Man, are you going to get off your high horse. Its the internet, its a forum, people can be whoever they want to be, if they are a 10 year old so be it, once again you attacked the dude on credentials rather than responding to any part of his statement.
Just because you coach a bunch of athletes and good athletes doesn’t mean you made them good necessarily. How about Stephen-Howlings dude was one of the quickest people I ever seen, around what 9 yards a carry in highschool 5,000 yards or somewhere around there, what did you do with him?
So what if he reads some books, isnt that where you get your information from?
And could you humor me with some of those references, I understand they are Eastern Bloc articles but I have access to enough libraries and resources I am sure I can find the said sources somewhere if you make them available.
I’m not saying this to be offensive and I’m certainly not questioning the results of the athletes you have coached, but I do have to say that most of your posts/articles are so overly complex that it leaves me wondering what it is exactly that you’re trying to say.
I am not a strength coach, but I do have a master’s degree in ex. phys. (I work in cardiopulm. rehab/testing) and I’m pretty familiar with most of the terminology/publications since my personal interests are in strength/ conditioning.
Wasn’t it DaVinci who said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ?
It appears as if you need to more thoughtfully and less defensively review the thread as well.
Take another look and note who decided to inflame the exchange.
High horse has nothing to do with what I’m saying.
You go on and on and on about how unimportant is to be established in the field yet are so quick to challenge those who are. How you must relish these virtual environments in which you can say what ever the hell it is you want with the only risk being banished from your cyber wonderland.
Regarding your weak ass comment regarding LaRod. Here’s one for you, take a trip here, I’ll arrange for you to speak to LaRod in private and you question him yourself. Listen to what he has to say about what I do and how he has responded to the training.
That goes for any of the peanut gallery out there. I’m not hiding behind cute little screen names nor voicing out unqualified opinions, I’m opening my doors for you to come in person and find out for yourself.
Ask the athletes, watch me train them, note how the already tremendously gifted continue to advance in their performance and then you will be qualified to make an informed statement.
There is a long enough list of respected individuals in the field who acknowledge the positive aspect of my efforts, where are yours?
Regarding references, besides the fact that a great deal of my thinking is also corroborated by much of Charlie’s work as well as that of my friends Sprinterouge, Dan Partelly, Duxx, and others, right here on the board, I recommend the following authors:
(in alphabetical order)
Abadjiev, Ivan
Bondarchuk, Anatoly
Bosco, Carmelo
Drabik, Josef
Dvorkin, L.S.
Francis, Charlie
Hartmann, Jurgan
Homenkova, L.S.
Issurin, Vladimir
Komi, Paavo
Kurz, Thomas
Laputin, N.P.
Medvedyev, Alexei
Nurmekivi, Ants
Oleshko, V.G.
Ozolin, N
Popov, V
Ritzdorf, Wolfgang
Roman, Robert
Schmidtbleicher, Dietmar
Schmolinsky, Gerhardt
Sozanski, Henryk
Starzynski, Tadeusz
Tidow, Guntor
Tihanyi, Jozef
Tunnemann, Harold
Verkhoshansky, Yuri
Viru, Atko
Zaitchouk, Boris
Zatsiorsky, Vladimir
I grow tired of your kind. Perhaps I should re-evaluate why I chose to contribute to internet discussions as it becomes increasingly obvious that the individuals who are making a difference in the real world of sport training appear to occupy a smaller and smaller percentage of the internet discussion community while those who have done jack carelessly run their mouths with nothing other than the work and coat tails of others to supply the pool from which they find their words.
Again, if you’re going spout off, especially about my own athletes, then bring your ass over here and fully inform yourself.
Ryan, I respect your comment and all I can say is that you read exactly the way my thoughts come to me. Those that have visited me or seen me lecture know this to be true.
I have never intentionally heightened the complexity of my thoughts for the sake of putting them on paper in a more sophisticated manner.
This is simply the way I think.
While I am the first to acknowledge Occam’s Razor, I am also the first to caution against over simplification as there is very little that is rudimentary regarding the training process weighed against the human organism.
If the training process and it’s discussion were so readily made simple I suspect that far more world champion level athletes would be produced at the hands of laymen.
That is all well and good, I was just asking for specific references to the statements about transference of the angle of depth jump. Not all the authors who have influenced you. If you don’t have them that is fine.
I am not asking to see your athletes or see how you train or talk to anyone, I just asked for references. Not everyone has a reference for everything myself included, if you don’t have them just say you don’t have them.
In regards to Howlings I could ask him if I wanted, I wouldnt need you to set anything up but thanks for the offer.
