Are you talking about this article?
by Michel Portmann (PHD)
Professor at the department of Kinanthropology at the Université du Québec à Montréal and Bruny’s personal coach.
Can your provide the link?
This ( wrong) 3 day rollover was featured ina an australian sprint presentation by Faccioni.
The common 3 day rollover is more like
power activity
elastic and metabolic emphasis
speed endurance
If you scroll dopwn to page 18…
It sais Dan Pfaff. 3 day rotation…
Day 1. Acceleration - Power
Day 2. Top-end speed.
Day 3. Speed endurance.
After that is sais “Rotate these sessions.” Some how I miss-interpreted that to mean: repeat same the next three days.
I remember the web page also featured a little on John Smith & H.S.I club phillosophies, and it said Dan Pfaff used the coaching cue of driving the legs like ‘pistons’ in the early accell phase.
The same article was a mish-mash of various well known coaches. It also said Flo-Jo could do a 150kg lunge.
That’s a substantial misinterpretation bc those are just the high intensity days. He lets the athlete decide how they want to do it. In one of his seminars he said some people with go 1 rest 2 rest 3 rest repeat others might go 2 days of rest, some do all 3 days and then rest a long period (if in a unique situation), etc.
Didn’t Dan, maybe joking, mention that he had one athlete do one 3-day rollover cycle in a month while in Europe?
Wouldn’t surprise me if they actually only did that when they didn’t have a coach around to hound them.
Yep. I think that was with competitions in between the days, though.
Ya I kind of assumed that as well, either way the implication was that he felt he pushed the kid too hard going in.
Was that Oba? 
Question for Youngy. What happened to Clay Watkins at the Aust Nationals. Was he injured or sick?He seemed to be progressing really well then a 48+ run in Perth. Just interested. BTW well done with Woodhams at Stawell.
G’day Grooster,
A bit shocked actually. Didn’t see it coming and I’m still not sure what happened.
We’ve had one private discussion about it and he has his theory and I’m still thinking about mine. I certainly believe he was training & running better than 48.22 shape! But why it happened - ?? god knows.
I wasn’t in Perth, followed the results over the net.
As I had my hands full with the Stawell/Ballarat campaign maybe I took my eye off the ball in respect to Clay…can’t put a finger on it but will be having an indepth discussion later in the week and go through everything.
All’s not lost - if they are willing to pick Moore on his 46.7 at the nationals, and leave a spot open, there might be a chance to run something respectable (low 46’s or a PB…) in July that may impress the selectors. Have to wait & see what we can do.
Thanks Youngy.
I hope he runs a sub 46 again by Aug 16 and the vacant spot is filled.Good luck.
What vacant spot? With all due respect to Youngy and his 400m protege Clay Watkins, I think you’ll find it will take something pretty special by Clay or pretty disastrous by Tristan Thomas to keep the rangar 400m hurdler out of the 4x4 squad.
Thomas bailed the Aussies out last year and replaced Milburn in the 4x400m which won the medal in Berlin. I doubt the high performance dept or the selection panel will readily be dumping that young man.
As for why did they pick someone (Kevin Moore) who does not have even a B-qualifier, ahead of Clay Watkins who does have one, you probably need to read the specific relay selection criteria - but I’ll save you the effort: there is no specific relay criteria! They can pick whomever they want.
However, one always presumes that head-to-head results during the season, but especially in the designated majors (Sydney & Melbourne Track Classics, State titles and Nationals) are paramount.
On that basis, Moore (best of 46.1 in Sydney TC) beat Clay 3-0 and although Kevin - aged 19 and in his first season of 400m preparations - ran on empty tanks by the time he arrived in Perth, he did reach the 400m final and placed fifth in 46.72.
Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, Clay got slower as the season progressed and he failed to reach the National 400m final. That was end game right there (unless he had a medical excuse submitted to the selectors prior to the Nationals).
Clay ran 48.22 when it mattered most, at the National Championships. He placed fifth in his heat and was eliminated. Andrew Boudrie qualified for the final out of Clay’s heat in only 47.18.
On the evidence, it’s really not hard at all to understand why Clay missed this team.
But Youngy has guided him to 45.9 and he can do it again. This was very much a breakthrough year for Clay and for Youngy as a coach in the area of elite 400m performance (45.9 is a very respectable performance and perhaps the fastest in Australian pro running history. To my knowledge, pro Olympian Rob Ballard’s 400m best was “only” 46.2sec which he clocked in 1988 to make the Aussie team which reached the Seoul Olympic relay final.)
KK
It’s Clay Watkins, not Watson
Is Kevin Moore in the NSWIS program you consult on?
Thanks Hicksy. My apologies to both Clay and Paul Young. I have made the corrections to Clay’s surname in my post. Thanks again.
Yes, Kevin Moore and another guy, Matt Lynch (47.97sec, third behind Offereins and Moore in heat 1), are part of the NSWIS fast track project, so is Lisa Spencer, third (in a PB) in the 400m Hurdles final.
