The factor which struck me about Alan Wells training, was not the speed-ball…
It was that he did the bounds allmost every day during some of the training phases. Doing plyometrics 5 days in a row is considered a ‘no-no’ in the so called ‘sports science’ world, but Alan Wells did it.
And as sprinting itself is plyometric, and often done more than one day in a row by many sprinters, then why can’t bounds or hops be done on back to back days? Last year (whilst reading this thread), I learnt that about Alan Wells.
Dan Pfaff would sometimes set up a training week as thus:
Day 1: Acceleration. (max)
Day 2: Top-end speed.
Day 3: Speed endurance.
Day 4: Accell
Day 5: Top-end
Day 6: Speed endurance.
Day 7: Rest.
And thus, an example of how sprints can be done several days in a row. So again, Alan Wells, doing plyometric bounds 5 or more days a week, is not so strange.
It also seems to me, that Alan Wells, was a bit more enthusiastic about the plyometric part of the Bradley and Margoret Wells training methods, than some of his team-mates. Wells was a fomrer long jumper, and took to the bounds like a duck to water. Were his team-mates as consistent and disciplined with that part of the training method? Alan would probably do the bounds in the frigging North Pole if that was his only option.
The irony of the speed-ball, is that whilst a practical alternative for the Wells and Bradley brigade, in the garage den, in the middle of no-where, it’s not so practical for many of us.
A speed-ball is very noisy, which is why allmost every gym (except boxing gyms) don’t have them. Also, I can’t put up a speed-ball in the house where I am living, as I fear it would disturb the whole house and all the neighbours.
They’d complain about the noise.
I’d love to put up a punch bag and a speed-ball which are fun ways to train, just not practical for me. How about any of you?
Also this: when I trained with a boxing club (many moons ago), I was slower than a few of the other boxers on the 1.5 mile ‘warm-up’ run before the circuits. Despite all the speed-ball and punch-bag and basketball, and kung-fu I had been doing. That is untill, I satarted including jogging sessions in my private spare time. After just a few jogging sessions in my local park, I quickly caught up with the other boxers in the running in the next boxing session. It seems that running, is far more spacific to running, than speed-ball. (like every one allready knows.)
So is it Alan Wells ‘out-door’ training and Jim Bradley’s outdoor training that is a little different? They still did the run-thru’s and striding allmost every day, even in the winter. And Alan did all those bounds. This is where the speed is coming from, not that much from the speed-ball.
And what about those ‘chinnies’ done for 6 sets of 100 reps? What kind of impact does that have?
Seems like this thread doesn’t know how to stop.
