Hit Conditioning: HIT Drills – Part 1

These article series are going to be put together into my book which will be published very soon.

This is a sequel to the HIT Conditioning article series.

In the first part, What You Need To Know, I have presented the basics, as well as the
introduction to the High Intensity Training (HIT). I have also talked mostly about HIT
Prescription. In the following two parts, the emphasis is on HIT Drills.

I will talk about their classifications and then cover each of these categories in more details.
Namely, in this part, I will focus on the first two categories – Long Intervals and Short
Intervals, whereas in the next part, other three categories will be covered: Sprint Interval
Training (SIT), Repeat Sprint Training (RST) and Intermittent Recovery.

Here is the classification of HIT drills used in this article series:

Each of these will be covered in more details, but for the sake of the big picture view, here is
Velocity Profile for the Athlete A (MAS 4.44 m/s, MSS 9 m/s), with distribution of HIT Drills (right
side):

Here, REC stands for recovery interval, performed in active variations of HIT drills, which is
around 50-70% MAS.

These two images give the big picture of HIT drills. Let’s now cover each category in more detail.
Long Intervals

Long intervals are intervals longer that 1 min, usually performed from 80% MAS to 110% MAS.
In this book we differentiate between the two variations: long intervals with active rest (ALI) and
long intervals with passive rest (PLI).

Since long intervals are, well long, coaches prefer to prescribe them using distance. As explained
previously, prescribing in distance is fine when working with rather small number of athletes, but
with the big group, if they run on 800m with their individual times and individual recovery time, it
can become quite messy and chaotic.

The solution for these longer intervals would be to prescribe them in shuttles.

Let’s take again the Athlete A with MAS of 4.44 m/s (16 km/h) and MSS of 9 m/s (32.4 km/h)
and prescribe passive long intervals (PLI) of 3 minutes work at 100% MAS with 6 minute passive
rest. The distance that needs to be covered in those 3 minutes is 800m. That would be easily
done if our Athlete A is training alone. But he has 30 more training mates, and coach decides to
organize them in 10 shuttles of 77 meters (corrected for 0.7s COD loss), with a beep in 18
seconds (one shuttle needs to be covered in 18 seconds, which is equal to 180sec / 10 shuttles).
This is all easily calculated in the HIT Builder.

Let’s deal with the differences between passive (PLI) and active (ALI) long intervals.

Passive Long Intervals (PLI)

Passive long intervals have a passive break between intervals. During that break athletes can
stand or walk. Usually they talk. This passive break affords slightly higher intensity (expressed in
% MAS) compared to active break long intervals (see the Long Intervals table).

In this article series, I differentiate between intensive, normal and extensive variations, which
involve 1:2, 1:1 and 2:1 work-to-rest ratios. The following graph will convey the message, as well
as the long intervals table.

Active Long Intervals (ALI)

Active long intervals involve active recovery period, in which athlete needs to (in this case) run at
50-70% MAS. To be completely honest, this is always tricky with team sport athletes (in general,
but with active long intervals in particular) and much easier to convey with T&F athletes. One
solution, with long intervals are performed in shuttle would be to cover the same distance in
double time (with intensive variations, with 1:2 ratio), cover half the shuttles in same time (with
normal variations, with 1:1 ratio), or cover 1/4 shuttles in half the time (with extensive variations,
with 2:1 ratio).
Taking the Athlete A (MAS 4.44 m/s, MSS 9 m/s) as an example again. Prescribing active long
interval of 2 minutes at 90% MAS, with 2 minutes at 55-65% MAS, in 8 shuttles, the Athlete A
will need to cover 8x57m (480m total). During the 2 minutes break, he would need to cover
4x57m, which is not exactly 55-65% (rather 45% MAS), but much easier to organize and
perform. If you want to be lab coat and nitpick, go ahead and measure exact distance. Or just do
one more shuttle, 5x57m in 2minutes. Problem solved.

As with passive long interval, here I differentiate between three variants: intensive (1:2), normal
(1:1) and extensive (2:1). They are depicted on the image below, but also consult the long
intervals table.

