Training in the 60's

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
1

This is a suggested training programme for a 17 year old school boy sprinter, taking from " Athletics for Student and Coach (1967)." This is how they did things back then.

Winter and Late Spring

Sunday 40 minutes fratlek.

Monday Weight Training

Tuesday 330 yards*6 in 42-45s with 5 min jog recovery

Wednesday 20 minutes easy running

Thursday 1.Weight Training 2. Repetition uphill sprints

Friday Off

Saturday 220 yards* 3 (max effort), 220 yards jog back recovery, 10 min rest, repeat.

Mid-May

Sunday 330 yards2 in 40s with 5min jog recovery
7 min break
150 yards4 in 17s with a 3 1/2 min jog recovery

Monday Weight Training
20mins easy running on grass

Tuesday 60 yards*6 from blocks full recovery
10 min break
120 yards almost flat out- 2 1/2 min rest
130 yards almost flat out- 2 1/2 min rest
140 yards almost flat out- 2 1/2 min rest
150 yards almost flat out- 3 min rest
160 yards almost flat out- 3 min rest
170 yards almost flat out- 3 min rest
180 yards flat out

Wednesday 1/2 weight session
20mins easy run on grass

Thursday 60 yards6 from blocks full recovery
150 yards2 flat out with full recovery
Play at other events

Friday Off

Saturdy Competition

Late-June

Sunday 30 mins easy running

Monday 180 yards4 (full effort) with 3 1/2 min recovery
10 min break
300 yards2 (very fast stride) with 5 mins recovery

Tuesday 1/2 Weight Session
20 mins easy running

Wednesday 60 yards6 from blocks adequate recovery.
150 yards3 (flat out) with 5 mins recovery).

Thursday Easy jogging and fast striding on grass

Friday Off

Saturday Competition

2

That’s not how Gerard Mach did things in the 60’s.

3

…and the result is maybe a medium 400m-runner, not an explosive sprinter…

4

…who ends his season early due to a ruptured hamstring from all that stupid HI volume…

I don’t go back that far, but it brought back some unpleasant memories of very sore hammies in high school. I know I’ve gotten much better results listening to Charlie off maybe 1/3 the speed/SE volume I did back then.

5

Bud Winter had Speed City at San Jose State back then and he was a big believer in the concept of quality over quantity. One workout I remember was 2 x 200m from blocks for Tommy Smith. If he could get under 20.2 on the first, he didn’t have to do another. I also remember Tommy doing a 352 yard (320m) in 33.0! The old theory was to add 10 sec to your 352y time to get your 440y potential time. You do the math!

6

Being much younga (and more handsomer 2 :eek: - you know you can get plastic surgery for that nasty scar down your cheek) than you old Chuckie, can you say from observing the changes in training methods over the millenia :stuck_out_tongue: what Bud Winter might have been able to do better? Where did he err, if at all?
I can only recall that his sprinters seemed so perfect, especially the 200 guys. Yet Michael has run so much faster now than Tommie The Jet.
(with all humility) kk :slight_smile:

7

Didn’t Bud Winters have everyone do XC training in the fall?

8

In a word NO.

9

The Bud Winter program was very general in the first month of training, but sprint form work and some fast stuff was thrown in from week 5 onward. Even Lee Evans did 60yd time-trials in the fall. Well according to Bud he did. Since laot of his training was with Stan Dowell, I doubt that he did these on a regular basis.

There was no distance running, though rumor has it that John Carlos would occasional do morning runs if he was feeling out of shape ore trying to recover from making the wrong lifestyle choice.

10

Scott:

Go back a little further and you will find sprinters in the 1940’s and 1950’s who had speed oriented training throughout their program.

The origins of “training everyone as a 400m runner” seem to be in the 1960’s and by the 1970’s the advocates for this method were convincing the gullible that they had found the path to sprinting success. We still feel the effects of this simplistic view today. Convincing people that Jim Bush or by extension Clyde Hart aren’t coaching geniuses is sacrilege to far too many people.

Me thinks there are broader historical parallels here, but I’ll leave it at that.

