Stephen Francis
He started by mentioning that there are 2 ways to prepare a sprinter:
1: Long to Short.....Get them fit with an autumn of volume/mileage/over-distance.
Proceed to more specific work.....more intense. Sprinting added at the end.
2: Short to Long.....Develop speed from day 1. As the winter season involves 60m competition, prepare for this in Oct and Nov
After March, introduce speed endurance.
General Preparation is 4 months. Some start in September but the pros in late October or even November. This phase will go till March and will involve
Hill sprints: Twice a week.
Weights: 4 times a week.
He mentioned that he doesn't perform traditional lifts, apart from Bench presses and Cleans. He rarely does squats as they can be dangerous. Lots of years experience required. Instead, he prefers the 1 leg squat, which is more sprint specific. If he is gonna involve a squat, it'll be a front squat, so the weight can be thrown forward in case of emergency. He likes jump squats and split jumps. Weights will be done before a sprint session.
Drills are performed to specifically strengthen, rather than to improve form. He will use high knees and straight leg bounds for specific strength. High knees for 100 or even 150m to develop hip flexors. He emphasised trying to understand what the body does in sprinting and then develop those muscles.
He wants attention paid to the back body: from the lumbar back to the heel, these being the most involved in sprinting. He'll perform hamstring work 4-5 times a week as this area works 3 times more than the front. His guys hardly get injured there due to the extra effort spent on this area.
Sprinting, he mentioned, is not natural, so hams get stressed. Important to do hip extension exercises: e.g. straight leg pulley hip extension. Not much focus needed on quads
Running will be done in sneakers on grass till Feb.
8x300m with 5 min rest.
12x200m with 3 min rest.
These slow endurance style workouts will be performed twice a week. His 300's are his staple workout and should be done every week. They develop resistance to pain.
There will also be 2 sprint sessions a week. These will include mechanics from blocks, sled work from blocks, 20's, 30's etc.
One day a week, there'll be Circuit training work. He mentioned Burpees as a typical circuit station, but wasn't too keen on demonstrating!!! Circuits will go on till Dec.
Also, he'll never change a program to accomodate indoor season
He also won't peak for e.g. a Commonwealths. Sherone Simpson ran 11.11 in January and 11.03 in August. As long as one keeps the specifics in the program they'll perform well. He mentioned a need to be at best against the Americans. If it's a less important period, don't change preparation. Some periods will obviously get sacrificed when targeting specific times of the year.
He also performs testing on his athletes. He has a 3 week training cycle followed by 1 week of testing. Tests will go on till April, examples of which are: Vertical jump, Long jump, throw for distance, 1RM in gym. He has a repetoire of 15-18 tests and will perform 3 a day on test week.
Core work is performed 3 times a week. Large amount of abs work is done with a medicine ball.
He mentioned a disliking to sand runs as they stress the quads too much
He also doesn't use overspeed training for fear of getting hurt. It's easy for athlete to lose control during overspeed. The important thing is to stay healthy and not do anything stupid. Normal sprints to 60m are also largely avoided for fear of injury, 50-60m being prime stage for athlete to pull up.
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