Asafa Out?

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It just goes on to confirm that the people preparing Asafa are not as competent as everyone would like to think. Every year it’s something else. If it’s not a torn pec from a ass-backwards weight training program, it’s a pulled groin (which I have never seen in any sprinter I’ve worked with - football, hockey, basketball - yes), or he has mental/confidence issues. As Charlie said, “Injuries do not happen because of bad luck or muscle imbalances. Injuries occur because of shitty training.” In Ben’s case, he was getting injured because he was not following the principles of training laid out by Charlie. Ben was flying around the world doing promotional events for his sponsors (i.e. two flights to Japan in less than 10 days) and the injuries resulted from disruptions in training.

Regardless of how competent his physical therapy staff are, if the training is not organized in an appropriate fashion, there will be problems. All of the interviews from his coach point to a common thread - Coaching arrogance and a lack of responding to the needs of the athlete on a day-to-day basis. Here is an interview excerpt I pulled from another thread:

[i]"SF - Yes it is long to short. High volume, short recovery leading on to low volume, long recovery, high intensity. We don’t do much low intensity work either. I read in a book a while back that to run longer than 20 mins continuous will affect your speed so the longest run we do is 20 mins. The women tend to do 20% less volume than the men. I believe you can work hard on successive days ¡f you are working different energy systems, e.g sprints to 30m one day and then speed endurance the next day. The athlete needs to do a certain amount of work and this is more important than any theory about CNS and its recovery.

I think you need to do 15 distinct sessions per week and so sometimes it is not what the theories agrees with but that’s just how we do it."[/i]

Key things to pick up on:

  1. “We don’t do much low intensity work” - Why not? Can’t you do extensive tempo rather than running 20 minutes? Their lack of low intensity work may be part of the bigger problem.
  2. “I read in a book…” - Well, at least he didn’t read it in Men’s Health.
  3. “The women do 20% less volume than the men” - Charlie’s work with Marion and Tim confirmed that women need more volume than men, due to the differences in output and performance (i.e. world class men have significantly higher intensity in their runs, thus need lower volume and more recovery.
  4. “I believe you can work hard on successive days…” - Maybe for developing athletes who do not have the speed in their SE work to create a problem. But in an athlete that runs sub-10 sec in 100m?
  5. “…this is more important than any theory about CNS and its recovery” - Again, for elite sprinters… bullshit.
  6. “…it is not what the theories agrees with but that’s just how we do it.” - Chalk it up to arrogance…

If someone posted this on the forum and we didn’t know who they coached, we would all think this person was an idiot. Powell’s results (not the coaching approach) have brought the spotlight on Francis. It is easy to detect the arrogance in his responses. I would rather have had him say that “experience with my athletes has shown” or “my coaching mentors have passed on these theories” rather than “I read it in a book” or “that’s just how we do it”.

When I visited John Smith, back when Mo Greene was finishing his career, John was very careful to say that, “We need to heed the science behind everything we do. As coaches, we can make adjustments day-to-day based on the needs of our athletes. There is a feel component to coaching, but we must not forget the science that guides our decision making.” Charlie agreed that John has done a good job in preparing athletes for the big meets, when they need to perform. Stephen Francis could do well in paying a visit to John Smith and just listening to what an experienced coach has to say.

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#2 i agree with most of what you are saying but asafa is still a 9.8 sprinter and has been for the past 4-5years hence this must show some good light on his coach. how would you rate tyson gays injury as its hip/groin originated?

asafa himself must be held to blame also…this is his 4season with injuries and has he addressed the problems?
has he changed his lead up approach to major Cships?

if i were asafa powell i would have been asking these questions along time ago and questioning the coaching etc because as #2 said…you get injured for a reason which is 100% accurate

i am 100% sure you will see athletes who have dropped out with injuries competing straight after the WCs

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I hear what you are saying, but there are lots of guys running sub-10 with poor coaching (these days). I believe that sprint mechanics have actually worsened, but we have more guys running sub-10. Just watch the NCAA championships. Lots of egg-beaters out there pounding out sub-10 seconds.

With regard to Tyson Gay, a chiropractor friend of mine treated him a few years ago and shed light on the situation. Very little coaching support (at the time of his visit - doing workouts on his own, etc.) and frequency of therapy could be much better. So perhaps Powell and Gay have similar issues with regard to support. Both talented athletes with good nutritional support, but could improve on the preparation/therapy side.

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What about the need to prepare for World Champs, which has multiple rounds and/or multiple events w/ some on successive days? Doesn’t Dan Pfaff use some kind of a 3 day rotation for sprint work?

