Great content.
No defense mechanism for a lack of sleep - Dr. M Walker
Over the years…learned to look at small things that add up
No caffeine
no fluoride
no aluminum
better shampoo
better lotion
where to get the best water for my body…water has memory
Iron levels are right on point…not excessive like many my age.
Breathing exercises through out the day…humming, etc.
Etc, Etc
One day, maybe i’ll grow my own fruits and veggies, etc.
CAFFEINE
As a competitive athlete I used caffeine on my speed days to “help” me and I felt (a subjective piece of info I know) that it was helpful. After I had my son and was no longer competing but continued to train I found coffee a bit too much for my system. But guess what? I am back using Bulletproof coffee or roasting my own green beans and making the best coffee which is higher in Vitamin C than OJ (that is if and when you roast green beans and they are responsibly farmed and zero added anything including preservatives which are common in most products now and other chemicals where we are unaware of)
FLUORIDE and other chemicals
I no longer use laundry, dishwashing and dishwasher soaps that are commercial available. I use as natural products as I am able to find and same with toothpaste. As neurotoxic issues grow in humans we need to protect our neurological selves. Chemicals never used to be mainstream but along game industrialization and farmers as well started looking to improve productivity for their plants and farmers looking to increase their yield. Take a look at dirty dozen and clean 15 food list so you will better educate yourself on where to prioritize organic spending.
BEAUTY PRODUCTS
Shampoo and creams and sunscreens are notorious for chemicals. Chemicals are hormone disruptors. 25 years ago we had less potential disruptions to our nervous system. Green washing is a thing going on now and I am going to guess we are going to start seeing Health washing going on as well. Green washing for those who may not be aware is the idea that companies pretend to be watching out for the planet while all they are really doing is marketing themselves as caring about the environment. Females are particularly vulnerable to chemicals because of their hormonal ups and downs but now men’s toiletries are or have become a “thing”.
Charlie innovated a plan for performance with help from fellow athletes and coaches across the globe when he was an athlete. He enjoyed track and wanted to be good and was intelligent enough to keep asking the right questions.
Performance for masters athletes is not different than performance for elite athletes but you need to be able to pivot the variables more than ever as aging has it’s own set of rules which are harder to navigate at 40+ years for so many reasons.
I have done a great deal of thinking about Charlie’s life and wellness and illness. He almost died as a very young boy of a burst appendix. The infection had incapsulated which saved his life. I have wondered about the massive doses of antibiotics they gave him and if that set the pace for a compromised immune system for the rest of his life? The reason I ask the question to myself is most medications apparently inhibit proper gut function of our gut biome. If our gut biome is messed up we are not brining in nutrients that
keep us well and or thriving.
STRESS
The more I have learned over the past decade the more I realize that stress is likely the single biggest de-railer of our health.
Do you have on going career health?
How much stress do you have about your financial life?
Do you find relationships easy or is dealing with people like managing a walk in an active mine field?
The navigation of stress throughout our life is likely going to be an inherited trait we learn. We will either be fortunate to have been taught methods to positively neutralize stress or we will struggle but perhaps become aware of how to re-learn and or change our habits as we mature and or educate ourselves.
Elite Performance for speed training
Creating the ideal circumstances for becoming a world class sprinter has never been more easy with content sold here for now going on 22 years in January 2022.
Having said that we all know it’s not easy but what is easy is chipping away at your passion to become the very best sprinter you are able to be, one piece of information at a time and or one habit of improving one thing at a time.
Passion has been a big driver for me in many areas of my life and becoming a speedster has been no exception. Before I met the father of my son, I wanted to do everything possible to be as fast as I was able.
Yes, what happened to my family in 1988 interrupted things somewhat but I am able to say with zero doubt I had a shot at my dream.
Take advantage this information while you are able to and good luck navigating and enjoy every second of your journey.
