I hear that Haile Geb only needs to train with 10 minutes per day of pushing a lawnmower.
Seriously, this is a pathetic attempt to sell a book/DVD based on a training protocol that does not match that used by any top elite runner. Nor any serious club runner.
Buy a book by Arthur Lydiard or Seb Coe`s father.
Barry Ross is the same guy that said Allyson Felix’s sprint training had no positive effect on her results and that it was the lifting they did that made her progress.
Link?
The stuff I’ve read from Barry (in articles and on his forums) always supports running fast to become faster. His book just focused on the lifting part of his protocol. His other website, ASRspeed, focuses solely on fly sprints as the running training. Basically, he trains by lifting heavy (>85%) and running fast (>95%). Intensive tempo and overdistance work aren’t a part of his protocol. I know both he and Ken have a ton of respect for Charlie Francis and often reference him throughout the discussions. I believe the quote they often like to use from CF is something like, “Sprinting is specific to itself.”
As for distance training, I am completely clueless…
Go read his forum. He’s said it multiple times. I’m not going to bother finding it. He actually had to ban members of the Felix family from his site because they tried to point out she did a minor amount of lifting with him and actually ended up hurt for a fair portion of the time.
It’s also funny you mention that he supports running fast to become faster because he recommends that someone begins sprinting just before the season and doing only lifting the rest of the time because sprinting isn’t necessary.
I never visit this site.
Interesting - I’ve occasionally thought what Alyson Felix thought of this bloke claiming to be the brains behind her elevation to the elite level.
From what I have read, he had very little to do with her track work and was merely a high school ‘jack of all trades’ strength coach who happened upon an extremely gifted athlete for a few years whilst she was in high school.
It was some time ago, and by now I would have thought he had other strings to his bow other than to keep regurgitating the Felix line.
After several years of pushing his barrow, there’s still no real evidence at the elite level that his dead lift & ASR protocol develops faster athletes.
From a fast running perspective, the anecdotes at the start of this thread have more holes in them than swiss cheese. Hardly an endorsement for what appears to be a very dubious premise for his ‘secret to fast running’.
He’s got something to sell and there’s plenty of suckers out there looking for the quick fix, so good luck to him.
You can say what you will about Barry and me. We both have broad shoulders. My exchanges with Charlie go back to the time Mel invited both of us to join the Supertraining forum. Charlie knows how I feel about his insights, expertise, and contributions to the speed community, as well as the classy way he has helped forum members with problems not even directly related to speed enhancement.
You will not find any disparaging remarks about Charlie or his training protocols on the bearpowered forum. In fact, there is no other author whose works are so highly recommended on that site as Charlie’s. When I do my seminars, Charlie is the one I most frequently quote. Whenever I save up a few extra dollars, it’s one of Charlie’s e-books that I most look forward to purchasing. If you think there is a major disconnect between my positions and those of Charlie, check with someone who knows both of us, Tom Green. He can help set the record straight.
For those who disagree with our approaches, we sincerely respect your opinions. However, I’ve found a few previous posts to this thread somewhat disconcerting. It saddens me that forum members would denigrate the insights of Officer David Pike without knowing the background, particulars, or focus of his study. Pike, a US Air Force 2nd Lieutenant, was conducting a graduate school research project involving several fellow officers. When that project was complete, he forwarded the procedures, data, and analysis to Barry. Barry was not even aware of this project until Dave suggested he was planning to conduct such a study. Dave has no connection to Barry other than being a visitor to the forum.
After Barry received the data, he asked Commander Pike’s permission to present this information on bearpowered.
There are many things you can criticize us for. Just ask our spouses and they would agree. However, in this case, I think the classy thing to do would have been to avoid disparaging comments about someone before first getting the other side of the story. Officer Pike deserves better.
He had ‘no dog in this fight,’ and it is unfortunate that his link to Barry cast doubt on a project that, were its not for its association with someone you dislike, might have been given better consideration.
Barry Ross has never made disparaging comments about Charlie or his training on his forum? That is an outright lie. You may not find them anymore because of some trimming done after the fact, but it certainly existed.
Ok I can or cannot say if Barry Ross has made disparaging comments about charlie or his training but I know for a fact that Ken Jalenski has never made a degrading comment about Charlie or anybody else for that matter. Trust me the man is a stand up guy. I used to train with him when I was playing football and running track. When I told him I have a friend who is going to visit charlie and he invited me to go along he was excited for me. He asked me to call him and talk about what we do and what he says. He always comments about how intelligent charlie is. But when I was training with him we always talked about technique, turnover, body lean, you know, all the right stuff a sprinter should know. We never did the quote on quote Barry Ross method. He did explain it to me but we never actually did it. Trust me everything we did was actual speed work. I was still training at michigan state at the time so I was getting info from all over.
