Wow - I must be on your mind - go get laid and get off my jock. Pencil neck, I’m still waiting for you to answer my question?? Btw, does the “mcd” in your name stand for " male crossdresser"?
I love this line. So many times people will tell you all about the work that they’re doing, the total meters, the gains in the weight room, but when you finally get down to what the end result was, they don’t have much to say. One of the most common responses will fall along the lines of, “Yeah well, we had some bad luck with injuries near the end, so he never got to really show what he could do.” Bad luck always seems to be the culprit when it comes to injuries; it never could be training.
Seriously guys. Cut the crap and talk about the programme. I don’t care who started it.
A throws coach that helped me had a programme of the following
10 14 12
8 12 10
6 10 8
5 8 6
4 6 5
3 5 4
Each line represented 3 sessions a week and covered 4 weeks (the programme was 24 weeks), sets were 3-5 sets. Did people improve on the programme, yes - did there performance improve - yes. Did I ever do the programme - no as it seemed to take away from my running training and being 3-4 inches shorter and 20-40kg lighter I needed to work on my speed and tehcnique, which seemed to suffer most under the above.
Similar to what we know about the negative implications of linear periodization, in addition to how Charlie described the pitfalls of it in the context of running volumes(ergo high volume low intensity progressing to low volume high intensity), the work capacity developed early begins to diminish as the intensity rises.
So, as time moves forward, the strength reached towards the end of the cycle is accompanied by a loss in work capacity and the lack of supportive foundational qualities may lead to muscular/connective tissue problems.
Now, the multi-faceted nature of training for speed presents enough variables to off-set this circumstance due to the supportive foundational work capacity elements that can be found elsewhere; however, my feeling is that such a definitive linear strength program 14 weeks in duration is too long.
I’m all for following a minimum effective dose philosophy; however, the Coan program would have to be, in my view, adjusted for a sprinter. The length of it and the implied very high intensities towards the end would be the likely culprit for problems in my opinion.
I think elements of the Coan program can be successfully integrated into a sprint program but performing it as written would be a mistake.
Regarding the problems with copying and pasting programs designed for one population and using them, as is, on another- this brings to mind what led Ben Johnson to hit his enormous bench press the days prior to Seoul. Charlie always stated how the weight program alone couldn’t have possible explained the weight he lifted that day. It was the interrelation of all high intensity elements.
Likewise, if a national level powerlifter were to follow the weight program that Ben used the weeks/months prior to that day I suspect the lifter would find himself doing anything but improving his contest results due to the lack of continuity and insufficient volume where needed.
We live in a cut and paste generation. I implore coaches to “think” about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Don’t just copy blindly. Use your brain, observe the results, make adjustments and move forward. This is how you learn. You will make mistakes. If you are not making mistakes, you are too stupid to notice and/or too proud to admit as such.
But if you don’t put the work behind your plans and learn in an organic process, you will be doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. Everyone thinks they are smarter because they have collected more and more information. It is like drilling for oil and not having the knowledge or means to refine it and bring it to the marketplace. Use your brain, apply your thoughts in a logical manner and gain wisdom.
Anyone who has spent any useful length of time with Charlie will know that “this” is what he wanted to convey the most - the quest for wisdom, not information. Find out what is useful and discard all that is not useful. In the final analysis, are your athletes improving?
Never enough said,N2. I miss some good ol’ times discussion here. Nor stimuli for such a discussion seem to have created the desired response lately. More attacks,and words vainly taken and spent personally,no real discussion. Surely not what Charlie expected from all of us.
Oh boy, when I posted the sample Ed Coan’s program - I listed some of the issues I had with it. I am in tune with my body and know what works for me; I wouldn’t have any issues with the program if there was built in deload weeks etc.
When my max strength numbers are high I usually run well for my ability level, I have responded great to heavier amounts of 90%+ training esp when the volume is low. I have a tougher time recovering from mod vol, reps, and weights vs. low volume heavy weights 2x2x95%.
BTW, earlier last fall when my lifting intensity and volume was higher I saw improvements in sprint times weekly while using timing gates.
My “former boss” had tons of success with lifting lots of heavy weights and getting guys in shape, something that most people on here would frown on.
I’m at my best when I leave all the “science” shit at the door and go back to my roots…
I love this site and everything it has taught me as a coach/athlete, one of major issues I have with the site is many of the members’ only view training from one side. If it doesn’t fit CFTS concepts then it’s wrong. We have members’ calling successful coaches - Dan Pfaff stupid because he does single leg jumps or Seagrave because of all the various drills he comes up with. Why not have an open mind – like we all wanted others to view Charlie. It pisses me off when I speak to other coaches and they discredit Charlie training methods because they refer to him as a “drug coach”.
