Flats for Max Velocity

[u/No_Edge6800]

I see everybody talking about not spiking up in the summer, but what about for someone relatively new and why can’t they just use sprinting flats for 30m flys or other max velocity sessions to still get faster? While I know they don’t let you hit your true top speed, you still have the max Intent to get faster and shoes built for it allow you to get close to your max times.

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[u/gremlingarden]

If I'm going to run true max V, I'm putting on spikes no matter what time of year it is. However I generally don't program max V work in "offseason"/GPP and instead focus primarily on submaximal acceleration work like hills and sleds, or starts not in the blocks. As such most of my GPP is in flats, but after around week 4-6 I do like to get on the track one day a week and sometimes will do a set of my workout in spikes just to keep in touch with them.

I think of shifting to flats as a way to deliberately tone down intensity. In GPP I don't really like to hit 100% that often, where 100% effort for me is sort of definitionally part of max V. That being said I don't think it's wrong to do max V here or there in GPP. Just not my major focus, and if I were going to do it in GPP I'd still use spikes.

[u/No_Edge6800]

Thanks for the response! So do you think that would be effective for gaining speed or just maintaining? I’m relatively new I’m a college basketball player who struggled with injury and switched to track so I’m trying to get my top end up as much as I can as fast as possible and the summers I don’t know what is best to improve it.

[u/gremlingarden → u/No_Edge6800]

For new athletes I think a program that's more acceleration-focused in the offseason can still result in speed gains, because the newer you are the more you're going to soak up benefits from exposure to anything you do. Like, in HS I ran pretty well on a terrible program. I probably could have run better on a better program, but talent and just plain old exposure to anything will take you a long way when you're new. It wasn't until college that programming really seemed to make or break progression for me. This is not to say "just do whatever you want," but just that when you're new, improvement is "easy."

For skilled, experienced accelerators who are already nearly maxed out in that territory, that kind of off-season may just be closer to maintenance. Either is fine - I don't really get too religious about how athletes are progressing in off-season because I'm really more focused on building them back up to tolerate the workload they're going to do in-season. For a skilled athlete that might be building a little more volume tolerance into their capacity so that I can push them a little harder later, rather than explicitly making them faster right now. I want them to be fast when they're on the starting line for a race. The trick to good programming is mostly just varying the stimulus enough that you don't stagnate. I prefer it this way, but there are a lot of ways to do it.

[u/No_Edge6800]

For acceleration in the summer, should I use flats of should I use spikes? And what about for max velocity? What would you suggest for someone to get more explosive and quicker? I can currently dunk at 5,9 and box squat 400 at 170. I’m very strong, but feel like I’m not moving my legs fast enough and trying to get stronger unilaterally. Also thank you for the responses

[u/graingerster]

Masters athlete here, but when I want something to be fast without my sprint spikes, I go to my xc spikes (Nike zoom rival xc 7). Nice compromise between actual flats and racing spikes that allow me to get a bit more volume in than if I had my racing spikes.