Differences in Coaching Black and White Athletes

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
16

If you do a search you might be able to find it, but a couple years ago Charlie mentioned that when he was planning to join the track team in high school people told his father not to let Charlie compete in the sprints because he would never be able to beat the black kids. Charlie’s father failed to pass on the bad news to Charlie, who won every sprint race he entered in high school.

As a personal anecdote and point of pride, about two years ago I beat Ron Clark (US 1994 200 champ) in a 30m sprint while working out at SMU. Granted, Ron’s not at his peak but then again neither am I.

I think the reason why many coaches and armchair spectators place so much emphasis on race/genetics/talent (you name the excuse) instead of addressing the needs of the individual is because they simply don’t know how or are too lazy. A lot of people pay lip service to individualized training, but very few do it properly. And this points to the talent of the coach as a primary factor in performance, not just the athlete’s talent.

17

The volumes used by the italians in those years, inhibited any further progression…Pavoni was an absolute talent…shaved less than a tenth of a second in many years of career…power…trained and there is…SE, the same…speed, not trained, so not showed…you have no idea of the amount of talent ruined by these kind of methodology…Mennea’s fault, he was so incredibly gifted that what was good for him…was just for him…

18

Flash do you workout at SMU? I train down there every now and then and despite the soft surface I seem to run well on that track.

19

Not anymore. A new athletic director came in about two years ago and closed the track to the general public and student body. Only varsity athletes and select world class athletes were allowed access. I don’t know if that policy is still in force. I’m sure there was an uproar from the student body.

I run at Germany Park now. It’s a public track so I don’t have to worry about it being closed. I also do a lot of running on grass now, including speed work, so it would be hard for me to do that at SMU because they’re very protective of the soccer field, understandably so. If they’ve reopened SMU’s track to the general public let me know.

20

Yea, I agree with this and good for you!

In regards to the topic, I say, just divide people up into what sport discipline they chose along with giving them the most appropriate training then let the cards fall where they may.

21

At the very beginning of CFTS, in response to the question are sprinter born or made, Charlie replies that more often sprinters are unmade by improper training.

If Charlie had trained Tony Sharpe or Desai Williams or any of the others exactly how he trained Ben, they would not have achieved as high a performance level as they did. That also points to another aspect of prejudging how to train an athlete. If you read Speed Trap Charlie mentions how muscular and physically developed Tony was at 15, compared to scrawny little Ben. From first impressions you might think that Tony would excel from lots of high intensity work whereas Ben would not be able to tolerate it. As it turns out, it was exactly the opposite. Tony required more low intensity speed endurance work in order to recover, whereas Ben excelled with larger volumes of shorter, higher intensity runs.

If you look at most of the champs and record holders in the 100 over the last 20 or so years, not only are they all black, they’re mostly Jamaican: Ben Johnson, Linford Christie, Donovan Bailey, Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt. So they’re coming from an even smaller genetic pool. And yet, they all had different training programs with different workload distributions.

Again, what are the needs of the individual? You’re not going to know how it will play out ahead of time just by looking at them, whether it be based on race or initial physical development.

22

Well I trained there fairly often over the last three summers although it was later in the day most of the time. I’ve never had any issues getting on or training at the track but maybe I’ve been lucky.

Germany Park is nice, especially in the heat of the day when the shade covers the outside lanes.

Do you live in HP?

23

No, I live close to the Crescent Building.

I might try to sneak in a workout at SMU and check it out.

24

It’s a good training track, I don’t know of any Mondo in the area except for the Baylor Tom Landry Center. What do you do for weights?

25

[i]
“Yep, and you can put the goddess Sanya Richards in there too as her dad is a full blooded Jamaican. You know, sometimes looking into a racial group that is not your own and discovering the nuances is sometimes hard to do but being a black man myself I can tell you that there is definitely something different about the Jamaicans beyond there culture and language accent. They are a very tough and hardy group of people, mentally and physically; much more so then U.S born Africans”.

My guess is that it has something to do with the awful slave trade that happened long ago. You see, the people who occupy Jamaica come from the small groups of Africans that fought back and escaped slavery into the land where they occupy today. There bloodline stayed relatively in tact as well; they did not mix with Indians or Caucasians". [/i]

Posted this on another thread but brought it over here because I think we are on to something.

26

I lift at the 24 Hour Fitness at 75 and Royal. The last few months most of my upper body training has been gymnastics exercises I picked up from Christopher Sommer’s book. The only conventional lifts I’m doing right now are squats and power cleans. But I’m getting off topic.

27

Not anything new. There have been researchers for years looking into the various groups that were brought to Jamaica from Africa as it relates to athletic prowess (not just speed).