I agree RB. Charlie has taught everything to me.I applied the CFTS training principles to many programs of athletes I worked with,from many different sports. Am I still applying them? To a degree. But they are always very valuable principles as such,and always an extraordinary lens through which look at any training regime,analyze it,and build upon the gathered observations. How can we ever observe something if we have no point (or an ever changing point) of observation?
I think this is the key here. Your speed level and response to weights is specific to you. You responding well to the heavier weights makes sense because you, with all due respect, aren’t fast enough/capable of generating the power output on the track to cause conflicting problems. Same goes for most collegiate non-track athletes which is why, and I don’t agree with it, most collegiate S&C coaches can get away with over volumized high intensity strength training. This would specifically apply to back/hip/knee extension high intensity lifts.
I see that you are currently not feeling the “science”; however, understanding the scientific foundations/adaptation process, and so on, is what allows one to make well thought out training adjustments for different populations.
If that’s the case; then 95% of athletes aren’t fast enough/capable of generating the power output on the track to cause conflicting problems? There are only a handful of athletes that are capable of running 9.7-10.0… If we want to talk about team sports then the number would increase to 98% - I’m faster then most of the athletes I coach. Knowing what we know, shouldn’t we modify the training of these lower level athletes and not follow a pure s2l or cfts system - maybe these athletes would be better off pushing more weights/plyos etc?..
I should have also added that the overwhelming majority of collegiate programs do not perform true alactic speed work and the ‘faster running’ that is performed is of very short distance so between those two factors the only conflicting demands are that most coaches don’t understand stress response, workload vs recovery, high vs low CNS stress, and so on.
As to whether it would be more beneficial for the majority of collegiate athletes to perform more relative higher intensity lifting due to lesser power output capabilities, I would still advise against this in favor of monitoring what’s of the most importance and for most, not all, it’s speed: power abilities. So my thought process is rooted in more intelligent training monitoring (ergo who cares what they squat, bench, power clean, etcetera) and make use of the available diagnostic machinery (GPS, time:motion, and so on) to assess special physical preparatory increases. This is something I went into great detail on in lecture at South Alabama.
So, by all means, if more weights lifted serves to improve the most relevant SPP markers then have at it. It just so happens, in my experience, that it’s a very mixed bag which is why each situation and individual must be treated with the deserved attention.
First, any program needs to be modified to suit the individual. Second, I would distinguish between weightlifters and non-weightlifters. After that, programs are very similar, especially if the short-term goal is strength. This is probably going to happen during GPP so conflicts with competition are minimized. But I have to laugh a little when I here comments about, for example, posterior chain absolute strength, needing to be trained differently for a soccer player than a bod sledder or a football player and the strength portion of a training program needs to be “customized” as such. While parts of the overall training may be different based on the sport demands, and allowances for competitions (not a factor in GPP) or injuries warrant changes, if you’re training a healthy athlete with the intention of improving absolute max strength in the posterior chain, how many ways are there to do it? Is there data that compares one program’s success with other possible programs over several years and several athletes? And what evidence exists that one method works well for soccer players but not for football players, and vice versa? Are there any studies, even qualitative studies, that show football players build strength faster/better with program A but soccer players and bob sledders have had better success with program B? If so, please post these programs and save us all a lot of time researching and experimenting on our own. I’ve never seen such studies, and I don’t buy it. That kind of thinking is what leads to all the incredible confusion and BS programming when its really not that complicated. I think James used to say something about falling out of a boat.
I am certain there are no such studies, nor will there ever be. However, even if there were, I would still encourage you to continue researching and experimenting on your own - albeit based on good guiding principles.
One of the team sport coaches were I work once said to me, “Can you get me next season training program ready? Just change the dates on it, as last year’s program was good enough!” I had to explain to him that - ethically - I could not do that. I must go through the process of evaluating numerous factors and making the appropriate adjustments to fit our team and our schedule for the upcoming year. This may mean subtle changes to the rate of progression or it may mean sweeping changes to the type of work we do. If you have a larger proportion of incoming players, I have to adjust the program to fit that circumstance. If it means we have lots of returning players with significant injury histories, then I have to make the necessary changes in the program. But I can guarantee you, it will be a different program.