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What an exciting 100m final this will be.
http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=o/age=n/season=2011/sex=M/all=n/legal=A/disc=100/detail.html

#1 (powell) is out with injury
#2 (gay) is out with injury
#3 (mullings) is out with a positive test
#4 (rodgers) is out with a positive test
#5 (thompson) time seems to be a strange one-off outlier that is 0.16 faster than anything else he’s run in the last 2 years.
#6 (frater) wasn’t originally on the JAM team b/c he didn’t do well enough at their nationals.
#7 (bolt) is having a bad year.
#8 (makusha) hasn’t come close to approaching his NCAA championships times since.
#9 (carter) is seen a real contender
#10 (lemaitre) young white frenchmen is improving and could surprise
#11 (bledman) who?

Way down this list with a 9.95 being his fastest legal time, we have #14 Blake.

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It’s not necessary. Ben never had a problem running the rounds and still posting a world record in the final. The “speed reserve” concept allows athletes to run the rounds relax and prime themselves for the semi-final and final. The base of conditioning is there.

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NumberTwo, as theory/practice says developing athletes don’t produce much CNS fatique compared with higher level athletes b/c their outputs are lower. But how it correlates with the individuals who better respond to Long to Short program and as I understand when Charlie said this program is more suitable for athletes who are not very explosive, (lurky? sorry my english isn’t best so I don’t know what does it mean) and don’t tolerate much CNS work. Does it mean CNS tolerance and power output not always correlate? Can be the case that there are two high level sprinters with similar power output but one better suits to StL program and another LtS?

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Lots of questions. I’ll do my best.

CNS tolerance is not a function of genetics, but more so of development and time. Your ability to tolerate high outputs will develop over time as you build a base of high-intensity work beneath you. However, you are also building a base of low intensity work that will help you to recover more readily from high output workouts/races (assuming you are following an appropriate training program and progression). This is why Charlie liked the short-to-long approach, which included high-intensity runs throughout the year (building a large base of speed work). His contention was that a long-to-short program included a lower overall volume of speed work (and less exposure to speed throughout the year) and, thus, made the athlete more susceptible to injury and CNS overload in the latter stages of training.

This all makes sense in the case of Powell. If he is following a long-to-short program, it will take him longer to reach his peak (i.e. he needs a min of 16 races to be in top form), but it will also make him more susceptible to injury when he is in the thick of competition season with lots of high intensity races week to week. We could say that his CNS tolerance is low due to the progression of training he is following and the lower exposure to speed work throughout the year.

Of course, it is a double-edged sword and when you get to the latter stages of your career, you must back off on the frequency of high intensity workouts because you cannot tolerate higher volumes of work in the high-intensity zone. This could be both a central and peripheral recovery issue, as testosterone levels will begin to level off and drop as athletes enter their thirties. This is represented in one of the graphs we created for Charlie where training volume at the high-intensity level drops off after a number of years. (See below - lower diagram)

Developing athletes with less strength may very well improve more readily on a long-to-short program because of their reduced power output. And, they do need to develop a base of general fitness and strength. They may have lower CNS tolerance, but it doesn’t matter because they can’t training at a high enough output to create that level of fatigue. Remember, much of Ben’s initial training was long-to-short in structure.

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Thank you very much! Now things are more clear, just still makes me confused with your last sentences of explanation, maybe I misunderstood something:

“Developing athletes with less strength may very well improve more readily on a long-to-short program because of their reduced power output. And, they do need to develop a base of general fitness and strength. They may have lower CNS tolerance, but it doesn’t matter because they can’t training at a high enough output to create that level of fatigue. Remember, much of Ben’s initial training was long-to-short in structure.”

For sure developing athletes will improve on a long-to-short, but wouldn’t be better start using more short-to-long for better adaptation and CNS tolerance for later stages of training? B/c you said " Your ability to tolerate high outputs will develop over time as you build a base of high-intensity work beneath you. However, you are also building a base of low intensity work that will help you to recover more readily from high output workouts/races (assuming you are following an appropriate training program and progression). This is why Charlie liked the short-to-long approach, which included high-intensity runs throughout the year (building a large base of speed work). His contention was that a long-to-short program included a lower overall volume of speed work (and less exposure to speed throughout the year) and, thus, made the athlete more susceptible to injury and CNS overload in the latter stages of training."

Low intensity, strength base no doubt, but why sometimes it’s better to use long-to-short program for developing athletes? Such program offers longer periods of special endurance and SE workouts and I’m not sure how it could be better for developing athletes and how it builds the base for high intensity work for later stages of training.

