Andre DeGrasse joins the Altis group in Phoenix (Pfaff, Stuart McMillan). An interesting development, I thought DeGrasse would continue to train with Caryl Gilbert at USC since it worked so well last year. Not sure what to make of this, I like Pfaff and the Altis group but this seems risky in an Olympic year, especially after a breakout season.
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I agree, why switch going into an Olympic year? Maybe this is being mandated by Puma.
Degrasse explains the reason for the move in the podcast. He expressed his gratitude for his experience at USC yet stated as a professional he felt it time to move on. He had a visit to Altis and really liked it so that prompted his move.
Agree with Pioneer.
Was it really good time to move?
Best time to move for who?
Caryl Gilbert or Andre DeGrasse? Certainly best for Altis.
Andre’s been on a Sharp(e) rise for three years even with two Coaching switches already and now add Pfaff and McMillan as well as the rest of the TEAM. Wow!
He already Conquered the College scene.
It’s not like he is going to an asst. after working with Hart lol
or Dix switching often for whatever reason.
Speaking of Dix…didn’t he show up a little over weight and compete at the Trials last year?
He went into the Final at the Trials back in 12 after being heavily bandaged up.
Dix ain’t pulling out for shit lmao:anonymous:
I’d really love to see DeGrasse have a long career, but I have a strange feeling his career may be as short as the other Andre (Cason).
What in the world makes you say that?
I don’t know, it’s just a feeling I have. Nothing to do with his recent change of coach. Hope my feeling is wrong.
I see dix often. He will show up at local meets and run. He ran last summer at this one meet. Ran the prelim and backed out of the final in the 100. That final Adam harris dropped a 9.9. lol I doubt dix wanted any of that
Andre cason had a decent career didnt he? I used to love watching him run
Cason’s professional career was really 1991-1993.
What I find troubling regarding DeGrasse’s move (if he’s really moving and not just spending some time in Phoenix during GPP time) is this blog post by Stuart McMillan that I found:
http://www.mcmillanspeed.com/2012/06/500words-ona-philosophy-on-sprint.html
60-150 twice a week, no mention of tempo, SE, or SE1? This appears to be light training even compared Charlie’s s-l in the handouts–more what I might expect for a masters or developmental athlete. Somehow, I don’t see this UK light training preparing one to compete against Bolt, who certainly works harder than what is mentioned in this blog post.
I wonder if this is just ambiguously written.
Perhaps what he’s saying is that they have speed sessions two times a week, and within those sessions they attack various distances between 60 and 150.
So, maybe something like:
Monday: 150, 120, 90, 60
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday: 3x150, 2x60
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
He doesn’t get into anything else, but that may be because he’s trying to remain minimalist in his description of his philosophy.
However, I do know that he’s not a big believer in longer SE stuff: I perused his Facebook and saw that he posted the 100-50-50 splits from the WC final 200. He specifically pointed to the splits of his athlete (Anaso Jobodwana) and noted that AJ’s spectacular last 50, which was actually faster than Bolt or Gatlin’s, was developed with only one or two runs over 200 meters throughout all of training.
I think he’s from the Pfaff school, right?
I think Stylee may be right here. I saw some video blogs from Jodie Williams showing sessions of acceleration runs and technical drills during a recent stay at Altis. So it appears his approach contains many other components in addition to the 60-150 sessions.
Interesting how few coaches share a full programme but just publish snippets. Some exceptions are CF, Clyde Hart, Arthur Lyyddiard - read what you like into that …
Interesting things stylee,
Not knowing the volume there can be countless number of options.
Btw they are not doing tempo cause I believe that they do prefer bike spins instead of tempo.
Re: school of Dan.
I think that whole Stuart’s PhD is based on the analysis of athletes Dan used to coach in UK.
Stu’s article mentions twice weekly sessions of 60-150m. But it also mentions an increase in density and intensity as the competitive season approaches. As far as density goes, is he reducing the time in between sprint sessions? Is he reducing the time in between reps? Can increases in both density and intensity “peacefully coexist?” Does this clash with CF, who felt intensification demanded more recovery?
I believe Caryl Smith-Gilbert also conducts a relatively low volume speed (accel. and max vel.) and special endurance program with a fairly high volume of jump training (some of it very intensive-depth, contrasted short bounds (SLJ, 3 bounds, 5 bounds and 10 bounds from a stationary start) and long bounds for power/strength endurance) and low volume/very high intensity weights.
The blog also mentions acceleration training 2x per week, so that would be 4 high intensity sessions per week, which is more than what CF used to do.
Here’s a more in-depth look at Pfaff and Stu’s microcycles, among other things.
http://www.mcmillanspeed.com/2015/07/a-coaches-guide-to-strength-development.html
Pfaff, as many already know, works off a 4-HI cycle - 2 accel sessions, 1 speed session, and 1 speed endurance session.
Basically, for Stu, the model has 3 truly HI sessions (from what I see). 1 accel, 1 speed, 1 speed endurance. He also has an activation day before accels, consisting of some OL.
Both models set up the lifting this way: Accel, paired up with heavy weights. Speed, paired up with Olympic lift and dynamic “speed weights”. And speed endurance paired up with bodybuilding hypertrophy weights. The previous articles in the series go a bit more in depth on their weight training.
It should be noted they work off 2:1 mesos, with the volume increasing by about 25% in week 2, and decreasing by 30-50% in week 3 during the deload. Dan deletes 2 sessions during this week.
And another thing is changing the ROM on each lift. The heavy weights have a “small” ROM, the hypertrophy “medium” ROM, and the “dynamic effort” weights a “large” ROM.
The hypertrophy lifts are at a “controlled” tempo.
http://www.mcmillanspeed.com/2015/05/a-coaches-guide-to-strength-development_26.html