Hey guys, can anyone post Jonathan Edwaeds weights training preparation from 1995? I had it in some magazine but I lost it… Anyone? Thanx…
Post or pm your e-mail and I’ll send it today.
If other people want to see it, you can get it from pavel after I send it to him.
I met Carl Johnson(seemed like a very good guy) in October of 1997 and here are some notes from a talk he gave. These might seem a bit random and not at all organized but that’s all they are-notes. Some of this simply restates what was written in that earlier article by Johnson in NSA.
Carl Johnson-Jumps
Johnson met Edwards in 1985/86. Malcolm Arnold introduced them.
Long term training produces physical states (good or bad) that are not easily eroded.
In season, a maximum of 2 wt. training sessions per week.
He found that excessive bounding was not necessary to achieve success and that much of the power JE produced on the runway was a result of his efforts in the weight room.
Bounding should be of high quality and not of a high volume. Quality was much more important than quantity.
During the week (used more during the off and pre-season due to the three sessions) the intensities used were Mon.70-85%, Wed. 85-100% and Fri. 55-70%. (I’m unsure what exact percentages they used in-season or if they simply used the max single approach mentioned below.)
JE typically took 4-6 minutes of recovery between sets. As CJ put it; “sufficient to reduce lactate levels yet not so long to lose warm-up effects.”
1x every 7-10 days JE would do up to 6 singles of snatch, clean, squat or bench.
His “lifts were PB’s around the time of his world records.”
Early on his running work would be in the form of 150m/200m. His sprint work would often be 4 x 60m.
Bounds were seen as 5 reps and below were considered for power and above that number were endurance bounds.
Power bounds were always to be done prior to endurance bounds if done in the same session.
End. bounds would move from 3 sets of up to 12 bounds to as many as 4 sets of 12.
Plyo/bounding tech.
Pelvis must be pushed forward and up.
Flat foot contact, trunk and head held up.
-some work would be steps off of a box immediately up to another box.
-box jumps were done as single leg jumps
-step off box onto right leg left onto next box right on ground to left on box again.
-he would do as many as 3 reps of altitude jumps from as high up as 7-8 ft. For some reps he would freeze the landing in the bottom at approx. a thighs parallel position.
warm-ups for tj work would often be done as 3-4 standing tj’s
much work was done in the pre-season with 6 stride tj’s.
His comp. tj’s would be done for 16-18 strides.
His ability to accelerate is one of the reasons CJ felt Edwards was so successful and therefore did not need a longer approach than 18 strides.
Johnson reported a best SLJ for JE to be 3.14m.
Johnson felt other keys to JE’s success is that he “mushed out” less than his competitors due to his incredible eccentric and elastic strength.
He did mention the Epstein-Barr that Edwards went through (discussed in the NSA article) creating first a detraining effect but long-term, a very positive fiber shift to type IIb.
-emphasized the important of single arm action in the first phase to maintain horiz. velocity (no gather) being a key for JE.
Best SLJ at 3.14m?
Yeah Jonathan wasnt as good on the SLJ as he was on the more rebound/reactive type more pure plyo work. As mentioned the eccentric/elastic strength elemtent. I trained with him the year he did his WR and can vouch for the information from pioneer.
There was a SLJ exhibition/competition around that time on the BBC sports personality programme where JE took on Martin Offiah (rugby league player) and someone else and Offiah won if I remember rightly.
One of the people at this conference asked him (obviously thinking it would be a bigger mark)and he said that number was accurate.
How exactly does jumping from that height fit in the training plan? I don’t think I can even land that 100% safely, let alone get positive training effects from it. However I am 20-30 lbs heavier than JE. But still …
I don’t recall him saying when exactly those were done during the annual plan.
I know Tony Wells, who has worked with many top U.S. high school female sprinters/hurdlers, has used those as well though I doubt they were jumping from 7-8 ft-more likely 4-6 ft I’d guess.
On the part about Jonathan’s strengths being more elastic than being able to produce a great SLJ it’s probably somewhat similar to Michael Jordan’s jumping performances. I’m not sure if it was Al Vermeil or someone else who made the comment that both Michael and Scottie Pippen had similar performances in the vertical jump test but when Michael was able to take one or two steps prior to a jump he really separated himself from Scottie and most others.
Stefan Holm’s standing vertical in the Sport Science video (made I think in 2008) was around 24". Similar to Jonathan Edwards, his advantage came from reactive strength (or whatever other names there are for it).
I can’t ever remember JE doing that type of work, although I didn’t witness every session he did, it just doesn’t seem like the type of jump work he would have done, certainly not on a regular basis. It was primarily weights based, fastest person performing cleans and snatch that I have ever seen. Any jump work he did tended to be very low volume and fast contact.
Carl Johnson (JE’s coach) was pretty open minded and tried various things to do with eccentric loading. The rapid absorption of high speed eccentric loading is pretty specific to jumping events I would say. This wouldnt be stuff you would advocate with anyone with below sub-elite lifts both in technique and relative strength levels in addition to body control and balance.
This rapid eccentric conditioning work I guess is something they found useful - if potentially dangerous!
I thought this to be very interesting re: Jonathan Edwards training. For about the last 4-5 years of his career (save, possibly, the last year or so), Edwards was using a weight program given to him by Meg Stone (former Ritchie). He could have used it even the last year of his career but Meg was unsure as they no longer were in contact-no issues there just fell out of communication. The program was written by Dr. Mike Stone-her husband.
They had corresponded largely by e-mail over the years.
When Dr. Stone and Meg were living in Scotland-she was the national athletics coach and he was a professor at the University of Edinburgh at the time they actually tested and worked with Edwards for a time with his lifting. In particular, they emphasized developing his DKB execution of the olympic lifts. They said when he got there he was in about 135 kg condition for power cleans and about 105-108 kg condition for power snatches. He eventually got up a 150kg for PC and 115kg for PS. At the time he weighed approx. 69-70 kg. Obviously very impressive lifts and especially so for that bodyweight.
There are old articles from his coach…72,5kg he was in 1995…and 137,5 10 daysbefore wr ( missed I think)
The Carl Johnson article is still available on the IAAF site-published in NSA in 96 or 97, possibly.