Jake Wightman-Increasing the Pace, part 3 on the Training of Jake Wightman

That is Matt Lengthy’s 4th piece for RunBlogRun on the artwork and science of teaching athletics. That is the third a part of a 3 half collection on the teaching of World Champion Jake Wightman. 

JAKE WIGHTMAN- INCREASING THE PACE, by Matt Lengthy 

IN THE FINAL PIECE OF A TRILOGY, MATT LONG HAS A FRONT-ROW SEAT IN WATCHING GEOFF WIGHTMAN MOVE THROUGH THE COACHING GEARS

Within the first of a three-part series, you’ll recall that we started to discover the teaching journey of Geoff Wightman, which noticed his son Jake take the World 1500m title in Oregon again on 19^th July final yr. In part 2, we labored again to Jake’s junior profession in exploring the kind of periods which moved him from a promising junior to a world athlete. You’ll keep in mind we spoke about how ‘drained surges’ with a floating aspect had been used as a particular type of ‘break up interval’ coaching. This apply was contextualized as regards to the work of GA Brooks on the physiology of the ‘lactate shuttle’ and the teaching pedagogy of the Oregon-based Peter J. Thompson. 

So let’s regress again twenty years to look again at Jake Wightman, the boy.

Sunday 16^th March 2003

It’s a bitingly chilly, moist, and windy half marathon in Bathtub because the announcer, Geoff Wightman, takes his place within the makeshift commentary field because the mini enjoyable run which precedes the principle occasion will get underway. A nervous nine-year-old Jake Wightman glances over to the watchful eye of his father as he embarks upon one among his very first fledgling athletic experiences exterior of the consolation of his college cross-country fields. Halfway by means of the race, tears fill Jake’s’ eyes as he slips and grazes his knee on one of many turns across the recreation grounds of Bathtub RFC. Spectators politely applaud him as he will get to his toes and troopers on, however his distress is compounded as his twin brother Sam goes previous him and disappears away off into the gap. Jake trudges residence close to the again of the sphere to vanish down a ending funnel which leads many a disheartened teen into obscurity. Nobody there that day would have believed they had been witnessing a boy who would go on to turn out to be a World 1500m champion in Oregon 19 years later. 

So let’s unpick Jake’s long-term athlete growth:

Lengthy-Time period Athlete Growth

Again in 2019, Geoff Wightman informed me, “My spouse Susan (nee Tooby- a former worldwide athlete) coached Jake and his twin brother Sam up till they had been nearly 16 as a result of she was a PE trainer at their college, Fettes Faculty in Edinburgh. They did sport rather a lot every week, however Jake began to make some progress at working, though he hadn’t actually grown at that age. It was felt that he wanted a bit extra enter and extra common coaching, so I took it on in 2010. For the following seven years, he was my solely athlete. We received numerous assist with him becoming a member of in with different folks’s teams, particularly Eric Fisher, Sandy Cameron, and John Lees at Edinburgh AC and George Gandy at Loughborough. I discovered loads from them and in addition the opposite coaches that I encountered in my work at Scottish Athletics and UK Athletics, together with sprints, jumps, and throws coaches”.

What is important in regards to the above is that Wightman junior can have been uncovered to a variety of sports activities at a younger age, all of which can have helped what coaches are likely to consult with as ‘ABCs’- particularly Agility, Stability, and Co-Ordination. Secondly, the truth that Wightman senior alludes to studying from sprints, jumps, and throws coaches signifies that somewhat than specializing as an endurance athlete at a really younger age, his son can have made the many of the ‘home windows of alternative’ for velocity and energy growth by means of issues like velocity drills, plyometrics, and physique weight workout routines. 

Multi-paced coaching

Wightman senior readily admits to being closely influenced by the work of the late founding father of the British Milers’ Membership, Frank Horwill. In his basic textual content Obsession for Operating (1991), the charismatic coach formulated his notion of multi-tier coaching by means of the 5 paced system, which was most famously utilized by double Olympic 1500m champion Sebastian Coe. Guided by his father Peter, Sebastian would impact periods over a microcycle of coaching which had been at 1500m race tempo however generally over distance when it comes to being accomplished at 3,000m and 5,000m tempo and in addition under-distance, particularly at 800m and all the way down to 400m tempo. 

