ELITETRACK: Sport Training & Conditioning

About 10 years ago in Sweden, Håkan Andersson was one of the organizers to a private seminar in Stockholm. I was invited of course because it was on overtraining, but could not attend the set of presentations by the top people in the sport. Information from Marco Cardinale, Tapani Keränen, Henk Kraaijenhof, Mehis Viru, Göran Kenttä, and Dave Clark was outstanding, but how many other resources ...

Published - Tuesday, 18 June 2013 on Carl Valle

Teaching is Coaching - Cues and Confusion

It's no mystery that we have a lot of focus on internal versus external cueing and this is out of hand. If someone is too narrow or too wide in a squat stance, just tell them. No need for excessive analogies. Sometimes good cues done too much or at the wrong time create excessive recruitment when muscles need to relax. It's not easy to get athletes to relax, especially if fatigue shows up a lit...

Published - Monday, 17 June 2013 on Carl Valle

Ankle Mobility- More than Exercises

I went to GAIN a few years ago and much of the education was on the PCA or Physical Competence Assessment for those who only are familiar with the FMS. The PCA is frankly a better tool in my opinion because it has no constraints. The overhead squat is not owned by any system, so even the PCA can be disrupted by better ways to get more relevant information. Recently my comments on corrective exerci...

Published - Friday, 14 June 2013 on Carl Valle

Evaluating Your Season

At the end of the season it is very important to take a deep breath and evaluate your season. I think it is always good to write down the things that went well and the things that didn’t go so great. As a coach every year you will need to make minor adjustments. I want to emphasis the word minor. After a really good year we may want to ignore things that can grow into problems if left unchecked....

Published - Thursday, 13 June 2013 on Ryan Banta

Catapulting the Shark?

"Piggybacking off Catapult’s experience with dozens of football programs around the world, the goalkeeping algorithm will be the first of many specified approaches to performance analysis on the cards in the coming months – with specific algorithms for Australian Rules football kicking, American football quarterback movements, and baseball pitchers all in early development."-Catapult SportsB...

Published - Thursday, 13 June 2013 on Carl Valle

Miseducated Guess Work?

Stu and Henk have two very different posts in regards to working with athletes. I find it difficult each week to blog about something such as the difference between listening our bodies and using science to help with that sixth sense. I find myself not in the middle, but on both sides at the same time. No coach is perfect, but the advantage is being closer in accuracy in running the program versus...

Published - Tuesday, 11 June 2013 on Carl Valle

Sport Science- The Eagle has Landed?

"after each day the club requires players to log in and record how much they have eaten and of what to better control what goes into the bodies of the players and control differing levels of proteins, fats, carbohydrates and sugars. "-bleedinggreennation.comIn the NFL, the Philadelphia Eagles is getting a lot of attention for integrating sport science into their program. One comment I will say i...

Published - Monday, 10 June 2013 on Carl Valle

Conditioning Tests- Face the Music

I think it's ok to do conditioning tests to gage fitness. Testing and Monitoring are similar, but after reviewing the notes I have with some workshops the monitoring hype needs to calm down. First, watching heart rate and GPS data on small-sided games is not coaching or sport science, just pretending to be busy when the general issues such as doing the basics or trying to get get better is not at...

Published - Sunday, 09 June 2013 on Carl Valle

Corrective Exercise Rapid Fire

I just wanted to link to the Tucson Kettlebell blog post on the craziness of corrective exercise. It was nice to see another voice in the dark here, but we need to start looking at the issue more now that we are heading towards a data driven and evidence based therapy world. Craig Liebenson had this link on social media and it's nice to see therapists driving out of the nonsense. Instead of longw...

Published - Saturday, 08 June 2013 on Carl Valle

Video från föreläsningen med Santiago Antunez!

More Gold from Benke. I forgot to post this earlier and you need to know your spanish but hopefully Ramon Sosa can do a little transcription for the audience. I love Sub13 as it's a great resource and I hope more global sharing occurs with training and coaching. I have met Benke a few times and love his approach to training and hurdling technique. You can scroll down to the bottom and download th...

Published - Saturday, 08 June 2013 on Carl Valle

2008 Olympics: Usain’s Insane 100m

Well, by now everyone in the world knows that Usaine Bolt is not a human being. At least not by the standards we have been using for the last couple millennium. His 100m performance of 9.69 was just mind-boggling. 9.69 beat Bolt's previous world record by 0.03 seconds and is faster than the WR of just last year by 0.05 seconds. That's like a swimmer breaking a world record by 4 seconds...never m...

Published - Monday, 18 August 2008 on Mike Young

Why are so many gifted athletes pigeon-toed?

I was recently asked to contribute to the "Ask Anything" column in Maxim magazine. In this front-of-the-magazine section, Maxim solicits random questions from readers, thenconsult "real experts for actual, scientific answers." I was asked to answer the question why so many gifted athletes are pigeon-toed? Here's my answer (and a special thanks to CFKA for the ball analogies):While there�...

Published - Tuesday, 06 May 2008 on Mike Young

We’re Drug Free!!!

As some of you may know, I'm an avid reader of DIGG. I love the semi-random mix of tech, social, and political news that is pushed to the top. Well, I was checking it out this morning and there was a story that caught my eye about steroids gone bad. Given the current spate of drug-related track news that seems to have eclipsed the actual performances on the track, I figured this might be a good d...

Published - Friday, 23 May 2008 on Mike Young

A Review of 400m Training Methods

A couple days ago it occurred to me that I had one more blog entry to reach 400 and figured it would only be appropriate if my 400th blog post was about the 400m (thanks to Nick for the suggestion). The 400m is one of the weird birds of track and field. Probably more so than any other event (other than the 800m) the 'Many Roads to Rome' concept seems to hold true. I'd like to take a look at why...