Seeking advice, ridculous times and inconsistencies
This question has been posted by a member named Brett
Hi all, been a while since I’ve posted on here, but constantly am reading through old threads. Thanks Ange for maintaining this goldmine of information.
So basically I have been training more serious this past year with more free time and access to a great facility. My goal has been to officially run under 7 in the 60. All year I have been on pace to do so. I’ve been consistently under 4.0 for 30m on my Freelap timing system. Early in the year I ran under 7.10 for 60 on my Freelap as well. So I know I have the raw power and basic qualities to run well. Progressing through the fall on a SL scheme, I have been able to run 2.8 pretty consistently to 20, 3.9 to 30, and 4.9 to 40m. I gradually did my best to take my time to perfect each segment before progressing and lengthening the runs. I started to run out to 40m around October. Segments being roughly 2.85+1.10+1.0x on average at this point.
It’s kind of ridiculous, and I expect everyone to think I am trolling or something, but this is what really happened. As far as technically, I was really just working on making sure I maintained my body angle and avoiding popping up, just having a smooth transition. Some reps came out around my average time I just mentioned and everything was measured off correctly and my system was working just fine. Then, on a particular rep I checked my Freelap. It said “0.87” for the 30-40m split. The preceding split, however, was 1.25 from 20-30m. I thought perhaps the thing glitched and subtracted and added a tenth of a second or something. But during this session, I clocked 3 more ridiculous times (with some of my “normal times” here and there inbetween) which were a split of 0.91, 0.87 again, and finally 0.85. The caveat was that all of the fast runs were 1.2-1.3 from 20-30, whereas the more “normal” runs were around 1.10+1.0x. Since that session, on another day I clocked 0.86 on a flying drill. But that was only once. I have clocked plenty of pedestrian times since over 1.0.
I thought, assuming this is somehow legit, perhaps the very slow times during the 20-30 segment that set up the proceeding segments are indicative of ground contacts that are compensating for being too quick at the start. I thought perhaps I can try to shift this extra tenth or two onto the start, so that I can get into the proceeding segments more smoothly. I tried a few things and ended up running 0.9-1.0 during the 20-30 segments. This was compensated by running my first 20m about a tenth or two slower by emphasizing a few other things technically. However, using this strategy, I somehow slowed down a lot from 30-40. So the splits using this method were 2.9-3.0 for 20, 0.9-1.0 for 20-30, and 1.0-1.1 from 30-40. Doesn’t make sense either.
Obviously I haven’t been able to piece the best splits together. But if I somehow did, it would be 2.77+0.93+0.85. Which is pretty unbelievable. I just want to be able to optimize my time, but now I stepped into a can of worms where there are different approaches (cues, technical models, etc).
Unfortunately I have no film on these particular runs, which obviously occurred very unexpectedly on mostly 2 particular sessions. Hopefully I can catch another one soon so I can share what is going on. All I can tell you is how I felt. It was strange. My strides felt huge, but not through reaching of course. My arm action felt very reactive in those moments. I didn’t really feel the ground or my legs, but I would say oddly enough that my hips FELT lower to the ground, which is very strange. It was so easy and I felt like I could keep running like that forever. That is how they felt. In comparison, my slow runs feel shorter and more efforted. I just want to know what is going on here, and how to consistently run faster. Using the same cues I don’t get consistent results. I’d really appreciate any advice anyone has. Thank you for your time.
What Coach Ange has to say
Hello Brett,
Merry Christmas from Toronto ONTARIO CANADA. We had snow yesterday but today it’s warm and rainy but nice for walking Winston, my 7 year old french bulldog.
Thank you for your note.
It has been my pleasure to maintain this website and keep information available to those interested in learning how Charlie trained as one of the 5th fastest men in the world. In addition to that he developed and coached one of the most dominate groups in track and field history and went on to share with the world how that was done. ( this kind of content is unprecedented because coaches and athletes almost never share information unless they have to or have nothing to lose) We now know so much more about cycling but would we have had Lance not had a problem?
