Success in Track & Field ... and Life
Share Who is the world’s greatest athlete in terms of Strength, Power and Speed? Who is the greatest all-around athlete? Decathletes? In this month’s issue of The Strength & Speed Newsletter, my good friend Clay Parker wrote an article on the greatest all-around athletes based on athletic feats and performances that are scored in Dale [...]
Share My good friend Eric Dixon who just completed the USATF/IAAF Level 5 Academy is heading the Level 1 USATF school in Orange County Feb 18-19 2012. The minimum coaching level you need regardless of your country affiliation is a Level 1 certification. Consider it the High School diploma of Track and Field. It’s a [...]
Share Thanks to Steve P for pointing this out. The chart below shows the 2011 IAAF A & B standards, and the number of male and female, Junior and Youth athletes who made either standards. What does this tell us about the 400 meters? First, note how the men’s 400m standard is doubled best 200m [...]
Share I had the pleasure of speaking with LaShawn Merrit, the 400 meter 2008 Olympic and 2009 Word Championship Gold medalist. We talked about training, and especially Dwayne Miller’s famous “Drill Outs” workout. Miller presented LaShawn’s annual plan at the 2008 SuperClinic. I primarily asked about his 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 season, and that Beijing [...]
Share This is part 3 of the article How to Run Faster… at any Age as we start going into Technical Competency and Sprinting Efficiency. Part 2 talked about the importance of coordination. If I had to name a couple of jargons related to sprinting and how to sprint faster, it would be “dorsiflexion”, “triple [...]
Share Asafa Powell’s 5.64 victory yesterday in the indoor 50 meters was one-tenth of a second slower than his best 50m split of 5.54 seconds outdoors. This made me ponder… when will the indoor 50 and 60 meter world record be broken? And why are the indoor times slower than the outdoor splits? Even with [...]
Share This is part 2 of How to Run Faster… at any Age. UKA’s David Lease, famous for Jason Gardiner’s coach, mentioned in his podcast the most important element in sprinting is coordination (thanks to Mark Collins who sent me the interview. NOTE: UKA audio and videos are restricted to UK residents) To sum it [...]
Share Dwayne Miller: World Class 400M Dash (DVD) If you attend the USATF Olympic Trials, they hold a fantastic SuperClinic series on the “rest day break” every year since 1992. The 2012 SuperClinic will be on Tuesday 26 June at the Boulevard Grill on the south end of Franklin, 5 blocks from Hayward Field. The [...]
Share Every week, I get several emails from readers on how to run faster. Some are from parents of pre-teen children in Track, Soccer and Football. Other readers include Masters athletes. I’ll share some of the highlights from my various phone calls here in this article. And, as per usual, I’ll keep it simple and [...]
Share One of the earliest papers I read on 400 meter training was written by William Black from the 1988 Winter edition of TRACK COACH. You can download the PDF here (168Kb). The paper talks about the physiological factors of performance in the 400 meters, and one specific reference was from 1980. It’s a good [...]
Share I’ve been sitting on this article for months with hesitation. Here is the preamble on why I never posted it (until today). The problem with doing splits is you need extremely good video, preferably non-compressed HD quality, as well as the video of the starting gun showing the smoke coming out to start the [...]
Share I have to admit, I am still a kid, and I still enjoy connecting the dots. I wrote about the proper use of the arm and hand action in at least 5 articles (see below for the links). And I wrote about the importance of fascia in past articles More on Stretching – Active [...]
Share I created an 18 minute video on 800 meter training, with an slight emphasis for 400 meters moving up in distance. Scroll below for the video, or click here for the video on YouTube. Here is the presentation in PowerPoint with the transcript of the 12 slides on AuthorStream. You can also download the [...]
Share Racing season is here! Last month, I wrote about How to Run the Indoor 300 or 400 meters. BBC Channel 4 had a good video clip with UK’s Iwan Thomas and Michael Johnson on How to Race the outdoor 400 meters shown during the 2011 World Championships in Daegu. Ironically, back in 1998, Iwan [...]
Share Here is a quick 5 step guide to goal setting for your athletes. I am using the acronyms S-M-A-R-T: Specific. Drill down to the specific by asking the W-5: who, what, where, when, & why. (Sidenote: How many Canadians remember the TV show “W5”?) i.e. Who do you need to make your goals happen? [...]
Share Once again, I want to thank @TrackNation for pointing out some useful references. Below is a chart I extracted from the USATF 2008 Men’s 400m Olympic Trials Finals. There are several components you can learn from these results, both in race strategy as well as workout suggestions and guidleines. Source: USATF Splits are just… [...]
Share I created a 12 minute video on How to Run the Indoor 300 or 400 meters. The indoor track competitive season has begun, so if you plan on running a 400 meters indoor, read on. Scroll below, or click here for the video on YouTube. Here is the presentation in PowerPoint with the transcript [...]
Share The 6 pack abs, or a “washboard stomach”, seems to be the holy grail for the average non-athlete. For athletes, especially sprinters with above average muscle mass and below average body fat, a six-pack (or even 8-pack) appears to come with the territory. We don’t train for 6-pack abs, it just comes naturally. But [...]
Share I want to thank @TrackNation for pointing out some useful references. It might be better to have all the references listed in a single page, instead of flipping back for forth to multiple pages. The following are national norms for 16 to 19 year olds from the reference Physical Education and the Study of [...]
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Lee Evans: A Plea for Help
Share If you are a reader of SpeedEndurance, you don’t need a reminder of who Lee Evans is. On the Track side, he is a 2-time Gold medalist from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in the 400 meters and 4×400 meter relay. He was the first man to break the 44 second barrier, along with [...]