High school cross country weight training program

Extra Training : For some talented and well-trained runners, particularly seniors, 35 to 45 miles of running a week is not enough. And to a point, the more miles you run, the faster a runner you can become. That is why coaches of top-ranked teams ask their runners to run twice a day up to miles a week.

They build them up over a period of several years to the point where they can accept this workout load. If you want to run extra miles and train more than once a day, I suggest you do so gradually. Start out by doing double workouts on three days a week, the days on which you have easy runs scheduled.

If you can maintain this level, add an extra day of double training over a period of weeks, months or even years. Sudden increases in speed and distance usually do not lead to long-range success. Be cautious. If you feel some or all of these workouts might help you as an individual and improve your performances, be diplomatic. Go to your coach and discuss training ideas. If he only meets with the team three or four days a week, your coach might even like having you do some extra running following my pattern.

He is the one standing by the finish line with a stopwatch in hand, not me. Whatever your situation, train hard, but also easy, and have a great cross-country season in the fall. Subscribe to our mailing list for advice from Hal, training tips, and updates on our programs and apps. By submitting your email address, you are consenting to receive communications from halhigdon.

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About the Cross Country Program Many runners who participate in cross country meets are members of a high school or college team and follow the training programs of their coaches. This plan is not available in the RunWithHal app, but you can still get the interactive version through TrainingPeaks. Or, explore more training options in the app:. Miles KMs Week Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Miles 1 30 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 30 min fartlek 30 min easy 60 min long Rest or 30 easy 36 2 30 min tempo 5 x 30 min easy 30 min fartlek 30 min easy 65 min long Rest or 30 easy 37 3 35 min tempo 6 x 30 min easy 35 min fartlek 30 min easy 70 min long Rest or 30 easy 39 4 35 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 35 min fartlek 30 min easy Road Race Rest or 30 easy 37 5 40 min tempo 5 x 30 min easy 40 min fartlek 30 min easy 75 min long Rest or 30 easy 41 6 40 min tempo 8 x 30 min easy 40 min fartlek 30 min easy 80 min long Rest or 30 easy 41 7 45 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 45 min fartlek 30 min easy Road Race Rest or 30 easy 40 8 45 min tempo 5 x 30 min easy 45 min fartlek 30 min easy 85 min long Rest or 30 easy 43 9 45 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 45 min fartlek 30 min easy 90 min long Rest or 30 easy 44 10 30 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 30 min fartlek 30 min easy XC Meet Rest Week Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 30 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 30 min fartlek 30 min easy 60 min long Rest or 30 easy 2 30 min tempo 5 x 30 min easy 30 min fartlek 30 min easy 65 min long Rest or 30 easy 3 35 min tempo 6 x 30 min easy 35 min fartlek 30 min easy 70 min long Rest or 30 easy 4 35 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 35 min fartlek 30 min easy Road Race Rest or 30 easy 5 40 min tempo 5 x 30 min easy 40 min fartlek 30 min easy 75 min long Rest or 30 easy 6 40 min tempo 8 x 30 min easy 40 min fartlek 30 min easy 80 min long Rest or 30 easy 7 45 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 45 min fartlek 30 min easy Road Race Rest or 30 easy 8 45 min tempo 5 x 30 min easy 45 min fartlek 30 min easy 85 min long Rest or 30 easy 9 45 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 45 min fartlek 30 min easy 90 min long Rest or 30 easy 10 30 min tempo 10 x 30 min easy 30 min fartlek 30 min easy XC Meet Rest.

It's great. Hopefully you were able to implement a voluntary summer schedule in which both newcomers and returning veterans were able to put in some base mileage and get to know, or get reacquainted with, their teammates. There is still time to put in the strength work needed, there is just less potential for how much improvement athletes can have.

The wider the bottom of the pyramid, the taller you can build. This is done primarily with attention to running volume. This will obviously be a lot different for young inexperienced runners, compared to their older, more experienced teammates. In the next quarter of the season, runners should continue to run at this top end of their mileage, allowing for an occasional drop every weeks to better adapt to the training.

But, always remember that injury free is the place to be, so modulate the mileage goals for your runners so they always stay injury free. The other major factor is training intensity. During this part of the season, the intensity of every run, but especially hard days should be relatively low to what they will reach later in the season. The body has enough of a challenge handling the increase in volume, it can be overworked if it is also asked to handle too great of training intensity.

Good workouts at this time of year include steady states, fartleks, and long runs. See the McMillan Running Calculator to learn more about these workouts.

A great way to check that runners are staying in the desired range of intensity is to check their heart-rate during and immediately after workouts. Talent is certainly a plus, but team members and coaches should not judge others on talent, but by all means on effort.

It should not be a place where the coach or captain must take attendance every day because people come and go randomly. Attendance is a bare minimum requirement for anything worthwhile in life and it should be very obvious to all when an athlete is missing, and the peer scrutiny that follows when that athlete returns.

A positive team exists with A cross country team that has an approachable, well-rounded, passionate, and respected leader coach who further propagates positive attitudes of motivation and self-esteem is the driver of the cultural attitude of the program.

A positive culture chiefly exists because the attitude and the values of the coach have Intensity follows the same rule of two-thirds. The less skilled athletes have not developed a high lactate response yet, so high intensity work will fatigue them very quickly On the other side of the spectrum are people who freak out over the idea.

There are many variables involved for kids considering this route. Good distance training programs involve circuit training for strength. Good distance training programs involve drills and short sprints for coordination and speed. The training emphasis begins with mile runs done continuously at a steady pave near the aerobic threshold. To further prevent the onset of injury, it is wise to construct workouts in a pattern of hard-easy microcycles, allowing one week of reduced intensity following three weeks of dynamic and serious training.

Build this into your training by viewing the training season macrocycle from the final competitive effort backwards, placing reduced-intensity weeks rest appropriately. The fresh legs and perceived-effort the athlete feels will keep his or her mentally and physically able to increase workloads after a period during which the body can more deeply recover. By following training requirements, the coach has a framework under which he or she can structure the week according to:. As we look at the following sample sets of workouts, the individual coach will need to always evaluate the structure according to the individual needs of the team.

In many circumstances, conference or regional meets have no bearing upon the outcome of a championship and are used primarily for practice. In other cases, the conference meets are used solely to determine a conference or region champion. In other cases, regional or state qualifying may be done through conference meets. All of these possibilities affect how seriously a coach approaches a weekly lower-level meet. It is ideal if the coach is able to structure the workout week so that the conference meets are used as a training situation, allowing the athlete to put race plans to the test, experiment with strategies and sample harder pacing requirements.

Those conferences that use duals and tri-meets as scored elements of a championship season obviously place more competitive stress on the athlete and require careful and individual planning on the part of the coach.

These notes will evaluate three potential situations out of many possibilities involving structuring the workout week: no competition, one competition and two competitions.

Microcycle with No Competitive Effort. The hard-easy schedule is maintained with M-W-F being the primary hard days, followed by a long run on Saturday.