You said you are training more seriously, and you have more time and greater access to a facility.
Are you training more? Differently? Now you have a coach? You have more money so you don’t need to work?
Yeah, many reading this will be bored with the questions but in order to define how you are training more seriously we need to understand. What is the operative definition of " training more seriously?
My next set of questions are about your volume of speed work. You have done an in-depth explanation of why you are wanting to seek advice and explaining why you are frustrated with ridiculous times and inconsistencies, but we don’t know what the volume of your speed work is?
First let’s review a few key speed methodology terms.
Speed = 7 seconds or less with complete recovery ( usually ~1 minute per 10 m of speed work)
Speed Endurance =7 to 15 seconds ( depending on the person this would be repeat 60’s and up to any breakdowns of 100m from ascending or descending order)
Specific Endurance = 15seconds or above up to about 600m (100 and 200m runners would not be running 600m per say or not until they are elite ( SE for 400m person would be most likely
Special Endurance =this has incomplete recovery/ for example 150’s for 100 or 200m and 200’s for 400/800m (NOTE= my coach decided I did not get as big of a bang for my buck doing special and specific endurance and his speculation on this was perhaps, I was lacking enough of a background on these types of runs early on in my athletic career)
Speed Volume
I would expect you to be doing volumes of sets of 10m as a first part to one of your speed sessions per week.
Maybe some 20’s if you weren’t loose enough and needed to warm up specifically to progress to 30’s.
The faster, stronger and fitter I was the easier the transition was from 10m to 30m without needing to perform 20’s to get there
Most of speed in the earliest part of my sprinting was performed in 10’s and 30’s.
Running at my very best when I was competing for Canada in the 60m and 100m hurdles I was doing 4 sets of 4x60m.
Full warm up with all drills of A’s, B’s, Running A’s, butt kicks and 4 x 60m strides ( one hour)
4(4x60m) with 2 to 3.5min rest between each rep of 60m and 10 to 11min rest between sets.
( Above is a small slice of a non-sprinter female workout who was plenty fast but lacked volumes of speed endurance, special and specific endurance, and not enough time in sport overall)
These are only some of my thoughts as it seems like you are overthinking the timing part and overthinking in general.
If you have the volumes and reps and keep practicing your plan ( which we assume you believe is a good plan) then eventually things should/will fall into place but sometimes it takes more time, over time
Repeating reps and piecing them together is part of the game of training.
Have you watched any of the seminars or read any of the material from the store?
( There is countless information about speed training everywhere. How do you quality information? Start from the best so you have a reference and a starting point on which to compare your own results and experiences.)
BRETT’S POSTED RESPONSE
Re: Seeking advice, ridculous times and inconsistencies
Hey Ange, thanks for your thorough responses. To answer your questions, since the pandemic I have been working less and have more time and energy to devote to training. For the past several months I have been able to dedicate myself to two speed sessions a week, two weight sessions, along with 2-3 tempo and ab sessions a week. Due to work and location, my training for the past couple of year has been meager, disorganized, and hodge podge. But I have been able to establish my current regimen due to my situation.
