This week is the final week of training for University of Exeter athletes who have been chosen to compete at the BUCS Indoors Championship. For 3 weeks, athletes have been following a Competition schedule. Speed, quality and recovery are high, whilst volume and complexity are low. With 1 week to go, volume reduces still more, and the focus is on ensuring that athletes are fresh, bouncy and excited to compete. This a stage where lots can be lost, but not much can be gained, so I am very conservative with my speed coaching.

Meanwhile, those athletes who weren’t selected to compete at BUCS have been back to Specific Preparation training. This involves high volume, varied and low intensity ballistic medicine ball circuits and plyometrics. All track takes place in trainers (acceleration, max velocity and speed endurance) and we have one session that is off track completely: performing steep hill reps with walk-back recoveries. I find that hill sprinting offers high running volumes with less ‘stress’ on the legs than running on track. This develops the fitness, strength and resilience required to perform strict speed endurance sessions in spikes closer to competitions. In addition, it’s nice for athletes to have variety with their training. Whether someone is a high-performance athlete or one of my Exeter personal training clients just wanting to keep active, it is fundamental that people are enjoying their training, and variety plays an important role in this.