Is anyone thinking of going to this conference?

Members Area Discussion Suggestions
3

I may attend since it’s in my home town…

Dr. Larry Bell is a GREAT guy and friend. I use to make the drive from T.O. to Orillia (over 90min round trip) to watch him work and to learn. He has worked with Track athletes for decades. He’s worked with the Nigerian national team (and their individulals) in the past along with Obikwelu of Spain (by work I don’t mean one random visit but multiple visits). I would expect this to be a very informative talk as he done a great job tying function to performance.

Dr. Carmen Stillo is a talented therapist that has worked with the National team along with UofMiami. I believe he works or worked with the Argos and members of the NFL. With that he brings a lot of different experiences to the table. I’ve only talked to him about manual therapy so I’m not sure how this talk will go beyond that.

Dr. Timi Taha. I had the pleasure to meet him while sitting in the stands at the Canadian National meet this past July in T.O. He’s a “sport scienctist” at UofT. Athletics Canada brought him on board to some how help the coaches ;). He’s a former track guy, I believe, and has more recently worked with Kayaking and cycling. He’s great to talk to as he reads research for a living and therefore is able to answer A LOT of questions and provide some interesting perspective. Who doesn’t want to know a guy who reads training research for a living!?! :slight_smile:

I know Coach Anthong McCleary but I don’t know much about his approach to developing and training hurdlers. Priscilla has been fast for a while but under his guidance in recent years she has performed when it matters and stayed at the top. So clearly McCleary has something to offer (:wink: yes I’m corny). I love the hurdles and have some strong opinions so I look forward to attending this session for Q & A. :slight_smile:

I haven’t seen Seagrave or Tellez in person, nevertheless, I don’t expect to much from either one (no disrespect intended at all). I have either listened to their pod casts, watched videos from other clinic and read a lot of their work on different sites. Has anyone seen them present in person? If so please chime in. Also does anyone know who Dr. Andrew Robb is?

Hope this helps =)

4

Kool, I may check that out.

5

Where in the UK are you Angela?

6

Thanks Angela, it was very nice to meet you formally, but I wish it was under different conditions. I know you have mentioned you may attend the sprint conference, so I hope to see you there! If not, perhaps at York sometime.

7

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8

Just as an update, so far the conference has been enjoyable, but the presentations have been very, very general overall. The big boys aren’t getting very detailed at all, and appear quite wary of giving specifics. I understand there is a wide level of coaches in the crowd, but more detail would be nice.

The CSCO people have me extremely wary.

They seem to have a bunch of therapists and strength coaches that seem obsessed with finding and correcting imbalances. They keep using the words “functional” and “specific” and it is freaking me out! They also keep citing literature that bases things on non-elite sprinters, or in one instance they used Anson Henry, a fine sprinter but a 10.19 man on his best day, as the prime example. I’m sorry but 10.2 is NOT elite.

Oh, and they love single-leg everything, “because sprinting is a single leg activity.” Unsettling.

Am I paranoid?

9

The whole FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT honestly I do believe is just hype. As Al Vermeil told me, “its a fad that has a catchy BUZZWORD attached to it”.
Another thing just like you said you find unsettling is the phrase SPRINTING IS A SINGLE LEG ACTIVITY. HMM, since when? Id love to hear more opinions about this.

10

Power comes from your your torso, not ur limbs. Run from ur limbs and you won’t get hip height or speed power. You’ll just claw at the ground. So how can sprinting be a single leg exercise?

11

I have heard the same opinions from people at this conference. Its all mechanics, warm-ups, physio/functional, generalities, and lactic work for sprinting.

From what I heard, all coaches preach lactic work up to 600m for short sprinters to build work capacity. I find that frightening.

12

Last question first, probably.:slight_smile:

I first heard this saying just before my 21st birthday, ““If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance Baffle them with bull””. Guess others live by the saying.

If one was to look at all the best athletes they all have one thing in common, excellent motorskills. A good starting point.

I am curious how they would train a tennis player, a one arm event.

13

Ok so… with all these supposedly GURU’S here at this clinic. Why are they saying things that we all disagree with?