As far as my actual training plan, I am focused on the 60m and so I am using an S-L scheme. Essentially one of the speed sessions I focus on acceleration more and the other more emphasis on max v. Progressing gradually 10m at a time. Starting with trying to perfect 10-20, then 20-30, 30-40. Lately session might look like 3x20mB, 2x(2-3x)40mB. So, volumes around 300m or so. I will progress to more 50-60m in these next few weeks. Tempo-wise, I stick with about 1000-2000m per session. With weights, I have been doing mostly 3x5 on bench and squat, I don’t have any auxiliary lift equipment, but it gets the job done, and I’ve been about the strongest I’ve ever been at 5’10" 170lbs and my best set for bench has been 3x5x255lbs and squat being 3x5x435 at a parallel depth. I am quite flexible and do massage and additional stretching on tempo days. The volumes and intensities of my training are on the more conservative side as I’ve previously done speed volumes over 400 in the past. Having a written plan and not going beyond it, always trying to do less, has definitely helped me to avoid tightness in tiredness. So overall I do feel very good. I suspect that my inconsistencies are probably a result of not relaxing, and perhaps this is due to doing loads of high intensity explosive work at too high of an effort. I have been considering doing control speed (very submaximal and longer runs) as it could give me a better opportunity to relax. All the short near-max sprints have really done wonders for my starts, my best times for 20m being 2.77 and 30m being 3.89, but I have been all over the place going past 30. So I’m thinking maybe doing more upright work may provide the opportunity for more practice in that position and elicit more relaxation. Constantly reviewing the lectures and books from CF, I also just reviewed a seminar Charlie did for the SWIS symposium. Thank you for your responses.
Good evening Angela, Happy new years and seasons greetings from The Caribbean. I have been an avid follower of Mr.Francis for a number of years. I have watched numerous interviews, read Speed trap, running risks, training for speed, nearly all of the dublin inquiry and much more that pertained to Charlie Francis and his group. I am not at all phased by the fact that performance enhancing drugs were used in his training regimen and fully understand that it has been a crucial component of athletics for many decades. <br>
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I hail from a small island in the caribbean. I have a personal best of 10.7 seconds in the 100 meter dash in 2009. I was sidelined with a serious knee injury the very next year before i went to college and went away from the sport for a number of years. i was never properly coached and never introduced serious weight training into my regimen. I have now been training on my own since Nov and looking to make a serious comeback for my country and hopefully make the olympic team in 2024 in Paris. <br>
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Here is a question for you, is there a correlation between training age and peak age, (the amount of years and athlete has been training consistently until the gains are slowed significantly. I understand that there are sprinters that have started in their 20’s , but a sprinter that has re-started their sprint journey in their 30’s, and rose to prominence is much more rare i believe. Perhaps there is some science behind CNS activity, reaction time peak age, muscle degeneration etc etc. <br>
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Nonetheless, I am committed to breaking through some barriers. Its a pleasure to speak to you Mrs.Coon.
What a lovely note from you. Thank you for sharing this with us.
And it is coming from a place Charlie loved, the Caribbean. I have yet to visit.
Your question = is there a correlation between training age and peak age, (the amount of years and athlete has been training consistently until the gains are slowed significantly)
Economics has played a key role in ones abilities to see through their potential. Don’t forget that fact.
Charlie hung up with spikes WAY too early but had he had himself as a coach, would that have happened?
I did not train seriously until more than a few years past 1988 yet I had a very strong athletic training development base. Gymnastics, track and I was an excellent swimmer. And I was not burned out and I did not have serious injuries. I was not ranked 5th in the world like Charlie but Charlie for sure could have re-started his career and ran well into his 30’s. I went from doing well on a national junior level
to improving my speed and running consistently in order to compete internationally. When I finished running in 1997 Merlene Ottey was one of few superstars past what most thought of as a prime age.
Information in 2022 is vast compared to info prior to now. The rate of new info getting to a larger # of people is also higher.
If you believe doctors like Dr David Sinclair and Dr Terry Wahls and Dr Dale Bredesen, disease and aging can be slowed AND reversed. This believe now supported by respected scientists means with the right choices we can train more effectively, longer with better and more consistent results.
Science in sport has not been the same as science for popular consumption. I do not mean to be negative but it’s not possible that a switch off drugs happened in 1988 yet who is talking about this? Joe Rogan has done an amazing interview with Victor Conte but he runs his own show. We see a token elite swimmer talking about his truth and a household name in the cycling world talk truth but do we really believe they are the only ones with stories in elite sport?
Would we be able to have an open conversation about what athletes are facing now? Not yet.
I do not see the line up of anyone wanting to share with us all what’s up in the trenches of elite sport.
