‘Feed the Cats’ Clinic 3-Pack

with Tony Holler,
Plainfield North High School (IL) Head Boys Track & Field Coach;
2015 ITCCCA Hall of Fame Inductee;
over 35 years of coaching experience at the high school level

This video from ‘Feed the Cats’ guru Tony Holler revolutionizes the concepts and ideas of his approach to speed development and coaching the sprints. Coach Holler discusses his approach and philosophies in how to make track & field fun for student-athletes. By keeping athletes happy and healthy, and using speed as the essential component to training, you can quickly turn your sprint program into a program that makes it easy to run 18 miles per hour because you are training at 20 miles per hour.

10 ‘Feed the Cats’ Commandments

The principles of Holler’s ‘Feed the Cats’ philosophy are broken down into 10 critical components that will ultimately lead to program development through methods to attract the best athletes in your school. You’ll hear Coach Holler detail the steps and mindset that he has adopted over his last 20 years of coaching to enable the development of happy, healthy and fast athletes in the sprint-based events.

Less Grind, More Results

Holler’s desire to avoid “the grind” has led to a style of coaching that embraces a “Do Less, Achieve More” attitude through prescribing the minimum effective dose to maximize training today without ruining tomorrow’s session. With a focus on having all activities complement one another and work in the same direction, one can accomplish substantially more results in much less time.

The pillars of speed, sprint mechanics, max speed sprinting, and jumping are used in combination to build the foundation of Coach Holler’s ‘Feed the Cats’ sprint program. His approach can be implemented and utilized by coaches of all levels to keep one’s ‘cats’ happy and healthy!

with Tony Holler,
Plainfield North High School (IL) Head Boys Track & Field Coach;
2015 ITCCCA Hall of Fame Inductee;
over 35 years of coaching experience at the high school level

Plainfield North High School track & field coach Tony Holler has revolutionized sprint training forever thanks to his ‘Feed the Cats’ training program. Countless track & field programs across the nation have begun to adopt the ‘Feed the Cats’ system and have quickly seen an immediate impact on their results.

In this video, Coach Holler zeroes in on what it takes to build speed on the track. You’ll walk away with an understanding of what makes athletes faster, as well as the best mechanics to adopt for faster times.

What Makes Athletes Fast

Holler’s clinic presentation starts with his philosophy regarding speed, and how to train to improve speed. He also explains that these concepts don’t only apply to track coaches, but to football coaches as well.

Next, Holler explains that through experience as an athlete, and trial and error as a coach, he learned that less is actually more for speed athletes. For the last 20 years, Coach Holler has implemented a system for training speed in which athletes sprint as fast as possible, as often as possible, while staying as fresh as possible. He covers:

• The common pitfalls most coaches cannot avoid when training for speed.
• Avoiding injuries and burnout.
• Why long, grueling conditioning sessions are like poison for speed development.

Correcting Mechanics

Coach Holler spends time giving an overview of sprint mechanics. You’ll learn proper sprint mechanics that make athletes more efficient when they run, as well as how to teach and drill those mechanics. Additionally, Holler explains that the selection of drills is not nearly as important as how they are done.

This presentation of speed development from Coach Holler is sure to give you a blueprint for building speed in your own athletes! His theories make for a comprehensive program that is designed to get your athletes faster, while keeping them happy and healthy!

‘Feed the Cats’ : Sequencing & Programming

with Tony Holler,
Plainfield North High School (IL) Head Boys Track & Field Coach;
2015 ITCCCA Hall of Fame Inductee;
over 35 years of coaching experience at the high school level

What do cats and track & field sprinters have in common? Both are incredibly fast and powerful. Sprinters need a healthy dose of speed development and other explosive movements to maximize their potential. However, the biggest challenge coaches face is determining how much training is needed and what types of training will have the biggest impact with the smallest risk.

Enter Tony Holler and his ‘Feed the Cats’ philosophy! In this 60-minute presentation, Coach Holler goes into detail about how best to sequence training plans to get the most from this type of programming. For coaches new to the philosophy, Holler breaks down why this method has produced state champions, collegiate, and professional athletes in both track and football.

Lactate Development

Lactate development is a critical component of training for sprinters, especially long sprinters, who rely on it to help power longer races and training efforts. With this type of training, a little can go a long way. But how much is too much? In this segment, Coach Holler talks about the specific volumes he uses in workouts, including maximum distances and time used per rep, total volume of reps per session, and the proper rest required to get the most from these intervals with the least amount of detriment to the athlete.

Organizing the Training Week

How many times should sprinters do lactate development workouts? How often should they sprint in practice? Coach Holler takes the guess work out of these common scheduling questions and more. For coaches dealing with multiple meets per week on various days, Holler breaks down the most critical components of each week and what he values most, in order to help you successfully navigate even the most chaotic competition schedules.

Alactic Development

Alactic development is the backbone of any good speed and power program. In this segment, Holler explains why it’s critical to his athletes’ success and how he structures these sessions to help them get the most from these workouts. Carefully measuring power outputs during these workouts is critical. As a result, Coach Holler discusses why timing these exercises is important and how you can incorporate that data into building better practices.

Coaching track & field produces many obstacles to overcome, from scheduling to facility issues, while working with teams of varying sizes and athletes of different abilities. Coach Holler takes the guess work out of all of this and provides a simple, clear programming model that will help you create a fast-paced and fun environment to develop electrically fast sprinters. This video is a must-have for any track coach looking to gain an edge in creating fast, powerful sprinters!