This article may be trivia to Americans, but beneficial to the rest of the World who are not familiar with the Imperial system.
You’ve seen the classic workout of 2 x 352 yards in older sprint programs like Bud Winter and other great coaches.
Why the unusual distance?
To use a very bad analogy, it’s similar to buying a “fifth” of a bottle of hard alcohol. It is exactly one-fifth (1/5) of a US Gallon or 25.6 ounces, 1.6 pints, 0.8 quarts or 0.75706 liters. The standard size today is 750ml or 0.75 Liters.
Same with the 352 yard workout. It is exactly one-fifth of a Mile or 1760 yards.
So for Quarter-milers, you should train a distance up to a fifth of a mile. (And I hated fractions in elementary school!)
For metric minded people, 352 yards = 321.86 meters
I always stick to 40 seconds as my golden rule for speed endurance workouts.
Random 352 Yard / 300 Meter Workouts
Bud Winter’s workouts consisted of 3 x 352 yards in 44 sec with 15 minute recovery. You would drop 2 sec every month until you can do all 3 in 38 sec. That’s equivalent to 35.5 for 300m.
My McGill days with Coach Dennis Barrett consisted of Wednesday’s workouts of 3 x 300m with 15 min recovery. I still remember them vividly. The first 2 reps were “easy”. I never looked forward to the 3rd one.
According to AtoBolden.com, John Smith’s HSI group would do the 3 x 300m workout with only 8 minutes recovery, though his world class sprinters would do them in the 35’s range and therefore resembles more of an intensive tempo workout with their top end speed.
According to Charlie Francis, whenever Ben Johnson had a 300m workout scheduled, he would always find a way to skip the workout. And usually he did.
For more information on the “300 meter workout”, check out the previous articles:
- Which is Better- 3×300 or 2×350 Speed Endurance Workouts
- Anaerobic Speed Reserve and the 2 x 325m Indoor Workout
- 400 Meter Training- 2 x 300m or 2×40 second Workout
- Jeremy Wariner’s 2 x 350 meter workouts
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Jimson, would you stick to that 40 second rule for HS athletes or would you possibly make it longer?
I would stick with 40 seconds, no matter what the age is. I use the principles in the Energy Systems.
Got ya thanks.
I love this. It seems the more advanced we get the more we realize that old training methods were really on track. Example: in the late 70’s we were running 350’s and the results were amazing. And of course kettlebells were used as early as the early 1700. Great article
Bud Winter was one of the first coaches to document the 352 yard workout. His out-of-print book, “So you want to be a sprinter” lists 19 types of workouts for the sprinter. That book will be re-released in the next 30 days or so.
Wasn’t the houston astrodome track 352 yards? I remember a formula for 400 meter success that said, 352 time + 10 seconds = 440 yard time. Does any one else remember this? I believe that Sam Bell used that at Indiana.
That makes sense… 88 yards or 80.5 meters in 10 seconds…
Bud Winter’s book re-released? Awesome! Who is responsible and more importantly where will I be able to get it?
It’s no secret I am the webmaster for the new Bud Winter site.
Check out, and sign up for the newsletter:
http://www.budwinter.com/books/
It should be out in June 2010…
My dad ran the 100 meter in HS and college (his record was 10.7 seconds) and he was telling me about how his coach used to make him run the 2×352. I thought it was a really random distance until I looked it up and found this site! I’m going to start trying it too, since I do track! Thanks!! :)
@Rayne – I grew up in Canada and the metric system. It was only when I divided 1760 / 5 that I realized where 352 came from!