The experiment
The season ended. The spikes are in the closet. And now comes the question every serious athlete faces: what do I do with summer?
Here's what I've learned coaching state champions and watching world-class athletes up close - the athletes who make the biggest jumps from sophomore to junior year, from good to great, are the ones who understand what summer training actually is. And what it isn't.
Summer is not about racing. It's not about running fast. It's about building the aerobic base that makes fast possible next spring.
Think of it this way: you wouldn't enter a lab experiment in October with broken equipment and expect good results. Summer is when you build and calibrate the equipment. The experiment - the competition season - comes later.
The three pillars of summer training are simple:
General strength. Not sport-specific weight room work yet. Full-body strength that builds the structural foundation - core stability, hip strength, single-leg balance, upper body support. Bodyweight circuits, light resistance, controlled movements. You're building infrastructure, not maxing out lifts.
Aerobic base. I know what you're thinking - I'm a sprinter, why do I need aerobic work? Because your recovery between reps depends on it. Your ability to handle training volume depends on it. Your lactate clearance in the 400m depends on it. Summer is the time for extensive tempo runs at 65-75% intensity, 15-20 minute continuous jogs, and general conditioning work. This is the foundation your high-intensity season will sit on.
Technical repetition at sub-maximal intensity. This is the magic window. During the season, you're racing and recovering. There's no time to fix your trail leg mechanics or rebuild your block start. Summer is different. You can run 50 hurdle walkovers in a week. You can do 200 lead leg drills. You can rebuild your acceleration pattern without worrying about a meet on Saturday.
The key phrase is sub-maximal intensity. You're not going 100%. You're running at 70-80% and focusing on making the movement feel right. When the pattern is grooved at slow speed, it holds up at fast speed. When you only practice at fast speed, the pattern never gets grooved.
Why summer is the time to fix technique: no competition pressure. You can experiment. You can be awkward for a few weeks while something new becomes natural. If your coach told you in March that your arm swing was costing you time, you probably couldn't fix it mid-season without sacrificing meet performance. Now you can.
Summer training should feel productive, not punishing. You should leave workouts feeling like you accomplished something, not like you survived something. If you're destroyed after every session, you're training too hard for this phase. Save that energy for September.
Try this at practice
Sample summer training week by event group (3-4 days per week)
Sprinters and jumpers
| Day | Focus | Sample session |
|-----|-------|----------------|
| Monday | Strength + technical | 30-min bodyweight circuit (squats, lunges, planks, push-ups), then 20 min of acceleration mechanics - wall drills, falling starts, first-step work at 70% |
| Wednesday | Aerobic + tempo | 10-min jog warm-up, 8-10 x 100m tempo runs at 65-70% with 30s walk rest, 10-min cool-down jog |
| Friday | Technical + light speed | 15-min dynamic warm-up, 6 x 30m buildups (accelerate to 80%), event-specific drill work (hurdle walkovers, approach run-throughs, jump takeoff drills at low intensity) |
| Saturday (optional) | Cross-training | Swimming, basketball, pickup soccer - anything that keeps you moving without pounding your legs |
Throwers
| Day | Focus | Sample session |
|-----|-------|----------------|
| Monday | General strength | 45-min full-body weight room - moderate loads, focus on movement quality over max weight. Squats, cleans, presses, core. |
| Wednesday | Aerobic + mobility | 20-min jog or bike, then 20-min hip and shoulder mobility circuit, medicine ball throws (light) |
| Friday | Technical drills | Stand throws with focus on one technical element (hip drive, release angle, block). 30-40 throws at 70-80% effort. |
| Saturday (optional) | Cross-training | Same as above - move your body, have fun |
Distance runners
| Day | Focus | Sample session |
|-----|-------|----------------|
| Monday | Easy run + strides | 25-40 min easy pace (conversational), finish with 4-6 x 100m strides |
| Wednesday | Tempo or fartlek | 20-30 min tempo run at 75-80% effort, or 30-min fartlek (alternate 2 min moderate / 1 min easy) |
| Friday | Easy run + strength | 20-30 min easy, then 20-min core and hip strength circuit |
| Saturday | Long run | 45-60 min at easy conversational pace. Build distance gradually through summer. |
| Sunday | Cross-training or rest | Swimming, cycling, hiking - or full rest day |
Coach's clipboard
Common summer training mistakes:
- Training like it's April. Summer is general preparation phase, not competition phase. Keep intensity at 70-80%, not 90-100%. Save the race-pace work for later.
- Skipping the boring stuff. Tempo runs aren't exciting. Bodyweight circuits aren't flashy. But they build the capacity that lets you handle hard training in season. Do the boring work.
- Too much, too soon. Athletes come back motivated after a break and immediately try to do what they were doing at peak season. Start at 50-60% of your late-season training volume and build gradually over 4-6 weeks.
- All work, no play. Summer should include cross-training that's actually fun. Play pickup basketball. Go swimming. Ride bikes. The variety helps your body and your brain.
Multi-event alert
For athletes doing multiple events - jumpers who also hurdle, sprinters who also throw - summer is actually easier to manage than the season. You're not recovering from maximal efforts in two different events. You can do general strength that benefits everything, aerobic base that helps all recovery, and technical work in each event at moderate intensity. The key is keeping total volume manageable. If you're doing technical hurdle work on Monday, don't also do max-effort jump approach work. Space out your event-specific sessions.
Go deeper
The athlete development stages framework in the coaching handbooks explains exactly how summer work feeds into season-long progression. Stage 1 (movement vocabulary) and Stage 2 (rhythm development) are perfect for summer - low intensity, high repetition, pattern-building.
Each handbook includes season integration charts showing how summer base-building connects to competition-phase training.
All eleven Track and Field Lab Handbooks are coming to the store. The Complete Lab will bundle all eleven.
Track and Field Lab - A STEMsaic Media Property
(c) STEMsaic Research Impacts LLC. All rights reserved.