Interview with Tudor Bompa

[James_Smith]

@lkh

Here’s some by Brent McFarlane about the theory behind contrast training for sprinting:

Without the overspeed component you don’t really get the same effect–you are really trying to get additional motor units firing more rapidly.

The key to doing this without injury seems to be to treat it as a VERY high stimulus session (“killer workout,” if you will), not to be done frequently, and to be followed with more than normal amount of rest (the 4 days following in the LSU microcycle seems to be the minimum rest from my experience).

I’m just trying to explain what it is, but make no mistake: It DOES work. I would not be doing this kind of thing every week as LSU seems to be doing: A little of this goes a long way–in fact I doubt the advantage doing this more than twice (declining returns but not declining risk) in a season–and you can see a significant performance boost after ONE session. But it is only going to fit with CFTS at the end of SPP when the other stimulus is reduced.

I don’t know, though, if the additional MaxV effect from the overspeed component that is seen in training for 60m/100m is going to be seen in 40 yard performance for football.

No worries, I fully understand the mechanism of the methodology. The issue I have is towards what applications I do or do not agree with its use.

The ‘overspeed’ if you will, that I get for my American footballers comes in the form of flying sprints out to 60yds (with 20yd pre-run).

Historically, I’d keep all sprint work under 40yds; however, after seeing the effects of the longer flying sprints on improving 40yd dash times for my pro-day/combine guys I decided to integrate them for my skill guys during the first block of summer training.

Already the results are appreciable as the longer sprints are providing the guys who still have mechanical issues in the upright position a little bit more time to work them out via a verbal cue or two over the span of the 40-60yd work distance.