I believe the poor ratio of coach to athlete is an issue there-as you say too crowded. About 4-5 years ago a high level athlete I know stopped by to tour the facilities and that ratio was a major concern for that person. I was asked what I thought about it and added that unless one could get some level of assurance that Pfaff would be a significant part of their program/development I would not suggest a move there.
Ok folks I dont wanna beat a dead horse but Stu just publicly bashed Charlie again… Him & Alan Bishop started a chat on who we all look at when it comes to Sprinters & Strength coaches… Of course Charlie’s name got mentioned… Alan gave Charlie his props… Stu rolled his eyes & said “I said athletes, not coaches”…
An of course a few of my athletes noticed & wanted to comment but chose to ask me whats going on instead
I guess you can blame Charlie for being ranked 5th in the world as a white guy from Canada in the early 1970’s in the 100m dash. He should have been better.
Blame him for creating the Mazda Track club and coaching all those athletes cause he loved it. He developed these athletes from day one and many of them became national, world and Olympic Champions and record holders. Damn that Charlie guy.
Apparently Charlie was also responsible for wide spread performance enhancing drug use ( also known as PED use) in all sports since the beginning of time but thankfully since his testimony at the Charlie Dubin Inquiry into Drugs and Sport everything has been cleaned up 100 % since 1989. ( what an impressive accomplishment, no wonder Stu was rolling his eyes)
Perhaps Stu needs to put pen to paper. Write a book. Let us know how you made and are making?.. your athletes great.
Lay it all out for us to see, replicate, discuss. Get your fellow coaches to collaborate and contribute and gather and discuss more.
Just a few ideas that come to mind Stu.
And why not pick on the coaches that can have something to say back or is that too competitive for Stu?
Competition for Charlie is over Stu.
He already did what he was here to do and it’s pretty obvious how that went. :adoration:
Do you know what changes Charlie would make to an outdoor cold climate program? He mention in Weights for speed 3 he would have more variation with pickup drills, higher focus on jumps, and cleans etc.
Do you mean what to do when you are training outside in cold weather?
How cold?
Are we talking Florida when it gets cold or Toronto when you are trying to train outside as much as possible before snow?
Or Vancouver? They get a ton of rain and it’s cool but not much snow.
Example 1: Warm climate aka Jamaica
Example 2: Indoor cold climate (indoor track) aka Toronto
Example 3: Outdoor cold climate (any place that don’t have a indoor track but have cold weather days 30-35 fahrenheit)
I’ll list our avg low’s with Dec-Feb being the coldest. Dec 35, Jan 30, Feb 35 is the avg low’s. Indoor season I’ll have 2 workouts per week - 1 tempo which can be done indoors or outdoors and 1 speed. The speed session will have about 15-20 jumps done indoors, 15-20 throws done outdoors, 3-4x30 sled, 3-4x30 blocks, and 1-2 longer submax runs accel out to 30m and maintain - the distance/type of runs may vary from pickup drills, 60m, or 120-150m all following the 30m intensity limit. Was interested in what Charlie would do in this situation.
Hey RB35
Thanks for the question.
I would be interested in what Charlie thought too but mean time, I will take a shot at your question. 
I’m sure others will have input too and that’s when it becomes more interesting.
35 degrees F is too cold for high quality speed work……
Fitness enthusiasts or those wishing to develop an Instagram -able rear end view so to speak. GO FOR IT! Train on ice if you wish.
The cut off for speed work outdoors is 10 degrees C or 50 degrees F. Or rather, this was the rule we used and I continue exercise as a plan for speed work.
15 degrees C is more what you might think of for an ideal starting point to repeat high quality speed drills or speed work.
As an aside, Charlie used to complain excessively about the temperatures at York indoors. It was often cold inside during the winter and it made him CRAZY. He was not so good at hiding how he felt about much.
It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed Weights for Speed # 3. I’m not sure exactly what Charles had to say regarding your comments.
If you are training in Jamaica you would be able to take advantage of all things regenerative and recovery based. That’s obvious right? Sand, sun, vitamin D galore, water, ocean water, grass tracks made for sprinting and tracks for sprinters…., The challenge then might be splitting up the training so you could jump start your work early before it gets too hot and then later in the day as it gets a bit cooler, perform speed.
Without looking at Weights for Speed Series, I’m sure Charles was talking about the pick up drills , jumps and cleans as a means to perform inside NOT OUT?
