Long distance running is commonly used as a method to get athletes in shape for the upcoming season. Aside from the fact that every athlete in the history of sports detests long distance running; the question must be asked, how functional is this type of conditioning for sports?

 If you check out a local high school lacrosse game you will see 3 movement speeds; walking, jogging and sprinting. At no point, in any game, will the athlete run straight ahead, at a continuous pace for miles on end. It never happens. Why do we condition athletes this way? Because it’s what has always been done. 

 An energy system is what provides the body with the energy to compete at different intensities. There are 3 main energy systems, but sports like Lacrosse only involve 2; the aerobic system and the alactic system. The aerobic system provides energy for low intensity, long duration activities like jogging and also aids in recovery of the alactic system between sprints. The alactic system provides fast, powerful energy over a short duration. Think of sprints, cuts, rapid change of direction, anything that looks fast and powerful! Both are vital for athletic performance and both can be trained in a way that will transfer to the field!

 The aerobic system is best trained using a series of runs at a medium intensity called tempo runs. These runs are typically 50-100 yards and should be completed at a pace of 60-70 percent of a maximum sprint of the same distance. This keeps the intensity high enough to target the aerobic energy system while keeping the intensity low enough that it doesn’t start to creep up into the lactic energy system. The athlete would then rest for 30-45 seconds and repeat the process for 4 more runs for a total set of 5 runs. At this point, a 3 minute active recovery period would be used where the athletes could work on some low intensity skill work before performing another set of 5 runs. A typical tempo session would involve 3 sets of 5 runs, 2-3 days per week. Leave a day of rest in between tempo sessions. 

 The alactic system is the powerhouse of athletic dominance! That’s my meathead way of expressing not only how this energy system is trained but also what it delivers on the field. This energy system is in charge of delivering fast, powerful bursts of muscular energy for up to 12 seconds. 

 The alactic system is trained through sprints or other forms of explosive, intense exercise performed for up to 12 seconds. Ideally, you want your athletes to be fast and you want them to be able to maintain that speed late into a game. To train for this, you will want to keep track of your athletes sprint times over distances of 10, 20 and 30-yard distances. On Mondays, have your team perform 4-6 10-yard sprints and encourage them to beat their previous personal records. Repeat that process for 3 to 4 20-yard sprints on Wednesday and 2-3 30-yard sprints on Friday.  Allow 30 to 40 seconds rest between 10-yard attempts, 1 minute of rest between 20-yard attempts and up to 1:30 rest between 30-yard attempts.  Longer distances are harder to recover from than shorter distances and you want to ensure that the alactic system is being trained. If the athletes times fall off by a full second of more, they are not getting enough recovery in between sprints. 

 Lacrosse is a multi directional sport and should be prepared for in multiple directions. Tempo runs should be performed with plenty of change of direction work. Lets say you want to cover 60 yards per run; instead of running straight ahead for 60 yards, have your team run 15 yards, stop, change direction and run 15 yards back, repeating the sequence for a total of 60 yards. If you wanted to train the alactic system in a similar fashion, you could have your team sprint 15-yards, change direction and sprint back, continuing that pattern for 10 seconds.  Encourage the kids to cover as much ground as possible on each sprint. When they are no longer able to cover the roughly the same distance in the same time, end the session and move on. This will help improve conditioning levels while moving in directions patterns that are seen on the field. 

 This type of training performed in the preseason will improve your athletes conditioning levels while also leaving more practice time for skills work and systems implementation. When the competitive season begins, you can cut back on the conditioning work. 1 session of each, performed 2 to 3 times per month should be adequate to maintain conditioning levels over the season. Who knows, the kids might even enjoy some of this!

 A couple quick notes to wrap this up; never perform sprint work without a thorough warmup. The kids should feel warm and lose before performing any sprint work. Alternate conditioning days to keep things fresh. The aerobic and alactic system work well together when performed on separate days. Alactic work on Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Aerobic work on Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. Lastly, performance will always be impacted by what is going on in the athletes life. I am sure I don’t have to tell you how distracted high school kids can get, but keep that in mind when taking and tracking sprint times!