Reading Research: Training for the 400m run

Having read Roger Black’s autobiography, I have realised that the 400m running race is an ambiguous distance.  It is a sprint race but it’s not an all-out sprint race and that makes it an interesting case study in the three energy systems.

Women’s 400m race (photo by the talented William Warby)

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Let me walk you through my thought process and then I’ll take a look at William Black’s great article on training for the 400m…

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Is the 400m really ambiguous?

I think it is.  Let me argue a case.  According to (the mostly reliable) Wikipedia, the world records for the various sprint and middle distance events are as follows:

• 100m – 9.58s – Usain Bolt – 10.44m/s
• 200m – 19.19s – Usain Bolt – 10.42m/s
• 400m – 43.18s – Michael Johnson – 9.26m/s
• 800m – 1:41.01s -David Rudisha – 7.92m/s
• 1,500m – 3:26.00s – Hicham El Guerrouj – 7.28m/s

I think there is a tendency for some analysts to lump 400m in with the 100m and 200m races.  However, you can see that the speed of the 400m drops off quite significantly from the 100m and 200m, which are very close together.  You can see the exact reductions in the following analysis:

• 100m to 200m – 0.2%
• 200m to 400m – 12.5%
• 400m to 800m – 17.0%
• 800m to 1,500m – 8.8%

Many analysts focus on the large drop-off between 400m and 800m.  However, the drop-off between 200m and 400m is almost as large.  After the 800m, the decrease in speed slows down drastically.  Here’s a quick graph showing the reduction.  You can easily see that the two biggest steps down are between 200m and 400m and between 400m and 800m.

Another interesting way of looking at the data, which makes the gap between 200m and 400m look more significant than between 400m and 800m, is to consider the loss of speed per additional metre of running.  Here’s a graph showing just the loss of speed in each case:

These numbers don’t mean anything in real-life terms but they do give one measure of where the most meaningful drop-off in speed happens (it’s the 400m).  And that makes the 400m very interesting to look at.

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So how can we determine how to train for the 400m?

Before looking at the energy systems in detail, I think it is informative to stand back and think about the event pragmatically.  What actually happens in real life?  What sort of athletes win the 400m?

Well, at the Olympics, there is a tradition of the 400m being won by athletes who are also 200m runners.  The Olympic double of the 200m and the 400m was first achieved by Valerie Brisco-Hooks in 1984, by the legendary Michael Johnson in 1996 and by Marie-José Pérec of France, also in 1996.

However, it is far less frequent to see highly successful 400m runners who are also 800m runners.  Alberto Juantorena was the only athlete to win both the 400m and 800m Olympic titles in 1976.  (I have read some articles talking about the tendency of runners to run 400m and 800m rather than 200m and 400m but frankly I strongly suspect that this is for historical and sociological reasons and has nothing to do with physiology).

And on that note, it is important that there is much more cross-over between success at the 100m and the 200m at the Olympics than between the 200m and the 400m.  The Olympic double of the 100m and the 200m has been achieved nine times.

So what does this tell us?  Well, as a starting point, it suggests that there is more in common between the 200m and the 400m (and perhaps, therefore, also the 100m?) than between the 400m and the 800m.

Let’s hold that thought for a moment while we introduce ourselves to the review article that I’m going to look at today.

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Training for the 400m

Yesterday, I reviewed the autobiography of Roger Black.  The best part of the book is Roger’s description of his perfect race, that he ran against Michael Johnson at the 1996 Olympics at Atlanta.

While looking around to see what else I could find about Roger and the 400m, I found an awesome article called Training for the 400m, by William Black, in Track Coach, 1988.  And it turned out that William was in fact Roger’s slightly less famous brother.  How coincidental.

It’s not exactly research, but it does refer to a lot of research and it’s a really interesting article so let’s take a look at it.