It’s difficult to mimic continuous distances on a straightaway for example on an indoor track. Having said that, with regards to variations in pick up drills, the most total distance I had experience with was using the 60m straightaway. Most people doing pick up drills outside of the very top elite would have trouble maintaining EFE or FEF more than 10 to 20 m at a time.
You are asking a lot of questions that are pretty specific and I don’t have enough context to fully understand what it is that you want to answer. Perhaps others have ideas?
As some general rules for speed work you want to keep the highest quality work and highest priority work INSIDE if your temperature cut offs are as I’ve discussed above.
I don’t know what jumps you are doing but I assume it’s explosive med ball jumps and box jumps? It’s tough doing single, double or triple hop throws inside and I would not do them outside if it’s cooler than 10 degrees.
I have been able to do high quality A’s, B’s and Running A’s as well as med ball chest pass and side and overhead and medicine ball circuit outside as late as December here as long as there was no snow and it was relatively dry and the temperature was NOT seasonal for Toronto Canada.
I don’t know what throws you are doing outside. I would not do blocks in those temperatures you listed or sled.
I’m not sure if I’ve answered your questions. I’m not entirely clear about what you wish to learn or understand.
You are correct - it’s too cold for quality speed but keeping the runs short over 30m or using a 30m intensity limit will make the runs safer vs doing full out 60m runs which would be dumb.
Well, I know Ashley Mort visited Charlie and they filmed the block start dvd. I spoke with Ashley several times back then because he had a ton of success with his college sprinters while training in a cold weather climate without an indoor track. If I remember correctly his training recommendations came from Charlie. Weights, various jumps (box jumps etc), mb throws, and short sprints over 30. It probably wasn’t speed work but it was better then doing nothing.
I think hills and sleds are fine for cold weather because the speeds of the runs are already slower which make them a little more safer.
I have watched the weights for speed video recently. I believe Charlie was referring to using cleans if you had limited space indoors for sprinting, along with vertical jumps etc. As we know he believed there was a CNS conflict if including cleans and top speed work e.g 60m in the same programme running alongside each other. However if confined to a smaller indoor space, 30m sprints combined with cleans etc could go some way towards fulfilling the need to tax the CNS. If I’m talking rubbish I’m happy to be corrected.
We are talking about cold weather outdoors. Weights speed 3 - starting at 7min mark.
I am from Milwaukee, WI, which has some cold falls and springs. Meets spanning 4/1-5/15 will seldom be above 70 degrees (F). Anything over 55 is pretty warm. My 100m PB came at a night meet where it was 43 at race time. That’s just part of the deal around here. I actually like it on the cooler side as long as it’s not rainy/windy. The hot makes me lethargic.
For me, I’ll do speed work down to around 40 degrees and tempo down to around 30.
Curious what you would do if you had no indoor track and 30 degrees inseason? Here in NC we have some decent programs and many don’t have indoor tracks. I’m sure they are outdoors running (duke, nc state, wake forest, A&t, St Augs) just to name a few. A&T has a really good sprint program.
I’m sure they are running outside too. They are 20 years old. And how many of these kids will be elite sprinters? And if they do become elite sprinters I bet they won’t be training 24/7 in NC. It’s simply not sustainable if you are going to compete against people from or training in conditions like Florida, CA and Jamaica or having both indoor and out door tracks.
I’m sure you can innovate and be creative as well and I’m also sure some can handler cooler temps and some not so much. Makes sense right?
Also, the more muscle density you have, the more you need to warm up and rely on your fitness to maintain your heat. Use thermogenic things like good fats ( flax seed oils or coconut oils in your coffee or shakes) and layers of clothing to keep you warm. Prioritize only what needs to be done outside and if possible stay in and only go out when you need to use the track.
I seem to be one that handlers cooler weather better; on the contrary, hot is not my thing. I don’t have a lot of muscle, so perhaps that is a part of the reason (6’0", 167lb).
Handles not handler. Typo, sorry.
And I inadvertently copied it! Funny how the brain works (or doesn’t).
Stu makes a lot of outlandish claims which is mostly pseudo-scientific gibberish. I recall watching videos of Andre doing a single-leg rotation with a twist leading up to WC along with some gibberish reasoning by Stu. Andre subsequently pulled his hamstring. At the time I thought why would they put such load on the biceps femoris so close to a major comp.