14

Dazzle them with bull! I like this! Alot of people do this!

15

If one keep getting people down from 12:5 to 10:90 - that’s 1.6sec improvement - looks fantastic on paper.

Imagine slaving away and improving somebody from 10’5 to 9.99 - only 05sec improvement.

Heard the saying, There are Three main lies, Lies, Damned lies and Statistics

16

Thanks my man! Makes sense!:cool:

17

I was also really surprised by some of the things Anthony McCleary and Desai Williams were saying at the conference.

They stated they had their group doing 2 1/2 mile runs early on, that they run a lot of 600’s early on (I already knew this from following Justyn Warner on Twitter, I remember him talking about sets of 600-400-600). They stated they aren’t “exactly” doing accels at least in the first block, but I asked about the cone and they would accel out to 20m say, and hold through 600m. I found their whole presentation very surprising.

Obviously they have a pretty damn good athlete, but I really wonder if she’s doing 2 1/2 mile runs at this stage in her career when she’s already extremely fit, and if she is, what the point is.

I also got into a pretty detailed discussion with Dr. Tim Taha (one of the presenters from CSCO) out in the hall on Sunday morning. I missed his presentation and had no idea who he was, but I asked why they were so big on the clean and single leg stuff and the whole “functional” approach, and he said “sprinting is a single leg activity” at which point I said “I think it’s more of a whole body activity” and things got more interesting from there.

I asked Dr. Taha why they were “getting away from the traditional Bompa ideal of reps and sets at a percentage of max” (a direct quote from another CSCO lecture) approach to lifting when it’s something that is part of the coaching culture here, and something many coaches know and understand.

I asked why they would move toward the clean and a much less general sounding approach, and he stated, and this is a direct quote, “Research shows that Charlie’s weight program was good for certain parts of the stride, but not all of it.”

Now that strikes me as a bit strange. I don’t know what’s wrong with a stride that runs 9.8x or less, but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I will follow up with him to attain clarification because I’m just an elementary school track coach with an interest in training theory, and he has a PhD.

Now in Dr. Taha’s defence, in the Q&A panel after our hallway discussion, he stated that sprinting was the primary goal, and that’s what you should put most of the energy into, and just talked about keeping things general and not getting nuts with younger athletes, and only getting more specific as you get higher in training age and faster.

18

Well as a masters hack, send me to one of these guys who can get me from 12.5 to 10.9! Sounds great to me! :slight_smile:

19

What is the reasoning behind their high lactic and aerobic loads? It just plain doesnt make sense to me.

Its tough to argue with Ph D’s because they are so sure of themselves and are more trained to defend their ideas. But they are also the furthest from the actual track in terms of training experience.

I wonder what research shows that Charlie’s weights were only good for a certain portion of the stride. Perhaps it is the research that shows that heavy weight training improves early acceleration, whereas more explosive activities can have effects further on. This fails to consider the already present volume of proper sprint training already being carried out.

I fail to see how single leg activity can require the same neural drive as heavy squatting. This is the real key to Charlie’s lifting program which is years beyond what these scientists will ever read in their research. How heavy lifting can compliment sprint training as a stressor, help maintain strength qualities, and extend the need for variation in a sprint training program.

20

When did they decide to do a backflip on what they once believed. Sounds to me like part of the Pluto theory.

21

I was asked to do post graduate research, but was told my paper for my degree would good to do but my conclusion would not sit well with the thinking on the topic. I read 150 research papers for this paper, of the 150, 90 of them used research from the same 6 people. Of the other papers, 60 of them, the reference where from disciples of those 6 people.

None of them have worked in the real world a day in their lives.

My understanding of theory is there is basically two types. What people are doing and what people should do. One is based on history the other is based on theory developed by academics. Both useful but little relevance to the real world of the present.

22

The next speed conference will preach:

  • 1 legged cleans on a bosu ball
  • 1km repeats to build work capacity
  • functional movement screen perfection prior to any form of physical activity, or else your body will break
  • an emphasis that perfect mechanics builds an athlete
  • no mention of programming or periodization
  • Cite the gifted athletes these coaches have trained as proof, or some obscure study