That is Matt Lengthy’s 4th piece for RunBlogRun on the artwork and science of teaching athletics. That is the third a part of a 3 half sequence on the teaching of World Champion Jake Wightman.
JAKE WIGHTMAN- INCREASING THE PACE, by Matt Lengthy
IN THE FINAL PIECE OF A TRILOGY, MATT LONG HAS A FRONT-ROW SEAT IN WATCHING GEOFF WIGHTMAN MOVE THROUGH THE COACHING GEARS
Within the first of a three-part sequence, you’ll recall that we started to discover the teaching journey of Geoff Wightman, which noticed his son Jake take the World 1500m title in Oregon again on 19th July final 12 months. Partially 2, we labored again to Jake’s junior profession in exploring the kind of periods which moved him from a promising junior to a world athlete. You’ll bear in mind we spoke about how ‘drained surges’ with a floating component have been used as a selected type of ‘break up interval’ coaching. This observe was contextualized as regards to the work of GA Brooks on the physiology of the ‘lactate shuttle’ and the teaching pedagogy of the Oregon-based Peter J. Thompson.
So let’s regress again 20 years to look again at Jake Wightman, the boy.
Sunday 16th March 2003
It’s a bitingly chilly, moist, and windy half marathon in Bathtub because the announcer, Geoff Wightman, takes his place within the makeshift commentary field because the mini enjoyable run which precedes the principle occasion will get underway. A nervous nine-year-old Jake Wightman glances over to the watchful eye of his father as he embarks upon certainly one of his very first fledgling athletic experiences outdoors of the consolation of his college cross-country fields. Halfway by way of the race, tears fill Jake’s’ eyes as he slips and grazes his knee on one of many turns across the recreation grounds of Bathtub RFC. Spectators politely applaud him as he will get to his ft and troopers on, however his distress is compounded as his twin brother Sam goes previous him and disappears away off into the space. Jake trudges house close to the again of the sphere to vanish down a ending funnel which leads many a disheartened teenager into obscurity. Nobody there that day would have believed they have been witnessing a boy who would go on to develop into a World 1500m champion in Oregon 19 years later.
So let’s unpick Jake’s long-term athlete growth:
Lengthy-Time period Athlete Improvement
Again in 2019, Geoff Wightman informed me, “My spouse Susan (nee Tooby- a former worldwide athlete) coached Jake and his twin brother Sam up till they have been nearly 16 as a result of she was a PE trainer at their college, Fettes School in Edinburgh. They did sport quite a bit every week, however Jake began to make some progress at operating, despite the fact that he hadn’t actually grown at that age. It was felt that he wanted a bit extra enter and extra common coaching, so I took it on in 2010. For the subsequent seven years, he was my solely athlete. We received a whole lot of assist with him becoming a member of in with different individuals’s teams, particularly Eric Fisher, Sandy Cameron, and John Lees at Edinburgh AC and George Gandy at Loughborough. I realized so much from them and likewise the opposite coaches that I encountered in my work at Scottish Athletics and UK Athletics, together with sprints, jumps, and throws coaches”.
What is important concerning the above is that Wightman junior could have been uncovered to a spread of sports activities at a younger age, all of which could have helped what coaches are likely to confer with as ‘ABCs’- specifically Agility, Steadiness, and Co-Ordination. Secondly, the truth that Wightman senior alludes to studying from sprints, jumps, and throws coaches implies that fairly than specializing as an endurance athlete at a really younger age, his son could have made the a lot of the ‘home windows of alternative’ for pace and energy growth by way of issues like pace drills, plyometrics, and physique weight workouts.
Multi-paced coaching
Wightman senior readily admits to being closely influenced by the work of the late founding father of the British Milers’ Membership, Frank Horwill. In his traditional textual content Obsession for Operating (1991), the charismatic coach formulated his notion of multi-tier coaching by way of the 5 paced system, which was most famously utilized by double Olympic 1500m champion Sebastian Coe. Guided by his father Peter, Sebastian would impact periods over a microcycle of coaching which have been at 1500m race tempo however typically over distance when it comes to being accomplished at 3,000m and 5,000m tempo and likewise under-distance, specifically at 800m and right down to 400m tempo.
