Charlie,
I guess what I am saying is that an athlete will need a extraordinary practice to have and extraordinary performance in Track but in the pool submaximal overdistance and very short “speed” work (8 second bursts) can help create supramaximal swims.
As for practice with track I wanted training PBs in order to get performance pbs…as the athletes got closer to elite world class (sub ten) the practice times matched closer to the performance times. Is this what you were speaking of?
For track, I suppose that depends on the training approach, though I’d think that PB would move up in lock-step with meet performance, though the number of times a PB can be set reduces as you move up.
As for the frequency, would pratice pbs become less frequent…so that many means and variations would be necessary for a performance PB?
This discussion has, for propably everybodys delight, moved from discussing the character to the system.
Well the drop off and the following supercompensation cannot surely be milked forever at certain time regarding specific modality and bracket, (it would be foolish to believe DB claims that), but I believe there are ways to keep moving on with the progress albeit it for certain does not become easier the more advanced the athlete is, which brings us to advanced athletes. The thing to consider is that there are even some advanced athletes with clear deficiencies, (or so I have understood). And I tend to believe DBs experience that the neural system may react somewhat close to the drop off theory presented concerning these deficiencies. I also tend to believe that once the clear deficiencies (how’s that spelled anyhow?) have been taken out, the interesting work begins. And to be able to know how to procede after this point shows the professionality of the coach. Now if the coach can in addition to results shed some light on the reasons and the theory why he can make the athlete progress at this point, (which means the results can be reproduced somewhat), then we have real world training information. My spelling sucks and I’m by no means an expert in the area so discussion and critisism is appreciated :).
Now as for Jay. I’ve never heard him autoregulating the training sessions and autoregulation is propably the most important rule to follow in DBs system. Jay says you have to work hard, harder than anyone else and such. Well that is readily possible with rare individuals that already have the work capasity to work as hard as he refers. There is one basic difference.
Besides does someone really like to play these guessing games? What does that produce? I’d say that the time many consider to be so precious here is wasted in the paranoid thoughts.
My thoughts so far
Well for the last 2 weeks I have been averaging close to 2 hour workouts, 3 times a week, straining some heavy loads for me, cranking PRs all over the place and what do you know I measure my walking pulse this morning and it read 54 beats per minute!
6 below average, definitely no overreaching or CNS drain here!!! And sleep hasn’t been all that great either.
This leads me to believe that workout time is overrated, granted that I do drink a carb/whey mixture to keep me fueled during myworkouts. Rather the fatigue generated in the workout vs recovery days is the important thing. Long live autoregulartory training! 
Strangely enough those long ISO have been generating some hypertrophy, who would have thunk?
The more I think about it a lot of common beliefs backed by so called research are not absolutes. Sometimes the way to better pastures is to go outside the box…
MY CONSPIRACIES:
One question that popped into my mind is that DB has apparently instructed many entusiastic sport fanatics via e-mail, so where are the folks that verify that the system is bullshit? Maybe it is conspiracy…maybe everyone’s in on it? or maybe too much coffee today (ten cups).
MY BELIEFS AND THOUGHTS
I bet he’s a good coach and I bet he has training info he does not present. I’m just wondering when the idea of including all the work an athlete does into autoregulatory volume/frequency management system that is directly driven by drop off in performance starts popping from other coaches as if it was basic knowledge.
CoolColJ, what about your sprinting?
I haven’t timed them so I don’t know, anyway I am still only doing tempo mostly with very short accleration stuff here and there
I believe CT says in his book that ISO’s are great for hypertrophy as long as their duration is around 30-40 seconds. The reason most studies conclude iso’s don’t have a hypertrophic effect is that the ISO length in the study is only 6 seconds.
Yep, that’s exactly right. Long duration isometric are potentially very powerful mass builders because you can recruit more motor units during an isometric contraction AND you can sustain a maximal contraction for a longer period of time.
DB hammer’s existence:
As stated before, nobody in Europe know Dietrich Buchenholz ,I asked Jean Pierre Egger (coach of Werner Gunthor) and he for sure did not know him. We both thought he would know him if he was a thrower:it’s a small community.
auto regulation:
I heard Poliquin speak about a drop off, he mentionned 7%. What I find hard to believe is that the slope of the supercompensation curve is simply dictated by the percent fatigue induced. For sure this is the main factor ,however I doubt that that there is not an individual component to how fast one can recover from a set percent fatigue.
Maybe this percentage needs to be worked out for each athlete keeping all training volume and intensity of the other training components (throws, distances run etc…) the same. Then rotate the training element tested for percent fatigue/recovery.Of course this would only allow for a finite amount of time before the tests rotation has to be done again.Or maybe then the issue becomes the individual rate of progression of work capacity? ie how much work can be added in another training component without altering the rate of recovery from another one.Man, that gets complicated, much more than being there and telling the athlete when to go and when to stop.
Also how do you apply the drop off percent to discipline with a very strong technical component? It is not uncommon to see big throws come out at the end of a long training session, even if fatigue is obvious. The percent drop off is easy to apply for simple motor pattern as lifting mostly is (not talking about oly’s there) but not for complex ones.
In my “Modern Trends” book by Poliquin he mentions the number of sets should be individualilzed, and he gave 5-7% as the range of drop-off that should be recorded.
As for DB and Shroeder, I asked DB about Jay and he blasted him, stating that he never learned his stuff in Russia as he claimed, but rather in Sweden. Of course, this may have been to throw someone off track…
Here’s a figure from Weineck (translated by Poortman) which was one of the foundation on which my neural-dominance theory was based on.
IP = Innervation préalable (pre-activity innervation or anticipatory innervation)
PPA = Principale phase d’action (principal phase of action/activation)
TA = Temps au premier somment (the time between the first activation and the first activation peak, this is indicative of the rate of neural impulse)
PAR = Phase d’activité restreinte (Minimal activity phase, there is a neural impulse, but very weak).
In the first example (left) the PPA is short but the TA is also short, indicating a rate-dominant activation: there is a very rapid innvervation that is not maintained for long.
In the second example (right) the PPA is long (and there is a significant PAR) but the TA is also long, indication a duration-dominant activation: the neural drive is maintained for a relatively long period of time, but the rate of activation is low.
xlr8,
Have you started to incorporate the RFI’s or any other methods into your sprint training now? If so, what do you think?
Yes, I have but it’s too early to for me to draw any conclusions. I’ll let you know in a few months how things are going.
Xlr
How did you set it up?
where did the terms neura rate magnitude and duration come from?
who first used them?
Christian, I’m impressed with your reasoning. Wouldn’t it be fascinating ofr DB Hammer to actually be Jay S.? Along those lines, any criticism of Schroeder by “DB Hammer” would further throw people off as to what he is actually doing.
Yeah, but their methods have some differences. There’s a connection, but I don’t think they’re the same person.