I do this with every team, every semester to make sure I have the best possible chance of succeeding with the program. Our men’s basketball program is different than our women’s program. Same with men’s soccer vs women’s soccer. They have many of the same elements. But make no mistake, they are different programs with different goals and objectives – based on the circumstances we are presented with.
Perhaps we just disagree on the level of detail that separates one training program from another. But I would heavily argue that many of my successes have been based on minor changes to a training program that perhaps the average strength coach would not understand or take note of. As an example, a pro football player wanted me to prepare him a training program after preparing a successful one for him the previous year. I re-examined the previous year’s program and made changes based on feedback from the player and his advances in strength/speed that he had achieved (as well as new injury issues). This included changes in the rate of progression, micro-cycle ordering changes, longer recovery periods between sets/reps, exercise modification and substitution, active recovery methods, etc. When I sent him the program with the invoice, he sent me an email back claiming that I had just sent him the exact same training program. Of course I asked him if he read the program, day-by-day, week-by-week. He said that he flipped through the pages and that it looked the same. He said something to the effect that I had created a program with Olympic lifts and sprints, just like last year. Needless to say, he did not have the aptitude to understand (or appreciate) the depth and magnitude of the changes I made and the level of detail I made. Had I made him do one-legged squats on a bosu ball, perhaps he would have been more impressed.
There are a number of people posting that programming is simple and shouldn’t be complicated. Yes - it should be simple when you actually look at the way the training is performed. But any coach worth their salt should be pouring over the program again and again to determine if it is the right program for the athlete(s) in question, refining and improving constantly. It should be a complicated process of evaluation and decision making. I do not want people on this forum to leave this discussion thinking it is an easy process that anyone can do. It takes decades of experience and hard work to get to that level.
How do I know this? After spending many years with Charlie, talking to him about his ideas on training, I came to the belief that Charlie became a far superior coach 15-20 years after his work with Ben Johnson even though he did not work with many track athletes after 1988. He had time to reflect and stand outside of the box and make some lucid observations on what worked, and what didn’t. I had a chance to hear him talk in 1986 in a Vancouver seminar when he was having success with Ben, and then participate in many of his seminars 15-20 years later. I was astounded at how his level of detail and knowledge base had improved exponentially. When we were doing the work with Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones in 2002/03, I was dumbfounded by the level of detail he went into during the program planning sessions we had. We would spend hours upon hours going through each training session over numerous weeks figuring out what would be the best course of action. In the end, when it was obvious that they would be working with another coach, I said to Charlie, “Are you worried that they would take your workout plans to the new coach?” He said, calmly and cooly, “They would have no clue why we put together what we did. It will just be numbers on a page that will be of no use to them.”
Based on what I’m reading in this thread, there appears to be a level of complacency with program planning that I would personally be uncomfortable with. I think it is healthy as a coach to be insecure. I am insecure about all of my training programs. But I do believe it is a healthy insecurity that drives me to be better. However, being insecure and claiming that “I’m getting good results now” and ending the discussion there is not healthy.
Are “conflicting” stimuli a problem per se ,or is inability to ADAPT TO conflicting stimuli a problem? If the latter holds true,maybe avoiding conflicting stimuli through planning MAY NOT really help to overcome the limitation,only fostering it in reality by “freezing” it in avoidance.
so for those of us with a less clear understanding of training concepts, what are the major differences that, say, and 11-12s range sprinter should be doing than a 10s? I remember reading something along the lines of starting general then becoming more specific then going back to general, but when exactly is it more important to do pure speed work vs. weights or conditoning?
Ciao Pakewi,
My view is that the context is dosage:duration or dose-response.
So the conflicting demands are problematic because of mismanaged doses of, particularly, the high intensity components. So when I say conflicting demands, these are actually like stressors in terms of the CNS impact they yield.
Inability to adapt is proportional to overdose.
Akin to Charlie’s glass analogy (only so much room for CNS stress [regardless of activity] before it overflows) this is what demands mindfulness of the dosage of each CNS intensive stressor and this is why I mentioned this in reference to RB34’s output ability.
The method of execution is more significant than the exercise itself because CNS stress is directly related to MU activity. Those with the highest outputs are able to recruit the most and highest threshold MU’s and, likewise, demand great care in managing the dosage of various CNS intensive stimuli.
In reference to my statement regarding the mismanagement of collegiate athletes, while most don’t have the output levels comparable to world class T&F sprinters, jumpers, throwers, this isn’t an intelligent excuse to overload them with high intensity training.
Minimum effective dose = just enough to solve the problem; nothing more, nothing less.
Still getting injured hammies?
No hamstring injuries, probably been more then one year.