I remember hearing about some famous sprinter who started his career as a sprinter at the age of 23, after he saw a sprint competition on TV I think. He basically said he could do that, and did it. Does anyone know who I’m talking about or what that guys name was? Thanks for any information.
Also, if anyone know any other sprinters who started later in there career, aka started competing around that age (23) and made it big, let me know.
Anyways, thanks for any help with the two queries above :).
Yeah he did compete then, but I think people say he started to be serious at age 26. He was born in '67, so 6.6low in '92 makes sense, if he started to be serious at age 26 ('93).
Also with a stunning progression. According to his book he concentrated on sprints at age 24. He eliminated all weight training at that time and proceeded to drop his time from 10.9w to 10.11 within about 5 years.
What’s interesting IMO is that he adopted a training method used successfully almost 100 years before in professional running. Some of the pros were credited with some very fast hand times which were mostly discredited by the amateur establishment later, but maybe they were valid after all.
What’s interesting IMO is that he adopted a training method used successfully almost 100 years before in professional running. Some of the pros were credited with some very fast hand times which were mostly discredited by the amateur establishment later, but maybe they were valid after all.
May I ask what method he was using, just out of curiosity?
Much more than that. The pros, from reading Youngy, have always followed a short-2-long approach.
And their gym work has been, in the opinion of those who coach that way, highly specific in the sense of training the movement rather than the muscle.
All the boxing (speed-ball) work is based around “punching through the hips” with a slight swivell at the hip as each punch is landed. There’s probably no way to make a scientific assessment of this work, but certainly Allan Wells and others have sworn by their “speed-ball” training. As I understand it, there is no heavy hitting, more a quick rhythm.
Anyway, I’m sure Youngy will take the baton from here and explain it more sensibly
I think the Allan Wells type training regime has been well covered on this forum before.
Charlie indicated its been around 100 years, and in essence some of it has been, but I’m pretty sure the speedball and body weight circuit itself is a product of the 60’s, devised by Jim Bradley.
I have studied the Jim Bradley method of training for over 20 years and the number of athletes that have improved after being involved in more conventional training programs is overwhelming. There have been very few failures. It does require incredible passion and a desire to stick with it, and must be done correctly. If so rewards are guaranteed. The problem is there are so few devotees to the Bradley training regime that if you want to train like Allan Wells, you won’t have too many training partners unless you are in a town like Adelaide.
My training is heavily Bradley influenced but I have made modifications to it based on the CF training principles.
KitKat is correct it does follow a Short to Long type approach in that after 12 to 14 weeks in the gym, we go straight into 50/20/50’s and 60’s alternating from one to the other.
For 400m runners we eke out the distance as we get in to the pre-comp & comp phases.
I would like to say we don’t have too many injuries but unfortunately I had my gun athlete go down with his first major hamstring injury on Saturday in a 4 x 100n relay (3rd leg about 80m into the leg just before the hand off) which was pretty devastating. He had just won the Whyalla Gift ($4000 first prize) the week before and was flying at training. Hopefully he will be back ready to run the national circuit in late January.
He will go back in the gym in a few days, for about 4 weeks hitting out 6 x 3min rounds and plenty of exercises in a sort of mid season mini GPP.
Incidentally we smashed the club relay record with a 41.78. Not bad for a bunch of mug pro’s.
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