Discuss.
https://twitter.com/StuartMcMillan1/status/766997966712221696
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For those who think you have to sprint maximally to get faster - not once all year did De Grasse sprint at maximal speed …
Thoughts?
Did de Grasse got faster this year?
He did run a wind assisted 9.69, which probably played a role in the injury that cost him the world champs later in the year. I don’t think they are telling him not to run at full speed in training, he just doesn’t seem capable of reaching anything close to his competition speed in practice.
I would stay off the internet - just so much bullshit it make things worst and more difficult most of the times. Over many years of studying Charlie work and asking questions - I have the knowledge that I am very selective in what I read or coaches I talk with. Everyone is trying to become the next great guru!!!
I don’t get it.
What is the point of getting faster if you can’t show up at the big meets and kick ass?
DeGrasse and his coach or coaches had a chance of a life time to beat the main man who has dominated for years and they blew it.
Yeah accidents happen and bad luck happens but why? There are a few things that don’t make any sense.
How did you get injured in the time frame that you should be doing all things extremely carefully and mindfully with the greatest amount of caution? 10 days out you are basically going through the motions and waiting to run and get out and beat your competition.
Instead we really never got a answer did we? What exactly happened?
And DeGRasse isn’t a struggling to make it athlete either nor are the coaches. Maybe that is the issue and problem. They now don’t know they own privilege.
Awe what do I know. I just know what I have been taught and trained to think based on adding things up and what a crime for DeGrasse to have been out of the competition. And wow. Let’s reinvent the wheel. Let’s see the documentary on all the awesome things happening out of the camp where you don’t do speed work to get faster. I want to read that book.
hahaha
That post on twitter is from 2016 after the Rio olympics.
train slow to pull a hamstring when it counts during max v
I almost spit out my morning coffee reading this.
Sorry to jump in so late.
Stu clarified what he meant latter. I also saw him speak a few months after that comment.
Degrasse had a long NCAA schedule with a lot of races over the past year or so.
They felt the best course of action was basically to not mess him up at that point…make sure he was healthy and ready and trust the majority of training up to that point.
So they did many sprints on grass, a lot of work over wickets, etc. Fast “sprinting”, but not spiking up and hitting fly’s much on the track.
Basically by Stu’s definition, on grass without competition counts as “sub-maximal”. Same with sprinting over the wickets. He also clarrified that the only time you do truly max velocity work is in competition.
Just clarifying that they weren’t doing tempo or repeats or anything like that.
My rule of thumb is that most sports requires some training at close to competition pace/intensity and in the same surface and environment.
Keeping clear of spikes/track can cause injury on resumption of that surface - due to subtle biomechnical variations with the surface compared to grass. I have seen plenty of people struggle with achilles and calf strains when starting to run again on the track.
I appreciate the point about true max being only in competition. Nevertheless the idea of almost achieving this from 95% efforts in training is pretty common.
I would have thought it better for DG to recover from the previous period of heavy racing with a longer period of complete rest followed by a gentle GPP. Then returning to the training model that was previously successful for him.
By the way I have a suspicion about successful young athletes achieving top class international levels then changing coaches. Why fix something that is not broken. There is an even greater example of this at Altis than DG.
From what I understand they did not avoid ever working on say, blocks, curve running or speed endurance or ever spiking up and hitting the track I just thinking they shifted it away from that as far the ratio of days or workout volume.
If I’m not clear, I’ll try again. I think their course of action was to focus on recovery and health and basic technique/fundamentals as opposed to training designed to get him faster.
I’m definitely not an ALTIS spokesperson. But I did get the treat of hearing him talk and I feel like he filled in some holes that polarize from his social media posts.
I kind of wonder if a good distinction of what ALTIS does is to Optimize vs. Develop. That’s makes sense to me, but I’m not for sure it would to other people.
If the case, that would be reasonable. Without seeing comparative volume/frequency of speed work it would be incorrect for me to propose there was not enough specific speed work.
I can understand that concept. My reservation is any change in training protocol risks injury/performance decline in the early days due to the simple fact of unfamiliarity. For some athletes there may be a fundamental incompatibility with a new regime. eg take a power sprinter with success from short to long and moving them to long to short with endurance bias. Possibly an extreme example, but hope it makes the point.
Does Altis have a house philosophy for all athletes ? Or does it refine their original approach ?
From what I know, they make a big deal on everything being individualized and having different tiers of workouts depending on how they feel that day.
I got out my notes from that Clinic with Stu. Here are the parts about Degrasse coming in:
*Came from a program that ran fast nearly everyday (USC)
*Was in 56 races the previous season
*Came to Altis in Jan 16, “beat to shreds”, bad feet, worn out…
*Little bit of testing Feb-March using Freelap (flying 30’s, 2.74)…just enough to get faster, but not get “injurious”
*(McMillian) believes that you can sprint 10-15% slower than maximum and still have speed improvement adaptations.
However, I must note that de Grasse ran 9.96 wind-adied of cource, when he was 19!! I didnt know that… so… what a talent he is and I think he started T&F late… so running under 10 even with wind-aided shows that. But on the other hand…He hasnt done big frog jump sice then… his reg.PB is 9,91… so…
I just got around to watching the Drake Relays, where a few of ALTIS guys were in the mix (DeGrasse, Ujah, and Webb). None of them really looked all that impressive. With a 1.9 m/s wind, the results were:
10.02 Isiah Young
10.02 Mike Rogers
10.13 CJ Ujah
10.15 Andre DeGrasse
10.19 Brandon Carnes
10.20 Ameer Webb
I still can’t believe the DeGrasse missed World Champs and Commonwealth Games. Okay, I get that Commonwealth Games does not matter in the grand scheme of things but I still find this puzzling in the ex?treme.
Interesting results. What were the relay times? I am guessing the 6 you mentioned are Altis guys and then there were 2 more making up 2 relays
What the?
He wasn’t even in the mix.
Those were the top 6 places in the race (I didn’t copy over 7th and 8th). The ALTIS guys were 3, 4, and 6 in that list. Young and Rogers took it to them, and Rogers is 33 now!