28

I think this goes to my point. It’s a tighter, more consistent genetic pool, and yet they all used different, individualized training programs. Even with seemingly similar, superior genetics you still have to assess and adjust to the needs of the individual. If you had looked at the above mentioned athletes and said “Oh, they’re all Jamaican, we’ll simply train them this way,” and then used the same cookie cutter program for all of them, they would not have achieved the success they did. Would they still have been great athletes? Probably, but they might also have been ruined or ended up injured before demonstrating their talent.

29

I wonder what he could have ran if he had been coached in a more “sofisticated” way. He could have gone even faster. He will never know.

The big question is why we have whites running elite 60m times yet struggle to dip under 10.10. There is something failing after 50m, and that could be genetical or training related.

30

Good point.

31

That’s an interesting point. The last time I really competed was in high school, and on average I was about a 12 sec 100m runner (I ran a freak 11.6 one day in practice). I routinely competed against black kids that ran 10.7, 10.8. My coaches were distance runners so I had no proper coaching (and I fought with them endlessly, which is why I didn’t bother running in college). And yet, even without proper coaching and being pretty skinny and not very strong I could still beat a lot of these faster kids out of the blocks and stay with them for about 30m. Then they would continue to accelerate and I would fall back (in retrospect probably because I was tightening up from trying to keep up with them). This also relates to my previous post about beating Ron Clark to 30m. If I had set the cone at 50m he likely would have mowed me down.

Could my acceleration ability have come from my soccer background? I was usually one of the fastest kids on the field. If we look into the background of some of these fast 60m white sprinters, we might find sports that involve short burst accelerations like soccer or football. As far as extending acceleration to reach higher speeds, who knows. Just an observation based on personal experience.

32

wHO KNOWS… for sure we have plenty of talented juniors and under 18…and they progress very slightly if any…

33

This goes to the heart of athlete development, which is really what this thread is about, how best to judge the trainings needs of athletes.

When talking about progressing from junior to more senior levels of development, coaching continuity plays a big role. This is why Charlie’s experience and insight is so valuable. I don’t know of another coach that trained sprinters from scratch to world class level on a consistent basis and without recruiting or screening athletes. He simply coached whoever showed up. The fact that most of his athletes were black had more to do with where he was coaching. That’s who showed up. If he had started in a predominantly white section of town, would the ethnic makeup of sprinting elite in the 80s have been different, at least from the Canadian quarter?

34

There could be any number of answer to why this is, but it’s only partially a matter of race and mostly a matter of individual characteristics.

A lot of the features that West African blacks are more predisposed to having aid more in top speed than acceleration. Narrow hips help keep rotational forces low and minimize long axis rotation (important for top speed, not accel). Long limbs relative to the body mean longer levers (more important for top speed). Higher white fiber content and stiffer tendons allow for lower ground contact times (essential at top speed, but not so much during accel). Muscle fiber distribution favoring the hips, hip flexors, and hamstrings aid in top speed and SE (quad development can make up during early accel). And psoas development (which is on average 3 times greater in blacks than in whites) is needed for efficient top speed running.

Now, all of the features listed above primarily play a role in top speed. It’s possible to have wide hips, short legs, short tendons, and a mixed fiber type and still have good acceleration. Since black athletes more commonly display positive characteristics, it would make sense that they would commonly exhibit greater top speed and SE.

Having said all of that, it’s perfectly possible for a white guy to have all of the same characteristics as Usain Bolt, but it’s unlikely (truth be told, it’s unlikely for a black guy to have those characteristics as well).

The reason we see less white sprinters is because West Africans more commonly exhibit the traits that make them great sprinters. And since Olympic sprinters are already 1 in 10,000,000 (or more), it’s just a matter of finding those with the right characteristics. What this may mean is that for every 4-5 black guys capable of going sub <10, there may only be 1 or 2 white guys, but they’re there none the less. Race says nothing about an individual’s abilities, only their individual characteristics do.

As for the relative success of white athletes in the 200M and 400M in comparison to the 100M, this could be a case of the really good white athletes actually having been located, or it could also relate back to genetics. I would personally assume that Mennea and Wariner could’ve done great the 100M (or 200M in Wariner’s case), but might have been steered away for one reason or another. Either way, their accomplishments show it’s not about race, it’s about finding athletes with the right characteristics.

It’s just that fewer white athletes exhibit them, so the search is a bit harder.

35

this is a very interesting discussion. I agree with many of the posts. With that said i have always been intrigued with topics like these. It seems to me that there are so many white athletes placed in events that are supposed to cater to “caucasions.” Obviously this has been stated by others but an athlete like Trey hardee comes to mind. Hes 6’5" 210 decathlete. He has run very impressive times from a 10.2 100m, as well as long jumping close to 8 meters. I cant help but imagine what he could really accomplish if he were treated as 100m sprinter. HIs stride frequency for his height is incredible…then theres the matt bruno from cali who was the first white sprinting champion in years when he won in 2002 i think, and oh yeah he beat REGGIE BUSH lol.