Bolt 9.69 and the New Limits of Human Performance

[kitkat1]

@pierrejean

Jean-Denis Coquard from L’Equipe (edition of 8 April) witnessed Monday 6 april workout:
“Préposé au chronométrage, Patrick Dawson, l’un des entraîneurs oeuvrant avec Mills, sourit. Son Usain, il le soupèse aujourd’hui à 75 %. Le garçon vient d’avaler six 180 m sans starts. Huit minutes entre chaque effort. Il ne s’agit pas de forcer, seulement d’aligner les 20’’5. Un tempo modéré pour un garçon resté trois heures en interviews dans lamatinée. Sérieux et placé, Bolt enquille : 19’’6, 20’’6, 20’’5, 19’’9, 20’’3, 20’’1. Le lendemain il montera en gamme. Le programme prévoit deux fois l’enchaînement 300 m (35’’), 180 (entre 18’’ et 19’’) et 150 (16’’), avec huit et douze minutes de récupération. Résistancevitesse.”

Rough translation:
Usain had 3 hours interview on Monday morning. Then he had this workout in pm : 6x180m without starting blocks in 20"5 with 8min rest, which is described as moderate tempo. Mills estimates that Bolt’s level that day before the workout was 75%, and Patrick Dawson was the timer : 19’’6, 20’’6, 20’’5, 19’’9, 20’’3, 20’’1.
On Tuesday, the workout is planned to be 2 sets of 300m, 180m, 150m with 8 and 12min rest. Pace is 35", 18-19" and 16". This is described as Speed Resistance.

Next competition is a 100m race is 2 May in Kingston. He ran 9.76 there last year.

Thanks PJ, you’ve done it again :). I like this kind of work and it’s always interesting to see the target times and intervals between reps/sets.

Was that 12mins rest between sets on the Tuesday session?

Coach seems to be using the 300m as a depletion run, then asking 18-19sec for 180 on the backup rep is putting up the demands considerably. It’s the sort of concept I like to use for 400m development. But I would probably invite the athlete to use a three step roll up for the 180 which would make the target time easier to achieve and take stress off the athlete by not asking him to burst away from a stationary position at the start of the backup run.

The 150 in 16 is icing on the cake, not as severe as 180 in 18-ish, but still requires a high degree of concentration, effort and control - but still dangerous to go for speeds like that in a state of some fatigue when starting from a stationary position. For safety’s sake I’d be rolling those starts on all the backups.