Optimized Middle Distance & Distance Training for High School Athletes

Coach Tim Ives provides an outline on how to plan optimal training for the high school middle distance and distance runner. He provides his definition of optimal training and its benefits for distance running, and also explains how a well-thought-out training plan can lead to success.

Focusing on three things - strength training, improving running form and basic sprint mechanics - Coach Ives details why each is important to optimal training. He shares his team's overall plan with Excel documents and descriptive video of some of the exercises he favors, all so you can adopt some of his ideas within your own program.

Optimal Training

Coach Ives defines optimized training as "the effective coordination of a pre-season and an in-season training plan, speed and strength development and running form for the flourishing of an athlete." He explains how not planning training puts athletes at risk for inconsistent results, stunted athletic development, injury and possibly dropping out of the sport. His underlying theme to make training engaging and (at times) even fun for the athlete promotes not only the development of the athlete, but the athlete as a person as well.

Ives explains the factors that must be taken into consideration when training athletes, using a great example of how similar runners should be trained differently according to their unique capabilities and experience. You'll learn how he classifies his athletes into three categories based on age and experience, plus how he individualizes training for each category. Coach Ives says that understanding and appreciating the types of athletes you have will help you better plan an effective training program.

Strength Training

In this segment, Coach Ives shares brief video demonstrations of the strength exercises he feels are important to developing distance athletes. He covers progressions of some of the exercises that can be made for athletes that do not have access to traditional gym equipment. He also outlines a sample program for strength training.

Running Form and Sprint Mechanics

Next, Ives explains why cadence is important to a runner's form and how correcting it, or improving it, can help prevent injuries and increase performance. You will discover the ideal cadence range and get a simple formula for any runner to determine it themselves.

When discussing sprint mechanics in the importance of an annual plan, Coach Ives lists the benefits of teaching it to the distance runner: improving running coordination, making the athlete faster, and providing enjoyable variety to training. Additionally, he shares a sample "speed program" he uses with his distance runners and how he includes it in training.

This video will give you a snapshot into a championship program run by an accomplished coach. Coach Ives thoroughly defines the importance of optimizing a training plan for your athletes, emphasizing not only the physical benefits, but the ancillary benefits to building a successful high school middle distance and distance program.

40 minutes. 2021.