Thanks to our friends on Elitetrack.com we have more Guru Gotcha moments with this Santa Claus training program. After this link was posted on the blog discussion thread I had to professionally refute this method of training. I am not sure if Coach Dos is getting ready for Reindeer Combine training after the holidays but this nonsense is an example of what I call entertrainment. Entertrainment is [...]

Stiffness and mobility are often looked as isolated modalities but they are a complex interaction when trained. It would be convenient that one can just do some mobility drills or bridges to become a great athlete but that is far from the truth. Reducing muscle slack at key times and allowing controlled motion requires very good coaching abilities, hence why interns at various performance centers [...]

What is convenient is not always right. Just because something is easy to measure does not mean it will improve performance. If we train for what we measure then hopefully that will improve, but if what we measure is not relevant to the sport we are training for, then we have the athletic equivalent of no child left behind - a bunch of athletic dolts who can do mindless repetitions of cone drills [...]

Training should be a simple as possible but not simpler. I personally have a vendetta against those who pontificate KISS and other approaches to training design and programming. The stupid in this world haven't don't much so why are we trying to dumb things down? I would rather clarify than to simplify. With three requests for my training system I got this weekend I say with dramatic pause, the [...]

Fundamentals or Advanced Training? I don't think drills are bad but they tend to fail to prove that they transfer as much as we think to believe. Some drills may have different effects on various athletes and various times of development. A drill at an early stage may teach a part but at advance levels may hinder change. Some drills are just physical tools to stretch or strengthen parts of the ev [...]

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the Air Force Academy football practice and subsequent strength training session at the invitation of Matt McGettigan, head Football Strength & Conditioning coach. It was an amazing show. If you want to talk about getting a lot done in short period of time, in short efficiency that is what I saw. Not a minute wasted. This scheduled is dictated by the [...]

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Harmon Brown. Harmon was a real pioneer in both sports medicine and sports science. He was very instrumental in my career. I found it almost ironic that I learned of his passing when I checked my email during a break at a conference at the US Olympic Training center in Colorado spring, a site where Harmon lead so many organizational meeting to get sports m [...]

Terms and phrases barge into our consciousness and are then used and re-used, often imprecisely, until whatever meaning they may have originally held erodes and they are left as shriveled and bankrupt as the word “LITE” on ice-cream containers and beer bottles. As McLuhan observed: “When a thing is current, it creates currency.” That is: an idea becomes accepted simply [...]

Many on this board have been following the training of Nick Newman, an emerging elite long jumper who I've been coaching for the past 18 months. Last year, Nick and I both lived in NY and we saw each other on a fairly regular basis for competitions, testing and technical training. Now both Nick and I have moved and we live on opposite sides of the country. His training has been going great and he [...]

KRAENZLEIN, ALVIN 1876-1928Track-and-field championHurdling InnovatorAlvin Kraenzlein is one of the pivotal figures in the development of track and field. Historians of the sport recognize him as the father of straight-lead-leg hurdling (in which the first leg over the hurdle is kept straight and parallel to the ground). Hurdlers continue to employ this technique, which permits the athlete to clea [...]