Long Intervals format

One set in the long intervals should be longer than 20-30minutes (e.g. long intervals 3′-3′ takes
6minutes for one repetition, so doing 4x3min is already 24minutes long set). For this reason, long
intervals are usually performed for one set only (two tops). In team sports, athletes are already
time constrained, and for that sole reason, long intervals are usually not that frequently
performed. They are most likely to be performed when there are not many sport practices (as in
the off season), when the athlete is in the rehab phase, or when the athlete is really shitty with
his MAS score (coaching wisdom suggest that lower level athletes should spend more time with
longer intervals). I am advocate of performing them occasionally through the season, for the
sake of variety and covering more ‘extensive’ ranges of conditioning, every now and then. More
about this in the upcoming chapter on planning.

Progressions with Long Intervals

First of all, what is progression? In plain English, progression is making things harder (under the
same variation). HIT has a lot of variables to be manipulated, in order to make intervals harder.
Here are a few heuristics you can play with (in this particular order):
HIT Conditioning: HIT Drills – Part 2

This is a Part 2 of the HIT Drills and a sequel to the HIT Conditioning article series.

In the first part, What You Need To Know, I have presented the basics, as well as the
introduction to the High Intensity Training (HIT). I have also talked mostly about HIT
Prescription. In the HIT Drills – Part 1, I focused on the first two categories – Long
Intervals and Short Intervals.

In this article, I will cover the remaining three categories: Sprint Interval Training (SIT),
Repeat Sprint Training (RST) and Intermittent Recovery. I have also created a HIT
Methods table, which can be very useful.

These article series are going to be put together into my upcoming book. Also, a new
software that I mentioned few times in the article – HIT Builder, is now available for
purchasing in our Online Store »

Sprint Interval Training (SIT)

Sprint interval training is, more or less, sprinting all-out for more than 15-20seconds. Some
coaches call it lactate production, or lactate tolerance training, but I don’t prefer to call certain
methods based on assumed mechanism or process involved, but rather based on
phenomenological characteristics of the training itself. In track and field circles, these methods
are usually called specific endurance and intensive tempo, but the terminology differs a lot
because objectives of these workouts differ between the coaches.

When it comes to HIT, sprint interval training (SIT) can be classified to intensive and extensive
variations.

Intensive SIT
Intensive SIT is truly all-out sprint, done for 15-20+ seconds (up to 45, or even longer) with
almost complete recovery in between. In track and field circles, this type of workout is usually
called specific endurance, but it is done will full recovery between the repetitions, and that
involves resting for 30-90sec per second of activity (e.g. 15sec all-out SIT would involve 8min to
22minutes of rest, which is 1:30 to 1:90 work-to-rest ratio). This is because the goals of sprinter
differ to goals of HIT conditioning. In the latter case, the rest is substantially shorter, usually
around 2-6 minutes (depending on the duration of the sprint) and the work-to-rest ratio is
around 1:6 to 1:8 or more. Having said this, it is important to expect drop in performance across
repetitions, so using %ASR to prescribe beyond the first sprint could be too optimistic and hence
problematic.

For this reason, take the suggested %ASR as a starting point solely, and not something that
should be hold strictly. In a way, using distance instead of time in intensive SIT can work well –
e.g. using the HIT Builder (Tempo Builder (Distance) tab) calculate the initial distance for 20
seconds. Then repeat that distance all-out and allow for time to extend as fatigue sets in. It is
the art of coaching to figure out how much fatigue we want to accumulate and what should be
the allowed % drop (e.g. if that 20sec extends to 25 seconds we should probably call it a day;
T&F coaches would call it a day much earlier though, but they have a complete rest between
reps).

Using our six athletes as an example, here is how the workout can be planned. We decide to do
20 sec intensive SIT. Here are the distances:

One thing to keep in mind is to use start loss metrics and start conservatively with distance
(better to go under for 20% than over for 5% – asymmetry as Nassim Taleb would call it).
Besides, team sport athletes are not used to this type of training and can easily break havoc (e.g.
sore or pulled hamstrings, calves or quads). The solution might be to do this in shuttles with
COD, to avoid building up the speed too much (gassers anyone? or 150-300 yard shuttles?). In
this case you can use the HIT Builder to help you estimate the distances, but always use your
intuition here and adjust as you seem fit.
In the above case, you can prescribe time zones, e.g. from 21 to 23 seconds across repetitions (I
have added 1 second start loss, although more can be added) for everyone to follow.

