I tell you story about my friend and former teammate. You can guess his name. He is from the Czech Republic. At his teens he was long and triple jumper with the best of 24ft and 50ft. When he was 17 he tried for the first time 400m, without training for that. And he ran 49 flat. And since then he started racing 400m but again without special training (still more LJ TJ). He improved to mid 47 when he was 19 or 20. In 1997 because of triple jump exp. and with gool jumping ability and natural endurance his coach decided to start preparing for 400mH. The started training in March 1997. First competition over 400mH was at the end of April and he ran 52.0 hand time. Second his race was in mid May with result 50.04 and he continued improoving till August when he ran like 21-years-old 48.27 and he was finalist of WCH in Athen.
I tell you story about my friend and former teammate. You can guess his name. He is from the Czech Republic. At his teens he was long and triple jumper with the best of 24ft and 50ft. When he was 17 he tried for the first time 400m, without training for that. And he ran 49 flat. And since then he started racing 400m but again without special training (still more LJ TJ). He improved to mid 47 when he was 19 or 20. In 1997 because of triple jump exp. and with good jumping ability and natural endurance his coach decided to start preparing for 400mH. They started training in March 1997. First competition over 400mH was at the end of April and he ran 52.0 hand time. Second his race was in mid May with result 50.04 and he continued improoving till August when he ran like 21-years-old 48.27 and he was finalist of WCH in Athen. After 5 month of special training! He is now 33 and He never improved that time! He is very hard worked, may be harder he used to be! He ran more then before, but no improvement. In the past he did not too much. Just couple of running and mainly LJ and TJ training and with this kind of training he ran Czech record… And after that more, more… Does anyone know his name? 
Yes, that was Juri Muzik.
yes… In 1997 everyone thought he would run 47.xx soon, but never happened!.
Re: Christopher Lamaitre can run 9.9 or 9.8 or he never improve 10.04 any more…
Hard work=improvement, sometimes it doesn’t work this way…
Correct. Well it’s been quite some time since he’s done anything in track, because of injuries, that I started to forget his name. Another british sprinter that’s got a lot of gym muscle mass, but did’t get faster.
As a side note; what happened to Dwain Chambers anybody? He opened up this year with a blistering 6.42 indoor 60 meters. What happened to ‘project Bolt’?
What comes to mind here is Charlie talking about ramping DOWN the training (volume) as an athlete gets more developed (and can handle less CNS volume)–with respect to Olu maybe not going over 3X3X60 and also Ben having shorter SPP cycles (re: The SPP Download) and starting with less volume as his speed developed.
I find it fascinating the link between the development of SPP and GPP and how an athlete progresses. I’ve heard so many stories of how certain athletes have had a good base of different events prior to starting their main event.
I’ve heard that Gary Reed was a 7m long jumper and 14m triple jumper coming out of high school. He carried that success to the 400m, and then eventually to a world silver medal in the 800m with a pb of 1.43.
Interesting how a base of skills forms the foundation of future success.
The GDR had their young athletes perform 5 different events for versatility. Sprinters would do long jump, high jump, hurdles and javelin. I believe this helped build a solid base of skill and physical attributes for future success.
Specific work varies through volume and intensity, but General work varies in type.
When an athlete stalls in progress at a young age, is it a function of special work or general? Is it a symptom of too much specific work not enough general?
I just found lots of high speed (300fps) lemaitre’s videos on youtube:
stride lenth drill:
Start:
He even has an user.
sweet vids man, great find!
one thing I find remarkable is how smooth his triple extension is.
I’m not familiar with cone drills. What is the idea behind them? Sprinting at a set stride length? Sprinting at a stride length further than usual?
Does anybody know what this guy’s height and weight are?
The idea is that you find a gifted beast then make him do dumb shit so he thinks he’s doing scientific training… but I think the idea is to create/develop the “correct” stride pattern(length).
According to http://www.european-athletics.org/event_files/novisad/bio/athletebio.php?bib=137&event=0010032 he is just under 6’2.5", and 163lbs.
They appear (the angle is pretty bad) to be similar to Vince Anderson’s wicket drills. The idea behind those is to get the athlete to step down and not reach/over stride and to enforce proper posture. Done properly I’ve actually found them to be effective.
Wickets are one thing. Plastic domes are another. Will he break 10sec or his ankle ligaments stepping on one of those things?
I said similar, at least in intent. The plastic bubbles seems like a bad idea waiting to happen. Even with the mini-hurdles there is a learning process to mitigate the chance of injury.
Alotta pronation… I wonder if his shins hurt…
Any science to these drills? I can’t imagine trying to forcefully make stride length happen.
Has anybody had success with this method?
It would be difficult to step on the bubbles/Cones if your goal is step between them. I would imagine that bubbles aren’t solid.
As described earlier it’s a rudimentary drill that can be very helpful in teaching posture as well as getting the accel the thigh back down to the ground.
RG
Those drills are common use in France. I’m just surprised you are surprise because in our country they are used in every club training.