Tellez/Lewis basics.

A short article on sprinting basics as told by Telles and Lewis:

http://www.angelfire.com/stars/springtrack2000/training/carlsprints.html

One questionable generalisation:

‘six-day cycle: hard, medium, hard, easy, hard, medium’

Vague sentence - ‘talking but saying nothing’:

“For some athletes, getting bigger and stronger might be the way to go,” Lewis says. “But I’ve also seen people as big as houses who are as slow as molasses.”

You probably don’t need to think about the following unless you are making consistent errors in those areas.

"As you run, the ball of your foot should be first to hit the ground. Your heel should then quickly touch the ground as your body passes over your foot. Make sure you don’t kick out too far. This will disrupt your balance and slow you down at the end of each stride. “Think about your strides getting quicker, not longer,”

“All movement should come from your shoulders. You want a smooth swinging action, with your arms moving straight forward and back, not side to side. Your arms should never swing across your body. All your energy should be used to go forward”

This is my first opinion of the article, one read through only. The rest of the article is good advice IMO. And I realise that it is much easier to be a critic than to do it for yourself.

I like Lewis’s idea of telling yourself that “this is the best race I have ever run” during the race to stay relaxed.

Jimbo,the cycle canbe changed depending on the period of the year.TT was only giving examples on the structure.nothing there looks vague,i have posted the workouts from the UH/SMTC to give people the insight into the training structures.as initial contact is made by the foot the ball will contact first and COM passes’ over the heel will make brief contact.just do a slow mo of any sprinter and you’ll see it happening.it is not a heard thing to run properly.if you do have mechanical issues you are defeated already with that attitude.you got to be open minded and creative,believe in yourself!

To be pedantic “Tellez recommends the following six-day cycle: hard, medium, hard, easy, hard, medium.” Maybe that’s a problem with the article itself - I would need to see the source. In my first post I was criticising the article alone, and not Tellez/Lewis.

I believe the quotes about technique are accurate, but I don’t think you need to consciously try to alter technique unless there is a consistent problem (Whether or not to do it at a given point in time depends on the ability of the athlete to change their own technique also). You never know, someone might develop good technique naturally!

Jimbo,everyone from an early age has sound mechanics naturally.its the improper coaching that mess’ up alot of athletes trying to do stuff insted of letting it happen.carl lewis is the most precise/perfect mechanical sprinter i have ever seen.ok yes his perants had him do drills from an early age but they didn’t alter his natural movements which we all have.the whole purpose of the article was to make athletes aware of basic mechanics which alot of us don’t have to care about because we all do such movements naturally.

I think the point of the article was to give a summary/introduction to Telles/Lewis training methods/philosophy no?

I think a better job with the weekly set-up can be done. Hard,medium,hard is hard on the body. There is also some intensive work in his program (repeat 200s in 23 seconds for 19.7? sprinters).

Not necessarily true. I have seen kids run clumsily with arms flailing going nowhere fast :smiley:

scarface,i agree totally but what percentage do that.i’m consistantly looking at my little cousins running/playing and mechanically wise they are sound.take a look at the leg action and the basics of the action and you’ll see its all there.the arm action can be very easily changed whereas the leg action is alot more difficult.

theone,this is only a brief example of the basics tom tellez applies to the athletes.i have posted numerous UH/SMTC programmes numerous times for all to see.the easy medium and so on session canbe changed according to season period and condition of the athlete.it dosen’t have to be hard easy medium it can also be medium easy hard and so on.