Please explain?
The book focuses on pawback and gives resistance band exercises to strengthen this “crucial” element of running…
Does that make it bad, has to be some good things?
Go ahead and buy the book then… You asked for an opinion.
There is so much wrong with that book that it doesn’t deserve my time to explain. Caveat emptor.
I was looking for at least 2-3 reasons why it’s shitty, it would be like me telling someone CFTS is great without even saying why. Thanks for your help
I purchased that book one year ago, and today remains one of the worst books in this field I have read. Training info was very limited, nutritional info was off, exercises questionable. Overall would not waste your money.
That would be my first question. Yessis is a sharp guy, but I don’t recall any athletes he trains. I would trust number 2 on this. I have pissed away money on so much useless crap, I hate thinking about. I guess I needed to read some bad stuff to know what good stuff looks like. I remember Ian King being asked about an academic who wrote plenty of books and is highly regarded in the athletice development. Ian said " I prefer to talk about people who actually train athletes not just write about it". I laughed, then I thought about it. This forum might be the best source in the world for speed development. Charlie, Number 2, James Smith, Pierre Jean, etc. Lots of guys with a lot of experience in “real world” stuff. One of the best investments I have ever made is going to Toronto on a handful of occasions to work with Charlie. It’s literally one of the best things I have ever sunk money into as far as return on investment.
- It’s garbage
- It’ stupid Russki crap. Look at all those great Russian sprinters, err…
- Yessis apparently did a jgood job making some folks slower with his methods.
There ya’ go, 3 reasons.
To add to Lyle’s comments, Yessis made his reputation (I use the term loosely) on translating Russian articles and materials (i.e. Soviet Sports Review). Not training athletes on his own. And, from what I understand, he’s not even good at translating.
I remember a story from a friend who attended a conference where Yuri Verkhoshansky (sp?) was going over some information in Russian (over the phone or closed circuit). Yessis was translating the presentation. Val Nasedkin (Omega Wave guy) was in the back re-translating everything to the people in the audience because Yessis was messing up the translation. Eventually, Val got on the phone and properly translated the information. I’m sure James Smith was there and could expand on the story.
If you can get the book for free or maybe a dollar, get it and look through it. Sometimes it is good to see what crap is being published so that you can make sure you don’t fall into the same trap. Or, it will reaffirm that you know tons more than the infamous Michael Yessis.
Yep. That’s pretty darn accurate
I aslo bought that book about 6 years ago.
I even tried the exercises, and they were useless, and yes, I had a slight decrease in my sprinting speed.
Michael Yessis believes you can train each individual element of the sprint stride with stretch bands and cables.
He’s wrong. He has studied bio-mechanics and kienesology, but has a useless training method. He has worked with athletes from other sports such as tennis. The sprinters featured in his book, all looked second rate.
In one photo, he demonstrates halfsquats (not even as deep as parrallel) with nothing more than a stretch band tied to his waist, and the other ends under his feet.
The only chapter that is interesting, was the chapter on bare-foot running. Bare-foot running is an interesting training option for middle distance cross-country runners and recreational runners, but I don’t see how it is practical for sprinters. Apart from may be in the warm up and cool down phases of a training session, done on the in-field.
Not to make this a Yessis bashing party but his ‘star pupil’ is some kid who went from like 11.0 to 10.7 in HS.
Dude if I can find the book I’ll give it to you. I may have already thrown it away…garbage!
Who DOES have the greatest sprinters NOT of West African descent?
What about doing light/easy tempo on grass barefoot? I like doing that on occasion. Is that bad?
The Japanese.
Poland back in the 60’s under Gerard Mach. Much better than the Russians. The only top sprinter to come out of the Soviet Union was Borzov, and as Charlie has mentioned a few times, Borzov did not follow the official training system and was resented by the top officials for it.
Polish sprint training “secrets”? Definitely. Soviet sprint training secrets? Myth.
Even setting aside Charlie’s methods, as Charlie himself has stated in a post years ago, if people simply used the methods Gerard Mach and Bud Winter were using back in the 60’s they would get much better results than the “high tech” crap that has become popular over the last 20 years.
I got the book… I would just give it to you if you lived close by…lol
Yep. I was disappointed.
I thought it was that crazy quarterback who went to USC,Todd Marinovich?