Originally Posted by taras0000

There is a way to "layer" your training (i like using this term because the recovery periods of workouts overlap each other), but depending on ability, strengths/weaknesses, time of year/cycle; it sort of ends up being a "how long is a piece of string" type of situation.

The thing to remember, and not lose sight of, is "What am I trying to accomplish with this workout?" Always ask yourself this before you do anything, and it will save you a bunch of wasted effort, as well as time. The body will adapt to the largest strain put on it in a workout. If you have a "mixed" type of workout, you really end up shortchanging yourself. The body's energy systems do overlap, so you will end up training at least a little of each aspect of your physiology no matter what you do, but there should be a clear cut mission to what you are going to do each workout.

Before having a coach, I was probably the most masochistic junior out there. Years of hockey taught me to just go, go, go, go. Sprint after sprint, for minutes at a time. When I got into track, I was successful purely because I would outwork and outmuscle the kids I was racing against. To train for sprints, I would do sprints for up to 2 hours, one every 5-10 minutes. Kilo training was doing 4-5 Kilos ten minutes apart. Pursuits would be similar, except only 5 minutes apart. It taught me to dig deep and gave me a pretty good start, but it was a stupid way to train. If you noticed, all of those workouts were TIRING! That is the worst way to train, and after my coach had seen my logbook from the previous season, he educated me on neural fatigue, and showed me exactly where it had started to kick in based on my results/times. That kind of training worked initially because as a beginner, anything will work as long as it induces an overload.

To plan your training, you have to realize what is the easiest VS hardest to develop. Speed is the hardest to develop, followed by power, then strength, then endurance/aerobic is the easiest. This is the order you lose things in as well (Speed is the first to drop off, ...). This is also the heirarchy to follow when layering. Simply, you can layer speed over strength, but not strength over speed (or shouldn't, because it's a waste of time and energy). So, do speedwork when you are freshest and most rested the day before any other type of workout. The fatigue from each item on the scale will compromise anything above it. The fatigue from each item on the scale will not effect those below it, and may/will even contribute to increasing it's effect (speed and power are the only ones that are interrelated enough to effect each other negatively from fatigue, you need speed to generate power, and vice-versa).

It is also important to remember that each item on the scale NEEDS to be developed to effectively train the items above it. You build with aerobic, develop VO2, get stronger, get more powerful, then get faster. If you have a crappy aerobic engine, then your sprint workouts are going to be too taxing, and will suffer. You need a certain amount of fitness to get through your workout effectively enough to not only induce an overload, but to make sure that overload is greater than the previous one, AS WELL AS contributing to recovering for the next workout.

Does this mean that you should be doing everything on the scale? NO. The amounts, timing, and spacing are going to vary with individuals and goals.