Teams traditionally have great relays, great sprint programs etc… Sometimes I wonder if coaches get too much credit for what the athletes do, in all sports. For example, if an athlete shows up to a college running 45 in the 400, there is not much that coach has to do to allow that kid to maintain 45, what is harder is getting that athlete to run 44, but no one would notice because that kid joins 3 other 45 runners and they run 3:01, so we say the coach is great. I am not saying the coach isn’t great, but I think it is something to ponder.
Is Jon Gruden great because the Buccaneers won a championship after being on the verge year after year before he got there? Is Phil Jackson the best coach ever? How about Mike Kr(?) Duke b’ball coach. Maybe all answers are yes. But, I tend to look at the coaches who periodically get to the NCAA’s with no name guys, diamonds in the rough, teams you didn’t see coming.
I can’t argue with Coach Hart’s methods because like many have said, he gets results year after year, but he also gets the cream of the crop out of high school.
Having said all that, I think the best sign of the greatness of Baylor and what is expected of them is in 1998 at the NCAA championships in Buffalo when I watched either their 1st or second leg limp a 48 on a very bad hamstring and their team still make the finals.
look im sorry to interrupt the posts here but going back, saying mj did no oly lifts, did no plyos …
think about it for a sec, do u really think he would say EVERYTHING regarding his training???
think about 19.32, 10.12 curve and 9.20 flying straight
and then think no oly lifts, no squats, no plyos???
wat is he some natural born power machine!
u dont run 19.32 and not do squats!! or plyos!! or oly lifts!!! its just not human, not to mention the actual record is pretty much not human
i mean, very interesting articles on the guy, but dont just take evrything said as the actual theory of wat happened, these are training secrets and to them is worth a lot, i swear id say that maybe only 25-30% of wat said on mj is true.
im only saying this judging by his times, nothing more
everyone has his theories, but this guy really has managed to confuse every single athlete and coach.
The trend has been for those who improve in the program to peak during their sophmore season and then maintain. This is simply my observation.
If we look back at little at this thread (or maybe it was another MJ/400 one), I hypothesized that the Hart/Baylor program worked for MJ because he came in with a great amount of undeveloped speed potential. Hence the high loads of tempo work were for him at least mostly extensive. Look at the time demands and you will see that the pace wasn’t fast.
Now on the current Baylor people. Wariner ran 20.41w in the 200 as a schoolboy! This is much faster than MJ did at the same age as was his wind legal 21.17. Heck the kid ran 45.57 is high school. Obviously he is genetically gifted. I have also heard that he didn’t even compete in track and field until he was 17 years old. A 1 sec. improvement in the 400m over a two year span is not really that spectacular under any circumstance.
I don’t have Williamson’s high school 200m mark, but if you have seen him, it is pretty clear that this guy is also genetically very gifted. If it were up to me I would put him on the final leg for the USA’s 4x400m relay as he is fearless in pursuit and tough as nails with a lead. My guess would be that he ran at least 21sec. low for 200m before arriving at Baylor.
For these two the lack of quality speed work has not been a problem. Look at the two athletes who were on the relay with them early int he year, Mark Teter (so.) and Joel Martin (sr.). The later came to Baylor as a low-47sec. man and just broke intot he 46’s for the first time this year. The former ran 46.15 to win the Texas State High Schools meet in 2003, but ran considerably slower this past year. If you’ve seen either of them they are biomechanically not good. Both overstride and Teter really sits in the bucket.
In the end I think that it comes down to athlete. One thing that I will say is that within his system Coach Hart is a very wiley guy who can make adjustments based on his perceptions, which are usually very good.
I don’t know where this “he didn’t do squats stuff started”, but it simply isn’t the case. He did both conventional squats and the sigle legged variety. He also did some leg press type exercises. Was his strength progam sophisticated? No, not by the standards of this board. But his did weight work for his legs.
It is my understandiing that plyos as were very limited. Injuries were always a big concern. Besides they don’t do much in this area in general at Baylor. I don’t think that Coach Hart has a real good handle on this area.
Remember that Tommie Smith and Lee Evans rarely if at all lifted weights and never did any jump type training and both of the were pretty darned fast.