…and now from the most recent podcast installment McMillan states (Pacey podcast) the most common reason so many strength coaches believe so much in the use of the squat(heavy) to develop speed is because Charlie apparently was very active on social media (?!) and described how Ben squatted 600 lbs. the day before the Seoul final. He needs to get his facts straight. Charlie refuted this story many times whether the version said the day before or the day of and it was, as I recall, Charles Poliquin who pushed this story. Charlie first described some of his methods that I can recall in an Ironman magazine article from 1990 (Joe Horrigan), then Speed Trap and followed by CFTS. I don’t recall any social media existence in those times. This forum came up around 2001 that I can recall.
He’s also confusing the efficacy/potential transfer of the exercise with the need to make it heavy(yes there is a time an a place for that in a program). There is little doubt it will have greater transfer with more developmental athletes though that does not mean it has no place in the program of more advanced athletes. It sounds like there are no good reasons to squat though he seems wrapped up in the absolute numbers. Too many people push that the absolute numbers have to be achieved to be able to achieve a certain level and it’s very likely it’s only relative, individual improvements that improve the overall, primary performance up to a point of course-more coaching art than science in this regard. I’d also be interested in seeing how he knows how his Bosch influenced low output exercises are resulting in a positive transfer. He states that no finalist in the Rio 100m could full back squat over 150kg. This might well be true though I don’t know how he can guarantee such a thing and even if so the absolute limits they were capable of does not mean there is no value to the exercise. Sounds like the classic baby with the bathwater action.
I don’t believe the attempt to create exercises that, in the minds of the practitioners (IMO), “look like” transitory movements that occur very briefly in the overall actions is an effective method of development. This, in my belief, does nothing but dilute the potential output that could be achieved through very high force/high rate of force exercises in conventional multi joint olympic and oly. derivative exercises as well as standard strength movements. Also, I think too much categorization of people as as puller or pusher or posterior chain or anterior chain dominant does much but influence the coach and athlete to be too specific particularly in the weight room. I’m sure that school of thought would criticize the more general progression as a shotgun approach but it should be general-IMO. Too often, as CF used to mention, people often view athletes of high standard/world class as having all of the general qualities taken care of/already developed and that’s simply not the case.
re: Squats
Four years ago I found two videos from Japanese TV that showed the warm-up track in Seoul. I posted one of them. Not a weight in sight there, much less 600lbs. The videos have since been taken down. I knew I should have downloaded those bad boys when I had the chance.
The Hilton didn’t have them either where Waldemar worked on him the night before the Final. Did Ben go for a workout alone back in the Crazy unsecured OLY Village after being worked on late at night. Not a chance…
There were other Coaches that were there at the warm-up track who repeated the same thing CF said-there were no dang weights there. Mike Hurst was one of them.
I haven’t listened to it yet. Did he talk about preparing the foot to strike the ground by tightening? it up - which absorbs energy and not return it nearly as well. Someone told me that he did. There must be a good explanation for it if so.
Did he cover what the time of the day he has his sprinters do true speed work? I find it very difficult or damn near impossible to hit anything close to my 3-4pm speed SB PB in training in the morning. No way, no how. Unless maybe, I took 400 mg of caffeine before …but I’m a 50-60mg type of guy and would only go up to 200 mg and for a race.
No, unless I missed it I heard nothing about foot strike nor daily training times. I guess I listened to it for the same reason people used to watch MNF-to have Howard Cosell piss them off but really I wanted to see what his most current line of BS would be regarding CF and he did not disappoint to offer up some more of his ignorance on the topic. I guess Charlie also invented Twitter and Facebook (possibly Instagram?).
I still wonder why people view him as an expert. All they need to do is look at the results of his athletes-the detraining that takes place over time. I think people look to him as some sort of guru because of his 1)affiliation with Dan Pfaff (though he and Pfaff seem to differ a lot on strength training philosophy). Pfaff seems to be much more like Charlie in that regarding taking more of a general weights approach. Dan does not really align himself, with the Frans Bosch specific weight training philosophy. 2)He (SM) is outspoken and we know the squeaky wheel gets the grease. He also did not go into the elite nutritional supplementation advice of consuming “bulletproof coffee”- I had hoped that would be addressed. I had heard a story a few years back from a highly qualified/legitmate source that he had trained some well known bobsledders and due to his recomendations they were very much carb-depleted to the point they could not effectively get through a strength/power oriented training session without a dramatic intra-session drop in quality. Once they started eating enough carbs to support the output they began to perform better in maximal terms as well as keeping the output higher throughout the session.