Ok, AthleticsCoach, very good posts by the way!
Charlie ~ (a bit of a fanciful hypothetical here, but… ) if MJ came to you in top form and injury-free and saying, “Hi Charlie, I would like to train with you, with the eventual aim to improve upon my 200m world record. Here is the training routine I’ve followed ~ (MJ produces the workouts posted by Dazed on page one of this thread) ~ I’m a clean slate, open to any suggestions that your instincts might lead you to believe would be an improvement to this program… whether the changes are a tweak here and there, or a complete revamping.” ~ If this scenario were to come to pass today, and MJ was in his 1996 prime condition, how specifically might you alter his program overall, and what would be the first thing you would do towards this direction?
(Much thanks)
Charlie would move him down to the 100m. After all 19.32 devided by 2 is 9.66
Yours truly
Bob Costas
Hahaha… nice 1. Good question journey and well phrased. I would also be curious to know if Charlie has any opinion on this one.
So would I.
Glad you liked it 
(Slurp)… I’m drooling in anticipation of the esteemed Mr. Francis’ response
…getting severely dehydrated in the wake of all the drooling-(hopeful)-anticipation of Charlie’s response (cough cough) 
What would I do with MJ? Nothing. What indication is there that he left anything on the table in the 200m? He trained in the most appropriate way for him.
“What indication is there that he left anything on the table in the 200m?”
No indication by MY eyes… but the vision you’ve fostered by the vast degree of your expertise surpasses my flailing blindness by a million-fold. (I was just curious if, due to the fact of your wisdom, you’d ever considered the possibility of what might happen if you were allowed to tinker a bit here and there with MJ’s approach to training. I understand now though. Thanks very kindly).
I just found this info from oztrack.com and thought it best to go in this thread. It’s a free public site so i assume it’s okay to copy and paste from it? Anyway here’s some info taken from a seminar by michael johnson regarding his training:
Strived primarily to be consistent, it was his number one priority.
Program designed to create this.
Did not believe in peaking
Built a base and then did not “milk” it too much, kept topping it up
Consistency - coach , training environment, everything - nothing ever
changed much
Setting goals - big goals with small goals to lead to it.
Maintaining work ethic required reminding self of goals, 100% perfect
training,
Coach learns from athlete, athlete learns from coach - feelings of athlete
shaped work done either quality or quantity. Athlete had superior mental
understanding of program,
Athlete-Coach rely on one another
Strategy
Initial College strategy was : Slow as possible for first 200m then go hard,
this strategegy was shaped and tuned over the years to be - reach race speed
as early as possible in first 50m cruise to 200m then accelerate steadily
next 100m and hold form for last 100m
Workouts done to rehearse strategy called EVENT workouts
eg 3 x ( 350m in 46s rest 1min 100) 5min rest
or
Event 300s
Which were run with first 50m very quick but then relaxing to go through
first 200m in 28s and then the last 100 sub12s rest 10min between (in
College) shorter later to maybe 5min
Aimed to have consistent stride frequency and length for duration of race -
not a longer stride at end, Allow a shorter stride to just happen but
maintain cadence.
Holding Form
Improved by Strength Endurance
Upper body strength from exercises like running arms with good form 5 x 15
each arm with 30s rest.
Did mostly 400m training even though he ran 200m in 19.32
Offseason did two aerobic runs a week 20-45min max. This was for firsrtv 3
weeks mostly but offseason was usually 6 weeks.
Longer reps 2 x 800m or 3 x 600m rest 15min
Common key workout In pre-season
3 x 350m rest 5min in College , later it became 3 x 350m rest 3min , each
50m at same speed.
One Speed workout was called 60 -40m
2 sets of 2 laps of 60m at 95% slow down 40m then pitter-patter jog 40m
then 60m at 95% 40m slow down - pitter patter jog 40m. rest between sets
5min
Speed work often was
30, 40, 50, 60, 70 on bend with full recoveries
Weight Training
3 Gym sessions a week usually in morning
from about 9am till 10am - over in an hour
On any day sometime done Mon-Tue-Wed or spread out in week.
Track is at 3pm usually over within 1:45
Weights is general all body work with short recoveries and usually 3 sets of
10 rest less than 1min maybe 30s
No squats , no Olympic lifts, Also did good variety of core work eg 3 x 30m
situps 1min rest
Gym did not change in format throughout the season
Did not ever lift really heavy , he did lunges
Normal Warmup
4 laps jog straight - run bends
Stretch 30min
Drills 4-5 x 30m over a speed ladder with fast cadence. This Michael
believed was significant effect on his turnover. These were done with a
flatish footed contact not with feet pointing down and a quick recovery.
Buildups sometimes for example 3 x 150m with each 50m quicker
Then workout
Comp Warmup
4 laps as usual
Stretch 30min
3 x 100m - first moderate, harder, fast with full recoveries
a few pre-race drills
Time Trials
Did not like Time Trials rather use a key session and base of ease of pace
and recovery.
Typically when 2 x 350m rest 3min in 46s was feeling great - race form was
great.
At Competition
Expect the unexpected
Visualization
Train the mind to control the body in competition in the way that is wanted.
Sustained Speed work
60m & over was at 95% - never 100%.
Longer work was done for stimulus not for race pace rehearsal, so nearly all
was at paces slower than race pace.
