With all due respect, Mr Mills did not come up with his training ideas on his own. Secondly, Mr. Mills lives in JAMAICA where he can pull from concentrated pool of talent. And lastly, the Jamaican culture supports track and field in the way that the United States supports football.
That said, it’s obvious as to why Mr. Mills is successful.
Sounds like you got some hate in those words. So any coach would’ve taken bolt from 20. To the world record in the 1 and 2 because bolt is talented? Mills should leave jamaica and prove himself in another country to show you? Jamaica is still a poor country. Comparing them to the us in anything is ludacris.
So the coach for David rudishia happened to coach multiple 800 meter wr holders and Olympic medalists. I guess he is that good a coach because he has a concentrated pool of talent, and Africa supports the 800 the way the US supports football? Am I correct
By using various lecture notes and articles like these you can figure out what Smith is doing. It’s very similar to Tom Tellez imo.
Mills is a great coach because he doesn’t ruin talented athletes. Yes, he has great talent to work with but so do others. How many All-American high school athletes have been ruined by the US collegiate system? Great coaches don’t make sprinters, they coax every once of talent out of them. And that is not easy to do, especially repeatedly.
Mills is a great coach, and so is John Smith. Bud Winters was good at the time. But come on, he was one of the first guys to coach black sprinters. You can’t tell me that whatever he did people would think that it was his methods that built these guys. Read his old books, they are brutal! Biomechanics have evolved since then. He recommends reaching forward, unhinging at the knee, his rationale was that this is how horses ran. His start philosophy was to throw your hand forward, and his basic arm swing mechanics was to run with more of a sawing motion. At the time, this may have been good, but you can’t tell me that we don’t know more now then we did then.
I was talking to an old school coach the other day and he was trying to tell me how tempo running is the key to running fast because Glenn mills and all the jamaicans do it based on bud winters stuff. Thats just dumb. Specificity wins always. Do real sprint work to get faster. I would look to what countries to well in track despite their lack of genetic talent, and theres a country that knows how to get the most out of their athletes. I’m very impressed with Russia. 8 gold medals in track, with what I would consider sub optimal genetics. Sport science has evolved since then. Having genetic talent is number 1, but don’t try to deduce what the best training program is using freak athletes.
I agree, But we expect things to evolve. Im sure other coaches have improved upon bud’s stuff. I know for a fact my college coach was one of those old school coaches who belived in running all althetes to death. Everyone was a 400m runner to him. I went to college running 10.6 and 22.0. I left running 10.8 and 21.34. lol. So Yea I would never do the volume bud suggests. I just like to see what other coaches did.
As for Jamaica, Tempo is the key to recovery in my opinion. With recovery comes fast times. I dont think the guy you spoke with knew how to explain it. But its just what charlie prescribed. speed days, tempo days. You cant run fast if your tired.
I been saying for years - if you go around the country to various meets and speak with various T&F athletes - almost all of them are doing tons of ext/int tempo and little true speed work. They are the athletes who are beating the one’s with the great programs/great setups while breaking Pr’s every year. I have a friend who believes in doing “base” work in the fall and Spec end year round.
The results: At age mid 30’s he’s still setting records - has a great 200 and always a great 100m finish.
I asked him to give me a 100m fall training program - see below:
Block 1: Base Block
Session 1: 8x150
Session 2: 15min jog
Session 3: 6x200
Session 4: Hills
Session 5: 3x300
Next block: Everything was fast with full rec
Session 1: 3x180
Session 2: 3x30flys+3x30+2x60
Session 3: 4x200
Session 4: 3x150
Session 5: 3x300
His inseason - almost every workout was a time trail - 2x200 or 2x300 etc time with full rec…
Certainly biomechanics have changed since Winter’s coaching of 1940-1970, but you can’t argue with his success, as posted previously, everyone borrows from others, many coaches have borrowed from Winter. It’s not like John Carlos, Tommie Smith, Ronnie Rae Smith, etc, just stepped on the track and broke records, they all worked hard, every sprinter that Winter coached improved. Watch films of his sprinters, they have that San Jose look, high knee action, and most importantly, RELAXATION, which Winter called key. His workouts were not that high in volume, 5x 200, 3x 320m, each month becoming faster until it was time to go to a comp schedule, which was quality based. As far as to run fast you must train fast, Winter had speed in every workout; starts, flys, In/Outs. As for the way he taught starts, he got that from Olympic Champ Armin Hary, the first man to run 100m in 10 seconds flat and one of history’s fastest starters, Winter wrote a book on it called, “The rocket sprint start”. How far have we really come in sprint times except for Lightning Bolt?; sprinters in the 60’s were running 10 and under for 100m on crap tracks, tracks that now you wouldn’t even train on. With today’s fast tracks, spikes and training technology, I’d love to see what Tommie Smith would have run a 200 in.
Looks like something John Smith, Tellez, or some Jamaicans would do. They would probably replace 1-2 days with starts only.
What kind of weights did this guy do?
Little to none - when he does it’s mostly bb/mma type shit. I been telling him to do more weights because his starts suck.
I’ve found that all this tempo stuff we look for correlations and explanations when there is possibly none. I’m sure we want to think that tempo makes you fast because it helps with recovery, and to some extent it does. But it always boils down to specific demands. You can’t tell me building a base, going from 8x300, or 8x150m down to 3x150 does shit all for speed. 0-60m builds speed, and then its about how you manage it and the other aspects. Its like when people look for correlations with weight training. So and so does 140kg clean, or 180kg squat. Just because its included in a program, means they’ll probably be good at it, especially for elite athletes. They will master it. It doesnt mean it transfers to the competitive exercise. And in most situations it doesnt. Same for tempo. Its in a lot of programs, doesnt mean anything.
So, tell me why all the athletes who are running 10x200 etc are beating you at local meets?
I know two sprinters who were training with a jamaican coach. THey said they hardly ran fast at practice, mostly tempo. one athlete strived and ran pb’s. The other athlete regressed. So guess some things work for some athletes. I believe in training fast to run fast. I wonder if any powerlifters do a bunch of high rep light weight lifts. DO they get any stronger from that…I doubt it. But you never know. Tempo has its place, but ima follow charlie on this one. Plus tempo sucks balls. Its boring as shit
There are some powerlifters who train with submax weights.
I have a nephew who is a power lifter and has no sprint training but can run 10.8 easy.
Better genetics, white guys dont run fast don’t you know. And i’m sure they are sprinting too, so you could also ask, why are more genetically gifted athletes who do specific work beating me? Maybe some do those volumes of tempo because everyone else does them, but they arent doing it solo and running those times. Specific sprint work, its not rocket science. Theres no tempo voodoo at play, only workouts that people do because its what you do. Dumb logic.
Bull shit - I know many white guys who can sprint fast… I know several white kids who didn’t start to run fast until they started doing 10x200 etc - he went from 11-10.9 to 10.4ish in cold wisconsin weather. Maybe you should give 10x200 a try - it could be your secret to breaking the 10.5 barrier.
I’ve done loads of tempo in my life, its never helped me much. Too much of a workout instead of recovery.
The one thing that these fast guys have in common is TEMPO in their training or controlled speed work. UMMM, Powell, Blake, Bolt, Gay, Jeter, Felix the list goes on all have heavy amounts of tempo. Most athletes that I see that do tons of heavy squatting, 30m accels, flys etc are the one’s losing to the tempo athletes or running great 30m times but suck over 100-200m…