Speed killed Rooney

I SUSPECT THERE IS A LOT MORE TO THIS SITUATION THAN MERELY THE FACT ROONEY DID SOME EXTRA SPEED WORK. IT MAY BE A CASE OF PROGRAM CONSTRUCTION: WHY DID EXTRA SPEED TRAINING FORCE HIM TO ELIMINATE WHAT HE REFERS TO AS HIGH TOLERANCE TRAINING/ ON A CONCURRENT PROGRAM HE COULD HAVE HAD HIS CAKE AND BEEN ABLE TO EAT IT TOO, SO TO SPEAK… kk

Rooney better for criticism

Thu, 15 Dec 07:15:00 2011

Martyn Rooney listened to his critics to detrimental effect this year - but he insists he’s moved on and is better for it with a return to what he knows best well in motion.

The 24-year-old caved into a growing demand for him to work on his speed last season - ultimately paying the price at the World Championships in Daegu in the summer.

Rooney, making his fourth appearance on the global stage, failed to reach the individual 400m final while in the relay he led Britain to seventh overall.

He immediately knew the reason for his failures and has since returned to old ways - but does credit the switch for reaffirming in his mind if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

“Last season is not going to be remembered fondly by me. I tried something different and it didn’t work,” said sprinter Rooney.

"[b]I was put under a lot of pressure to do speed work and so I tried to do it someone else’s way and things just didn’t click.

"Commentators and coaches have said I lacked speed so I did a lot of stuff away from my natural event - but I always thought I was quite quick[/b].

"I was working on my 200m personal best and it took the focus away from the 400m too much but I can tick that off the list, it was something that had to be done.

"I think every athlete tries something new to find that extra edge but it didn’t work for me. It was six months that I almost wasted in reality as I was there in body but not really competing.

"I am back to doing high tolerance stuff, the bread and butter and stuff that I am strong at and, in a way, it was good to know that what I was doing prior to my change was working.

“I’m about three weeks behind in terms of my training at the moment - I need to get some quality sessions under my belt and get back on the right path.”

Next year’s Aviva Series, which includes the Olympic trials and Crystal Palace Grand Prix, will feature heavily on Rooney’s 2012 schedule.

And, while most athletes can’t wait for next year’s London Games to begin, Rooney, who finished sixth in Beijing in 2008, can’t wait for them to end.

“Time spent doing anything other than training is time wasted in my opinion and it will be a matter of whoever is the fittest will come out on top,” he added.

"There is a lot of furore surrounding the Games, understandably, but I can’t wait until it’s over and then I can start talking about how good it was.

“I’m sure we’ll put on a world class Olympics. It will be hard to rival Beijing given the amount that was spent on that but I’m sure it will be memorable.”
Sportsbeat / Eurosport

Very true KK. It also remains to be seen if he really did do speed training. There’s many who simply go from intensive tempo to even higher intensity intensive tempo and call that speed work, then they blame “speed work” when they don’t improve or get hurt.

There are many coaches and athletes in the UK at present being being told they need to do more speed work and or are not doing it right. I have to laugh when individuals cast a glance at someones preparation and feel they know better. Its good to see that this individual has had the courage to have tried, realised it may not have been for him and gone back to what has worked. From history the UK doesn’t seem to have had any problems producing Olympic Gold Medallist in many speed and power events. Hiring all these individuals to come in the UK and tell the local coaches what to do is only going to come back and bite them in the butt and as usual it will be the home grown coaches whom will be there to pick up the pieces for very little financial reward. I hope this athlete has not discarded his previous coach in order to have tried the new approach he took this season because from what I read in the Lactate Threshold in their prep for 2006 CWG that the coach obviously lived and breathed the sport and was passionate about improving his athletes performance. More so he was willing to share this preparation on this forum. Will be interesting to see how this ends up unfolding.

After his season ended this summer, he posted on Twitter something about “specific speed not working, time for a change”. I asked what he meant, but have yet to hear back. Was he not following your stuff for a while KK??

ESTI I have no idea who reads or picks up bits n pieces of the lactate thread. I would really like to know. Charlie said he thought Nery Brenes (spell, apologies) might have been using the ideas but that’s only because I think he watched a TV report on how he trained a couple of years back and thought the workouts looked alike in some respects. He didn’t explain in which respects though. I just hope anyone who takes on the concepts or specific sessions meets all the success in the world.

He ran 20.7 or .8 this year, previous best was 21.3 when he ran 45. In 2007. I think he was carrying an injury after that early may 200m run this year,which may explain poor 400m times, as he did get faster with each race later in the season. Injuries have been present in pervious seasons as well, but a major overhaul of any training program that got u to elite level is never a good idea. If anything, he prob needed to stick with his old program and do less volume than ever before,more recovery, more therapy, more intensification in the special end runs in the final spp.

He was instantly critical after the race at the worlds.

Didn’t he change coaches in 09?!?! (I will have a look) I thought it was his old coach in the lactate thread too.

It is a big prob here in the uk, the love of intensive constantly and the love of rehab lol

I’m just happy I base my training and coaching on things I have learnt and not what ‘told’ to do!

What athlete was sprint coach working with? I thought Rooney, maybe not…

Wasn’t Rooney.

Here’s a video of one of Rooney’s sessions from last June:

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/237630-Flotracks-Workout-Wednesday-Season-5/video/498908-Training-with-UKs-Martyn-Rooney-June-2011

-Session is 2x (3x200m) 90s rest/rep, 20min between sets.
-Times 23.0, 23.8, 23.6 and 23.1, 23.5, 22.3
-Coach they talked to was Nick Dakin
-Rooney says technique is all about pulling the knees up versus pushing last 100m of 400.

http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=6004

Interesting to see his race progression from that time