And I just asked what you did with him, as I saw you brought in some new guys to replace him the past few years. Obviously he was a smaller back coming in, maybe you thought he needed to pack on some muscle, you could just say that was your focus. And you said your stuff worked with him, so why be defensive. Why do you perceive asking what you did with an athlete as an attack?
You and others have an incredible propensity to back track, change directions and otherwise in these exchanges.
Review your own post in which you stated this exactlyJust because you coach a bunch of athletes and good athletes doesn’t mean you made them good necessarily. How about Stephen-Howlings dude was one of the quickest people I ever seen, around what 9 yards a carry in highschool 5,000 yards or somewhere around there, what did you do with him?
Now unless you are an imbecile you’ll acknowledge how questioning whether or not I further impacted an already talented group of athletes or athlete is inflammatory.
I have references, I gave them to you in terms of author names.
Read ALL OF THEM
I search
I find authors
I read
I practically apply information
I coach
Something that you internet warlords are too lazy to do
I have better things to do (like train real life athletes) then to memorize which page of which piece of literature contains the information you need so find it yourself.
You’ve been given the fishing pole.
You’ve been instructed on how to fish.
Now fish.
I’ll tell you popequique, I’ve pm’d you once regarding your bullshit posts and you should know that attitudes such as yours don’t last long around me in person.
So in retrospect, maybe I’ll retract the open invitation I issue to all to come and visit the University because a meeting between you and I may not be in your best interests.
I’m done with this thread as I have already contributed enough to the derailment off original topic.
Any more comments from the peanut gallery are free to pm me though I won’t guarantee you a response.
James, I enjoy and learn from all your posts both here and at elitefts. It is unfortunate that many people do not appreciate the useful information and insight that you give out basically for free. Taking cheap shots at a person who openly gives out this information and his identity in my opionion is highly disrespectful and not needed. I hope you continue what you do and I can keep learning from you and learn how to “catch fish”.
James, you dared to dip into the real world and make a specific contribution. Please confine your remarks to the specific questions I raised about your statements. Pretend I’m qualified to ask these questions, if that helps you.
Moving back towards productive discussion: exactly where in this thread have I failed to offer the specific information that you seek?
Yes, lets. I’ll simply restate what you said, as well as my response. See if you can force yourself to simply deal with the details of this specific training question and drop all the self-important blathering.
James said in this thread…
so for you, I’ll spell it out, but I won’t make a habit out of this:
Assume the intensity is 80% of the parallel squat maximum:
More important than if the exercise is realized as:
full squat
parallel squat
half squat
quarter squat
box or no box
front
high bar
low bar
close, medium, wide stance or at a slow, medium, or fast tempo of movement is the dosage (ergo volume/how much)
Star61 responded directly to this contention with the following…
…Based on what you’ve stated above, an athlete will get more benefit out of low intensity (80% of 1RM parallel squat) quarter squats performed unexplosively with a narrow stance than he will out of properly performed, higher intensity, parallel or ATG back squats performed explosively, as long as volume is controlled in a better fashion. My belief would be exactly the opposite, that almost any reasonable volume of high intensity parallel or ATG back squats performed explosively with a moderate to wide stance would be much, much more effective than low intensity, narrow stance, quarter squats, regardless of how well the volume was controlled, assuming as you stated above, that all squats were performed at an intensity of “80% of the parallel squat maximum” (your words). Keep in mind that quarter squats performed at intensity that is 80% of a parallel squat is actually a low intensity movement, while ATG squats performed at an intensity that is 80% of a parallel squat is very nearly a max effort lift.
Please make every effort to confine your response to this specific question, without regard to who asked it or who you think is reading your post.
James has stated many times that he does not perform “dynamic effort” barbell lifts regardless of the situation. Even for the powerlifter they can be easily replaced by VJ with vests and submaximal squatting with a moderate tempo.
Point taken, and I agree that things can be oversimplified.
I never thought or suggested that you intentionally sophisticated things. My main point is that your wordage/terminology tends to leave some people wondering.
I realize that most of the posters at this site have a higher level of understanding than most regarding the subject matter, but some still might not be able to grasp the concepts (myself sometimes included) as you word them.
I enjoy reading your work and feel you have a lot to offer in this field. I thank you for your contributions (even though you work for Pitt and I am a Penn State fan).
I think we should get back on the original topic.
Verkhoshanskij researchs are mainly self conducted, this is what others are referring.
The whole concept of special and specific exercises tend to be not so linear and “scientific” (see the backward throw for example).
