Jimbo they need to start learning and doing their homework! The information is out there. There is always an excuse - training facilities, support, money, time, talent…blahdeblah.
That is why this forum is so useful.
This is the problem with the UK. People generally act like sheep in all walks of life, no one wants to stick their head above the parapet (the British reserve). They don’t seem to be creative in a constructive manner. Its only if Sir XYZ says its good then the herd follows.
Coaches in the UK use all manner of explanations for their lack of wanting to learn and listen from, natural talent, to the cold and climate making it difficult to train properly.
Its not going to change. What will change the climate is if a coach from another country decides to move to the UK and starts to apply new training methods that produces real results. Look at Rowing (Jurgen Schiffer) in the UK and Gymnastics, Swimming (Bill Sweetenham) even Football (Before Wenger came to the Premiership many coaches tried to train their players at the same volumes and intensity throughout the season, Wenger and his assistants, train the Arsenal squad to an optimal point of fitness and maintain the peak of fitness, only going back into volume training when needed); because of the mentality of people to sports and coaching; believing that training is pretty much ineffective without talent foreign coaches who believe in training methods have had to be employed to remedy the situation.
UK coaches have had access to US coaching methods for years. When I attended Loughborough University, the library had Soviet and East German literature, Italian literature US literature and Canadian and Australian and German; you name it; if you wanted to get your hands on sports training methods it it was there. The British Library arguably the greatest library in the world has access to almost all sports literature and training methods on the planet. They need to apply themselves learn from other coaches when they go abroad, ask questions. Unfortunately I think that the attitude you alluded to about coaches in the UK not being interested in Charlie’s methods probably extends to Micheal Johnson as well…because they will conclude that he was successful because of great natural ability…sad but true. They will conclude that they have not had success with their own athletes because of lack of talent.
I liked how I did my apprenticeship as a fitter/turner; you only passed each module based on the finished product. meaning I could run a lathe machine as fast or slow and cut as little or as much as I wanted each cut but as long as the finished product was within 0.1 of a mm, then it didn’t really matter.
Though, to be able to achieve a near perfect end product, you needed to know exactly what “doing this or that” produced. You still needed to know the basics of how to operate. And how doing this faster affected something else which needed to be done faster or slower. If you knew how everything affected everything else, then you could at the end of the day, change settings to get the job done faster with a perfect end result.
But it seems, other places didn’t put such emphasise on teaching this to their apprentices. Since finishing my trade, the amount of people who really just don’t know is amazing. They might be able to get the end result, but take twice as long, three times as messy and needed more people to help them.
I guess it comes down to, the more you learn, study and apply yourself to the task, the more your able to fiddle with this or that to get the finished job done sooner, with less injury and a better final product.
Pretty accurate. Read my discription of the British coach meeting Steve Wiliams for the first time in Speed Trap. Sums it up.
I only caught the part of the programme where Devonish was present. It was embarrasing but not that suprising. I’m afraid Colin Jackson showed his ignorance as well, surely Malcolm Arnold taught him better than that. It just highlights the dangers of allowing former top class athletes to work with aspiring athletes. They don’t neccesarily know enough to be a good coach, just what worked for them. It would have been interesting if MLF had been in the studio as well. Perhaps his maximum speed work consists of split rep 60m sessions.
My understanding was that the CJ group did use very short recovery times in general.
Still probably longer than most UK coaches. I’m sure I have some pre Barcelona Olympics training sessions with CJ and LC. I will have a look and see what the recoveries were like. I have used much longer recoveries than UK coaches I know since talking to GDR coaches in 89 and reading Speed Trap. Try to convey this information to coaches and they look at you blankly and you just know that the mental shutters have come down.
Read it, nothing much has changed since…honestly.
Yes, they trained hard almost everyday, with short recovery between sprints.
And they are still doing the same today. It doesn’t work so well when you have a real 100m runner either.
Note Craig Pickering went from 10.22 at 18 to 10.34 this year having started training with Malcom Arnold (CJ’s old coach) and he has been injured all year. They do no tempo work its either weights or speed/SE.
I can’t believe I missed this thread! I must say that I’m surprised at CJ’s lack of knowledge towards SE! Especially as this is someone who has a wealth of track training/experience on his side and is mentoring/tutoring young or up and coming athletes!!
I think the point that a good athlete may not necessarily make a great coach is true.
Wait for the news… soon we will see if it is indeed TLs methods.
You obviously have insider info on the supposed training moves! 
Just while he’s in the news at the moment, any idea if Linford is suffering from the same issue - great athlete =/= great coach? Or is he a bit better educated?
He worked with Darren Campbell and Katherin Merry as I recall. Neither quite made it at the very highest level for any period of time.
Thoughts on his potential as a coach? Who did he learn from (excuse my ignorance)?
From what i hear Tim has now moved to LA to train with HSI.
Yep thats what i heard and other athletes have left the group…
Darren Cambell was one of the most consistent medal winners/championship performers in UK athletics. Considered to be good at peaking rather than leaving it behind on the grand prix circuit. In my opinion he made the best of his talent in winning medals without ever being able to set mega fast times.
Kath Merry - interesting one. IMHO one of those sports people cursed by injury problems. Whether she would have been less injured with another coach is a moot point.
The big question about Linford is how much of the coaching was done by him and how much by Ron Roddan …
according to Colin Jacksons autobiography Linford’s success was down to the times he worked with Malcolm Arnold and Ron Rodden just set out the cones and clocked the sectionals.
Who else has left the group?