Last week, a blizzard dropped 24 inches of snow on us. On the way to practice this morning, I drove through whiteout conditions and it was so cold out, it hurt. And we’re supposed to get another foot of snow on Monday. Whether you’re stuck inside all winter with your sprinters, hurdlers, jumpers, and throwers…
Archives for January 2015
Blizzard of 2015: Video Playlist
Where I live, there’s a blizzard happening. I can’t tell you how excited I am to shovel the 24+ inches of snow that has fallen. By excited, I mean I will cry myself to sleep tonight. Regardless, I thought I’d share a video playlist from my YouTube Channel. And by ‘I thought’, I mean I…
Two Long Sprints Programs I Steal From Every Day
We had our Divisional State Relay Championship this past Saturday and all four of my ‘primary’ relay teams (girls and boys 4×200 and 4×400) ran faster than they did all of last year. Girls 4×2 came into the meet with a 1:48.07 season best and school record of 1:46.77, set in 2013. They went bananas,…
3 Ways to Teach Rhythm in the Sprint Hurdles
Hurdling without rhythm is like trying to dance the tango with two left feet— indeed disastrous. Since the hurdle race has several different components to rhythm, athletes with high cadence typically make great hurdlers. A hurdler’s rhythmic stride pattern begins the moment they take their first step out of the blocks. In hurdle races, the…
The Athlete Profile – Part 3
Training science, like all science, is about replication of procedure to attain the same data sets. Yet each runner is a unique person. Track coaches use sciences of physiology and psychology to develop successful athletes in hopes of replicating data from person to person and season to season. This can be difficult in part because…
The Path to Becoming a Professional Track and Field Athlete?
Over the coming months, CTF will be expanding and evolving in a number of directions I believe will contribute to improving the sport as a whole, as well as enhancing the experiences of athletes and coaches. We will continue to place our primary emphasis on coaches and athletes competing at the developmental levels. But, that…
Chasing a Dream
December 15th marked three months since I moved into my Northern Phoenix apartment, my whole life packed into the backseat and trunk of a car. All for the sake of pursuing an opportunity to train professionally at the World Athletics Center’s US campus. When I first applied, I never thought that I would actually find…
Speed or Endurance in the 400m, 600m & 800m Races?
Track and field is a counterintuitive sport. That’s why most high school kids are terrible at it. I’m constantly reminding my athletes that their rate of progress is directly proportional to their ability to do the opposite of what feels natural. Push ‘down and back’ to go ‘up and forward’. Jump ‘away’ from the bar…
3 Hip Dominant Exercises for Size and Speed
We are all more than likely well aware at this point that the posterior chain, Glue-Ham Complex, Backside, or whatever else you would like to call it, is absolutely critical in all areas of human performance. Success in everything from power lifting, Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, team sports, injury prevention-treatment, aesthetics, etc. automatically demands that the…