Talking to a British Milers’ Cub teaching viewers in the previous couple of months, Geoff Wightman asserted that, “Each race is gained by the athlete who modifications tempo the most effective.” So Wightman tailored the philosophy engendered by Horwill and Coe senior by figuring that multi-paced coaching may very well be effected inside a single session and in the end inside a single interval fairly than one thing which wanted to be formulaically unfold over a set variety of days inside a microcycle.
Wightman senior provided the instance of ordinary 5 x 1200m (off 400m jog restoration), which was run at an excellent tempo. Relatively than attempting to instantly impact a ‘break up interval’ with a floating component, his first urged intervention, which may very well be used for a growing occasion group endurance athlete, may very well be what Dave Sunderland in Excessive-Efficiency Center Distance Operating (2005) would have termed a ‘tempo increaser.’ So the 5 x 1200m may very well be run with every of the three laps getting incrementally faster, say from 78s on lap 1, to 76s on lap 2 to 74s on lap 3.
When the younger athlete has achieved progressive overload and habituated to the above, Wightman senior urged she or he might then retain the precept of the ‘tempo increaser’ on every lap however might intention to get the cumulative time for every of the 5 intervals progressively faster. So, for instance, the primary set may very well be run at 84s for lap 1, 82s for lap 2, and 80s for lap 3, producing a cumulative clocking of 4m06s. On the different finish of the spectrum, if the 5th interval have been run at 74s for lap 1, 72s for lap 2, and 70s for lap 3, this could lead to a cumulative clocking of 3m36s.
We’re most actually not suggesting that younger athletes ought to have an effect on 5 x1200m. The session and the splits fabricated above are merely for illustrative functions. It’s the underlying ideas of the session that we try to inculcate, and they’re as follows.
Rules
Even-paced operating is most related to operating a PR and does have a spot in interval coaching. This being mentioned, even paced operating, by definition, can’t inculcate a change of tempo with the mentioned athlete. The younger endurance athlete must study to have the ability to change paces inside a session, in order that they habituate their our bodies to run at a spread of aerobically dominant paces and are thus not ‘locked’ into one tempo. The notion of the ‘tempo increaser’ is an effective approach of starting to get the younger athlete to maneuver by way of the proverbial gears, and when this has been inculcated over a mesocycle of coaching, additional progressive overload can appropriately be launched by retaining this precept and by including the second variable of the growing tempo of the intervals as a cumulative. It could be extremely dangerous for the coach to aim to instantly soar from even-paced intervals to altering two variables- therefore the ‘tempo increaser’ serves as a bridge to creating the second inter-related intervention- what we will time period the ‘cumulative tempo increaser’.
This leaves us with the next questions for self-reflection:
Questions for self-reflection:
What number of of my periods are affected at an excellent tempo?
What quantity of my coaching entails some type of differential pacing part?
Why would possibly it’s appropriate for me to construct a ‘tempo increaser’ component into my interval work?
When would possibly it’s applicable to retain a ‘tempo increaser’ component in my work however to additionally introduce a second variable of a ‘cumulative tempo increaser’ with every interval getting progressively sooner?
Matt Lengthy has coached a world champion in athletics and served as an England Group Coach @ the 2022 Commonwealth Video games Improvement Camp. He welcomes contact for recommendation by way of mattlongcoach@gmail.com
“That’s my boy,” Geoff Wightman on the coaching of Jake Wightman, Half 1: https://www.runblogrun.com/2022/12/thats-my-boy-the-coaching-of-jake-wightman-2022-world-champion-at-1500-meters.html, by Matt Lengthy
Jake Wightman, Coaching, half 2: https://www.runblogrun.com/2023/02/jake-wightman-from-boy-to-man-matt-long-comments-on-how-geoff-wightman-coached-jake-wightman-2022-world-champion-1500-meters-part-2.html, by Matt Lengthy.