Talking to a British Milers’ Cub teaching viewers in the previous couple of months, Geoff Wightman asserted that, “Each race is gained by the athlete who modifications tempo one of the best.” So Wightman tailored the philosophy engendered by Horwill and Coe senior by figuring that multi-paced coaching may very well be effected inside a single session and in the end inside a single interval somewhat than one thing which wanted to be formulaically unfold over a set variety of days inside a microcycle. 

Wightman senior supplied the instance of ordinary 5 x 1200m (off 400m jog restoration), which was run at a good tempo. Quite than making an attempt to right away impact a ‘break up interval’ with a floating aspect, his first steered intervention, which may very well be used for a growing occasion group endurance athlete, may very well be what Dave Sunderland in Excessive-Efficiency Center Distance Operating (2005) would have termed a ‘tempo increaser.’ So the 5 x 1200m may very well be run with every of the three laps getting incrementally faster, say from 78s on lap 1, to 76s on lap 2 to 74s on lap 3. 

When the younger athlete has achieved progressive overload and habituated to the above, Wightman senior steered she or he may then retain the precept of the ‘tempo increaser’ on every lap however may purpose to get the cumulative time for every of the 5 intervals progressively faster. So, for instance, the primary set may very well be run at 84s for lap 1, 82s for lap 2, and 80s for lap 3, producing a cumulative clocking of 4m06s. On the different finish of the spectrum, if the 5^th interval had been run at 74s for lap 1, 72s for lap 2, and 70s for lap 3, this may end in a cumulative clocking of 3m36s.

We’re most definitely not suggesting that younger athletes ought to have an effect on 5 x1200m. The session and the splits fabricated above are merely for illustrative functions. It’s the underlying ideas of the session that we are attempting to inculcate, and they’re as follows. 

Ideas

Even-paced working is most related to working a PR and does have a spot in interval coaching. This being mentioned, even paced working, by definition, can not inculcate a change of tempo with the mentioned athlete. The younger endurance athlete must study to have the ability to change paces inside a session, so that they habituate their our bodies to run at a variety of aerobically dominant paces and are thus not ‘locked’ into one tempo. The notion of the ‘tempo increaser’ is an efficient means of starting to get the younger athlete to maneuver by means of the proverbial gears, and when this has been inculcated over a mesocycle of coaching, additional progressive overload can appropriately be launched by retaining this precept and by including the second variable of the growing tempo of the intervals as a cumulative. It will be extremely dangerous for the coach to aim to right away leap from even-paced intervals to altering two variables- therefore the ‘tempo increaser’ serves as a bridge to creating the second inter-related intervention- what we are able to time period the ‘cumulative tempo increaser’. 

This leaves us with the next questions for self-reflection:

Questions for self-reflection: 

1. What number of of my periods are affected at a good tempo?
2. What quantity of my coaching entails some type of differential pacing part?
3. Why may or not it’s appropriate for me to construct a ‘tempo increaser’ aspect into my interval work?
4. When may or not it’s acceptable to retain a ‘tempo increaser’ aspect in my work however to additionally introduce a second variable of a ‘cumulative tempo increaser’ with every interval getting progressively sooner?

Matt Lengthy has coached a world champion in athletics and served as an England Workforce Coach @ the 2022 Commonwealth Video games Growth Camp. He welcomes contact for recommendation by means of mattlongcoach@gmail.com 

“That’s my boy,” Geoff Wightman on the coaching of Jake Wightman, Half 1: https://www.runblogrun.com/2022/12/thats-my-boy-the-coaching-of-jake-wightman-2022-world-champion-at-1500-meters.html, by Matt Lengthy

Jake Wightman, Coaching, half 2: https://www.runblogrun.com/2023/02/jake-wightman-from-boy-to-man-matt-long-comments-on-how-geoff-wightman-coached-jake-wightman-2022-world-champion-1500-meters-part-2.html, by Matt Lengthy.