Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

The Jamaicans lit up the track world in 2008, taking home more medals in the sprinting events than any other country and doing so in commanding fashion. Despite this, the training methods of the top Jamaican coaches is not widely known or understood. Are they achieving their success based on pure talent, performance enhancing drugs, a special diet, running on grass, or all of the above.  We don’t
 
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cool videos…didn’t learn anything however and am not sure this is the reason they are fast! lol…

Liked the long longer longer yet idea for the sprint start…

i beleive in a few years the truth as to why they are fast will come out…as it did with the Americans of the 90’s - early 2000’s…

I think the islands are conducive to running fast, injury-free.  When I was there this summer, it seemed like all I needed to do to get warmed up were a couple of jumping jacks and I was ready for a speed session.  Must be the humidity or something, but I never feel like my muscles are tight or cold in the tropics…

very interesting…i just recently eliminated static stretching all together from my warm ups…. i think that talent is a big part of the result of there bieng such dominance….plus there so much concentration on just sprinting….they can master thier craft

Nick Newman - 30 September 2008 07:17 PM

i beleive in a few years the truth as to why they are fast will come out…as it did with the Americans of the 90’s - early 2000’s…

i see little faith in the jamaicans…even though usian has been the fastest human at each age level and the level of consistency of thier runners

lol…i don’t know…i had alot of faith in Jones, Gatlin, Greene, i liked Larry Wade etc etc…so i find it hard now…but i’m a track fan so i love watching fast people so it is what it is…

drugs or no drugs, the training improvements in the short sprints specifically with regards to warm-up are quite real and if you are still pushing an athlete to jog a half mile or a mile in a warm up and then following that with active stretching you are always going to be behind the curve.

As for talent, what the heck is the talent.  Describe it please!  There is no such thing really.  There are individuals who have better skill development derived through their abilities, but abilities do not equal talent and neither does skill or skill acquisition.

Since this thread got way off topic, I moved all discussion of talent or other sources of their success to this new blog thread about the reasons for Jamaican sprint dominance.