Training for 400m: Balancing Speed and Special Endurance [Lactate]

One of the most common requests I get via email are training programs.

I believe coaching is an art and a science. I feel coaches need to know the science behind certain workouts, have a huge workout inventory, keeping track of the total volume per sessions, and above all, know how to plan.

That’s the science behind coaching. Easy. The art component is the tricky part.

Let’s reverse engineer a training plan.

The 400 meters requires a unique combination of speed and special endurance (or lactic workouts). There are two ways to approach this, and that is short-to-long and long-to-short.

If you were to plot a graph of 400 meter sprinters velocity at every 50m segment, you would see the same pattern whether it’s Michal Johnson’s 43.18 or your High School 52 second time. And that all boils down to speed reserve.

Speed Reserve

The topic of speed reserve has been covered in a previous post, What is Speed Reserve? Part 1 – 400 meter Sprinter types and What is Speed Reserve? Part 2 – Training Methods.

When Tom Tellez describes the 5 phases of the 100 meter sprint, only in the last 20-30 meters are sprinters decelerating after maintaining maximum velocity. (John Smith’s perfect world is to eliminate the deceleration phase). In the 400 meters, it is sad to report that after the sprinter reaches maximum velocity between the 40-80 meter mark, the race becomes one long deceleration phase. Mentally it’s a different story, and you have to add MORE EFFORT when your speeds are actually declining. Sad.

But we love the 400 meters. Happy.

So to settle the argument, yes, you need speed. The faster you can run the first 80m, the faster the overall race. That’s called speed reserve.

And yes, you need to be able to handle the lactic acid (acidosis), so those workouts are important, too.

How and When to incorporate those two elements is entirely up to you.

Remember, you can’t maintain a speed you haven’t attained!

How Many Days a Week?

I feel 3 days a week of “hard” track workouts sufficient (and I’ll go in detail what workouts), but for a group that has good (on site) therapy and recovery methods, I would train 4 hard days a week. For a Masters group, or a Youth group doing multi-sports, I would train hard 2 days a week.

For a good detailed review of the different types of workouts to prescribe, see CLASSIFYING SPRINT TRAINING METHODS from UKA. An excellent read.

I’ll just focus on the CE (competition events) components for now. (I’ll leave out the SPP and GPP workouts, and that includes weight training and plyometrics)

I would divide the training session (at a very high level) from these choices:

1. speed (which includes acceleration development and maximum velocity)
2. speed endurance
3. special endurance I and II
4. tempo
5. REST (passive recovery) or Active recovery

Examples are:

1. speed sessions up to 60m (0-30 acceleration, 30-60 max velocity)
2. speed endurance between 8 and 15 seconds, or up to 150m
3. special endurance runs between 15 and 40 seconds, or up to 350m
4. Tempo or 70% speed on grass surface
5. REST or active recovery

The key is to pay very close attention to the volumes, and the recoveries between workouts. As a rough guideline, I would target 500m total distance for speed and speed endurance workouts, 1000m for special endurance workouts, and 2000-3000m tempo workouts. It depends on the “training age” and “chronological age” of the athlete.

Below are 3 scenarios, for hard training sessions 2 days, 3 days, and 4 days a week:

4 Days a Week

1. MON: Speed
2. TUES: 2000m Tempo (i.e. 2 x 10 x 100m)
3. WED: Speed Endurance
4. THUR: Tempo
5. FRI: Speed
6. SAT: Special Endurance
7. SUN: Rest

NOTE the back-to-back “hard” sessions on Friday and Saturday.

3 Days a Week

Focus on speed early

1. MON: Speed
2. TUES: Tempo
3. WED: Speed Endurance/Special Endurance
4. THUR: Tempo
5. FRI: Speed
6. SAT: Tempo or Circuit training
7. SUN: Rest

NOTE: After a block of 12 weeks, I would switch the program in the spring to only one day a week on speed, one speed endurance and one special endurance.

1. MON: Speed Endurance
2. TUES: Tempo
3. WED: Speed
4. THUR: Tempo
5. FRI: Special Endurance
6. SAT: Tempo
7. SUN: Rest

2 Days a Week

1. MON: Speed
2. TUES: Tempo
3. WED: REST
4. THUR: Speed Endurance/Special Endurance (depending on the time of year)
5. FRI: Tempo
6. SAT: REST or Circuit Training
7. SUN: Rest