Meantime athletes are on their own ( still) or relying on coaches, each other, smart and empowered parents maybe and that is about it.
Is the IOC or OLY federal committees concerned about how long you can thrive in track? My guess is not so much.
I was recently accused by a friend via whats app that I need to move on and I am a want to be. I do want to be and I will always move forward with or without the past. I want to be myself and I want to honor my late best friend and his life’s work and I want to know it was not for no reason. Our “friends” disappeared in 1988 and our “supporters” also disappeared so maybe I have something I would like to share and continue? Don’t I get to choose?
Standing room only at Charlie’s funeral…
… That does not make him perfect or right by the way but he was many things and he was a huge supporter of track globally and in Canada and shame on a bunch of people who turned their backs on me and us.
I would invite myself to your country or to mine and take a look free of charge and we can go from there full stop. Obviously it’s not that easy but it could be a first step.
My door is not as open as it once was to help anyone except those I love and trust and those I respect. I once believed sharing all to everyone was a good thing. I see how that has worked for me post 2010. I see how that has worked for my business and work post 2010.
My thoughts and advice to you?
Let no one stand in your way to make a shot at any dream you have and if you have the means to support yourself via your money or someone who sponsors you, make a list and prioritize your list and chip away at your goals.
You need to be realistic and put yourself in a spot to thrive.
Maybe others might pipe in and speak and share and contribute to your questions.
I can’t run this site alone nor will I try. It was set up a certain way and up to now I have not had the time, energy or focus to figure it out. Seems unbelievable that is true but it is.
Otherwise contact me directly and continued success and Happy New Year.
Ange, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We all are so fortunate to have you hosting this site and honoring your husband’s legacy. The information here is invaluable. Reading the books is awesome, but it’s so cool to re-read them and then come on here and see Charlie discuss and APPLY his teachings in a practical and realistic way through his conversations on these forums. It goes to show it’s not all about what Charlie thought, but it’s HOW he thought that made a difference. I recently was reading a thread where he was discussing with other members about Michael Johnson and his training, and it’s all about using common sense. There is no doubt that Charlie and Clyde Hart had different training systems, so it was really interesting to see Charlie talk about how he really wouldn’t have changed much about his training at all. A lot of top-level coaches (I could give examples of these training groups but I don’t think I need to mention names lol) will say “oh if this guy did things our way he’d be running X time”, but that’s purely from a dogmatic ego and just to promote their business scheme. Charlie never fixed something that wasn’t broken. That brings to mind the example of how he was criticized for not “fixing” Angella’s overstriding early on in her career. He patiently let her grow into it, and she obviously ended up benefiting greatly from it. Same thing with Ben’s start. I am sure there are plenty of coaches today who say “imagine how much faster Ben would have been using the toe drag and doing wickets!”. Charlie’s wisdom goes well beyond analytics and it is why he had the results he had. He didn’t just take 10 flat guys and improve them by a tenth or two. He started by developing kids who had nothing and helped build them into world champions. Today, we have too many “gurus”.
@YoungCj1 to answer your question, simply put, I do not believe there really is an established correlation. First off, I must say that by asking that question that already tells me you are motivated and inspired, because most people think they are done at 30. Heck, I have seen 22 year old college seniors who think they are topped out when I know for sure they could reach another tier if they put in the time to continue to train into their 30s.
I think that part of the stigma is that people often watch mainstream sports and see athletes retire around 30 in a lot of the explosive sports. But these are PROFESSIONAL and ELITE athletes who: 1. are performing at such a high level that it can potentially cause more serious injuries, as well as forcing themselves to play through injuries in big money sports like the NFL/NBA etc. 2. they already have enough money made by that point and are mentally burnt out. My point is that these situations do not apply to someone who is still DEVELOPING, and also that there are outliers. So it’s not a fair comparison. Giving up when we are in our 20’s is an issue of how our society is structured. If I may be so bold, amateurism and the NCAA are a huge barrier to why people give up on sports (and life) so soon. I have been reading a bit on sprinters from the 19th and early 20th century when “professionalism” was the common practice, before amateurism was established. It was not uncommon to see professional sprinters compete well into their 30s or 40s back then.
