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Does anyone have a good fall training routine for the Decathlon. Hoe much throwing? How much jumping and how running, etc. I live in Georgia and my is outside as i don't have the advantage of an indoor track. Any help would be appriciated,,,,,,,,,,,Bill Daprano

I would try to practice each event once or twice each week. This could be drills rather than full performance of the event. I don't know your age or condition, but I would be running some 400s with about 5 minutes recovery in between (4 or 5X).

When I came back to decathlon at about age 30, I didn't have much access to HJ or PV facilities, but they were strong events for me anyway, so I worked heavily on the throws. As the shot had been my weakest event, I worked on it the most and improved every workout. I threw at least one implement every day. Over six months, I improved from about 30' to over 36'.

When I got back into it at age 45, my elbow didn't like much throwing anymore.

Lots of bounding and other plyos help.

I gave up decathlon after a knee injury in the long jump a couple of years ago and now concentrate on the Pole Vault. Any day that I don't feel like doing much or don't have time to go to the track, I'll jog two miles with 4 evenly-spaced accelerations of about 100 yards with good sprint form. That's a workout of less than twenty minutes that keeps me from losing ground and never injures me.

Good luck on your training! I miss doing the multi, but it sure takes a lot of time to train for! Hope my ramblings give you some ideas.

I am certainly no expert as I did my first decathlon last summer and just started learning the throws, high jump, hurdles in 2006. However, I am happy to share what I have learned.

First, the most important element is speed. Speed will reward you with points in the sprints, hurdles, long jump and pole vault. So, if time and energy are limited, that would be my focus. I have bad knees so can't practice the high jump or long jump. Also, the only training for the 400 I did was two easy 300's a few weeks apart just to see if my feet and knees could take it. I think the adrenalin gets one through the 400. The same with the 1500. Plus, I hate jogging and never do it. I figured if I had to, I could walk. But, I was surprised to be able to jog the whole way. So, I think whatever I did worked.

Second, create a point table and estimate what your best possible marks are. This will show you where you are likely to get the most points and where to focus your efforts. For me, even if I train very hard I will never get a lot of points in the throws. But, I like practicing those events so waste energy there anyway.

Hope this helps. I look forward to seeing you at the next decathlon.