Optimizing Training Loads for Distance Runners

with Tom Schwartz, Ph. D.;
Founder of Tinman Endurance Coaching;
Coach of 2015 National Foot Locker Champion Drew Hunter

Coach of high school phenom Drew Hunter, Tom "Tinman" Schwartz is a USATF Level 1 coach with over 27 years of experience coaching runners and other endurance athletes on how to improve their performance. Coach Schwartz is a lifelong student as well as an educator. He earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in exercise science. He added additional practical experience over the years working as a physical education teacher at the high school level.

Coach Tom Schwartz provides you with insight on how to optimize training programs to create the best environment possible for athlete development. Included in this video are critical factors in planning training, ways to structure workouts to promote adaptation, and how to organize training based on muscle fiber types.

Critical Factors in Planning Training

By identifying critical factors that play a part in training progressions, coaches can develop stronger plans. Avoid over-stressing athletes by identifying and eliminating weekly spikes in training loads, while allowing appropriate time for adaptation and recovery. Coach Schwartz also provides insights on how to communicate effectively with athletes to ensure appropriate stress levels are being placed upon them, given various outside factors in their daily life that can impact training.

Layering Workouts

Layering workouts is an important tool that can greatly enhance the quality of each training session and promote better adaptation for athletes. Coach Schwartz shows you the best ways to layer workouts to prevent injuries, foster recovery, and allow different training paces to target various aspects of your runners' development and get the most from each session.

Designing Training Protocols for Athletes by Muscle Fiber Types

In this segment, Coach Schwartz breaks down the different types of athlete that are on each team and explains how to design training to meet each of their individual needs. This section includes different training volumes and paces that range from high volume for Type I dominant athletes, all the way to short duration, high intensity work for Type 2X athletes. By individualizing workouts based on muscle fiber types, you can greatly improve the quality of training for each athlete to help them reach their peak performance.

This video will give you ways to optimize your training program by identifying common issues that impede training, designing well-structured workout, and identifying athlete strengths to individualize training programs.

55 minutes. 2017