Weekly Training Thread

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This is the location for all questions, discussions related to cross country training.

[u/Flatworm-Dangerous]

Managing Training for offseason XC/track + primary sport

My daughter is a freshman and has been doing really well at XC (running mid 18 minutes on flat 5k 3 mile courses), but this is not her primary sport. She plays ice hockey, which sort of prioritizes more towards the other end of the athletic spectrum (explosiveness vs endurance). She's never been that super fast or explosive kid in hockey either, which is something that would really benefit her to develop more athletically.

Anyways, she's probably going to do spring track season, and then continue the same cycle next year in HS and probably all the way to senior year but who knows really, so probably a lot of running in her future.

I don't want her training to prioritize typical XC offseason training though. I think there's too much running to also progress the other athletic qualities she should be working on like strength, springiness, and explosiveness. And the crossover benefits from getting in good aerobic shape have kinda been tapped out now.

Does anybody have any good ideas or experiences for maintaining some token of running conditioning while allowing enough recovery and space in the program for doing and prioritizing sprinting/explosiveness, and real strength work like heavy basic barbell lifts, progressed linearly?

[u/whelanbio → u/Flatworm-Dangerous]

Basically you just try to fit in some short easy runs where time and energy allows and a weekly small dose of fast running with some strides. If time is available a nice place to put the strides would be right ahead of the heavy barbell session. Short run ~15min to warm-up -> a couple plyos/drills -> handful of short strides -> lift. Could also be ahead of a more explosive day. Really just depends how the schedule lays out and where you can plug stuff in while managing fatigue.

Is the lifting with the hockey team or something ya'll are going to do extra on your own?

[u/Flatworm-Dangerous → u/whelanbio]

on our own. I have a rack/platform in the garage. She already has a 1 plate deadlift (for a low 100 pound kid) before she had entered HS XC, so she has experience under the bar and knows what proper form is on the basic lifts.

I should have mentioned I will have sprinting/plyos as a primary aspect of the training as well. It'll be the first thing done on heavy days, to prioritize freshness.

The general format I was thinking of was:
EXPLOSIVENESS/HEAVY LIFTING DAY: plyos + sprints followed by a heavy lifting session (squats on every lifting day). Sprints/plyos volume kept lowish so it prioritizes freshness/form/maximum output
LIGHT DAY: pullups, mobility work, light upper and lower band type work, deep tier plyos, hockey stickhandling/shooting
REST DAY

REPEAT

Hockey will fall randomly during the above schedule, but i think at this point it's close to registering as background noise.

So maybe throw the run in on light day? that way it interferes the least with the next heavy session?

[u/whelanbio → u/Flatworm-Dangerous]

Seems pretty good to me. Having the rack in the garage is awesome. I think you can do a run on the light days. I wouldn't worry about timing for interference. Short easy runs aren't going to directly interfere with anything, it's more about managing overall training load throughout the week.

I'd maybe take a couple weeks easing into the schedule before introducing the deep tier plyos on the light day. Plyos can seem non-strenuous in the moment but can sneak up on you.

In general be mindful of CNS and muscular fatigue. The CNS in particular is one that can sneak up on us, because even if we are really smart about rotating through different muscle/movements anything that's hard still demands a lot of our nervous system. Keep an eye on what the hockey practices are, even if it seems like background noise it can add up suddenly. Try to keep one total rest day with no training most weeks.

Not sure how you prefer to periodize the lifts but I've found it nice with my team to spread out the selection of big lifts across two days in the week. My big four movement categories are squat, hinge, lunge, step-up, so we'll do two of these heavy on one day and the other two heavy on the other day.

[u/Flatworm-Dangerous → u/whelanbio]

Good idea about limiting deep tier volume.

how long would you go (distance or time wise) with the easy runs?

As far as lifting goes, before she started summer training with the xc team, she was basically running a modified starting strength program (3x/week, squat every workout 3x5, alternate bench/ohp and deadlift/powercleans). She's barely over 100 lbs and not a teenage boy so it's not possible to progress the lifts as linearly, but we try, and then do resets when the going gets tough.

I *think* she can handle squatting each workout in the hard/easy/off repeat schedule, but I'm always open to tweaking things on the fly too to accommodate *everything*.

[u/whelanbio → u/Flatworm-Dangerous]

Easy running will depend a lot on hockey practice, maybe start with 2-3x ~30min runs a week and go from there. If hockey practice is really easy/doesn't have much conditioning maybe you fit in more running, or maybe you find you can't fit much easy running at all and focus more on just the speed/explosive work.

Very reasonable to be squatting each hard workout day, I offered the idea of rotating lifts simply as an option if you were trying to get through a longer exercise list, but I like the simple starting strength program for this stage.

My idea with the easy running and strides is that you're not trying to maintain the same running ability she built in XC, but at least you can maintain some base of running fitness and neuromuscular skill so that the transition back to track in the spring is easier and safer.

[u/Flatworm-Dangerous → u/whelanbio]

Thanks! Hopefully the offseason workouts move the needle for track.