Gatlin's 'new technique'

Dipping into the 9.5s cause you’re not decelerating? WTF. That contradicts the premise of Max V in the same few sentences.
You can go at 11.4mps till you run from New York to LA and you won’t run 9.5. Mx Vel IS a key feature BUT that was already the case when Gatlin was on top and it has simply advanced.
What, I wonder, has been introduced to Gatlin that is so radically different that he needs to throw out everything that got him into the 9.70s and start from scratch and can such a radical change be good?
Predictions??

Well we see what master Seagrave did for Ben…

Maybe it’s just semantics. They need to have a common understanding from a common language.

I only met Justin once, when he came off the track at Athens OG and although we only spoke for a minute or so, he was very humble, looked me in the eyes, had the world’s biggest smile, spoke articulately and courteously. I thought then he was the best thing that could have happened to track. So I hope he hasn’t lost those gracious qualities and that he returns to find fulfilment and maybe even success again.

What did you think of Gatlin’s technique while with Trevor?

I personally think he’ll come back slower, like basically every athlete that comes back from a ban.

Perhaps a bit overstriding though slight enough to get away with but the changes likely to occur here will be a disaster (You know the drill- keep the hands below the shoulders during forward drive and pull the arms staight back, hunch the shoulders forward, paw the ground, etc, etc.)
Often it is the changes incorporated that spell doom in returning athletes.

I recall you personally trying to prevent a problem by initiating a meeting between the old and new coach in a very similar situation. The new coach ignored all advice/evidence/experience with disastrous consequences.

Yes, Sadly. You could say the meeting was a success, but the athlete bombed.

The latest stats (in Berlin) didn’t show that, comparing the 60-80m with 80-100m sections.
Bolt 9.58 : 1.61 - 1.66
Gay 9.71 : 1.63 - 1.69
Powell 9.84 : 1.68 - 1.74
No one was celebrating in that race.
MaxVel during the race is still the best predictor of the ranking at 100m, better than accel or speed maintenance/deceleration.

I’d be very interested to see this ‘new technique’ in action, especially as I was a massive fan of his technique. Rangy stride…almost like he was bounding down the track. Charlie how would you describe in coaching cues a way to run like that? Would you have changed it if he was with you? What is it that he does from the blocks that makes him look so different to other sprinters? Richard Thompson starts in that particular way also.

I am no Charlie but a few years back I was teaching an athlete to start in a similar fashion and had a senior level 5 coach half way down the track poke fun at us. This coach approached the athlete later and told him if he asked him in front of witnesses he would coach him.

I think sometimes coaches have to say something to appear different and brilliant,but the results in the last few years are not bad for Seagrave…his camp seems to be quite interesting, with Dwight Phillips leading the pack, including:
Melisa Barber, Joice Maduaka, Danielle Carruthers, Walter Davis, Perdita Felicien, Ebony Floyd, Justin Gatlin, Travis Padgett, Avard Moncur, Dwight Phillips, Angelo Taylor

The coach had/has never produced a top male sprinter and each that has been inherited has bombed out soon after starting.

I see the work of a lot of different coaches gathered in one place (John Smith, Charles Poliquin, Trevor Graham, Gary Winkler, Innocent Egbuniki, Todd Lane, Thomas Johnson, Clemson Univ, to name a few) but have any in there been produced by him?

You got it. Do you want to comment on the recruiting frenzy going on here?

Dwight did have his best year last year, at an advanced age and after some rather mediocre years.

Can’t say much about the others.

I can’t comment on recruiting because this is not my best part. I’m not a good recruitor. Maybe i should go into warm-up pitches and interrupt athlete-coach conversations to introduce myself to the athlete and give my business card.

I agree on Dwight Philips…having him lose some weight helped for sure…I saw him in the warm up area and on the massage table in a Golden league meet in 2006…his hams were freakingly huge!Upper body also…and it seems he got even bigger in the following 2 years…and in the long Jump that could have impaired his performance.

Been told it is not as messy if you get your athletes to do it for you.

“Everything I learned I had to throw it out the window and learn a whole new technique,” Gatlin told Reuters in a telephone interview from Naples, Florida.

A lot of what he did back then was very good…to throw it all out the window could be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

For all his other ‘faults’ and issues, Trevor Graham was still a pretty good operator in getting blokes to run fast, so I would hope that Gatlin wouldn’t be getting too radically removed from what Graham did in terms of technique.

btw, IMO, I will be very surprised if Gatlin ever gets back to PB shape.

Can we get Andre Cason on this forum to post some comments on this thread? I had a chance to talk to him on the phone a little while back and he certainly had some choice words.