Well notice I said Barry Ross, not Ken or Joe or Jack or Jimbo or anybody else. Thanks for the concern.
I’ve been coaching high school track and field for the past thirty-five years. I have never coached an athlete remotely close to an elite level or even emerging elite, but I take what I do very seriously.
Back in 1996 I had two paralympians, Tony Volpentest and Marlon Shirley, compete on my high school track here in Illinois. Against one of the best fields of Masters runners in my state, Volpentest ran the 200 in 22.94, a time faster than 97% of every able bodied high school kids I’ve ever coached. Volpentest had no feet and no lower arms. In fact, he had to rest is stumps on padded paint cans in order to start.
How was a guy with no “feet” for dorsiflexion or “push-off” able to run that fast with keel bars that, by today’s “Cheetah standards,” were practically Frankenstein-like? If correct arm carriage was so significant, how was it that he could run that fast (at least by my standards) without anything remotely resembling proper arm swing mechanics?
Despite the fact that I sponsored a specialty clinic called Ground Zero: The Role of the Foot and Ankle in Running featuring Tony’s coach, nobody in the running community whom I had contacted could basically ‘answer’ my questions regarding how he was able to run that fast on keel bars. That then led me to Dr. Weyand’s locomotion lab at Harvard University and later at Rice.
Little did I know that, across the country on the west coast, Barry Ross had been contacting Dr. Weyand regarding how a strength-training program might align with the findings from his JAP 2000 study, which is now considered by many to be “seminal” research in the field locomotion.
Dr. Weyand referred Barry to me, and that began our relationship, which culminated in a “study” similar to what Charlie did with the Jane Project. In fact, I referred to it as the “Barry Project.”
I was going to “give” Barry a fairly decent high school two miler (10:03) who had never broken 7.8 mps (9.56 in a fly 75) in his first three years of high school. I would have that athlete follow his protocol to the letter, and I would analyze any changes in mechanics via SiliconCoach and OptoJump, to see if, with nothing different in the way this athlete would be trained other than the addition of the strength protocol, what the effects that protocol would have on his top speed. My hypothesis was that no single lift with no ancillary lifts, no standard periodization, and no conversion phasing, and carried out over a relatively brief period of time available to a typical high school athlete would have any impact on an athlete’s ability to generate higher meter-per-second.
I presented all my findings to Supertraining a little over a month into the “project.”
For those who despise Barry for what you consider to be a limited background, lack of expertise, marketing hype, or his unfair ‘challenges’ to the elite in the coaching ranks, I will say that much of what is ‘out there” falls under typical ‘cyber-noise/gossip”’ which is often the result of distorted quotes and hearsay.
If Barry has said any disparaging remarks about Charlie, I have never head him say those to me, and we are often in communication. I frequently endorse Charlie’s e-books on the bearpowered site, and quote Charlie often in forum threads. If there was any resentment that Barry felt toward Charlie—as a person or a coach, or major disagreement on key issues, I would certainly have expected him to disagree with me or challenge my insights on Charlie’s approaches, which he has never done.
Has Barry banned members of the Felix family from his site? Yes. One and not “members.” And the reasons for that banning have nothing to do with Barry trying to ‘silence’ a critic.
Has Barry misrepresented his “role” in working with Felix?
I have read his book twice, and Ms. Felix’s name appears nine times throughout the entire book. Most of those references were intended to introduce his actual involvement in her training. Here is one of those passages:
“Eleven years later, in 2000, freshman Allyson Felix walked up to me and said, “I want to lift weights with you”. The three other young ladies, two freshman and one sophomore, who accompanied Felix spoke up immediately–“So do we”. Felix had recently returned from the United States Junior (under age 20) National championships where she had been tested in a number of categories to see where she could improve her performance. The tests showed that Felix, though still a freshman in high school, already ranked at the elite levels in almost every category tested except one: Her strength rating was below the minimum chart level.”
Ms. Felix chose Barry because her coach at the time, Wes Smith at Los Angeles Baptist high school, told her to approach him. Barry had been a long time voluntary throws coach at that facility. Coach Wes Smith liked what Barry had been doing over the years they worked together.
Barry had recently completed 4 years of coaching Jessica Cosby, a fifty-foot plus thrower who was ranked #3 in the US among high school shot putters a year earlier and was finishing up his work as throws coach for the lengendary Tommie Smith at Santa Monica City College. Barry did not apply to the college but was sought out by Tommie Smith at the request of two of Smith’s throwers.
