Do we know anything about the plyometric part of this athlete’s training, Jason?
Hi Nik, Limited in terms of sessions done. No more than 8 sessions from November - February. Consisted of mainly of box jumps, depth drops and grass bounding (double and single leg). Doesnt possess the greatest elasticity! 
Interesting! Apart from the blocks, how are his times this season vs. PB? Has this improvement from blocks transferred to the rest of the distance, too? Sorry for all the questions…
Power Clean (with finish/catch), along with developing explosive strength and strength speed, develops elastic strength (due double knee bend) and speed of ‘muscle shutdown’ when transfering from jump phase to catch phase which is particualary fast. Also, eccentric strength can also develop if the catch is performed…
Thoughts?
Not at all Nik…ok…
Progression this year has been:
200m 2006: 21.27i
200m 2007: 21.06i (pb)
60m 2006:6.72i
60m 2007:6.65i (pb)
I think the improvements have shown considerably over the shorter distance.
I’m sorry for asking a possibly dumb question, but don’t these numbers indicate that the top end speed has increased this year? He is .07s faster thru 60m, which is about where he should reach top speed. But he is .21s faster thru 200m. If improvements were only coming out of the blocks, wouldn’t his 200m improvement be only be slightly better than .07s (faster thru 60m plus probably reaching top speed sooner). Wouldn’t a .14s improvement over the last 140m indicate that in fact his improvements have extended beyond the blocks, or have I totally missed both the question and the answer?
do you use the same progression for the power snatch, below you can see my progression for the snatch?
Power Snatch
- Overhead Quarter Squat
- Partial Drop Snatch
- Snatch Hang Shrug
- Snatch Hang Pull
- Hang Snatch
- Power Snatch
what do you mean clean from full ext, pull under fast into a fsq?
Tell him to change nothing! 
tamfb -For those sports that we actually have snatch, we do something similar.
- Snatch press + Overhead squat (here we’ll go all the way down. We also use this exercise as a movement prep/warm up anyway, so they get a bit of practice doing this. I believe the overhead squat is a great flexibility builder…)
1A. Snatch pull from hang (Unless they ask, we won’t have non-weightlifters snatch from the floor) - Power snatch
With cues like “palms towards pits” and “hit your imaginary belt buckle” the athletes have had a lot of success power snatching. If the want to progress further, we’ll worry about doing the classic snatch
As a methodical approach to teaching Olys I use
A base:
- Front squat
- Overhead Squat
- Military press
- Dead lift
- RDL
Then we learn a catch. I had some problems with it because it needs a good coordination. We hold the bar at the sternum level, rise on toes and dip under the bar in fornt squat position for clean. A cue ‘hit me with elbows’ helps sometimes to speed up the catch phase. Also, we utilize little shuffle of the leg as shown by Derek Hanson on Fundamntals DVD.
For snatch we hold a bar behind head on houlders. The atlhete also raise on toes and suddenly dip under and catch the bar in overhead squat position.
After this we learn Shrug & Jump from power position. It is basically a Mike Stone Progression from here. I had succes with Stone progression both with my training and with my friend along with 30 soccer players. They still learn but the after about 10 sessions they clean 50kg with good form from RDL position. When they come to 60kg I will start utilizing other progressions form floor (due plate size it is hard to put it on floor when less than 60 is used).
I DO NOT use pulls because I think that it teaches begginers to use arms instead of jump. They usually try to pull the bar with arms and I emphasise keeping the ‘elbow straigh’ all the time (except for cathc offcourse, but the cue helps). This doesn’t means I don’t believ in pulls, but I don’t use them until the form is great…
Shame there is no 200m at Euro indoors, could have been a chance for this guy to at least make the final.