Are we still chasing Bob Hayes?

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
1

I am about to ruffle some feathers here, but that has not stopped me and, hopefully, this can generate some discussion…

In 1964, Bob Hayes won the 100m gold, tying the WR. Yadda yadda yadda. More incredible however is his 4x100m relay leg, which has been timed at 8.60. Now, there is a strong likelihood the time is more like 8.8low or 8.8mid. Regardless, this is about the same as Asafa Powell’s relay leg from Beijing (2nd fastest ever if I recall).

Now consider Bob Hayes did this ON CINDERS (versus one of the fastest tracks ever in Beijing) and with a mediocre hand-off at best (switching hands…). This was also done without the modern spikes, other attire, supplements, therapy, nutrition, training (both supposed improvements in training AND full time, paid athletes).

My point here is, how much do we really know and has the sport really advanced at the highest levels? Quite likely, the fastest relay leg ever was run over 40 years ago and we are still chasing it. All of the Soviet sciences, single limb training, Vertical Integration, the NCAA system, the various sprint groups, Inno-Sport, the nutritional/supplemental advances, intensive tempo, etc. still have yet to significantly improve upon that mark. Has the sport really advanced? Is Bob Hayes still the fastest man ever?

Likewise, what can we learn from this? Was training different for him (if he was training significantly at all)? Or was this simply an anomaly where, for whatever reason (adrenaline, stars aligning, whatever), Bob Hayes peaked in every imaginable way.

Thoughts?

2

Some good questions- I don’t have the answers but it is pretty amazing to look back 40+ years and see a performance like that… one that may still be the fastest ever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9HrKZfhbCc&feature=related

3

Of course it could just be that Bullet Bob was the ultimate genetic outlier, so many standard deviations out on the bell curve that we cannot even calculate them.

4

That’s an interesting point. If we compare Hayes’ time(s) against times of other sprinters at the time, and see if he or Bolt (or anyone else) are further away from the ‘norm’ (which we’d need to define), it would give a measurable way of discussing who is “faster”.

The highest ever rated chess player, Kasparov, once said that he considered Fischer to be the best chess player of all time, because Fischer was so much better than his opponents than any other champion. This could have him being modest, however.

5

It could be that the NCAA coaches don’t know what they’re doing.

Sorry. Couldn’t help it.

I think it is hard to judge the whole sport based on what the top guy is doing. If Wilt Chamberlain was a better player than Kobe Bryant is, does that mean that basketball hasn’t advanced since the 60s? Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t (I, personally, think it has), but Chamberlain being better than Bryant is not much evidence that it hasn’t.

6

By looking at the overall levels of times being put out (not just in the pros, but in college and HS too), it’s obvious that we’re making progress. Like Vedette said, Bob Hayes was probably just a one-in-a-billion freak. For whatever reason, he was born a talent so far beyond anyone we’ve seen before or since that it just seems like we’ve stagnated.

7

These are good points, however, do his other times indicate he was that freakish (far and beyond the talents of Bolt, Powell, BJ, and numerous others)? His best 100m was 10.0h, granted it was on cinders and in lane 1, but it still only tied the record of that time. His winning margin, while great (in the open 100m), is not THAT much better than Bolt’s or BJ’s at their best.

I am curious what people think about it just being a one off (the relay leg)? Charlie and most others (elite coaches) have said that you cannot pull something from nothing and the generally seems to be the case, but is this the exception to that “rule”?

And, just for fun, how much faster would he have gone had he had all of the modern training advancements we have and was a professional? 9.4? 9.3? Faster?

8

If I remember correctly, Hayes himself said that he thought he could have run around 9.5 in his autobiography, but I’ll need to check that. He was only 20/21 at the time and combining football with athletics too, so it’s unlikely he reached his best, despite that freakish performance.

9

I’d argue the “you can’t pull something from nothing” quote. I mean, all you’ve got to do is look at Bob Beamon. Freak performances do happen, and maybe his relay was one of them.

And there’s no doubt Hayes could’ve gone faster with today’s training, surfaces, etc., but the real question is: how much faster?

10

Beamon’s jump is believed (even by him, if I recall) to have been heavily wind aided and at altitude. The competition was delayed after his jump, which is why a lot of people supposedly didn’t perform too well after that. Still way out there in terms of his second best performance ever, but in much better context once we get that out of the way. The thing about sprinting is that it tends to be quite a bit more objective since there really isn’t that much technique or anything to it in comparison to other events. You can have an absolute crap landing and mid-air mechanics and drop over a foot–generally doesn’t happen that way in sprinting.