Barry had ample time to watch Smith’s coaching methods and toward the end of the season, he invited Felix to have Tommie watch her run and comment on what he saw.
Pam Spencer Marquez, a three time Olympic high jumper, and later a member of the USATF Athletes Advisory Committee and Secretary of USATF, was one of the members that accompanied the U.S. junior team that Cosby competed on as well as Felix’s team four years later.
Marquez asked Barry to coach her own daughter when her daughter decided to drop basketball to become a shot putter.
Barry has never, and does not now, consider himself a strength and conditioning coach. This was never his ‘job.” In some ways, it has been much easier for Barry to accept the research than many of our colleagues because he was not a long time sprint coach.
His book was intended to put forth a link between the support force data presented in JAP2000 and a possible means of improving the athlete’s ability to generate greater forces through a specific strength training protocol.
Ken, why the lies? Part of the reason the forum was deleted was because of the fact that Barry made such absurd comments to begin with. This isn’t the place to go into detail as much of it is banned from discussing on this forum, but Barry’s comments re: Charlie, CFTS, and other elite coaches have hardly been positive, to put it lightly.
What forum or part of the forums with Barry were deleted? You probably have more insight regarding this forum than I do. To clarify the issue, perhaps it’s best to ask Charlie what of Barry’s posts he had to delete because of “absurd” comments. I believe all of Barry’s posts are available in the archives. Under Search type in “Barry Ross” and all those exchanges should appear. The only one to clear this up would be Charlie.
Regardless, my initial comments were addressed to material that currently or in the past has appeared on Barry’s site.
I just found this in the archives:
Originally Posted by Juggler
James, good to see you posting again, but somewhat ironically, I have to disagree with someone who knows more than me, namely you:
Does that mean that Charlie is 100% correct? The doubt was with “some of his coaching methods”; not all.
[i]Response From Charlie:
“I have to agree here. Challenge is fair game, just as I’ll answer back with my views. It’s clear from this thread that this has been a good thing. There are some great posts here for everyone to read and think about.
As for “one athlete”, one is one more than most will ever develop.”[/i]
I don’t find in Charlie’s rerponses anything to suggest that he was disturbed with Barry’s tone, style, or quality of posts that required deletions. Again, maybe you know more than I do on this issue.
I will say that the above comment from Charlie is just another example of the class and character he approaches any discussions on these issues. And it is that kind of class and character that I try to emulate on Barry’s site, Supertraining, this site, and in any correpondences I have with colleagues on issues where, as Charlie notes, “challenge is fair game.”
Ken wrote: 'possible means of improving the athlete’s ability to generate greater forces through a specific strength training protocol."
I appreciate your comments Ken and I cetainly have no personal issue with yourself or Barry Ross, but Ross does goes well beyond suggesting his protocol could possibly improve an athlete.
He literally denounces the established sprint training methodologies universally aknowledged and practiced by many coaches including the best in the world, and claims he has unearthed the secret to faster running.
His theories are still hugely untested and apart from the brief encounter with Alyson Felix when she was in high school there is virtually no evidence of any other sprint training success directly related to his ASR & deadlift protocol.
He’s basically a strength coach (obviously a very good one at that) with some history of success with throwers.
He is not a sprint coach, has never been a sprint coach and probably will never be a sprint coach so anyone aspiring to or already coaching sprinters would need to keep that in mind when buying any of his products.
Are you playing dumb on purpose? The old forum on BearPowered, which included exchanges between members of the Felix family and Barry, Barry making numerous poor remarks about Charlie, John Smith, and many other coaches, in addition to some hilarious comments (including muscular hypertrophy merely being caused by fluid retention, with other factors being much more minor) and more were all deleted.
Let’s not even begin to get into the athletes he has attempted to attach himself to (many of whom enjoyed plenty of success before and after Barry supposedly “trained” them to varying degrees).
I am not here to defend Barry’s character or his insights. Just as I don’t know your client base or number of elite or emerging elite athletes you’re coaching, you likewise don’t know the extent of his. Nor does it matter, because it’s drifting from the initial reason I came back to post to this thread in the first place: the dismissing of a study conducted by an Air Force officer for a legitimate graduate level project because the findings seemed to corroborate the points Barry highlighted in his protocol. By all means dispute the methodology, control group, etc. of that study That is part of good academic debate. But what saddened me was the dismissal of someone’s efforts primarily because they seemed to reinforce points proposed by someone various forum members simply do not like. That just doesn’t seem fair or professional. Officer Pike was not shilling for Barry Ross. I feel sorry for Officer Pike. He did nothing wrong
Further, I don’t know if it is fair to assume that Barry’s strength protocol is largely untested without knowing his client base or ties to the research community. After all, it is that very research that forms the basis of his approach. And if you set the value of his client base to world class athletes using his protocol, then you are indeed correct, that his approach is untested among an elect group for whom very few of us ever have the opportunity to train. Would it be fair to offer that your protocols are unproven because I don’t see any Olympic finalists in your resume? Of course not.
