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How to improve your 400 & 800m times

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Hard Hill sessionThere are a couple of different training methods that can apply to the 400 & 800m distances.

It’s pretty obvious that you need speed for the 100 & 200m but many people neglect speed for the 400 & 800m. Most coaches and athletes advocate the long to short method meaning they start with very long slow running early in the season and progress to short faster running later in the season. This is a very common method used around the world and works very well for many athletes. However I would say it works for many talented athletes if they already have a load of speed. Michael Johnson, the 400m world record holder with a blistering time of 43.18 trained on this method and who can argue with his times. However he could also run a 200m in 19.32sec and the 100m in 10.09sec so this gave him a pretty big advantage in the long to short method. I would nearly go so far as to say that you could train a gifted athlete like him on many different programs and get similar results. This is not to say that he didn’t have to train hard and didn’t have the best coach in the world at that time in Clyde Hart. And I think he had the best coach for him.

Charlie Francis the renowned coach of Ben Johnson, preferred the short to long method. Keeping speed as a priority all year round. This method built speed early and slowly let the distance out as the athlete could perform each distance with good mechanics. I’m not sure about Charlie’s  success with longer distance athletes but his methods worked for the shorter distances.
I read a great article sometime ago by Australian coach Mike Hurst who I consider one of Australia’s greatest coaches. He was the coach of our best 400m runner Darren Clark. Anything Mike Hurst has to say is worth listening to. Mike summed up the method that I choose to use even though I didn’t have a name for it so credit goes to Mike Hurst for what he termed the concurrent method. A method that incorporates both speed and distance. This method never lets the athlete get to far away from speed whilst continuously building endurance. Building endurance when your athlete doesn’t have any speed is pointless as you will end up with a very fit athlete that can’t turnover. I personally think this is one of the greatest mistakes coaches and athletes make. If you can improve your 100m time this will improve your 200m and in turn improve your 400m time. It just goes with out saying.
There will always be exceptions to the rule, but from my experience, speed rules. Here’s my thought. If you want to improve your 400m time you need to improve your 200m time. Lets say your target time for the first 200 of your 400m is X, then the faster you can run a one off 200m the lower the % the first 200 of the 400m will be. True? This will leave more in the tank or more speed reserve for the second 200m.
The same applies for the 800m. Lower your 200/400m time and the % you have to run the first 400m will be lower leaving more in the tank for the second 400m. However, I have one caveat for this method. You still need to do the 400/800m grind work that hurts like hell. If you can’t do the 400/800 grind you can have all the speed in the world and it just won’t help. Its why the say the 400m is the toughest race, I I would also include ether 800m.

I have a saying for any athlete that wants to run 400’s & 800’s. “If you don’t like feeling uncomfortable at every training session find another distance”.

400 & 800m training is complex and I would say most coaches and athletes probably have enough knowledge about the event to get good results. But to get great results takes more art the science. Putting it all together is the key.
I could write about this topic forever however I don’t think I could explain it well enough on paper to understand.
I can’t tell you how to put together the best training program to run a faster 400/800m as that comes down to knowing your athlete, what shape they are in and may more factors. But what I can tell you, improve your speed and speed reserve and your times will come down. The other key major factor affecting athletes is putting it all together on race day. This comes down to lots of race modelling. This is something I don’t think enough athletes practice. I have rarely read anything about it and if I have it’s normally pretty vague.  I believe athletes and coaches don’t really understand the term “race modelling”. I have written about race modelling before and you can find more on my thoughts here..

Comments

  1. How do you decide when to switch the focus to one (speed) or the other (endurance)? Do you put much stock in the 4×100+4sec formula? IOW, once someone reaches the theoretical best 400m time based off their 100m, do you chase the extra thru more speedwork? Is a runner that is at this point and not getting quicker at the shorter distance quietly pushed toward the 800m?

    Reply

    • There are lots of good questions here and I can not answer them within the comments section in detail so I may write a follow up post. Using the concurrent method the focus remains both on speed and endurance. The focus may be skewed a little one way depending on the training phase you are in. No we don’t use 4x100m +4sec as I don’t believe it has much relevance to your 400m time especially a masters athlete. I would never use someones 100m time to determine if they can improve their 400m time. If you applied this method to a 400/800m runner then you would probably think they had reached their best 400m a long time before their actual best.

      Reply

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