After Ben went 9.83 in Rome, what changes, if any, did you feel were needed to advance him to the low 9.7 level he was at in Seoul?
^^^not to stumble out of the starting block.
Well, as performance rises to the highest levels, the vol of High Intensity exposure will have to begin to drop to allow for the possibility of any further intensification, BUT does that mean shifting the training to lower the relative volume of componants more to the right while keeping the same vol of componants more to the left, or a downwards adjustment of all componants?
If you lower the right side of the equation only, how much of an adjustment are you really making, given the exponentially greater CNS demand as you move to the left?
As discussed in various taper discussions, how would a right-side biased adjustment affect your ability to deliver last minute stimulus without cost to the principle movers?
Or maybe it is the complete opposite? If you think about what Charlie is saying you might be able to work out what he is getting at… ohhh i see a paradigm shift coming on 
(Speed)…(Strength/Endurance)
High Intensity…Low Intensity
Left<-----------------|----------------->Right
Maximal Sprints … Low Int Med Ball
Explosive Med Ball… Bench Press
Olympic Lifts…Reverse Hyper
Plyometric Jumps…Squat/Dead
For those with the Charlie’s products check out the “Motor Unit Involvement” Graph and the Graphs of “From Left to Right”. And get thinking.
Since this is perhaps one of the most important ideas when it comes to producing improvements at the highest level of competition (and perhaps even qualifies as that “secret method to ultimate success” everyone is looking for) i thought i’d keep the discussion going…
Some pros and cons…
Reducing Right Side (Strength/Endurance/Lower Intensity)
Pros:
>Reduced muscular fatigue
>Shifts focus towards higher volume of speed work - more specific to running fast (!?)
>Increased recovery time because no need to waste time working on irrelevant qualities (at this level of performance).
Cons:
>Loss of general organism strength
>Loss of general conditioning which makes it harder to recover from high intensity work
Reducing Left Side (Power/Speed/High Intensity)
Pros:
>Lower CNS stress so the activities you do perform at this level can be of greater intensity.
>Less chance of sympathetic overtraining (CNS burnout)
Cons:
>Less specific (!?) becuase your training is now more endurance based even though you are trying to focus on getting faster.
>Possability of loss of important CNS stimulation needed to help produce necessary force upon ground contact.
Can anyone else add to this list? Anyone dissagree with anthing listed here?
TC
We need to narrow the focus to those elements which compete with each other (highest intensity only) so the farthest to the right we’re discussing now is Weights.
Might look something like L to R;
Speed, Plyos, Explosive Med ball, Weights.
Within Speed, I’m including Special End because the amt of Speed to Special End has already shifted to a ratio of 3.5 to 1 (or maybe more)due to:
1: Reduced event time
2: Reduced contact time within the shorter event time.
3: Reduced availablity of improvement time from reduced deceleration (beginners may lose 20% of their velocity over the final portion of the 100m while the top athletes loose 0 to 3%)
leaving top speed and accel as the sole remaining means to faster times.
4: Increased alactic envelope reducing the time remaining from the end of the alactic phase to the completion of the 100m.
Much of this material as well as graphs are available in the Forum reviews and the Vanc Seminar DVDs
I would say give up something at each end (speed+weights) and work on pushing up the middle numbers(plyos +med ball). The cns energy gained from the reduction in speed work volume alone should be huge(if intensity stays the same).
That is one option. Why did you choose speed and weights to drop as opposed to plyos and med ball?
Also instead of dropping any of the options you could try limiting the modalities for each of them. For example, Olympic lifts only or only up plyos. Which options would be best in this respect and why?
Not drop …reduce. I would go with speed and weights because they were worked the most to achieve sub 9.80(general approach). When you’re benching 450lb and squating 2x6x600lb how much more can you get from the weight room(not talking about stimulus).
You bring up another issue here. Only one componant must be intensified- and that is speed- by definition, however marginally. Beyond that, it’s open. You can maintain vol and intensity for some componants or maintain intensity while reducing vol, but intensification requires tradeoffs.
But the items on opposite ends of the spectrum are the least conflicting with each other.
I agree, it would be very difficult without removing the other conflicting components (e.g. speed work, plyos etc) and effectivly becoming a powerlifter!
So if you can’t get anything else from the weight room apart from the stimulus that you decribe then perhaps your attention needs to stop focusing on the poundages so much and instead focus on how the stimulus can be used most effectivly to help track work?
You suggest that you should drop the general stuff and focus on specifics (an argement that would make sense if you look at the whole topic from a the traditional sport specific strength training approach to Strength and Conditioning - which for me includes med ball work and plyos).
However, when you are running sub 10 in practice how plyometric do you think your sprint workouts are? I would suggest more plyometric than plyometrics! And how explosive is your block work? I would suggest more explosive than explosive med ball work.
So if the sprint training does the job of explosive med ball and plyos better than the individual components why would you make them the focus?
The following quote is lifted from the “Barry Ross on Ben and Maurice!” thread. http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=11304
However, I thought it would better fit here because of our discussion surrounding general vs specific methods of strength work for sprint training.
How does the lower potential for upper body strength in women affect the use of the bench press as a stimulatory exercise in the run up to the final taper? Can they still use it as a method of spreading the stimulus across the body and what changes need to be taken into account?
Do inter-gender relative differences affect intra-gender strategies in absolute terms? Why, if yes? If not, why not?
One thing that this article brings to me is that, as the title said, maximal speed is not achived with greater swing rates, but rather with greater GRF!
And what this brings to training?
Doing A, B, C drills with maximum speed as proposed with SPeedDynamics will get you NOWHERE! Do them with relaxation, medium speed that allows correct perfrormance! Improving swing time doesnt transfere to imroved max speed! Thats all!
Whether or not there is swing rate change at specific points (though not overall time) work on this aspect doesn’t get you anywhere. Everyone is already fast enough if they aren’t in contact with the ground.
Likewise, so many of the drills you need INCREASE airtime when groundtime is decreased (more force in= more height= more airtime before comming back down). The faster you try to do the drill, the less ground force you must apply and the tighter you get. We’ve all seen this dog’s breakfast at work.
Fighting the drills is a recipe for disaster. If you can’t relax when learning an individual piece of the puzzle, what are the chances you’ll relax when you put everything together? NIL.
The other thing is, drills are usually at the beginning of a session, often in the warm up, so you struggle and fight for speed when you’re not ready just to do some tempo after?? My favourite line at a seminar from a practitioner of this philosophy: “We’ve had quite a few injuries during the hour and a half warm-up.” Well then, I guess you’ll have to warm-up to survive the warm-up. How long will that take and what will be left for any workout?
So basicaly we agree Charlie? Tnx for the post!
I know it is out of the topic, but when do you perform dynamic streches (GPP DVD), before or after drills (A,B)? I am doing then only when I feel greatly warmed-up and flexible, and that would be after the drills…?
Usually after the A skip and B skip but before the Running As, but it can vary depending on athlete preference and weather , massage availability, etc.
BTW, I’m not against some frequency drills for rythem, relaxation, etc, just not in an attempt to better contact times.
Can they be used for postural development for novice sprinters
And the training phase, I suppose? Better avoided in GPP?