Published - Sunday, 26 April 2009 on Mike Young

Top 10 Myths of Sprinting Mechanics

On my way back from Sarasota today I came up with a list of the top ten myths I hear about sprinting mechanics. Check it out and let me know what I left off. The elbow angle must stay at 90 degrees. Who came up with this? What’s the rationale? What’s the benefit? Ask someone to provide answers to those questions next time you hear that ridiculous idea. Not only is it not beneficial, it...

Published - Wednesday, 25 July 2007 on Mike Young

Some Interesting Insights from a Former Doper

Here's some interesting thoughts from former sprint prodigy-turned Balco bustee-turned returning prodigal son Dwain Chambers:When I came back from my suspension in 2006 I went to train in Jamaica and I never got tested once and I was there for six months. You would think that someone coming off a drug ban would be routinely tested but I wasn't tested once. You need to test athletes in October, N...

Published - Tuesday, 28 October 2008 on Mike Young

It’s Not About the Time

I understand times, but I think it is more basic than that. Ultimately it is about competition, the times will come. Think back to elementary school, everyone knew the fastest kid in the school or in the summer when you were at the pool you raced to see who was fastest. Time was not a consideration. At junior high school play days you raced to see who was the best, oh by the way they ran a faster ...

Published - Thursday, 02 October 2008 on Vern Gambetta

The Scarecrow of Straw Men

I am completely comfortable with not being popular among the fraternity of gurus, as my motives are not fueled by greed or glory. Paul Graham shared in his essays that the FBI decades ago had to change their investigation strategy with computer hackers, since a hacker's motives were not the typical drugs, money, sex, revenge. Curiosity was not on the list. I represent the irritating grain of sa...

Published - Saturday, 08 November 2008 on Carl Valle

Dan’s Horizontal Jumps Lecture- The Entire Thing!

Due to the requests on the forum, here's the entire lecture of the snippet I posted earlier from Dan Pfaff's horizontal jumps talk in Las Vegas. Special thanks to Tom Kaberna for sending me a non High-Def version of this video that was small enough that I could actually upload the entire thing for viewing. ...

Published - Tuesday, 06 January 2009 on Mike Young

6 Reasons Why Jamaicans Dominate the Sprints

Yesterday I posted a couple videos with some insight in to what MVP club coach Stephen Francis is doing with his athletes. The discussion on this blog entry got me off my butt to write another blog that I've been meaning to write for some time – The Reasons Why Jamaicans Dominate the Sprints. In case you were in a cocoon in 2008, you witnessed one of the greatest sprint years by a single count...

Published - Wednesday, 01 October 2008 on Mike Young

A Review of 400m Training Methods

Published - Sunday, 26 April 2009 on Mike Young

2008 Olympics: Usain’s Insane 100m

Published - Monday, 18 August 2008 on Mike Young

Top 10 Myths of Sprinting Mechanics

Published - Wednesday, 25 July 2007 on Mike Young

14 reasons why Jamaica is the Sprint Capitol of the World

At this past Olympics, Jamaica put on a show. The tiny island with a population of less than 3 million people won more Olympic medals than every other country not named USA, Russia or Kenya. And when you consider the QUALITY of their medals, things are even more astounding. Consider these points:If we use the point system I described HERE, Jamaica (24 points) is actually the 3rd best track and fie...

Published - Wednesday, 10 September 2008 on Mike Young

12 Reasons to Squat Year Round

If you browse the forums much you know I'm a crusader for squats. I like the exercise. In fact I like it so much that for most of the athletes that I work with I actually keep it in the training plan for the entire year with a minimum frequency of once every 10 days and an average frequency of just under 2 times per week. Here's a list of my primary justifications for using the exercise year rou...

Published - Thursday, 15 January 2009 on Mike Young

4 Tips for Keeping up with Sport Science Research

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self” - Aldous Huxley If you're going to get better as a coach you need to commit yourself to continuing education. This can come in the form of mentorships; reading coaching and sport science research articles; attending clinics, symposiums, or coaches schools; forming think-tanks with other coach...

Published - Saturday, 03 July 2010 on Mike Young

Loren Seagrave’s thoughts on Absolute Strength

This weekend I had the chance to speak with Coach Loren Seagrave on his thoughts about absolute strength. Loren is a former LSU sprint coach, founder of Velocity Sport Performance and coach of some of the fastest individuals in the world. I've had the privilege of doing at least one speaking engagement with Loren each month for the past couple months and I've been able to pick his brain on topic...

Published - Monday, 18 January 2010 on Mike Young

6 Reasons Why All Athletes Should Sprint

I work with a variety of athletes from different events in Track & Field as well as many athletes from other sports. Although the technical and biomotor qualities necessary for success may be very different across the spectrum of events and activities I train, one training commonality is that everyone sprints. At least a little bit. There’s an obvious need for some type of sprint training in...

Published - Monday, 09 August 2010 on Mike Young

6 Reasons Why Jamaicans Dominate the Sprints

Published - Wednesday, 01 October 2008 on Mike Young

Developing Endurance in Speed-Power Athletes

Much of what many track and field coaches of speed-power athletes do has what I'd call an "Endurance bias" in that they are using training protocols and methodologies directly from or influenced by the training theory and methods of an endurance athlete. Because the physical capacities necessary for success in speed-power activities is very different than those of endurance events, this approac...

Published - Wednesday, 04 August 2010 on Mike Young

Author: Landin, Dennis, Nelson, Arnold, Schexnayder, Irving 'Boo', Winchester, Jason, Young, Michael
Type: Research Literature
Source: Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
Topic: Flexibility, Sprints, Sports Science, Muscle Dynamics, Biomechanics
Level: Hard, Medium

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