What I can say though is that we have seen many sprinters with long careers and performing well into later years. Su Bingtian just ran the fastest 30 and 60 meter splits ever, and he is 32. Kim Collins ran a PB of under 10 sec shortly before turning 40. There’s also the case of Gatlin, who ran several PB’s in his mid-to-late 30s and became world champion - this was also after a long hiatus - which you could speculate might have been beneficial for his longevity since he was not over-racing or over-training during those years. On the female side, the case of SAFP comes to mind, and she’s 35 now and still on top of her game. There really are plenty of examples. One of the key things is to train smart at conservative volumes which will help you stay healthy, which is what enables you to continue to make progress.
Another consideration is that as you get older, I think that some of the training emphasis needs to shift back to some of what is emphasized for beginners. As you get older, it is important to maintain general fitness, flexibility, and strength levels, and etc. Of course, these things are always in every good program, but sometimes advanced athletes (in the middle of a career) get to a point where they need a bit more specific work compared to general work because the high performance levels must prioritize those things. It is easy to get lost in the shuffle of emphasizing specific speed work too much and to begin neglecting the fundamentals, because at one’s middle/peak years the general qualities are largely taken care of by the high performance levels of the specific task (if you are sprinting very fast, you are already applying massive force, already have flexibility to reach such great positions, and obviously are fit if you are running 10 flat for example, or whatever your PB may be. So the weights/flexibility/etc often take care of themselves to the point where you don’t need to emphasize those training components as much as a beginner). Naturally as we age it is merely part of the process that we begin to lose some of these general qualities, and so they become more valuable again as you get later into your career. You could have great biomechanical patterning from years of being fast, but that all means nothing if not in the presence of adequate fitness, strength, flexibility, etc.
Bottom line is that everyone’s peak years will vary depending on multiple factors, so control the things you can and don’t worry about the things you cannot control.
Hey Ange, and thank you for your response.
Yes this is certainly the age of technology and information. Virtually anything you want to research, is readily available online. Certainly there is an advantage for athletes in todays time as opposed to yesteryear. With that said, my search has been a bit scattered but I seem to be making ground on different strategies that speak about sports performance in sprinters.
I wish i had the pleasure of meeting Charlie, I am still bewildered by how intuitive and wise he was just from his books and interviews. A man with little words but those words were impactful. I am honored to speak to you.
Like Charlie and his athletes in Canada in 1988, there is VERY little support from my government, so i have been self funding my training as well, thankfully I own my own company and do fairly well for myself. Hopefully once Im well established I can make a trip to Canada again once Trudeau relinquishes his iron grip lol. ( i studied Engineering in Ontario)
I listened to the PODcast with Victor COnte a few months ago and while i found it very insightful, I already believe alot of what was said, so it was no longer shocking. There is no way that drugs have left the sport, and again, with the prevalence of the internet and information, athletes, coaches and sports teams are only getting smarter and more elusive with their drug regimen, well, everyone besides Blessing Okagbare and her team lol.
Here was your response, “Economics has played a key role in ones abilities to see through their potential. Don’t forget that fact.”
Can you elaborate a bit on what you meant by Economics? Are you referring to the athletes ability to sustain themselves throughout their training career. Traveling, food, supplementation, physio, etc etc?
Brett this was awesome man! I appreciate your response!
Yes YoungCJ1, when I speak about economics I mean to remind everyone that our personal financial situation will dictate our ability to follow through with our potential goals in sport or any area.
[b]You have summarized the areas regarding many things which influence sport and maturation of age in sport nicely. Thank you for doing so.
As information catches up to a wider audience, it’s expected that eventually all QB’s in the NF will follow T. Brady’s lead.[/b]