Everybody had either run out of gas or were underdone (Lynch, Lisa) - due to injuries for the main. So it has been a troubled season and the athlete who had the least troubles made the most progress, that being Moore who is on the Games team. By the way, the Games 4x400 is also the Oceania relay for the World Cup in Croatia.
Moore was invited to compete in Japan in Shizuoka (May 3) and Osaka (May 8) but declined, opting on his own volition to rest now for a couple of weeks in order to resume a cycle of GPP on May 1 or 2 because he wants to press for a place in the final four line-up for the Delhi Com Games.
I think that sort of high performance mentality is what every coach is looking for.
Lynch, however, will make the trip and, so far as I know, may well team up with Clay Watkins in a long relay team to race in Osaka.
But Lynch, as stated, is well underdone after missing three months of event-specific training (in my opinion) and might do OK in a one-off race.
The experience in any case will be good as he has only raced 400m five times, two of those efforts being heats this season.
He opened his 400m career in late November with a win over the Beijing semi finalist Joel Milburn in 46.6 and then within a fortnight was on the injury list, badly tearing a hamstring muscle while taking a holiday on the Gold Coast with family and friends.
There was nobody present to hold him back when he tore on the fifth and final rep of a session supposedly being run at around 95% effort. After four PBs at four distances from 260 down to 140 he decided to wrap it up with another one to complete the greatest session of his life.
What is it that Charlie always says: “When you think you can do one more rep, you’ve already done one too many!”
Or, alternatively: “When in doubt, leave it out!”
I think Matt Lynch would have run sub 46sec this Aussie summer. How far under 46? Who knows?
I think the decision to take a holiday mid-season has cost him his dream of representing his country in a senior international championships - at least for the time being, but this was definitely his best chance to date.
He says he has learned his lesson. We will see. He is a lovely guy, good company but boy did he blow it!
In fact his failure may well have opened the door for his training partner, Kevin, to make the Games team.
No worries KK.
Can you enlighten us on the structure of the Fast Track program? Who came up with the initiative? Are the athletes in the program all NSWIS athletes? What is the ultimate aim of the program?
Just for the record I didn’t query the selection of Moore over Watkins at all. Clay failed to perform at the nationals and could not be considered.
My query is that in light of the ‘only 3 females picked for the women’s 4 x 400m’ decision it seems inconsistent to select someone a fair way off the pace, and in the context of Australian 400m running Moore’s time at the nationals was that. I was surprised that a guy who only ran 46.7 at the selection trials was selected for the relay. Whether that be Kevin Moore, Roger Moore or Mary Tyler Moore, the name isn’t relevant.
Good luck to Kevin; I guess being only 19 had something to do with it and it will probably be seen as inspired choice if he continues his rate of improvement.
My view is that had Watkins run ‘only’ 46.7, I’m not sure he would have been selected and I probably would not have expected him to be selected.
The reality is if Clay can get back to 45.9 shape by 16th August - the cut off date for final confirmation of the team, (admittedly that is remote albeit not impossible) he does have a slight chance of being added. The selectors have said up to another 30 athletes will be added providing the results are there. Athletes still have to prove themselves fit & capable before being admitted to the games village and the selectors have shown in the past (ie: Offereins in 2009) that they are willing to add athletes who have shown great form prior to the meet.
One can never say never.
Regardless, Clay will be one who can run in races to give some competition to those who are selected and we can have another crack at getting the prep right, which I’ve clearly stuffed up this season!
Our main aim is to structure a program that gets him back into 45.9 shape so that we can use it as a launching pad for the 2010/2011 season.
PS: Be terrific to have a structure in place where we could conduct a thorough review with a range of competent people including high performance coaches/managers & sports science personnel. The lack of support & resources in SA is hurting track in Adelaide and leading to its demise. The SA Sports Institute does not have an athletics program and to compete with programs such as that available in NSW, Western Australia, Victoria & even Tassie is very frustrating and making it extremely difficult to compete in a level playing field.
I am happy to help you go over the season. Don’t know exactly how we could do that, unless you have Clay’s year mapped out. Obviously whatever you did up until January was superb and then maybe he ran out of condition gradually as he got closer to the nationals. So already I’m guessing he might have over-raced (as Kevin Moore did) and maybe also that coincided with the need for a brief blcok of training away from comp during which he could re-charge his abttery and refresh…
kk
According to you, Kitkat … ‘A brief block of training … could re-charge his battery’ …
(Michael Johnson and Clyde Hart said the same thing, YEARS ago.)
What exactly do you do? Go back to SPECIFIC training (e.g. what you did in your ‘transition period’), with more volume as in the competition period? Stay away from competition for a while?
I think the struggle to get to previous times, happens all over the world with coaches and athletes, where the time spent to competition training is way-way too long. Athletes cannot maintain their good form for such a long period of time - and performances go down. This is the most difficult part of planning for any coach!
It would be interesting to see what you and Clay’s coach find in your ‘research’. Please share the outcome with us!