Shawn Crawford & John Moffitt coaching clinic

Athlete Development
1

Yesterday Athletics Australia had 2 of the international visitors give a training clinic here in Sydney. Here are my mental notes from it, so some things may have been missed, or not 100% correct.

After an introduction the sprinters went with Shawn and long jumpers with John. I went with the sprinters group, so can’t say what was discussed amongst the jumpers, but given there was only about 7 of them, it would have been a great opportunity.

There was about 30-35 for the sprints, a mix of athletes, caoaches and parents. Shawn started off by outlining his training warm up, and about 15 of us actually went through the warm up and drills.
[ul]
[li]3 laps. Run straights, walk curves.
[/li][li]A Skips
[/li][li]B Skips
[/li][li]High kness with extension
[/li][li]‘All together’ from above using 3 point start
[/li][/ul]
Drills are 3 * 30m. He prerfers to do drills on the track, but some others in his group use grass.
He made the point that drills to be done well, not just done. Later there was also a comment like - lazy session brings lazy results.

In their fall training they set an endurance base. This includes 3 & 400s. Didn’t sound like a full long to short plan, but more of an ends to middle. [Would like to have quizzed him more on this.]

Other comments made:
[ul]
[li]Big emphasis on weights. 5 times per week, 3 lower 2 upper. Numbers drop once comps get closer. 3 weeks out.
[/li][li]No real plyometric work now. Did that in college.
[/li][li]Lots of hill work when younger from his dad, and still occasionally does it.
[/li][li]Get plenty of rest (he often fails on this)
[/li][li]Eat well. (complains the best tasting things are not always the best for you.)
[/li][li]Keep hydrated.
[/li][li]Pre race. Sometimes likes to block out world with music, sometimes likes to hear what is going on. Started out with headphones before 100m at Sydney A series, but took them off.
[/li][/ul]

He was happy to answer questions, and treated them all with respect. Came across as a relaxed person, but confident in his abilities.

This was a very informative hour. I was suprised more perople did not attend, but also happy they didn’t.

Good work Athletics Aust for organising this.

2

No plyo work at all?
Any medicine ball work? Med Ball throws?
So he hits the gym 5 times a week, Did he mention how many times he hits the track a week? Thanks, if you recall anything else, post it up, good information.

3

He did use the med ball in his abdominal workouts. This is another big part of his training. 1000 reps across 10 different ab exercises. Done every training day. Not suprising if you see shirt less pics.

I didnt catch the specifics on number of track training days.

I also remember his recoveries seemed a bit shorther than I expected. 150m with 10min rest. 3-4 reps if I remember correctly.

I should have taken a video camera or tape recorder.

4

Wow, that’s quite extreme with his abdominal training, interesting.

5

Ab work and low intensity med ball stuff is VERY important. I have made the mistake before about neglecting it.

6

What do you do personally for ab work in an average week? What are you training for? I’m just wanting to compare, maybe it’s an area I can improve upon in my training.

7

3 lower w and 2 upper…3 lower on speed days I suppose…

8

Atleast 3 days/week I’ll do ab exercises from the GPP dvd and quite a bit of low intensity med ball stuff. I don’t know the repetition numbers. I’m training for lacrosse.

9

http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/15022007/5/photo/u-s-sprinter-shawn-crawford-center-poses-photographers-compatriots-lashawn.html

http://www.netglimse.com/celebs/pages/shawn_crawford/index.shtml

It says there he’s 74kg. how can someone do weight 5x a week and stay at that weight at 5’11??? im struggling bigtime to keep the weight off (part of me wants more weight but i know it will only slow me down). Ah sure im slow anyway so what matter!

10

He had the same weight listed in 2002 when he was lots smaller…probably in the 80kgs neighbourhood…weights are not always up to date…remember a 92kg Christie still listed a 77kg at tokio world champs…

11

Weights 5 times a week??? How the hell does he recover???

Hardcore CNS.

12

3x lowerbody 2x upper–the GPP dvd has 6x like that.

13

Bro theres more then one way to skin a cat.

14

But wouldn’t that be year-round and low-rep, high weight? He says that the numbers don’t drop until 3 weeks out from a comp…

Surely there would be a lot of CNS fatigue?

I doubt that Crawford would be doing any lower intensity, hypertrophy-based work.

15

He didn’t really specify what numbers meants. Total volume, total number of workouts, total weight, etc. I think he is referring to number of workouts and total volume when he says numbers, but hopefully someone that was there can elaborate.

And why don’t you think he would be doing accumulation/bb/hypertrophy weights or maintenance weights?

16

i dont suppose u got/heard anything from the moffitt clinic??

17

Ah, I thought he was talking about how much weight on the bar.

As for hypertrophy, Crawford is a 100/200 guy and dosen’t need that much weight. He’s quite big already, in my opinion.

I just felt that he wouldn’t be doing such things at his level, with years of training under his belt.