We used spikes on grass for speedwork but flats- or, where we knew the surface was in good shape with no glass etc, bare feet for tempo
Charlie-
Observing guys training for a few days is not the same as watching for multiple weeks. I saw AP train as well as the other tekies and was convinced it was not their program. I don’t need a whole season of it to take a hint.
So when guys like you sit and tell me it’s coaching and it just unorganized foolishness in efforts to make it seem like training instead of talent and other things people cry BS.
If AP was doing soccer and cricket in the offseaon you would find a way to tell me he was going short to long and the throws were general weights.
Appropriate you should start your post with my quote.
First you say you know people who’ve seen them train, then you say YOU’VE seen them train. Then you waffle, when caught, claiming you’ve seen AP doing something somewhere and you don’t really need to see it to know it’s no good.
Davan knows people who know people who’ve seen them train… You perhaps?
Of course, since there are two groups there, we are left to wonder who, exactly, ‘them’ is.
Apparently that doesn’t matter to you.
This much is true: You know where you could buy a ticket to go and see them train if you were ever to be so inclined. Catch some Cricket while you’re there.
seems he caught something!!
Person - seems you need to learn how to use the keyboard better, ie, type down what you HAVE seen without adding “they dont do that”. Just try typing down “when i was in kingston, they did this this this and this”. Doing so, will lead to respect.
Charlie,
Since anyone with success must be a product of great coaching can you share what coaches are doing things wrong? If anyone runs fast you will find a way to argue how it makes sense with some psuedo science.
I will quote that if any high level program did a week of random workouts just to fool the stupid americans you will explain how it’s secretly vertical integration.
Frankly we are tired of excuses of why sloppy lifting form is acceptable.
Random lifting = general organism strength
slow intermediate runs on grass for endurance = L to S or tendon stiffness
If they work on starts it is then short to long.
Do a run longer than 100m in practice? Short to long again.
I see I’m mentioned. Since I’ve mentioned the names to you in other threads, CF, I’ll mention it herel
I posted about a person (I have even mentioned their name) in the MVP group that multiple people here have met who has discussed their training and more specifically their situation there (facilities, weight room, training time, etc.) multiple times.
A sprinter from Sweden, Stefan T********, spent time at the track in Kingston (to put it lightly)–he trained there for some months and observed the training of many of these special programs and the training didn’t turn out to be too special and he didn’t drop half a second off his 100m like a number of these guys and girls seem to do all too regularly.
I don’t claim to have any of the answers regarding training (don’t think I’ve ever claimed that on any subject here), but saying it’s grass sprints that are the reason for the RECENT sprint results is crazy because the Jamaican 100m runners, men and women, have never had such depth so quickly.
Keep drinking the sugar cane juice mon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bERjfjIx9TE
teh secretz
edit: big circuit was done at 2:45
Before you get ahead of yourself Davan, and inject yourself into a discussion you have no place in; your name was mentioned because we KNOW we share a mutual acquaintance.
Thats it, time changes nothing.
Rupert
CharlieFrancis.com
IMO, this argument is getting childish, and straying rather far from the obvious. To wit,
-
people of West African descent are advantaged genetically in terms of sprinting.
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while there are far more people of West African descent in the U.S. than there are in Jamaica, sprinting is a much bigger deal in Jamaica. Let’s face it, the best athletes in the U.S. gravitate to football and basketball because there is more money and status there. Some of those athletes could likely have been champion sprinters. In Jamaica, sprinting is tops.
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the top Jamaicans have good coaches. Who knows whether they are great coaches? They are obviously getting the job done. If their coaching methods reflect a Jamaican mentality that is different from a North American and/or European mentality, so what? If they don’t do anything “special,” so what? Effective coaching does not usually consist of making “a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” In many ways, it consists of not screwing up the talent you are presented with.
When you add it all up – genetic advantage, sprinting culture, and good coaching – you get top performances.
No offense to all you theoreticians, but it seems to me it aint that hard to figure out.
