This is a resumé of Jacques Piasenta seminar, morning theory and film projection. Afternoon, workout with kids…
He coached sprinters Pérec 1991-1993 (10.96, 21.99, 48.83 under his guidance), Arron 1993-2000 (10.73, 22.26), Hurtis 2000-2001… Also Monique Ewange-Epee (12.56 European Champ at 100mH).
Also coached hurdlers Caristan (13.20) and Philibert (13.26) from kid years to European Record and 3 World champs finals respectively. Worked few month with Guy Drut.
Retired in 2001 but came back this year with only one athlete, Muriel Hurtis who gave birth in March.
Note that it doesn’t reflect my own feelings, i’m just giving a transcript of this very interesting day, however i have deleted some provocative quotes that would not match with the forum rules…
I hope this will lead to some interesting discussions…
Jacques Piasenta, 64, was PE teacher, all his observation of kids helped him to fix problems in top level athletes.
In 30 years of coaching, top level teached him only 3 things :
- forward leg cycle thanks to long jumper and pentathlete Heïde Rosendhal (FRG) in Munich’72
- Soviet discus throw Murashova who kept the discus on her back at the start of her run-up, giving more distance to the implement for increasing speed release
- French hurdler Guy Drut, who, unwillingly managed to take “advanced step” before the hurdle. Piasenta wrote an artice in 1974 about this discovery and started to work with Drut few month before Montreal’76 Games.
The danger is to imitate top level athletes, for example Lauryn Williams who runs with backward cycle, if Evelyn Ashford had used forward cycle she would have get less injuries and probably run faster. Ben Johnson had the same start pattern as kids, throwing both arms backward while leaving the blocks. Kids should not hold the pole vertically during run-up, they should not do shot put in translation because they don’t have the strength for it.
Allyson Felix and Jeremy Wariner have their arms flexed <45°, like Ethiopians runners, this allow to lightened upper body thanks to the dynamic fixation of arms. Sprinters should not have tensed opened hands like Carl Lewis because it create tension on 60 muscles on hand and foreharm.
Each Sunday they do organic workouts (jogging in nature at various speeds with various grounds, downhill and uphill. This permit to support specific workouts later in the program. In Barcelona, 8 days before the Olympics (she won 400m in 48.83), Pérec did a jogging in a parc where pigs used to search truffles. The ground was terrible, but it worked all her little leg muscles as well as proprioception. He insisted a lot on feet strength, which are like tires with Formula 1. You can have all the strength with your legs, if the feet are weak, you will not be able to apply it. Like a shout putter with strong arms but weak writs.
With kids, cross country was a good base, example of Thierry Vigneron, Pole Valut WR holder during eighties who won a national x-country race as a youth. Now it no longer works because kids don’t like it. In Germany, competitions for kids are interesting, they can do individual events if they have previously qualified through multiple events competitions. If a high jumper only trains at his speciality, he will injured his knee few years later had quit sports at age 19. Piasenta met Monique Ewange-Epee in 1987, 2 years after her European Junior title at 100mH. She had problems because her body suddenly took 8 kilos and it raised an injury at her take-off leg. He realised that she had never passed hurdles with her second leg, creating an imbalance in her leg and back muscles.
Like in languages learning, better do a little often than a lot rarely.
Training is repeating right gesture (kids always learn the bad things quicker than good things).
Don’t give technical advices, but your workouts should raise questions to athletes.
Failures should only provide the will to try again.
With the same ingredients and recipe a cooker will make good food, while a Chief will make great food. Same for coaches, but nobody can tell why.
He never give an athlete twice the same workout during a season. Muriel Hurtis has never made the same workout as Christine Arron. I have never been able to compare Arron’s training times with Pérec because Pérec was always too lazy to train at higher that 80% of her possibilities, while Arron worked like a fool. Arron had a very bad experience of USA training with John Smith (she spent 6 month there) because everyone was doing the same workouts, which are the same for decades. He doesn’t understand how they can do weights and such high volume on the track in the same day. His workouts last 3h to 3h ½. Never 2 workouts a day. This way, tendons rest during 24 hours. He does video cessions at home with athletes in order to analyse them and to make them thinking about what they are doing.
They do 10 bounding strides test, the group record his held by Stéphane Caristan (former European Record Holder at 110mH with 13.20) with 38.75m, the female record is 34.50m, Pérec and Arron did about 31m.
Muriel Hurtis gave birth on 21 March 2005. 61 days later, her stride length was 2.08m, now (September) it is 2.42m, in 2 or 3 month, it will be 2.50m. Piasenta has a build a special decameter for her and she work with ladders on track with spaces at 2.295m, or 2.31m, or 2.325m, 2.35m…2.425m, etc…, with or without weight vest of 2.5kg, 3kg, etc… the training times are not really good so far, but she is pleased to see that her stride is lengthening.
15 days ago, they stared the starting block workouts with 3 different body positions. They will soon make timing tests to see which position is the most efficient. The sprinters should push more on the front block, while the back leg should come ahead as fast as possible (therefore not push too much on back block).
He has to fix a problem with Muriel: she developped to large thigh muscles because with her former coach her technique went down and ran with too much flexed knee during support, causing overloading on her thighs, hypertrophy on certain muscles.
He never do back squats because of the overloading on neck and spine. He prefers front squats with little space between feet. A woman can lift 150kg for back squat, but with the same strength applied, she can do a safer 100kg in front squat. Athletes should be like Formula 1 cars, powerful and light.
A good way to do specific muscles development is a 20m drill shown on video: 12.5m full speed acceleration from blocks, and the sprinter should decelerate before the 20m line, with a progressive backward inclination of the body. They do a lot of bounding with different kind of hurdles, single legs, hops jumps, etc… They spend a lot of time in core work, abdominal exercises inspired from a Japanese gymnastic coach, in order to have a correct pelvis position.
We have not seen a single example of classic workout with usual distances of 30m, 60m, 80m, etc… He seemed to take care of never use “scientific” vocabulary like lactic, aerobie, etc, because he doesn’t believe in these categories. For him, even 30m sprints are lactic, because the following day his athletes have soreness on their legs. Impossible to have more details on actual training of his sprinters, but loads of drills and technical exercises, for the reason that each athlete has its own program.
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I just posted this to keep it alive so it doesnt expire! Is there any way to store threads to my hard drive?