training (upper). tempo intervals
- Sunday: rest
How often does the ideal weekly plan happen? Well… not as often as I’d like. The main problem for me is getting to the weight room when my other activities (sprints, throwing, tempo intervals) occur at places other than the gym. We are also getting to the point in the year when weekends involve tournaments and tryouts. This eliminates Saturday as a training day and rearranges my rest day.
I imagine I’m not the only one who has trouble keeping on an ideal schedule. If you’re having trouble sticking to a strict plan, your plan is probably unrealistic. Knowing your priorities and having a flexible plan is the key to staying on track with your training goals.
Know Your Priorities and Stick to Them
My main priorities are the speed and plyometric work. I have two sessions of linear plyos, two sessions of lateral plyos, and two sessions of speed/accelleration work. All of my other training is subordinate to these modules. I never miss them and I plan my other sessions to make sure my plyos and speed work are high quality. This means in the planning of my other sessions, I won’t overdo the general conditioning the day before a speed session so that I am fresh and ready to go for my speed sessions.
Be Flexible With the Other Stuff
Ideally I want to maintain my upper body/lower body split. That would put me in the weight room four days per week. I’ll be honest, that almost never happens anymore. But strength training is not my main priority. If I know I’m only going to make it into the weight room 2 days I’ll just do a full body workout instead of splits. No big deal.
My plan also gives me the flexibility to take advantage of nice weather and a throwing partner. I have no qualms about skipping the weight room for a high quality throwing practice.
A Little More About my Training Modules
Speed
When you are ready to create your training program the first thing you need to know your main priority. My main priority was to try to increase my top speed a bit. So I knew I wanted two days of high quality top speed sprints with full recovery. I decided these would be Monday/Thursday or Tuesday/Friday depending on if the previous weekend included a tournament.
Plyos
I’ve started plyometrics in order to improve my quickness and my vertical. Right now I’m in the intro phases of plyos. And they don’t take much time so I can put them at the beginning of any workout. I have plyo modules 4 days per week and alternate between linear and lateral plyos. The linear plyo days are the same as my sprint days. The lateral plyos are the day after and often coincide with lateral conditioning days.
Strength
This is becoming more difficult to incorporate in a timely manner. All of my other work takes place on a field or a track. It’s becoming more onerous to make the trip to the gym.
Some of my strength training is now occurring on the field via medicine ball throws and my found barbell. I can count this as a full body power emphasis strength day.
2-3 days per week I’m still in the weight room doing more traditional strength training. I still do upper/lower body splits when I can.
Skills
I will alter my plan if/when beautiful weather and a throwing partner become available. Skills before fitness.
Conditioning
I fit this in when I can. My cardio and recovery are excellent. I’m just doing enough not to lose it. I’m trying to have at least one day of lateral movement conditioning and one day of tempo intervals or shuttle runs.
So What’s Next?
As I said, I’m done with speed training and moving on to agility. I will take a few weeks to do more general conditioning and then focus on agility during the month of June. My basic schedule will be the same as above except that I’ll be replacing speed days with agility days.
How are your plans looking? What are your current priorities, and how are you managing your schedule to meet them? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to check out more on Melissa’s training at her blog!
[...] you have an organized plan, you can’t just skip a workout. Every training session is related to all the others. [...]
[...] mid-May I wrote a post on Mackey’s blog about my program plan for my speed training block. At that time, my main priority was speed training Now my priorities include plyometrics, agility [...]