Best way to improve top-end speed (your opinion)

Charlie would speed drills (easy fast easy, flying 20’s) be done on accel days (runs up to 60m) or done on speed endurance days (runs between 80 - 120m)

This is a massive influence on holding speed, but then to be conditioned to hold the technique when fatiguing is another but similar consideration.

I think the best way to improve top speed is to scare the crap out of the person who wants to get faster. Maybe, some fireworks, or perhaps a very rabid dog.

In my opinion, A few sets of 20 meter easy-fast-easy would be performed before moving to the 60,80 and 120 meter runs. You could also add some 30 meter runs (lying flat or push up position) before the E-F-E’s. Make sure your volume is appropriate and adequate recovery between runs. Hope that helps!

What I found worked this season was finishing drills holding top speed for 20m building/accelerating in from 30 and increasing as you want out to 50 or 60m.

I have the Aspire Race analysis of Gatlins run in Doha. Here’s a snippet.

“The results showed that Gatlin was able to achieve a maximal speed of 12.35 ms. The highest speed recorded prior to this mark was set by Carl lewis and Ben Johnson at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 (12.1ms).”

Dis time Av.V 10m Interval
10m 1.93 5.18 1.93
20m 2.98 9.52 1.05
30m 3.89 10.99 0.91
40m 4.74 11.76 0.85
50m 5.58 11.90 0.84
60m 6.39 12.35 0.81
70m 7.21 12.20 0.82
80m 8.07 11.63 0.86
90m 8.91 11.90 0.84
100m 9.77 11.63 0.86

Average stride length [m]: 2.40
Average stride frequency[steps/sec]: 4.26

I can’t scan at the moment but when i can I’ll stick it up.

sorry for the double post I just remembered i had this.

So I was correct?

.86-.84.-.86 for the last 30m? does that seem strange to anyone?

Well, sort off.

Remember that both Ben and Carl also have 0.81sec splits. (Ben’s was in 1986 as pointed out by Charlie.)
Ben still has the fastest ever first 80m.
The race in seoul were not Ben and Carls fastest 10m splits, contrary to the Guiness book of records from that time. They have also listed a 0.82 split from Donovan bailey from the hard atlanta track in 96 olympic final.

There were no electronic splits on Donovan and his time and movement relative to the field was not indicative of anything under a .84

PJ will be able tell me if I’m off the mark on this, but I remember seeing velocity results from the semi’s and the final that were obtained with lasers.
Were the Zurich splits ever published? I’ve not heard anything about them except here.

The Zurich splits were from frame counting, as are a lot of the splits presented here by PJ etc. Lasers give instant speed not the average of a 10m split. For example, two 10m segments of .83 would rise from the start of seg one to a peak at the end of that seg, then form that peak into seg two to the lower speed at the end- the average is the same but the peak would be the highest point.

So, Ben’s .81 = 44km p/h.

But we can assume that within than 10m segment he would have momentarily peaked at higher speeds. That really is phenomenal. :eek:

Same for anyone’s top speed if you think about it

Yeah, I worked with them in the past. They can be used to work out the average velocity for a 10m period though, and can therefore be used to give a split.

Check the film from 96 from the you-tube clip here. You’ll see where Donovan moved relative to the rest- it is much earlier and he very gradually moved past over the final segments. His acceleration from about 10 to 50 is the biggest diff to the rest of the field after a slow first few steps. I think PJ did something on this race- see if you can find it in the archives (I can never find stuff)

What are “easy-fast-easy” sprints. Jog-sprint-jog?

What trulyt staggers me about this is that Powell’s 6.39 is incredible, yet Ben Johnson’s 60m was, I believe, 6.33.

Did Powell re-accelerate at 80-90 meters? Has that been done before? Really extraordinary.