Allan Wells' Coach Busy Again

Is this the same Jim Bradley who sells his own line of boxing equipment? I have heard from various sources that they are amongs the best boxing equipment on the market!
Im pretty sure its called Jim Bradley boxing equipement anyway?

yes it is.

Jim Bradley lent his name to the company that was formed about 20 years ago that initially only made speedballs.

He doesn’t own the company and I’m fairly certain his only attachment is that it uses his name.

The company has evolved over the years to where it is today making all sorts of gym equipment, bags, mits, speedballs etc. It’s based in Melbourne (Vic), Australia.

The speedballs have been specifically designed to withstand the pounding it gets from a daily regimen of 6 x 3min rounds.

Just for the record, I have no commercial involvement with the company. My athletes each buy a Jim Bradley ball at the retail price ($77 Aust) before they commence their winter program.

Jim’s 85 years young now and happily retired. He’s training a few runners out at Williamstown, including it seems this young Lacrosse player.

I put in to bold red the part the part of your post I ask about.
If it makes no differance to how fast you run later, then what is the point of doing it?
To be fit?
If it makes no differance to how you run later, what is the point in gaining work capacity and with that method? (If it makes no differance to how fast you run later.)
(I assume you meant later in the year, unless you meant, later in the evening.)

Goose232

It is purely a demonstration of your general fitness level and ability to absorb the training, thereby preventing injury.

I mean in terms of the number, 32 or 33 or 34 or 35 etc chin ups.

5 sets of 35 chin ups won’t make you any faster 2 months later during the pre comp trials, than doing 5 sets of 32 chin ups.

The fact you can do 5 sets of 35 chin ups suggest you have attained maximum conditioning (f that is the max of your capability) and are ready to hit the track.

BUT if you are capable of doing 5 sets of 35 but are only doing 5 sets of 15, then you are working under capacity, and I reckon you won’t have the max strength which will reflect in your performance on the track.

It’s all about % of effort.

Work at your capacity in the gym and you give yourself every chance to run as fast as you can AND avoid injury that may have arisen through being under conditioned.

So the gym phase is;

  1. Developing fitness in preperation for spring/summer track work. Also, some athletes just aren’t able to do max speed in winter anyway.

  2. Developing fitness during the winter without hitting speed platuea early, becuase there is not a lot of track work in this phase for starters.

Is it possible that an athlete of less than elite leval might even improve their track speed from this gym training phase? (not deffinate, but possible?)

Also, the squat portion of the circuit would be the easiest, and I think the chin up portion is by far the hardest part. Is this a way of saving the legs for track work, whilst still managing an excallent conditioning program? I’m tempted to desighn my own callasthenics routine in a simmilar fashion with modifications but I don’t see how this one developes much leg strength.

Goose232 wrote: “Is it possible that an athlete of less than elite leval might even improve their track speed from this gym training phase? (not deffinate, but possible?)”

Absolutely! Many of Jim Bradley’s athletes (including myself) were not elite athletes but improved substantially as a result of the hard slog in the gym, thereby developing an excellent fitness base.

The speedball works the legs, very subtle, but there is a minor use of the lower body.

Jim’s contention is that you are on your feet for large portions of the day, supporting your weight, whether its walking, standing, going up the stairs at work, etc. Hence the legs are always in use in some capacity.

And iif you have been running track for some time, then your legs have probably had six months of work out (per year) and are due for a rest.

So keep the leg use in the gym to a minimum - squats.

The upper body is not subject to the same use, (unless you walk on your hands!) therefore that needs to be the focus in the gym.

The track program is tough but can be sustained due to the reserves of general fitness developed in the gym.

Once you leave the gym you are on the track for up to six months, therefore there’s plenty of time to develop the legs.

Two years ago I had an athlete join us, who for the previous two seasons had hardly competed due to chronic achilles problems. He was 30 years old with a 400m PB of 48.20 recorded when he was 25. He only had 3 starts the previous summer, all well below his best.

The next season (aged 31), he lowered his PB’s to 21.71 and 47.28 and won 5 pro (handicap) races.

He believed keeping off the achilles for 3 months and just doing the gym work, allowed him to rest the achilles sufficiently to train and compete with little discomfort.

He is 32 and still running well. It definitely rejuvenated his career which he concedes was probably over if hadn’t joined us.

I met someone who trained with Allen Wells (and ran against Ben Johnson, incidentally). He wasn’t the best of the bunch but he was pretty good, I believe.