So could it be safe to say that Coach Hart’s program is one that’s setup for only those athletes who are already where they need to be (biomechanically AND physically)? In other words, is it possible that Coach Hart is not a developer of athletes (taking them from ok to great), but more of a “finisher”, a coach that takes the gifted and those who are already great and makes them some of the greatEST? Kinda like the Phil Jackson of Track and Field perhaps?
Coach Hart has developed some athletes along the way. In fact that’s how he built his program, taking solid high school athletes and getting them to improve substantially in their first 2 seasons. Then it was hang on and try not to get injured. The American college system is not about long-trem development; it’s 4 years and good bye, espcially in the 1960’s + 1970’s when he started formulating his system.
Now he gets good ones.
I think that the problem that alot of people on this board have with Coach Hart is that his methods are at odds with what Charlie espouses. Each of us has to arrange our methods based on what seems right. Coach Hart has alot of imitators and most are at least moderately sucessful.
I must say, I agree that the athlete’s does make the difference. I don’t know many coaches that can take an average athlete and turn him into a world class one.
Try Phil Lundin at Minnesota. His 4x400r has been second at NCAA’s the past 2 years and none of the guys he has came to him running faster than 48.0sec. To me that is a truly impressive accomplishment.
I whish that I had direct knowledge of how he trains his athletes, but I do not. Both Potter and Steele have written some diaries over at TrackShark and the later gave an interview at the same site after winning NCAA’s last year. Minnesota appears to do a great deal of hill work, and according to a coach that I know who spoke briefly w/Lundin, they do it throughout the season, including right up until champioship meets. Take this with a grain of salt as it is 2nd hand info which I really don’t like to post. Steele also mentioned a form of split 600’s that they do which they call “600 breakdowns.”
By reputation, and again this is not objective, Lundin is very highly thought of by people that know him. According to them he is very knowledible in the area of speed-strength development. He’s from Minn. so he knows how to adapt his program to the setting, but remember that they have an indoor track. As the high schools don’t (to my knowledge), this could go some way in explaining the increadible rate of improvemnet for many of his people.
As to P.B.'s prior to arriving at Minn., Steele had actually run 47.6 in high school, as had their first national class guy Tom Gerding. Nevertheless, a 3sec. improvement for the former is very impressive.
Last point, and more on topic, Williamson of Baylor was a 20.91 in high school, so like Wariner he got to Waco with much of the needed speed developed.
MJ had a strength coach. He definitely did some weights work. He almost definitely did some kind of strengthening for his legs. Weather it was squats or leg press or whatever, I’m sure he did do something to improve on his natural raw strength in this area. Maybe he did not do Plyos or Olympic lifts – who knows.
Why do people think it is impossible to be fast without Olympic lifts and Plyos?
While there is a lot of literature promoting Olympic lifts and Plos for speed work one must remember that these kind of activities (in terms of stuff you can do in the weight room) carry a high degree of danger. Generally the more genetically capable you are of producing large amounts of force (high neurological efficiency and fast twitch profile – e.g. a 100m sprinter) the more likely you are to injure yourself because your body cannot withstand the forces you are capable of producing. Olympic lifts and plyos involve more force than almost any other activity. Therefore, they carry a higher risk of injury.
So, perhaps, for MJ the trade off wasn’t worth it. He knew that he was capable of generating the force - all he needed to do was apply it to sprinting and that required skill work (running) not more strength work.
So long as he was a strong enough torso to maintain form that was enough – so that is what he concentrated on in the weight room.
This seems a very reasonable and realistic hypothesis.
It was my undrestanding that MJ’s strength training (weights) was designed to prevent injury and supplement what he did on the track.
From what I have observed coaches all too often get locked into a single approach to whatever discipline or event they are instructing. Anything that varies from this is viewed as invalid or wrongheaded. Charlie has a certain approach to sprinting that is proven and works for him. Clyde Hart (and numerous other US college coaches) have a different approach which is also proven and works for them.
I’m of the opinion that if a program is organized, with progression towards the highest level of achievement attainable for the given athlete, and that it doesn’t beat them down, it is likley to be effective. This, as long as the coach and athlete both understand and believe in what they are doing.