I have brought up the subject of grass training as something in common in the two groups. I also mentioned my take on the approach. You can make of it whatever you like- which, apparently is nothing. Maybe others will find it interesting.
Your veiled reference is clear to all and everyone can draw their own conclusion on that topic in private, but to accept that as the ONLY reason would require it to be unique to Jamaica and brand new to both Jamaica and the world.
The answer to the first is a resounding NO, and, unless Doctor No has come back to life and re-established his secret base in Jamaica, the answer to the second is: Unlikely.
We look at training from all over the world, including Jamaica here. Get over it!
Agree on the first two points but if it’s not coaching people don’t want to hear that. People want to believe that if they train a certain way they will run fast. Not screwing up talent is not great coaching. Great coaching is doing things better than others could do with the same talent.
The greater the talent the harder it is not to screw it up because the capacity to overdo it is profoundly higher. So, based on the second point, you coud have Usain going 9.3??
Charlie-
After I break 10.0 I will tell you.
EDIT:
We get your points but you are in a bit of denial about talent.
What am I denying about talent? It’s pretty obvious that Bolt is something else and has been since he was 15.
Agreed. Something else is right.
To move on let’s focus on the videos of their training and see what we can pick up on.
OK Sounds good. What I want to know is: Is there a good reason for the hip-under position maintained by Asafa versus the more traditional sprint posture by Usain? Does the hip under posture create any advantage for Asafa in the accel phase and then cause a problem for him in the late stages, where fatigue might increase the hip-under position to maintain knee lift?
What is the role of hills in this posture, if any? (the others don’t seem to do it when running the hills with him)
How much hill work does Usain actually do?
When do they switch over from the grass to the track for speed work?
Why pick out those coaches? Shouldn’t we focus on the successful ones? Just my opinion.
You’re the only one who has mentioned vertical integration on this thread, at least the only one who has mentioned it twice.
Who’s we?
I think you’re confusing yourself. As I understand it:
-Slow runs on grass are tempo, in a s to l or l to s program.
-sprints on grass produce the tendon stiffness, usually done in the GPP (I used this with success, years ago also).
-starts could be done in s to l or l to s, but starts with short hills and no 200m work seems to indicate s to l wouldn’t you agree?
-Runs longer than 100m could be tempo or speed endurance or special endurance depending on the speed and distance. I think you could do this in s to l or l to s. Who said otherwise?
Just wish to add that coaches are executives who manage resources.
Strikes me that Mills and Francis are good executives, who exert a discipline over their athletes providing them with a structure and consistency and a well defined but flexible approach to management of the training process.
Jamaica has always had talent, but now the athletes are home-based, working with some kind of support - even if it is only in terms of facility access - from the University of Technology in Kingston.
So perhaps improved management of the training process is part of the current Jamaican success story. Perhaps in all but a few cases, that was lacking in island-based sprinters of the past.
And certainly I can never recall large touring groups coming out of Jamaica to compete at a standard appropriate to the European circuit. Guys such as Don Quarrie and Bert Cameron were very much one-out on the Euro tour.
When I sat in on a two-hour Q & A with Stephen Francis a few months ago he described his system as Short to Long.
But there was also some longer work integrated into the weekly program from the start of GPP, so I would reckon a more apt description of the program structure would be Concurrent - developing the acceleration (short) while also doing some longer reps on back-up days.
SF said in that Q&A session he designed his training around “the energy systems” and he saw no conflict between developing the explosive qualities on alternate days to endurance qualities (out to 300m).
On the question of the banned topic, surely nobody could disagree that it is a global problem and has been (global) since at least the Munich Olympics in 1972.
Jamaica has always had the genetic preselection to excel in power events. But now there looks to be a home-based structure being managed by earthy but intelligent coaches who are good communicators and strong disciplinarians without going overboard and suffocating the youthful exuberance of their athletes - or sticking zealously to some training format because it happens to be written on paper and looks arithmatically satisfying.
SF was clear that he coached his elites on a day by day, moment by moment basis. How else can any coach hope to work for success?