He said that typical workouts were 700 reps on the speedball in 3 mins?

He said it worked for some and not others. One guy gained a lot of weight but never got faster… however, he went on trial for a rugby team and got in :slight_smile:

Do you think you could apply it to a team sport (eg. soccer) where there is a certain amount of endurance needed - without overtraining?

EDIT: Sorry more questions.

  1. Do your athletes (fast-twitch dominant) ever develop overuse injuries? How would you modify it for someone like this?

  2. Doesn’t endurance-related work decrease testosterone levels? In which case Wells must have had some hardcore determination in-built…

(not knocking the training btw, I am very interested in it after meeting the guy who trained with Wells)

Just a quick question for Youngy regarding the technique you are using with the speed ball. It seems from a couple of the posts above about 3-5hits of the speed ball per sec is what you are using. I’m wondering are you hitting the speedball and just allowing it to bounce once off the front or are you hitting it after its hit the front then the back then the front and hitting it on the third bounce? Thats probably not very clear but hopefully you get what i mean… I assume if you are getting 3-5 strikes per sec it must be just bouncing once? Keeping that up for 3mins is impressive!

Youngy, can you explain the proper way to do chinnies and how do you count them? One leg is one, or once each leg is one rep?

It’s gotta be hit-back-front-back-hit. If you just do hit-back-hit you can blaze way over 3 hits per second.

With Wells book it was ‘once each leg is one rep’.

Robb_P wrote: “Do you think you could apply it to a team sport (eg. Soccer) where there is a certain amount of endurance needed - without overtraining?"

Yes. A former Bradley athlete, George McNeil was the fitness coach for Heart of Midlothian for many years including the 1986 season when it was a very unlucky 2nd in the Scottish Premier League to Celtic and also runner-up in the Scottish FA Cup to Aberdeen. (It’s still the closes Hearts has got to winning the Premier League championship since the 1950’s, almost breaking the Rangers/Celtic domination) George had all the players on speedball and the body weight circuit in its pre-season.

I have used it with success with a local (Aussie Rules) football team that went from the bottom to a grand final.

Robb_P wrote:“1. Do your athletes (fast-twitch dominant) ever develop overuse injuries? How would you modify it for someone like this?”

My athletes rarely get over use injuries and generally compete for the whole season with little discomfort.

Eg: This season I have a 19 year old who only started competing in October 2004 (when he was 17), recently run in 12 championship races between January and March, winning 9 medals.
SA State Under 20 Titles: 3 Gold Medals. 100/200/400
SA Open State Titles: 1 Gold (400m); 1 Silver (100m) 1 Bronze (200m)
Vic Open State Titles: 1 Silver (400m)
Aust National Under 23: 2 Gold (200m/400m)
Aust National Open Title: 400m (Finalist)

In the competition phase, training is modified to ensure the athlete gets to compete as well as they can for often as they need to. Plenty of rest, massage and perhaps a night off the track and in the gym doing 6 x 1min rounds and a few body weight exercises.

One of many things I’ve learned from Charlie Francs (& Jim Bradley) is “less is more”. Athletes don’t need a lot of work through the week if they are competing regularly, providing they have a solid base to work from.

Coincidentally at a pro (handicap) meeting in South Australia, last Friday night (23/03/07), 5 (of 7 entries) of my athletes qualified for the 2 semi finals of 6 in the 120m Gift. There were six in the final of which 4 were from my squad who finished 1st, 3rd, 4th & 6th.

All 7 of the 120m runners (4 whom ran 3 x 120m races on a soggy wet grass track) competed later that evening in the 300m (4 heats) where again we had 4 in the 8 man final running 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th.

For some that meant 5 races in 3 hours.

These runners have been competing since October.

Robb_P wrote:”2. Doesn’t endurance-related work decrease testosterone levels? In which case Wells must have had some hardcore determination in-built… “

I have never had their testosterone levels checked!

The results speak for themselves and that’s all I’m interested in.

earle - The “chinnies” (sit ups) are counted one leg at a time. ie: 1000 = 500 each leg.

I like them exactly as Wells demonstrates, bent knee, bring it to the chest and a twist of the torso, hands behind the head. Go back all the way with the upper back touching the mat.

gofast - The speedball hits the board three times before it is hit again. eg: right hand - back/front/back - left hand - back/front/back.

Thanks Youngy, and congrats on your success.

Ditto, great info and thanks for contributing your knowledge to this forum…