Correlation can be a very poor index [e.g…2 elite sprinter’s groups…jog 1 mile very slowly every day for 1 week (group A), sprint 100% 4x100m every day for 1 week Group B)…then we test both on day 8 on 100m…A is fastest…conclusion…1 mile has a better transference than 100m to run 100m!!]…All jokes aside, we should see practical experiences of elite and sub elite sprinters emploing depth jumps, if any is using off course.
Pfaff mentioned lower heights, and very low volumes.
What information or insight is generally provided except to say that everyone in the US sucks and we need to look at the Eastern Europeans for answers? Talking about getting practical, specific answers.
Who in the US do you really read and follow? The norm in the industry is BS training rooted in research done on aerobics and new gadgets…show me science!
If you want science, you should go directly to the refereed scientific journals. These are a Primary Source of scientific information. A Primary Source is “the information source from which evidence-based knowledge is derived. It has, as a major component, evidence derived directly from fully described (or referenced) formal observation, procedures or experiments performed with valid, scientifically accepted methods. In its strongest form, this material is usually (but not only) a paper in a refereed scientific publication.” Another good source for scientific information is a true Integrative Source, “a source reporting the results of a meta-analysis, which is a statistical procedure to mathematically combine the results from a number of valid studies to arrive at a stronger conclusion. An exhaustive search for all of the studies relevant to the question at hand and a critical analysis of these studies to exclude those with serious design or procedural flaws is required. Integrative studies are based on objective quantitative analysis rather than the more subjective analysis of the conventional critical review.” Those posting on this board, with rare exception, are neither. They are Secondary or Tertiary Sources, “information sources that do not have as a major component in the description of formal observations or experiments but rather provide information and opinions synthesized from some combination of primary sources, experience, or authoritative belief (dogma)”. Some of this information is of great use. Some of it is bullshite.
There are individuals that post on this forum and others that might be called Pseudo-scientists; a pseudo-scientist is actually one who “promotes false or unsubstantiated science and information, often with complicated pseudo-medical or pseudo-scientific jargon of the author’s creation. They use complicated, pseudo-medical and pseudo-scientific jargon, even thought they may generally pull information from credible and reliable sources.” These people are not truly pseudo scientists, nor are they reliable sources of scientific information; they are Obfuscators and Self Promoters. The purpose of their cryptic writing and scientific jargon is to obscure their meaning and to provide cover when they are pressed to provide detailed or specific information. They take true science and valid information, always ripped off from someone else, and use at as a tool of self promotion, self enrichment and personal aggrandizement. You can recognize them by their refusal to answer specific questions, or when they do dare to be specific, their refusal to debate their statements in a concise and professional manner. They say they don’t want to waste time discussing such issues that are beyond the ability of most readers to understand, yet they are more than happy to fill pages with self-promoting, pretentious gobbledygook.
And while the level of jargon tossed around these threads might convince you otherwise, you yourself can find good sports science in true Primary Source, refereed journals. Most of the information found there is actually quite simple and understandable. So to be clear: overly complex scientific jargon makes it seem as if real science is beyond the grasp of non-scientists and should be left entirely in the hands of the self-professed academic experts who, by their own admission, possess what the rest of us do not; “a full understanding” of all things scientific. And that notion does a disservice to everyone. And anyone who looks at scientific literature and feels intimidated by all the 25- and 50-cent words should simply forget the jargon, forget the posturing, and forget the inflated egos that reek of pretentiousness. Focus on the techniques and ideas behind the jargon. In most cases, we will all find them well within our grasp.
Why do I bother writing about writing styles? After all, writing in such a cryptic, inflated and complex manner is only a problem if we believe that knowledge is meant for everyone. If that premise is not generally upheld, and it is affirmed that certain theories are only meant for a small group of elites, than such pretention and self importance is not a problem. However, I believe this forum exists almost exclusively for the transference of knowledge, both theoretical and empirical, from the experienced and knowledgeable to all of the rest of us who wish to learn. Isn’t that why we’re here?
Mort domination at what? Recruiting? Show me how to clone people then we will see who the best is! After all the best coach is probaly coaching children’s soccer somewhere in Italy…
Hah it’s true. Maybe I’ll go ask Zatsiorsky if he wants to make his next book “Science and Practice of Recruiting”.
Story time. I know a coach who gets very average recruits, openly dismisses most “science” and USATF guru advice, does what he has personally found to work, and produces D1 national champions. It’s what I like to call “random 20% improvement”. No mumbo jumbo, no chest beating, no website, no books or videos, just results… in obscurity.
Science often lags far behind practical knowledge as Charlie has taught us.