150 Pick-ups
No, this is not a pick-up truck. It’s a workout. I don’t remember where I got it from, but it’s one I’ve used for many years in cold weather. It’s a workout for sprinters that can serve as a good over-distance workout for 110/100m hurdlers and a good speed workout for 300/400m hurdlers.
The Workout:
The athlete starts at the 150 mark, which is the 4th 300h mark on a high school track. On a collegiate track, it’s five meters behind the 7th 400h mark. A cone is placed at a spot 50 meters from the start, and another one is placed at a spot 100 meters from the start. The athlete will gradually pick up speed throughout the rep, hence the name of the workout.
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The way I do it is, the athlete will run at 70% of full speed for the first 50, 80% for the second fifty, and 90% for the last fifty. The percentages are going to be somewhat subjective. I’ll give the athletes a target time for each rep so that they don’t start out too slow. And I’ll get the split times at each fifty to make sure they are, in fact, picking up speed in each fifty-meter phase.
When picking up speed at each cone, the pick-up shouldn’t be abrupt; it shouldn’t be a sudden shift of gears. The pick-up should begin about ten meters away from the cone, so that by the time the athlete reaches the cone, he or she is at the next level of speed.
Benefits:
One of the benefits of this workout is that it allows you to sprint in cold weather with a minimized risk of injury. You can still get in the volume you want, and you can still get your speed up, but you can do so in a way that acknowledges the dangers that come with sprinting in the cold.
Another benefit is that it improves the athlete’s late-race strength. In most sprint workouts, the athletes go hard and hold on, which translates into races. In this workout, you’re conditioning the body to think in terms of accelerating at the stage of the rep (or race) when it would usually be decelerating. I remember reading that Tommie Smith’s coach, Bud Winter, had him do a similar-type workout which provided Smith with the late-race stamina to swallow up ground and walk people down over the last 70 meters of the 200.
A third benefit is that it helps the athlete develop an internal body clock. In conversations with Jean Poquette (Renaldo Nehemiah’s high school coach), I learned how important this skill is. Also, I remember once watching a couple professional quarter milers training, doing 200 repeats. I noticed that they weren’t wearing watches, and they had no coach with them, so I assumed they were running the reps un-timed. When I asked them that question between sets, they told me they were running the reps in 28 seconds. When I asked how they knew they were running at that pace, one of them answered, “I can tell by how many strides I take.” I was like, wow, now that’s what is meant by knowing your body. That’s what’s meant by having a body clock. So back to my point, a lot of athletes only know one speed – full blast, and they beat their bodies up running themselves into the ground. When you have gears, and you know how to shift gears, then you have the feeling of total control. So when you need to kick into fourth gear, fifth gear, you know how to do so, and you don’t need a watch to tell you that you’re running fast.
Variation:
In any sprint workout, hurdlers can vary it by adding a hurdle or two to spice things up and to stay in the hurdler’s mentality. For this workout, I think one hurdle would be enough, somewhere in the last 50-meter zone. The presence of the hurdle there will add to the athlete’s feeling that he or she must accelerate in order to have momentum going into the hurdle.
This workout can be done at shorter distance with a similar effect. For example, 90 meter sprints, with a cone at the 30 mark and 60 mark. Or maybe just have two zones. For example, 100 meter sprints with one cone at the fifty mark. As long as you know what you want to accomplish from the workout, you can tweak it to fit your needs.
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