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Track and Field Tips
Track Meet Day: What to Pack?
All track and field athletes need to take responsibility for their personal equipment needs and bring gear including spikes, gloves, their specific shot put, discus, or javelin. But a few other things are helpful for athletes in any events to have in their bags:
-Band-aids, both small and large, for mid-meet blisters on fingers, toes, or heels
-Toilet paper/Kleenex
-Water bottle/sports beverage of choice
-Energy snack of choice (bars, gels, crackers, etc.)
- Pain reliever (Advil, Tylenol, etc.)
-Warm-up jacket; even on a warm day, sprinters, jumpers, and hurdlers in particular need to stay warm between events
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Don't Try Anything New on Track and Field Meet Day
This tip applies to all track and field athletes. Avoid using, wearing, or eating anything on a race day that you haven't tried in practice. You never know whether that new mango-flavored gel will disagree with you midway through the race or whether going barefoot in the new long jump spikes will cause blisters, and you don't want to find out during a competition. Maybe everything will be fine, but why take a chance? Test snacks, equipment, socks, and shoes in practice first. You don't need anything else to be nervous about.
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Yes, Running Takes Time
What is the most important part of your track and field workouts? It is the warm up and the cool down. If your muscles aren't ready to do the anaerobic activity you are asking them to do in a workout, they simply don't do it and you'd either get injured, or if you're lucky, just not what you wanted from the workout.
Cool downs help prevent injury and stretch and strengthen your muscle fibers so that over time, you'll recover faster and be able to handle a larger workload.
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Run
Suggested track and field workouts for middle distance runners:
Day 1 - 10 x 300m
Day 2 - 30-40 minute run
Day 3 - 3 x 500m at 800m race pace
Day 4 - 40 minute run
Day 5 - 6 x 800m
Day 6/7 one day rest, one day 50+ minute run. Finish the long run days with a difficult abdominal workout.
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Track Meet Day: What to Pack?
All track and field athletes need to take responsibility for their personal equipment needs and bring gear including spikes, gloves, their specific shot put, discus, or javelin. But a few other things are helpful for athletes in any events to have in their bags:
-Band-aids, both small and large, for mid-meet blisters on fingers, toes, or heels
-Toilet paper/Kleenex
-Water bottle/sports beverage of choice
-Energy snack of choice (bars, gels, crackers, etc.)
- Pain reliever (Advil, Tylenol, etc.)
-Warm-up jacket; even on a warm day, sprinters, jumpers, and hurdlers in particular need to stay warm between events
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Don't Try Anything New on Track and Field Meet Day
This tip applies to all track and field athletes. Avoid using, wearing, or eating anything on a race day that you haven't tried in practice. You never know whether that new mango-flavored gel will disagree with you midway through the race or whether going barefoot in the new long jump spikes will cause blisters, and you don't want to find out during a competition. Maybe everything will be fine, but why take a chance? Test snacks, equipment, socks, and shoes in practice first. You don't need anything else to be nervous about.
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Lift
Possible weight lifting plan for high school track and field athletes (the following three days are not consecutive):
Day 1 - lat pull downs, seated row, bicep curls, hamstring curls, rubber band resistance exercises, calf raises, sit ups.
Day 2 - bench press, leg press, leg extension, tricep extensions, Russian twists with a plate, push ups, lunges.
Day 3 (only if over 17 years old) - squats, push jerks, good mornings, military press, box jumps, sit ups.
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Sprint
Suggested track and field workouts for sprinters:
Day 1 - 600, 200, 200, 100, 100 with full recovery
Day 2 - 3 sets of 3 x 30m
Day 3 - jog and strides
Day 4 - 8 x 150m w/2 minutes rest
Day 5 - flying 60m
Day 6 - jog.
Work on starts out of the block 2 days per week.
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Spice It Up
Do you ever get bored with plain old running, for miles on end?
Do you enjoy running but want to be faster or get in better cardiovascular shape?
Do a few track and field workouts each week, and the difference you'll notice in your muscle tone, strength, stamina, and even metabolism will amaze you. Throw in three track and field workouts per week like these, and you'd be ready to race a 5K in one month.
5 x 60 seconds with 60-90 seconds of walking or jogging in between each
Coaches make mistakes. It's true, it happens, just try to make as few as possible! Coaching track and field from experience gives you credibility when dealing with your athletes, especially the more talented ones.