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The ugly stepsister of track and field

William argues in his article is that “there is a lack of scientific information about the characteristics of outstanding 400m performers” and that “this makes it difficult to make a rational decision about the best methods for training for this event.”

In other words, sports scientists have not given the 400m the respect it deserves.  Let us do what we can, drawing on William’s excellent summary.

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Sprinters make good 400m runners

William notes that in the study Only a Lap-400-meters, by Ogorodnikov in Sprints and Relays, by Jarver (ed.), 1978, it was determined that the ability of different 400m runners could be correlated well with their sprint abilities.

The study concluded that “the sprinting ability of athletes was the single most important factor in the development of specific performance ability for the 400-meters.”

So sprinters should make good 400m runners.  So far, so good.

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Distance runners make bad 400m runners

William refers to another study, Anaerobic and Aerobic Power of Top Athletes, Crielaard and Pirnay, European Journal of Applied Physiology, 1981, in which the researchers found that a strong negative correlation was found between maximum oxygen uptake and alactate anaerobic power.

So distance runners should make poor 400m runners.  That makes sense, too.

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Energy systems in the 400m

William notes that previous research (Assessment of Anaerobic Capacity in Runners, by Schnabel and Kindermann, European Journal of Applied Physiology, 1983) suggests that during a 400m, energy is derived from the body’s energy systems in the following proportions:

• 20% creatine phosphate
• 55-60% anaerobic
• 15-25% aerobic

So Black concludes that the 400m derives most of its energy from the anaerobic system.  I’m not going to comment on this any further today because I have an entire study on this subject tomorrow and I don’t want to go over the same ground twice.

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Looking at a race of two halves

In order to understand better how the best 400m runners are differentiated from the rest of the pack, William looks at some more research.  In Analysis of 200 meters Intermediate Times for 400-Meters World-Class Runners, by VanCoppenolle, Track & Field Quarterly Review, 1980, he found that:

1. A 400m run in 43.8-44.9s had mean splits of 21.5s and 23.0s
2. A 400m run in 45.0-45.9s had mean splits of 21.7s and 23.8s

William deduces from this study that the differentiating factor of best 400m runners is the ability to run a faster second 400m.

This is fascinating, as it chimes perfectly with Roger Black’s description of his silver medal at the 1996 Olympics against Michael Johnson.

As everyone knows, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Michael Johnson became the first and only man to have won the Olympic gold medal in both the 200m and the 400m in the same games.   His superhuman feats catapulted him to stardom.  In his own autobiography, Roger Black described how Michael had a unique ability to run the first 200m at around the same speed as the leaders (he was just a fraction ahead of Roger at this point in the race) and then kick off into the distance at halfway.  No-one else in the world could do this.

So the greatest 400m runner of all time, who ran his most famous race in 1996, fit perfectly with William’s theory, devised back in 1988!

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So what does this mean?

Well, given that all athletes slow down in the second half compared with the first half, there are two possibilities.

• Firstly, it could be that the top performers are able to run the first 200m at a rate that is less taxing for them anaerobically (but just as fast as everyone else), which gives them more “in the tank” when it comes to the second 200m.   This could be because they have greater creatine phosphate stores or it could be that they are simply more efficient.
• Secondly, it could be that the top performers are able to continue at a higher speed because they have a greater lactate threshold and can simply continue going at the higher speed exerted in the first half.

Black favours the idea that the better 400m performers have greater creatine phosphate stores.  Certainly, Michael was more muscular than many of this opponents, partly as a result of him also racing the 200m.  Could this have had an effect?

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William’s conclusions

Success in 400m running is characterised by:

1. A high ability to produce energy via anaerobic glycolysis;
2. A high ability to produce energy via the creatine phosphate system;
3. Superior sprint speed; and
4. High anaerobic power.

Black also notes that a very high maximum oxygen uptake is not advantageous and may even be detrimental to high-level performance.

Have any of you run the 400m competitively?  Does this make sense?  It would be great to hear your thoughts.