Speed
6 x 100m at 95% non-timed from standing start rest 5min
Plyometrics
Never did plyometrics
Overtrain - Undertrain
Better to undertrain than overtrain
Going into Championship
More taper (already doing less volume anyway)
Workout Accuracy
-
cones every 50m - beeper sounded at set intervals - athlete ran
each 50m at same speed. - Be on the buzzer -
Standing starts
-
Workouts done at times planned not faster - not slower.
Important not to go faster than predetermined targets even with 200s in 32s
!!
The program includes a plan that divides
Off season - 6 weeks (first 3 weeks on grass)
Pre season
Early season
Late Season
But almost year the program is similar
Monday - Tempo 200s starting with more at 32s and progressing to less late
in year in 25s
Tue - long reps starting at 2 x 800m progressing to 2 x 450
Wed - 350m reps x 2-3 - improving in speed
Thu- hills, speed or event specific
Fri - similar to Thurs
Sat - similar to Thurs
Refreshing Base
Coach needs to decide when to refresh base by going back slightly from
quality to quantity even if just for a week or two mid season , important
not to take too much from base.
Athletes rewarded
Athletes rewarded with fun things - more speed , less reps by doing well at
quantity stuff and proving they are ready to do less with more quality.
Coach decides timing.
More information is included in
Training For 400m at
<http://www.oztrack.com/order400.htm> www.oztrack.com/order400.htm
There you go, obvioulsy written in note format but some interesting info in there none the less.
Alan.
The university I went to school at runs Baylor’s workouts. Pace, etc is different.
No peaking, no squats, no olympic lifts, no plyos, 3-10 based weightprogram all year, as well as his trackwork that didn´t seem to change that much during the year and short recoverys…MJ never stop to puzzles me…
Quote from MJ on UK TV last year during a commentary stint
You could take an athlete with the same talent as me, give him my training programme but not achieve the same results
Guess that says it all…
The track work changed a reasonable amount throught the year. Volume came down significantly, times came down enormously and recovery shortened as the season progressed.
His concept of peaking wasn’t that far off from Charlies views on periodisation. I think there is simply a miscommunication in this …
When you understand why things are being done, you realise why they work.
MJ did plyometrics. There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there.
I agree. I remember reading 2 old magazine articles (Muscular Development, Men’s Journal) where MJ states that he did plyometrics (hurdle hops), lifted heavy in the preseason for about a month (October usually) and then did lighter weights in the competition season, and he also states that he did cleans twice a week, and I’m sure everyone has heard the report that his max bench press is 300lbs, (at least I have, a couple of times). If all these articles are to be believed, it appears that he modified his weight training program between 1996 and 1999, which is not surprising. In the Men’s Journal article MJ states that his weight workouts were supervised by Danny Brabham. I’m sure if he worked with MJ before the Atlanta Olympics.
Sorry, I meant to say I am not sure if Michael worked with Danny for the Atlanta Olympics, and for that matter, I’m not sure if all these magazine articles were written by a ghost writer either.
The guy who took those notes misinterpreted a heap of what MJ had to say. MJ actually said that he did some plyo’s but not box jumps, hurdle hops or bounding, mainly focussing on hops and skips.
The pre season volume is also incorrect, he said he did 5-4x350 at this point of the year. He also stated that he didn’t spend alot of time training heavy in the gym but did sessions such as 12,10,8,6,4,2,1 where the final rep was at quite a heavy weight, apparently when he went and did max’s the footballers in the gym were quite shocked that he was lifting as much as they were at a much lighter body weight.
I just finished reading the entire Oztrack article on MJ.
What it represents is the evolved version of Coach Hart’s 400m plan. Most of the changes were/are based on his experience coaching MJ. For the most part I believe that it is what he is currently using with the Baylor 400m runners. Whether we like it or not, it works. His boys ran 3:01.06 this past weekend at Texas Relays. Try to remember that by definition the methods cannot be wrong by definition, as they have gotten, and continue to get results. I think that this is what Charlie has said. A number of other USA universities use very similar methods effectively as well.
From my knowledge of MJ’s program, what Bennett has written is very close to the mark. There are some minor details missing such as technique runs and h-drills (fast high knees), but otherwise he’s got it right.
A few key points.
- MJ did as much work as possible on grass. There are acres of well maintained fields around the campus at Waco.
- MJ wore spikes sparingly in training, chosing instread to use lightweight trainers.
- MJ never left it on the track in practice. He never strained or forced an effort. The only really fast runs were on the short end (-150m). Coach Hart’s emphasis is on relaxed sprinting rhythm.
- MJ struggled with distances beyond 300-350m. I’ve seen this for myself, and he almost tantrummed when he wasn’t able to make his assigned time.
- The volumes in this program are actually somewhat less than they were when MJ got to Baylor. Coach Hart learned from the injuries early in MJ’s career. Also remember that in the American college system (NCAA) there are limits on the time that athltes can spend training in the off-season.
-Due to the risk of injury, MJ did little if any plyos or others jumping activities. Actually, I don’t believe that he did any. I suspect that this continues with the current Baylor team. They do use hills regularly. - In terms of weights, MJ did a very basic plan (intermediate?). To my knowledge he didn’t do cleans or squats, at least on any sort of regular basis. Don’t infer too much from rumor. Remember that he lived in Dallas and commuted to Waco 2-3 days a week from 1996-2000. He had a room full of HammerStrength machines in his house that he used as he was spokesperson for that company. I know that he used one of their leg-press devices. Yes he did bench, and could put up at least 300lbs, I think maybe a more.
Hope that this helps.
A very good post- verified information and the point that there can be no arguement with a historical summary.