Stormbikes wrote: “Oh dear!! Apparently then all one needs to do to win a Stawell Gift is run faster than the equivalent of 10.70 - REALLY??? Seems to me that many of these elite or amateur or whatever you call them fast guys have tried and FAILED!! Its a tough series of races and cannot be compared in any way to an “amateur” 100m on bouncy red stuff!
The arguments put forward here to discredit the Bradley system make no sense. Using the Pro Circuit to illustrate the argument is ludicrous. Surely anyone doing 6 x 3min rounds on a speedball PROPERLY on a consistent basis MUST improve!
Well it couldn’t make you slower now could it !!”
Thanks Stormbikes,
You are 100% right.
I first got interested in Jim’s training methods in the early 1980’s when Neil King was dominating the professional running scene. Once the amateurs opend up to allowing pro runners to compete, Neil’s athletes were very competitive on the national stage and two of them represented Australia.
This mirrored the success of Wilson Young in Scotland in the 1970’s.
Unfortunately both Wilson Young & Neil King only coached for about 6 to 7 years and consequently Jim’s methods have been fundamentally restricted to the professional running circuit with very little exposure beyond the pro-circuit, despite Allan Wells’ spectacular career.
Anyway since the early 80’s I have devoted an enormous amount of time studying results of those who have trained under Bradley’s protocols and learned that of those coaches who were seriously devoted to Jim’s methods (and there were only a few in Australia & Scotland) the improvement was substantial in the vast majority of cases.
I have reams of documents & articles that I’ve collated over 25 years that in my mind prove conclusively that if done correctly (with the right person in control) a coach can enjoy a very successful career developing fast athletes using Jim’s protocols.
Unlike North America where a person’s success is celebrated & encouraged, there is something in Australian culture called the ‘tall poppy syndrome’ and unfortunately instead of looking into what has contributed to the success, ‘we’ tend to seek out any negatives and attempt to tear the person down.
By extension, coaches who have no interest in professional running are understandably not going to entertain anything the sport has to offer. They are simply not interested in anything to do with the sport, especially any training methods unique to it. It would take a massive paradigm shift.
Jim Bradley has been an object of derision from many who refuse to understand nor accept that Jim Bradley’s success has been anything other than a bit of luck and that Wells must have been some freak of nature to overcome such an ‘impotent’ training method.
I do not think Wells was so special that his success could not be reproduced in someone else.
I’ll leave with one final anecdote. By nature I’m a sceptic. I’ll never fall for any get rich quick scheme, pyramid selling scam or fall for any bulldust. In essence I reckon I’m pretty street smart and perceptive.
In early 1988 having done my due diligence I approached Jim Bradley to coach me. I told him that I was uncompetitive off my Gift mark (6.50m) and just wanted to improve enough that with a bit more mark back I might be able to win something. We spoke for a while, and after weighing up the evidence he stated that I’d win a Gift off 6.50m and would run inside evens. I was 28 with a history of hamstring problems, had never runs evens in my life and had never won a heat off 6.50m, let alone made a final.
As much as I wanted to believe Jim, I was sceptical about his claims. I needed to improve something like 3m on anything I’d done before to get remotely close to winning a Gift off 6.50m.
Regardless, I thought I had nothing to lose so I trained as hard as I could in the gym and then flogged myself on the track. I felt terrific but I had no idea how I was going as I was only trialling with 3 other stablemates, one of which was Rob Kirsopp who could give me 7m start over 120m.
In October 1988 I went to the first pro meet of the year - Caulfield Grammar. I was off my mark of the previous season - the ‘uncompetitive’ 6.50m.
I was 3rd in the Gift and 2nd in the 70m winning prizemoney for the first time in over 3 years. When I went home to my wife, she asked how did I go, knowing full well I had been getting smashed for the previous 3 seasons off 6.50m always returning home with nothing.
As I walked in I didn’t say anything - I just went into the lounge room, sat down on the old brown second hand suede couch and sat there for a moment in stunned silence. Having not responded to her first question, my wife walked in and again asked how did I go in a pessimistic but sympathetic tone.
I looked up, opened my palms to reveal over $200 in cash, and to this day I remember exactly what I said:
“Jim Bradley is a fxxxxn’ genius.”
In December 2008, I won the Brunswick Gift off 6.50m and in time did get to run 2 yards inside evens. Bradley achieved exactly what he said he would do.
