"The only down side to forums is that the information never stops coming. When you are at work, training or sleeping, someone is posting good information. There is so much discussion that it can get lost in cyberspace. “The Classics” has taken that into account, and gone back to find the very best of topic information from the early 2000’s. When I joined in 2004 and saw all the information, and I felt behind. This book goes back and compiles in-depth conversations about topics ranging from nutrition through exact mechanics, and everything in between. If you were a member then, you’ve probably forgotten about this and could benefit from the refresher. If you weren’t a member then, like me, this info is great to have and be able to read through at your time and convenience. "
The Classics is a collection of threads from the very first Charlie Francis forum from 2001-2002. Back then the internet was a fairly new phenomenon and Charlie himself had rarely spoken in public since 1990. Today we take for granted that we can just log on and access one of the sharpest minds in sport but in 2001 no one had ever been able to do this before. Therefore, it attracted great interest from other top coaches and athletes interested in improve speed for both track and team sports. This resulted in a fantastic amount of discussion with in-depth, quality posts almost every day.
As with the other Forum Reviews posts are grouped together into topics and the whole thing is like reading a very large conversation. This format is sometimes hard to follow but there are nuggets of pure gold within every thread. As we experience today the discussion is driven by the performances at the time and there is considerable discussion of Maurice Green, Michael Johnson, Tim Montgomery, Marion Jones, Kostas Kenteris and Dwaine Chambers. This results in some truly unique discussions that clearly define the spirit of the era and will never be replicated.
Topics include:
Starts and Acceleration
Transition from 30-60m
Muscular mechanics from a sprinting perspective
Energy Envelope and Organism Strength – A truly classic topic
Greek Sprint Training Philosophy – which is the precursor to the ARP threads in 2008/9
The role of hypertrophy in sprint training
Stretching and Massage
and Carbs – what sort and when?
If you have GPP Essentials and the video seminar products (Vancouver Series), really want to understand sprint training in depth, and liked the previous Forum Reviews this is a Classic from the dawn of the Internet revolution, whose content truly redefined and revitalised sprinting.