Stephen Francis notes from OZ

here are some notes i was sent from when Stephen Francis was in OZ when he had a discussion with some coaches.

Training Structure:

Training starts at 6am and is completed by 9am and then 5hrs later they will lift. This is shifted to 5am during summer. Six days per week, while weights are performed Mon, Wed and Fri. and are a total body approach. There can be up to 50 athletes at training at one time which results in some athletes getting very little attention. He feels, however that the group dynamics and the fact that athletes push each other, more than makes up for this.

The initial months of training are performed in flats and on the grass. They then progress to spikes on the grass for 1 month before going to the track. His whole emphasis is not getting injured in training and was a point he made over again.

Performs lots of bounding for distance (up to 100m but decreases throughout the year) and frequency, power skips, split squat jumps but does not do box jumps.

Stephen felt that there training is long to short as they do breakdown work such as 400/300/200 etc during general prep and special prep etc however it is more a short to long. The long to short component is with the endurance component while the speed component is short to long. Sessions include acceleration work on hills, sled and without. The hills are quite steep and will be 40-50m in length and up to 150m for the 400m athletes.

Works on the development of speed all year round and as his athletes only handle a small amount of speed endurance then they complete this all year round as well. He did not go into specifics with what he regarded as small or large volumes

Believes athletes should do 300m runs however his evidence was more anecdotal as this was recognised as an important component to sprinting by Jamaican’s and Americans. It is very common to be asked “what is your PB for 300m”? Therefore, the reason is more cultural than physiological. He also felt that sprinters were inherently lazy and liked athletes to perform some work. They will perform 300m runs up to 5days before competition starts which is usually around May.

Weights:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday
No athletes perform back squatting as he feels it is too dangerous. He did not elaborate on this, however he did mention that the men lift significantly more than the women and as a result there is a lot of time wasted changing plates etc. They do not do leg press or snatch. However they do large amounts of single leg lifting and felt that if it is not going to improve your running or a component of your sprinting then why do it?

They test Hang Clean and Bench Press although he felt that Bench Press was for about fun and camaraderie than actual specifics for sprinting.

They lift up until the week prior to the major meet, however most of the summer is simply spent maintaining strength values from previous cycles. This meant that lifts were usually around 85% during competition and not 90-95%during strength cycles.

Technique:

Francis feels that if there are technical errors that he cannot change then they are probably not worth changing, however this is dependant on the individual coaches “eye” at various running speeds. He does however rely on video to view races of athletes he is not able to see in his group.

Tapering:

Not convinced of the value of tapering. Athletes do what they normally do week to week but do less volume. This is still tapering but there is no magic formula that he prescribes. He did feel that Australian sprinters face an extremely difficult job in trying to peak for Australian Championships in February /March and then again in August. He felt that only true elite athletes can do this and gave examples of Cathy Freeman and Melinda Gainsford.

Great!

I been wondering if anyone got notes for this since it happened.

Interesting the approach seems to be similar to PJ with Olu :confused: regarding work from both sides. If this is the case, why not run indoors?

The Japan video showed the early workouts up that huge hill with dozens of people. Early workouts to stay out of the heat?? Maybe all the “lazy” is from 5am workouts! :smiley:

Nanny, rep points for you “my man” (Denzel American Gangster like)

Thank you very much, Nanny. Great write up.

If you note carefully, you may come to the conclusion that it’s more S-to-L as the higher intensity is concentrated over 0 to 30m from early on and is of a far higher intensity than anything done over long reps- this would go along way to explaining the pedestrian 400s run early. A guy with that speed would NOT be running 48sec on a L-to-S program. (I saw more detailed notes on this but wasn’t sure if I could post them)
Let me put that 400m in perspective for you. While at Stanford, Peyton Jordan wanted me to run a 400m in a JV meet before the Varsity season started. All eight lanes were filled and I figured I was home free. So I told Peyton that there was no room- he replied: “No problem. just start behind the guy in lane 8, follow him around and just pass him in the extra lane on the home straight.” I did that and ran 48.0 without much effort.

everyone says he does L to S but really isnt it a concurrent program.

There seems very little change from when I saw him a few years back. Everything you describe is as it was back then in 2005.

Does he enter into diet or any other lifestyle factors supporting the training programme?

So why wouldn’t he run indoors with his higher accel runs in training, vs running slow 400s outdoor?

I guess I’m still not understanding the logic in this. :confused:

May be a fear of indoor conditions but Asafa is able to open at 10.04 pretty much at will.

So maybe that is why he hasn’t run indoors in a few years (according to charts).

So would you say a runner who wasn’t able to do this might benefit from the indoor races on this program?

Last time I recall Asafa running indoors was the WC in Budapest in 2004 unless I’m mistaken?? I also recall he withdrew after the heats but I can’t remember the reason. I can only assume it is some sort of injury, which may play on his mind persuading him to avoid the indoor season?? I’m sure a while back, in 2005 maybe, when Asafa had all the injury problems during the season, Francis attributed it to 200m competition, and drastically limited the number of 200s he ran. He then came back and got injured in a 200m last race last year, so I don’t really know what that tells us. I just wonder whether Francis’s reasoning for limiting his 200s in previous seasons has also caused Asafa to miss indoor seasons??

The charts show 04 being the last indoor meets, with a 6.56 and 6.60.

I do have the more in depth notes here somewhere, i will dig em out and post what ever was missed in the first post.

In addition it may also be due to the unfavorable trade off between money (not enough) and lost/compromised training. His outdoor season is pretty long already why add to it with an indoor season.

just my $0.02

Take a look at our original discussion about races and results

Nanny, any chance you could post the more detailed notes?

Thanks!

what do u guys think about the early morning workouts, im sure the cns isnt sharp.

Weights:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday
No athletes perform back squatting as he feels it is too dangerous. He did not elaborate on this, however he did mention that the men lift significantly more than the women and as a result there is a lot of time wasted changing plates etc. They do not do leg press or snatch. However they do large amounts of single leg lifting and felt that if it is not going to improve your running or a component of your sprinting then why do it

Not sure I agree, back squatting is definitely less dangerous than single leg work. All that single leg work maybe the cause of the AP groin injuries.

It seems hard to believe that the fastest man on the planet is doing his speed work before the sun comes up, on an island with impeccable weather year round. I can’t imagine Powell running at his 11-12 MPS velocity with little food in his stomach and likely being groggy. There must be more to the story.

esp at 5am, i did a rehab acc workout last week at 830am and i felt like shyt.