X-Man
November 17, 2010, 6:15pm
33
I went to Dr. Bell’s presentation, I didn’t take as many notes as I should have, but he has a very good reputation as someone who knows how to get to the bottom of things. I’ll see if I can get some notes off my coach for PierreJean. He went into a lot of detail about the foot, and how limited range of motion in certain areas of the foot can negatively impact things up the chain.
For the record, I followed up with Dr. Taha by email the day after the conference and requested that he substantiate his claims by pointing me to the relevant studies so I could take them into proper consideration. As of right now, I haven’t received a reply.
To be honest, I think I enjoyed Tom Tellez’s presentations the most, even though he is decidedly old-school. He is not the world’s greatest presenter (someone needs to give Tom a copy of Dartfish), but as my coach put it, he is a very intuitive guy who emphasized getting the big things right and not wasting too much time on bullshit (current top “bullshit” includes low heel recovery, fancy weight programs, overemphasis on acceleration phase, overemphasis on dorsiflexion). Get in the blocks, run out, and run your race.
He kept things simple, but again, he is all about keeping sprinting simple. What I noticed is that the things Tellez said washed over me over the following few days, and it made me think that you’d want to get Tellez on the track with you and watch him operate there, not in a room full of coaches. The man obviously has an “eye for motion” as he put it.
I don’t agree with Seagrave’s mechanics, so I didn’t bother getting riled up about his dorsiflex off the ground philosophy. I used to do it naturally, and it was a disaster. Clearly some top athletes use something approximating it, so I’m not saying it’s invalid, but I wouldn’t coach it myself.
The thing I remember most about Seagrave is when he did a quick review of a weekly training block in the workout planning seminar. He had a hill day that looked like this:
3x30m, 3x60m, 3x90m, 3x120m
Holy shit!
i can speak for tom as i have been coached by him many years ago. he knows alot if you want detail but he gives the athlete exactly what he needs to know…no BS or highly technical speech- just gives 1 or 2 cues and let it happen.
tom is old school but look at the athletes he mentored! there is success in his methods fact and is L-S. he is very technical and has a great eye BUT eventhough you think he may not be watching you he knows what your doing. he gives you praise when you do it right and advice when you do it wrong but a great coach and a very very kind man who id love to meet again someday!