Decathlon

Competing in the Decathlon is the ultimate challenge for senior male and female athletes. The competition is against oneself, and the scoring tables aim to score more points than anyone else. It is the supreme test of mind and body, challenging the person's character, attitude, determination, and physical abilities. It is impossible to 'tame' the event because nobody has ever achieved the perfect score (although some have got close) - there is always room for improvement and progress.

The Events

The Decathlon (10 events) for Men is held on two consecutive days in the following order:

Day 1	Day 2
100 metres Long Jump Shot High Jump 400 metres	110 metres Hurdles Discus Pole Vault Javelin 1500 metres

The Decathlon (10 events) for Women is held on two consecutive days in the following order:

Day 1	Day 2
100 metres Discus Pole Vault Javelin 400 metres	110 metres Hurdles Long Jump Shot High Jump 1500 metres

Training

When training for the decathlon, athletes will work on techniques and conditioning, during which each event sets its significant physical demands.

The elements in each of the combined events and the key physical demands of those elements are detailed in the following table:

Event	Aerobic Endurance	Gross Strength	Skill	Relative Strength	Running Speed	Mobility	Explosive Strength	Speed Endurance	Strength Endurance
100m	Low	Med	Med	High	High	High	High	Med	-
Long Jump	-	Low	High	High	High	High	High	-	-
Shot Putt	-	High	High	Med	Low	Med	High	-	-
High Jump	-	Low	High	High	High	High	High	-	-
400m	Med	Low	Low	High	High	Med	Low	Med	High
110m Hurdles	-	Med	High	High	High	High	High	Med	-
Discus	-	High	High	Med	Low	High	High	-	-
Pole Vault	-	Med	High	High	High	Med	Med	-	-
Javelin	-	Med	High	High	Low	High	High	-	-
1500m	High	-	-	Low	Low	-	-	-	Med

Speed and strength (power) are vital, so it seems reasonable to conclude that successfully combined event athletes must be fast and robust. The predominant requirements of the decathlete are mobility, skill, speed and explosive strength.

The long-term planning of combined events includes the plan of technique and strength conditioning. This concept is genuine for athletes of all ages - technique is dove-tailed with conditioning, but varying degrees depending on age.

For younger athletes (13 to 15), during early training, athletes should work on the simple disciplines, ones that are more 'natural' to learn, such as sprinting, hurdling, long jump and high jump.

Later training (15 to 18 years) should include more complex events such as shot, javelin and pole vault events that are more demanding.

Conditioning

Conditioning should take the form of, primarily, bodyweight circuits and running, bearing in mind young athletes will be developing a fair amount of strength, agility and endurance by practicing the events themselves.

For senior and top-level athletes, conditioning should be worked on more extensively than technique.

Denise Lewis

In 1997, Denise Lewis trained six days a week, and the critical element for Denise was conditioning, which underpinned the whole training program throughout the year. A weekly schedule would include:

two aerobic runs
two bodyweight circuits
one medicine ball session
two weight sessions
two track sessions
two technical sessions. It involves a hurdles session (outdoors) during the week, but the main sessions are done on a Sunday morning, where usually two events were tackled each time. (11 training units)

Mobility underpins the conditioning program and includes general and specific exercises.

The Early Years

Tony is a Senior British Athletics coach with many years of experience coaching young and senior athletes in combined events. The following is some advice from Tony in introducing young novice athletes to the Combined Events.

A training regime for a novice multi-eventer might be two technical sessions and a running session on every training night/day e.g.

Tuesday long jump, shot & running
Thursday high jump, hurdles & running
Sunday would be to concentrate on the weakest event and develop the new skills the athlete would need to compete in the next age group, plus a running session

Running sessions are based on 400 metres training but with much less volume and are athlete-specific.

The fun begins as a coach, and athletes must start fitting in basic weights, strength, mobility, conditioning, GCSE exams, A levels, and girlfriends! etc.

The basic premise that I would work on would be to improve the weakest events first but continue to develop the other events simultaneously.

Coordination training (skill work) should be done predominantly during the early years (13-18 years)

Speed, particularly running speed, can be ideally developed during the early years (13-18 years), but maximum strength training should be undertaken almost exclusively by top-level athletes.

Hard anaerobic endurance training is not appropriate for younger athletes and should only be reserved for top-level athletes.

Coaches with young athletes must work primarily on skills, technique and speed training. Training athletes to become stronger can take place at a later stage.

If coaches try to develop a robust young athlete and ignore developing skills and techniques, an accelerated improvement will be initially followed by a 'stunted' development.

If the skills and abilities are laid down at these young ages, then long-term improvement will ensue.

Combined event athletes must develop high levels of coordination before engaging in strength conditioning work.

Senior Athletes

For senior athletes, a very high emphasis is placed on strength conditioning, and technical work takes a subsidiary role during the winter.

Points Calculator - Combined Events (Male)

Select if the event had an electronic timing, select the event, enter your result and then select the "Point"s button.

Electronic Timing

Event

Result

Points Calculator - Combined Events (Female)

Select if the event had an electronic timing, select the event, enter your result and then select the "Point"s button.

Electronic Timing

Event

Result

Free Calculator

Senior Combined Events points Calculator - a free Microsoft Excel spreadsheet you can download and use on your computer. This spreadsheet addresses all the senior male/female combined indoor/outdoor events.

The scoring tables for specific boys and girls combined events (80 metres & 110 metres Hurdles boys, 800 metres boys and 75 metres & 80 metres hurdles for girls) are not based on a polynomial equation so a simple algorithm cannot be used to determine the points. Copy of these tables is available from Neuff Athletic Equipment.

Rules of Competition

The competition rules for this event are available from:

Page Reference

If you quote information from this page in your work, then the reference for this page is:

MACKENZIE, B. (2001) Decathlon [WWW] Available from: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/decath/index.htm [Accessed