Looking to hear what PJ/CF/TC/No2/KK and some others think about this.

11

Great topic!
I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw MSO’s reply :eek:

I was also thinking that just because we don’t have Mike Powell and Carl Lewis banging away at the 29ft+ line today, are our coaches any less knowledgeable about long jump than back in the 90s. Clearly not.

The science underlying coaching principles is so much more advanced than ever before. And it is so much more accessible, especially due to the internet. So the dissemination of information is potentially enormous.

But it doesn’t mean the greatest talent always finds it’s way to the greatest coach or the most appropriate coach.

Different societies also develop at different rates.

The way our children play today may be different, less wild and “native” than it was when I was a kid, for sure in my own case. When I was little I would spend hours climbing every tree, every rocky cliff anywhere within walking distance of my parents’ home. Now I have kids of my own and I’ve never seen either of them up a tree, clambering from branch to branch. And chances are I’d be tempted to order them down for fear they’d kill themselves.

But running free and getting into physically challenging positions must surely help with proprioception and the ability to express power. Maybe in our increasingly sophisticated western society many of our kids have lost that quality.

And in some other societies perhaps it’s more a case of a lack of opportunity - as ever - due to socio-economic issues. Wouldn’t you love to take some of the superbly-framed west African sprinters and transplant them into a supportive, nurturing environment where they could be liberated just to train for their event(s).

12

I read a great book recently about youth sports, and the author pointed out that the most common youth injuries nowadays are overuse injuries, since so many kids specialize in one sport and one position and play their sport twelve months a year and all that sort of thing. In the 70s, I don’t think there was a day of elementary school when there wasn’t some kid in class with a cast. Every Monday, there would be a story about how somebody broke his arm over the weekend. I didn’t break a bone until the summer after 10th grade, and I felt left out. But now you almost never see young kids with broken bones.

13

I’ll take that as an invite to have some ‘emoticonless’ fun of my own…

Not as much as I’d like to transplant some of the superbly-famed coaches from outside CONUS into our supportive, nurturing environment where they could liberate the current system. (insert favorite emoticon)

Truth in jest aside, it is my view that the historical phenomenal performances of T&F deserve to be considered as the rule, as opposed to the exception, with respect to analytical scrutiny and otherwise as, to me, all sport disciplines deserve to be inhabited by the most favorable outcomes of selection in order that we may coach/view the highest level performances.

It’s one thing to consider what types of training yield the largest margin of improvements amidst the less than elite population of various gene pools; however, the less than elite gene pool category will never ever attain the highest sport results in disciplines that are so heavily influenced by physical preparation (such as T&F).

As a result, it’s very interesting to consider all known factors associated with the most dominant performances of all time as the sport is very much deserving of having this type of talent represent it at the international level.

The question is how might we compare the sportsmen of past and present in light of the significant changes already mentioned (training, surfaces, training apparatus, apparel, and so on)

14

Momentary thread derailment

Would you believe that certain scholastic environments in CONUS have eliminated games like ‘tag’ from their PE programs (if they haven’t already eliminated that from their curricula) due to the fat kids inability to catch their more fit counterparts.

I shit you not.

15

In the utopian society, soon to come, the national kommission for victorious direction (NKVD) agents will emerge from their Zil limos in the middle of the night to take away the bad coaches, never to be seen again.

16

Prisoner 1: What are you in for?

Prisoner 2: I was married to Our Most Revered Leader’s daughter, and I cheated on her. What are you in for?

Prisoner 1: I had the athletes do 6x100m at 95%, on the Thursday before a meet, followed by plyometrics.

Prisoner 2: Wow, you’re a sick one.

17

Indeed!

Agent Smith at your service.

18

As Prisoner 3 is being marched to the firing squad, he says to Prisoners 1 & 2, “All I did was a Crossfit Fran.”

19

Was his training method really basic?
Did he even include callasthenics or anything?
Was it just a case of sprints at the track and chasing footballs on the football pitch?

The only other elite athlete I’ve ever seen with a basic program was Bo Jackson. Before he got injured, his only training was: Football, baseball and occasional hurdles / track sprints in collage. That was it. There was no work at home, no stretching, no core work, no callasthenics, no weight training or anything. It was claimed that Bo Jackson ran a 4.12 sec 40 yard dash, but I don’t know if he really did. It is just claimed that he did.

Did Bob Hayes survive of just sprints?