Another approach would be prescribing the same distance for everyone and assigning times to
groups. Let’s say 200m:

Putting the lads on the same line can cause competition between them, and that is always good
for increasing motivation and hence effort (especially in all-out intervals). Therefore, from this
viewpoint, prescribing distance rather than time, and allowing everyone to compete, can be a
nice trick to milk-out maximal effort and make it more fun (which are not factors of low
importance, au contraire). Each group can have a time zone they should strive to, otherwise they
just might slack (although slacking sometimes can be due to the day-to-day variation and mood,
not only being a slacker; again importance of art rather than numerical science).

Here is the table for %ASR for the first repetition of the intensive SIT intervals, when prescribed
using time.

Some coaches prefer to do hill sprints (me too), and in that case the HIT Builder should be used
only used as a rough estimate. But in my experience, coaches usually prescribe same distance to
everyone for the hill workout and instruct them to run all-out. In this case, the ‘equal playing
field’ is lost, but we allowed some self-regulation of the athletes. Assuming the athletes can be
trusted to give good effort, there is no need to specially prescribe time or distance and make
things more complex than they need to be. If all your HIT drills are strictly prescribed and
directed by you, the “Hitler coach”, then maybe some HIT drills should be left to athletes to self-
regulate, especially the all-out intervals, which are really hard to predict from rep to rep, day to
day.

Long story short – when using intensive SIT, prescribe using distance for everyone so the
competition can happen, try to do intervals in shuttles (e.g. 6x40m), get some ball-park where
athletes should be, in terms of their time using HIT Builder, but allow for time zones and accept
certain drop across repetitions.

Extensive SIT

Extensive SIT is something that T&F coaches tend to call intensive tempo, which is quite similar
to extensive tempo that we already covered. Extensive tempo, as we have discussed already, is
usually performed at 70% or less of mean velocity on 100-200m distance. Intensive tempo is
around 80-90%. Extensive SIT is slightly less all-out than intensive SIT, which allows shorter rest
and/or longer repetitions. The work-to-rest ratio is 1:4-6 or lower (as opposed to 1:6-8 or higher
in intensive SIT), hence the rest is incomplete and the fatigue over reps will set in.

Using the similar logic with tempo HIT, extensive SIT can be calculated using either 80-90% of
mean velocity on the distance, or 70-80% of %ASR for a given distance/time. Table below
contains recommendations for extensive SIT using time prescription and 70-80% of %ASR:

Both approaches of extensive SIT prescription can be conducted using Tempo Builder tab in the
HIT Builder. It is important to note that, due to the fatigue accumulation, repetition distance and
time will get progressively worse. In this regard, the ASR values from the table represent only
starting values. With extensive SIT, the organization should be more strict, as opposed to
intensive SIT, because we do not want athletes to race each other. It would be wise to create
group of specific distance that needs to be covered or time over predefined distance, as well as
to allow for some performance decrement over the reps.

Organization wise, the easiest way would be to prescribe shuttle-based or straight line distance
for everyone, and then assign times to groups of similar characteristic. Due to the fact that the
times between repetitions are long, each group can go separately and hit their own prescribed
time. For example, on the picture below we have 4x60m extensive SIT, done with 1 sec start loss
correction and 0.7 COD loss correction at 85% of velocity for that distance. Athletes are grouped
into 3 groups, each starting on their own and having designated time. While waiting, others can
perform some easy technical drills, or some prehab, or core movement.

Setup above can also work for an intensive SIT, although “all-out” command can be given, and
athletes can be set up in groups of similar ability, as well to allow closer competition between
them. Some playful game can be done, e.g. collecting points in each group and losers from
groups need to pick up the cones.