11

Bud Winter was a relaxation therapist for Navy pilots in WW2, so relaxation was his big thing. Sue Wilson, a sport psychologist (in CFTS) pointed out that he wrote some books or articles about relaxation. I don’t know enough about his program to comment beyond what I saw.
As for the plastic surgery, I have enough dough for me but not enought for mini-me as well, so I can’t break up the set.
Maybe my next avatar should be a young Tony Curtis, since, by now, no-one can remember what I actually look like anyway!

12

John Carlos told me he was doing his (secret) AM workouts in the basement, so I suspect he wasn’t running far!
His theory on partying was that you were ok as long as you could still hang up your clothes when you got home.
As for Lee, he was doing 6 x 660y in 1:25 (60/25) in the fall/winter. He entered Xc races in 1972 but I wonder if this is what set his training behind up to the trials.

13

I know Bud Winter has at least 3 books. Relax and Win (details his WW2 relaxation training, etc), So You Want To Be A Sprinter, and The Rocket Sprint Start.

I have the two sprint books in PDF form on my PC (I scanned them years ago). They are written for a younger audience (simple ideas, cartoon drawings, etc). He compares the technique of two animated sprinters, Champ and Chump. A lot of his ideas seem pretty dated in those books. If it was legal, I would make them available.

As an aside, my college coach was a Bud Winter nut. To this day, our team calls our warmup drills Bud Winters. Despite that, we were trained in the “everyone is a 400m runner” philosophy and were taught the “elongated start” (so when the gun went off, the race WAS over)… those days haunt my dreams…

14

Of the books that he wrote, “Relax and Win” is the one that can still be located. The rest are long gone. It also may be the most valid at this point in time.

15

I’ve only met John once and we didn’t speak about training or really much of anything track related. I do know a few of his SJS teammates and they told me he would do the am runs at various points and that made them swear never to tell anyone. Of course, one of them spewed to me at a clinic.

Lee evans did some crazy stuff in training. It is very difficult to put a timeline on who was coaching him. Bud was an influence, but Stan Dowell (his high school coach) was ever-present.

16

There’s also a high jump book and a relay exchange book. I have the latter and is about as good as the sprint start book.

I think that the juvenile drawings in Winter’s books make them perfectly appropriate for most coaches that I know. :rolleyes:

If he had been a Bud Winter desciple and followed the actual plan, you wouldn’t have been over-worked. It is actually pretty mild in it’s approach, especially the training schedule from the first edition.

17

If someone can translate Czech, i have a weekly training plan example for 6 month by Bud Winter…

18

Email it to me, I know a girl who can do that but you may have to wait about 2 weeks cause she’s on holiday…

19

I’ve noticed, and i’m sure others have as well, that most of the old school 400m runners weren’t as good in the shorter events as some of the guys are today.

I believe that a lot of the guys today are lacking in the speed dept too, but it seemed a bit more obvious back in the day.

I’m coaching the girls at a local high school now, and two of the coaches are old school guys. Both grew up the 50’s 60’s. They see me training the 200/400 runners and are in constant disagreement about what they should be doing in training. They say run some 600’s run some 500’s(and we do) Those 150’s, 250’s, etc isn’t what a 400m runner needs to improve.

Their idea is running everything thing fast, and if you can’t finish the 8x300’s at full speed it’s because you aren’t tough. If the walk back rest that you get after those 300’s isn’t enough then you’ve been slacking off…I don’t have to tell you why I don’t agree with their idea of tempo being 6-8x200 at 30sec for girls who have yet to run faster than 27sec.

Now aside from the obvious fact that they only notice when we run the short stuff, I disagree with all my heart that my 400 runners don’t “need” to do anything short.

A sample week might be…

Mon.
3x20
3x40
3x60

Tues.
8x200

Wed.
3x320

Thur.
4x600

Fri.
5x120

This is actually what one of the guys i’m coaching did two weeks ago. Anyhow, do you all believe that the difference in training is why a lot of guys/girls run so slow in the 200, when their 400 pr is above average. Also why is it that if you run the 400, that’s all you should or ever run?

20

Hi, Pierrejean. I speak czech fluently. I am from the Czech Rep. No problem for me. You can e-mail me your copy or post it here in czech and I am going to translate it. Ok? :rolleyes: