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Octathlon

The Octathlon, for under 17 men and 15 boys, comprises eight events and is a competition against oneself and the scoring tables to score more points than the other competitors. It is a test of mind and body; challenging the person's character, attitude, determination and physical abilities.

The Events

The Octathlon for Under 17 Men consists of the following eight events held over two days:

The Octathlon for Under 15 Boys consists of the following eight events held over two days:

Training

When training for Octathlon, 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
80 &100m Hurdles - Med High High High High High Med -
Discus - High High Med Low High High - -
Javelin - Med High High Low High High - -
Pole Vault - Med High High High Med Med - -
1000m & 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 planning of technique and strength conditioning. This concept is true for athletes of all ages - whereby 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 merely practicing these events.

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 key 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. This involves a hurdles session (outdoors) during the week, but on a Sunday morning, 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 or 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 much less volume and are athlete specific.

  • U15 decathlon athlete would have to develop Javelin & 400 metres
  • U17 decathlon athlete would have to develop Discus & 1500 metres
  • U20 decathlon athlete would have to develop Pole Vault, 100 metres etc.

The fun begins as a coach and athlete have to start fitting in weights, strength, mobility, conditioning, GCSE exams, A levels, girlfriends! etc.

If your Octathlon athlete is a sprinter & long jumper, hurdles and high jump might not be as difficult for him as shot or javelin.

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

Summary

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

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 be reserved for top-level athletes only.

Coaches who work 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 strong young athlete and ignore developing skills and technique, then there will be an accelerated improvement initially followed by a 'stunted' improvement later.

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

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

Points Calculator - Combined Events (Male)

Select if the event had electronic timing, 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 that 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 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) Octathlon [WWW] Available from: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/octathlon/index.htm [Accessed