Run-Down Forums

[Paul]

How do you like to organize your weekly microcycle? Do you like to get progressively faster throughout the week, for instance - long run, tempo run, long intervals, short intervals? Do you like to vary it more during the week? Which are the hardest workouts for you from which you need an easy aerobic recovery run? I know that the microcycles are different for base training vs pre-comp vs comp vs transition. But I thought this might make for an interesting discussion including input from people who have made major microcycle changes where very positive results happened and from people where changes were made with no positive results and they went back to some of their original training methods.

thanks

Paul

[Hammer]

I am a firm believer in the hard/easy approach, but I throw in several hard/medium/easy segments as well.

Tipical Week:
-Long run following a race or starting a week.
-Hardest workout of the week. (usually Max V02.
-Recovery running
-Hard work (Usually LT)
-Recocery running
-Race or Hard work (LT)
-Day off or Recovery running

[Dan]

I like alternating hard-easy approaches. I'm not a big fan of the system of workouts steadily getting easier as the week progresses. Limits the potential training time too much and would seem to get you in a lull when it comes time to race. I've toyed with an alternative structure to a week's workouts, but I haven't had a good enough chance to test it to see how well it works...

Dan

[Distance_Guru]

I really like to vary it, but in general I like to put the workout that takes the longest to recover from, which is almost always the one run at the fastest pace, as far as possible from the next race while still giving the body time to recover from the previous meet. Here are a few of the generic cycles I like to use

Base:
Monday- Longest day of the week (I also like this day to be run at a good clip this is the toughest day of the week)
Tuesday- Recovery day Medium distance medium intensity
Wednesday- Medium to long in distance at a pretty good pace.
Thursday- Medium distance at medium to easy pace
Friday- Pretty long, and pretty hard, second toughest day of the week.
Saturday- Depends, anywhere from easy to hard. Clean up day to finish off the week if your taking sunday off, otherwise medium distance and intensity.
Sunday- Either day off or day to finish up the weeks mileage total. Usually pretty easy should be taken off at least every other week.

Pre-Comp.
The same as base only with either an LT or VO2 workout on either Wednesday or Friday.

Comp.
Monday- Either long or Fast
Tuesday- Medium/Easy run
Wednesday- Fast (intervals, tempo, fartlek ect.) Or Medium run, depending on how much recovery is required from monday
Thursday- Medium run or, Fast. Depending on what was done Wednesday.
Friday- Race Prep. Easy run, strides, drills
Saturday- Race.
Sunday- Recover.


_________________
Time is the fire in which we burn

[Paul]

Thanks for your posts. It seems that the favorite course is to follow the long run (usually at the week's beginning) two days later with the fastest interval session of the week, with a recovery run in between.

Paul

[Distance_Guru]

Sounds like you've got it. Also try to position the workout that is the hardest on the body (usually the fastest) as far from the races as possible.
_________________
Time is the fire in which we burn

[training2run]

For a week now, I've been skipping past this posting, thinking it said "motorcycle."

I work on a very hard, moderate, easy, hard, moderate, hard, off, very hard, etc., etc, cycle.

How does a microcycle differ from a cycle? Mad Dog Mike www.fakefruit.com

[Dan]

[training2run]

Yes, Dan, now I remember - you're the guy who's fed up to here with jargon, and I agree with you.

Seems to me, if this were "the best of all possible worlds," cycle would refer to the seven day cycle, and microcycle might refer to how you handle an individual day, or, perhaps an individual workout.

An example might be to begin a long run slow and easy to warm up, increase the pace, run some flats, run some hills, run down hill, then "b*lls against the wall" for a finish.

Since this is not "the best of all possible worlds," we may be forced to invent a new bit of jargon to cover the daily workout or individual run - micro-minicycle, mini-microcycle, micro-cyclette? The possibilities are wonderous to behold. Mad Dog Mike www.training2run.com

[Distance_Guru]

When it comes to termanology I like the Martin and Coe system. There are three kinds of cycles. All cycles are set up to serve a purpose specific and have the training units in them laid out with that in mind.
Microcycle: Which is a cycle of one to two weeks usually no longer.
Mesocycle: Which is a group of microcycles inside of a season or year they can range from one microcycle to an entire season depending on the athletes emphisis. A lot of people call these phases (precompetitive, competitive, transition, ect).
Macrocycle: This is the longest form of a cycle and can be anywhere form one year to the enitire length of time a coach and athlete work together.

All cycles are made up of training units. A training unit is any exercise an athlete does, with a specific purpose. Multiple training units can be performed per day, and even per workout. If a person stretched, ran for an hour and then did 10 strides, they had 3 training units in one workout. Stretching to increase flexibility, running for aerobic conditioning, and striding to increase anaerobic capacity.
_________________
Time is the fire in which we burn

[Dan]

Explanations aside, I'm scratching my head as to what we accomplish by having those definitions. Why not just call training units activities and not even bother with a term that covers an entire athlete's training lifetime? Phase seems much more accurately descriptive than mesocycle, so dropping the other cycles would allow us to change microcycle to a more intuitive and less geeky cycle...

Dan

[training2run]

Dear DG: That's impressive , but can you say it in one breath. I believe I'm going to print that all out and make a flow chart.

Do people actually use all that jargon in their everyday training life , or is it just to make the foundations think you know what your talking about when writing up a grant proposal...not you personally, of course.

That out of the way, thanks for the input....this is fun! Mad Dog Mike www.training2run.com

[Distance_Guru]

Those terms definatly aren't the most simple way of putting things but, I look at them sort of like the latin scientific names for animals. They may be a mouth full but, every other scientist can figure out from that name what kind of animal were talking about, without the confusion of the less specific common name. In the same way other coaches and exercise scientists know what you are talking about specificly when you say microcycle or mesocycle as opposed to the generic term cycle.

The people that use these terms the most are generally exercise scientists and coaches that either have a back ground as a student in exercise science or a coach that has read a lot of books by righters that use these termanologies, like Martin and Coe, and I beleive Bompa uses these terms as well. You could almost say it's the termanology of the elitest upper crust of the running world.
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Time is the fire in which we burn

[training2run]

[Distance_Guru]

Exercise science, just like every other science I've ever been around, can get a bit dense. However, the termanology does have a point. Once you've been exposed to it, the distinctions do become quite clear. Most of the time these terms are used between coaches / exercise scientists discussing training with each other in which case this termanology is needed to make sure there is no miss understanding. Since the same generic word can often mean different things to different people.

I look at it like medical termanology. For example the terms cardiac arrest, heart attack, and angina. To me there isn't a huge amount of difference, I know they all have something to do with the heart that isn't good. To a doctor their meaningd are very different and I for one am glad he knows the difference.

I also like this form of scientific termanology because in running today the types of training and what they are called varies so much that it is good to have a standard to go buy. Even if some people do look at it as promulgating esoteric cogitations.
_________________
Time is the fire in which we burn