Remembering CharlieFrancis Forum (10 Years later)

Charlie Francis passed away on May 12, 2010.

Before Facebook and YouTube, he had the Forum from 2000-01 to 2010.

All this, because Derek Hansen and I made that trip to Alwyn Cosgrove’s gym in Santa Clarita, CA in February 2001. We each paid $550 USD to attend.

After 19 years being introduced to CF or the CFTS:

• I’m still NOT a fan of the Hi-Lo program, which is short to long, at least not for Masters athletes. Put it this way, it has not worked for me.
• I’m still NOT a fan of contrast showers (hot/cold). I live in an old house, and it takes 1-2 minutes before the hot water kicks in. I REALLY should stand under that cold shower and deep breathe, but I’m chicken (or a cat who hates water)
• Vertical Integration: doing ALL the components ALL of the time (or Charles Staley’s Horizontal Summation)
• Bench press on a Swiss ball: It’s OK to do bench press. It’s OK to do Swiss ball exercises. But for God’s sake, not at the same time!
• If you still can’t master Power Cleans, don’t do them!
• “Rupert” would ban people by mistake, or for the wrong reasons
• I learned more about GCT (ground contact time), RFD (rate of force development), GRF (ground reaction forces), concentric contribution, and stiffness requirements. This was well before I heard it from Ralph Mann at the 2007 USATF NPEP.
• I learned the science between Acceleration and Max Velocity.

Remember!
Acceleration: Lower force production, longer RFD, longer horizontal direction and longer GCT
MaxV: Greater force production, shorter RFD, longer vertical direction and shorter GCT

But the most important messages are:

• I learned as much, if not more, from other “coaches” on that forum
• People spent so many selfless hours helping other people for free
• Derek Hansen is an amazing graphic artist. His charts and graphs are still implanted in my brain. I wish he could do charts of all my subjects when I was in school. I would get 100%.
• It’s OK to Disagree, just don’t be Disagreeable

Fun Facts:
“What is the difference between a 9.58 and a 10.08 100 meter sprinter? half a second? 0.50 sec? No, it’s 0.01 seconds, because 50 steps x 0.01 seconds = 0.50 seconds.

Thank you Charlie, and thank you to all the Coaches, Athletes, and Trolls who made me a better coach.

I’m still learning (especially the recent webinars with Vince Anderson, Caryl Smith Gilbert, and Tony Holler, just to name a few).