And if the man happened to be coaching national class athletes within your area, which could indeed be the case, what would it matter? If someone dislikes him and what he stands for, mentioning those individuals he is training will be met with either challenges by those who dispute those relationships (without really knowing their history or background), or charges that he has resorted to shameless pandering or bogus connections to sell a book. In other words, he’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.
If you have read Underground Secrets, didn’t like the book, and didn’t catch the clearly “tongue-in-cheek” nature of the phrase itself and the cover of the book, that’s fine.
We are all able to write our own texts based upon what we have learned through our associations, contacts, experiences, and educational backgrounds.
Regarding the previous comments about “why the lies” and being “dumb on purpose,” might not those also constitute “poor remarks” about someone you do not really know?
Do I now go back to bearpowered and claim I’ve been called a ‘liar’ or ‘dumb’ by members of this forum? Of course not.
Once again, my point is that it is neither fair nor professional to challenge someone’s character on the basis of partial information or comments taken out of context or suspected motives And this is what I believe has been the case with Officer Pike. Sadly, that is no longer the point being discussed now.
And on a final note, since I’ve told this to him many times, I didn’t think much of Barry in our initial exchanges either, until I got to know the man.
We should all take a lesson from Charlie, whose shoulders are indeed broad enough to look beyond those remarks that others would find offensive or disrespectful. Charlie’s art is his ability to find some good in the message regardless of any initial impressions as to the character of the messenger.
Why are you bringing up Officer Pike or anybody else? I don’t know who that is nor do I care who it is. Do you actually read what is written and who it is written by? You are bringing up so many tangent topics and red herrings, it makes your points even more unintelligible. The point is Barry has said numerous disparaging things about CF and his fellow elite coaches, along with their methods, ethics, etc. To deny that much is incredible to say the least.
Lies is a fact–I know that you participated in discussions (as in, you posted in the same thread, not that you agreed) where Barry made such comments.
Playing dumb–acting as-if the old forum where all of this took place wasn’t deleted or that none of this happened.
Those are facts, sorry. They aren’t meant and can’t be interpreted as disrespectful as I am using the dictionary provided terms for such occurrences. I am curious why you don’t just address what is said and instead go off on such tangents.
Red herrings?? tangents??
Go back to the very first of my posts to this thread. Here’s what I said:
“I’ve found a few previous posts to this thread somewhat disconcerting. It saddens me that forum members would denigrate the insights of Officer David Pike without knowing the background, particulars, or focus of his study. Pike, a US Air Force 2nd Lieutenant, was conducting a graduate school research project involving several fellow officers.”
In my last post, I reiterated that point:
“Once again, my point is that it is neither fair nor professional to challenge someone’s character on the basis of partial information or comments taken out of context or suspected motives And this is what I believe has been the case with Officer Pike. Sadly, that is no longer the point being discussed now.”
I noted from the outset that what you or anyone else says about either of us is of no concern. You’re certainly entitled to your opinion in that regard. A large part of that initial article posted focused on David Pike’s study.
I was concerned that comments such as “a pathetic attempt to sell a book/DVD based on a training protocol that does not match that used by any top elite runner” cast Dave’s research in a bad way. That troubled me. Maybe in hindsight I was completely wrong on that point. Maybe Officer Pike’s study had little or nothing to do with opinions that followed the post. Maybe it was all about Barry, and some interesting research simply was of no consequence.
On lies regarding what you believe to have been ad hominem attacks on specific coaches in the field, or the assumption that there were clandestine deletions to remove these attacks, why don’t you simply write Barry for an explanation before offering your interpretations?
Maybe he will tell you that the things he said “can’t be interpreted as disrespectful” because he was “using the dictionary provided terms” for his statements? And really, what were those statements? And do you sincerely believe they are now all gone by purposeful deletion? And why would he delete them?
You’ll never get these issues resolved until you ask for an explanation… unless you feel comfortable with your theory that there was some conspiracy to destroy these disparaging remarks, just so someone like you wouldn’t be able to find them again and use them against him?
Now who is being dumb?
But let’s see, that “dumb” could mean–by dictionary definition–lacking the power of speech, conspicuously unintelligent, or unintentional and haphazard.