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its looking like powell may run the relay according to his management team…i dont get this guy!

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Guys, for all updates on asafa here is a link to the doylemangement facebook page. Along with Asafa it holds news of Bryan Clay and many other DMG athletes.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Doyle-Management-Group/173236439400467

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Like it to continue to get updates

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The reason(s) he might run the relay are that it is later in the competition and gives him more time to rehab, and that he’ll only have to run one leg in the final. They are deep enough to easily qualify without him.

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I agree with all that No.2 has said but the facts are Steven Francis has many Olympic and World medallists in his squad and Asafa is the only one I am aware of who suffers routinely at the majors. Maybe it’s more down to Asafa than coach Steven.

When Steven spoke at a seminar I organised a couple of years back he said that in Jamaica they don’t have expert therapists like they do in some other countries. And it seems almost anyone with a basic feel for massage can get a job with these elite JAM sprinters. In any case I think the overwhelming weight of evidence shows that coach Francis can: (A) get his people ready on the big day; (B) get them to the line healthy; © get their physical prep ramped up to medal zone.

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Amen…

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Of course we don’t have the whole story on who else may be whispering in Asafa’s ear. Perhaps the coach doesn’t have total control of Asafa and there are outside influences creating problems. But it is clear the current situation isn’t working for Asafa.

The majority of Stephen Francis’ success has been with female sprinters. Perhaps he has the training volume correct for them (i.e. 20% less than men) and too high for Asafa. KitKat - what is your opinion of this gender difference in his success? Is it planning related? Is there any information you gleaned from your seminar with him? Did anything stick out of his philosophy that could be problematic on the male sprinter side?

Strangely enough, my source tells me that John Smith truly believes Asafa is more naturally talented and has more potential than Bolt. I wonder if Asafa would ever consider moving to another coach or training group?

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It is true Stephen Francis’s majority successes have come with females. I cannot imagine however that Asafa would succeed outside of the Islands. He is so quintessentially Jamaican. It would be very interesting to see how he might fare if he teamed up across the road with Glen Mills, Bolt & Co. But it is a move I don’t see either Mills or Asafa embracing, unless Bolt insisted. John Smith no doubt would have success with Asafa but I doubt Asafa could adjust to the LA scene. Although he is extremely well travelled, whenever I’ve met him he’s been surrounded by fellow Jamaicans and it’s like he’s on Island time wherever he is. He is so laid back it’s ridiculous. John though has the chat and the cool to run with his willingness to embrace science and his old school discipline which Asafa appears to need.
I would have to go back over my seminar notes but I cannot recall anything in Stephen’s commentary that led me to think his women athletes may be better suited to his training regime.
One thing I suspect is that Asafa may need better and more therapy than the women sprinters in their group. Even if the therapies are available I wonder whether Asafa is religious about submitting to them? I recall Charlie saying that during the competition phase he would have his therapists “all over” Ben, up to five times a day or whenever/whatever he needed to preserve function and form.

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I know for myself, there was a period a few months ago when my training was ramping up a Lot. To do so, i had to therapy nearly the same volume in time as my training… Personally, i would rather cull a session short and do extra Therapy to prevent an injury than keep training and try and treat an injury.

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Squirming, Powell admits he could do more still to win. “Sometimes I’m at home and I remember I’m supposed to do 100 push-ups and I don’t. Sometimes my coach will call me and say: ‘Asafa, you done your exercises?’ and I’d say: ‘Yes, coach,’ and then after I start doing them. Sometimes I’m training and I just want to go home and work on an engine. Sometimes I’ll be working on an engine and just miss practice. Or go to the beach. I know, I’m like a kid. Maybe I was a bit too spoilt growing up. Everything just came like I wanted it to.”

If he truly has been missing sessions like this I could see how things fall apart for him.

Source- Guardian Aug 20 Article

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Like Kit-kat, I was also at the Stephen Francis seminar and he did say that they do acceleration development all-year round - lots of 30m runs - many with sled. (I was also fortunate enough to drive him from his hotel to Homebush that day and we luckily we got stuck in a lot of traffic!!). As a result I was able to ask a lot of questions, which he basically re-enforced at the seminar. He termed his training long to short because his endurance work started at longer intervals and progressively got shorter as it got quicker. I think at the seminar kit-kat mentioned that perhaps it was more concurrent to which I think he replied ‘I guess so’…He mentioned that he follows many of John Smiths principals and reads and talks to many so I think he is more knowledgable than some of the comments appear…