However, in order to really become the best and most trust coach, which will in turn help your athletes excel, you need to be a student of your track and field sport, not necessarily the best at it. Learn to be a student of your athletes mentally, physically, and verbally. When you make them the center of your training and racing plans, and not the results, the improvement will take care of itself.
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Be Smart Before Anything Breaks
Tough: falling over a hurdle or no-heighting in the high jump.
Worse: running too hard in the first mile of a 2-mile race ending in a walk across the finish line.
Worst: being injured.
So called “failures” or difficulties can teach and athlete as much or more than winning. Injuries, especially over use or ignored small injuries over time are the hardest issues to deal with when running or coaching track and field.
Getting injured only teaches athletes that being injured is the pits. Teach athletes to learn how to prevent injuries and stay healthy in their lives and in their sports, and they will never have to recover from a lesson not learned soon enough.
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Hurdle High
Suggested track and field workouts for 100m/110m hurdlers (every day preceded by hurlde drills):
Day 1 - 3 sets 2 x 6 hurldes
Day 2 - running trail legs and running lead legs over 8 hurldes
Day 3 - 5 x 4 hurdles, 5 x 3 hurdles, 5 x 1 hurdle
Day 4 - 4 x 200m no hurldes
Day 5 - 4 x 2 hurdles at 1-step distance, 5 x 4 hurdles at 5-step distance.
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Hurdle Low
Suggested track and field workouts for 300m hurdlers (each day preceded by hurdle drills):
Day 1 - 4 x last 100m with hurdles
Day 2 - 200, 300, 400, 300, 200 no hurdles
Day 3 - 4 x 150m (first straight away and curve with hurdles)
Day 4 - 6 x 200m no hurdles
Day 5 - 3 x 800m with hurdles on the straight aways, easy running on the curve.
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Cough It Up
There's money for the taking, If you are a track and field athlete, especially a female, research colleges that have track and field programs, their performance requirements for membership, and whether or not they give scholarships. When you find a few good fits, call the coaches after your junior year in high school.
Many people think that unless a college coach recruits them, they are not good enough for college athletics. That is untrue. College coaches are very busy with their own athletes and cannot spend all of their time recruiting. Give them a hand - they'll appreciate it and you may get a “hand” in return.
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Cross Country Training for Younger Children
Most kids naturally love to run. And encouraging exercise is one of the best things a parent can do for their child’s long-term health. Where we have to be careful is that our adult enthusiasm can easily turn what was once fun for our kids into work.
Unless your child is specifically looking for guidance on becoming a better runner – and it does happen - six is probably too young to begin “training.” However, it’s not too young for you to be there to answer questions when they come up.
A number of all-round training books, such as Patricia G. Avila’s “Fitness for Sports and Health,” include some information on breathing techniques. Many yoga books also contain a great deal of information on breathing that you may find helpful.
For more general information on cross country for younger runners, there are a number of books available, such as “Training for Young Distance Runners” by Laurence S. Greene.
If your child is truly interested in running cross country at such a young age, by all means, encourage her or him. Better yet, run with your child… but keep the speed and distance age-appropriate. That is, fairly slow and fairly short.
Learn what you can about the sport, and be ready with answers. But be careful not to volunteer too much advice or set your child’s expectations for her. An over-eager parent can inadvertantly quash a child’s enthusiasm for an activity.
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Fitter, Faster, Fantastic!
Your health is not just important to your success as an athlete, it is the number one most important thing you need to be conscious of and work hard at keeping fit. To be “fit” in terms of you health – learn about nutrition and eat 70% of your diet in carbohydrates and most of your protein after working out.
If your team has or can get a nutritionist to talk to athletes, use that resource. Masseurs are expensive, but worth every penny. If your track and field team does not have a masseur, learn how to massage your own self with a foam roller. The health and performance benefits of massages, especially for injury prevention, are innumerable.
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Don't Cut It Short
How long should my warm up and cool down be? Warm up should be twice as long in distance and/or time than your track and field workout. So, if you are running 4 x 800m for your workout, your warm up should be about 2 miles.
For short, sprint, or hurdle workouts, if your workout of 5 x 50m and 3 x 30m with hurdles will take about 20-30 minutes of actual time, your warm up should be about 40 minutes (including drills). Cool down should be no less than 10 minutes of active cool down and another 10 minutes of flexibility exercises or stretching, no matter what your workout was.
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Get Ready
Coaching track and field isn't easy. It takes as much preparation and hard work from the coach as it does from the athlete. You don't have to have been the best athlete at the even you coach, but you need to know it inside and out in order to allow your athletes to put their trust in your coaching.
