Stories from the Fitness Trenches – Lactate Threshold Workout

Hi Alex here - A few years ago I was training a very promising junior tennis player (he played an exhibition match at Wimbledon during the Championships).

We worked on all sorts of aspects of tennis and being that he was only ten we concentrated on a lot of body weight circuits and speed, agility and quickness training.

Occasionally we would do some really fatiguing sprint shuttles and the like. Well on one occasion I introduced a really tough one to him and…well things didn’t go to plan.

The workout looks a little like this:

Set up a 20m space that you can sprint along.
You are going to be doing max speed shuttles where you turn and come back the way you have come so make sure the surface is good (we used an indoor tennis court, but I have done it outdoors).

So here’s what you do:

1. Sprint 20m – rest 5 seconds
2. Sprint 20m turn and sprint back for a 2nd shuttle – rest 10 seconds
3. Sprint 20m x 3 – rest 15 seconds
4. Sprint 20m x 4 – rest 30 seconds
5. Repeat 1-4 above
6. Repeat 1-5 above after 3 mins rest

That’s it – short but brutal (you need to make sure you are well warmed up and if you know how to do dynamic flexibility warm ups then use them).

Back to the story of the tennis player…

…we finished the final 20m x 4 shuttle sprint and as I walked towards him to congratulate him on his effort I noticed that he had started to turn a light shade of green and was very close to vomiting on the spot.

I looked in to his eyes and asked him if he was alright to which he could only shake his head.

I quickly pushed/carried him to the nearest toilet facility and just in time too, as he vomited in to the bowl just as we speed marched through the doors.

After I had helped him clean up (remember he’s only 10!) I sat him down and told him this simple truth.

I hate it when people vomit from training – I don’t think it’s smart or cool or anything I have seen some people rave about. It’s not something I want to see, but it did give me one hell of an insight into the fact that he was dedicated and willing to push him self hard.

I have never been ill from training and believe me I have been through some hellish days and weeks in my professional rugby days (and on many occasion felt I might be). Others I used to train with were violently sick before a game (mainly that was a nerves thing) and occasionally someone would be ill during training – but it was always the same ones.

Some people just react that way but as I say, personally it’s not important to me. Whilst, as I said earlier, other coaches occasionally talk about the ‘puke meter’ as a basis to determine if you have given it all your effort.

So the moral of the story is try not to puke but still push yourself hard enough that you are on the cusp of not being able to complete another seconds worth of work – in essence give it 100% all the time.


Until next time,

Train hard, train smart, make every second count.

Andrew & Alex