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.