OK, I’m talking about myself…

But, even if you were a hurdler, as my mentor told me the day he hired me many moons ago,

“Just because you ran fast doesn’t mean you know how to teach people to run fast.”

Those felt like harsh words when I was 22, but no truer words were ever spoken.

There are a ton of drill based hurdle DVDs out there. And I’ve got a lot of them.

But, as I’ve learned, drills alone aren’t the answer. And there is a fundamental lack of information out there aimed at running a quality hurdle program, especially if you coach at the high school level.

So I decided to fix that problem. Last year I sent a survey to Complete Track and Field readers asking them for their questions about the hurdles. Then I had one of my hurdle mentors, Tony Veney, create a resource that covered all of the topics you want to know about.

So, long story short, here it is – Training the Sprint Hurdler

I’m taking a slightly different approach with this email. I’m not going to give you a thesis on why you should get it. I’m not going to lay out all the features and benefits of the program. The type of coaches who will invest in this resource don’t need it.

You know we put out good information here at Complete Track and Field. Coach Veney’s program is no different.

If you’re the type of coach who likes to learn things, apply them at practice and make track more fun for your athletes, you’ll check it out.

I’ll be basing my hurdles program on it. It’s half price for the rest of the week. It’s digital so you can start watching it in about 3 minutes. And Coach Veney will answer your questions.

Here is Tony Veney’s ‘Hurdling Training Program‘.

To your success,

Latif Thomas

Combining the expertise of myself, Dave Jack and Dr. Toby Brooks, I feel confident saying that the final result is the definitive coaching resource on developing speed and agility in youth (6-18) field and court sport athletes.

Why?

Because the three of us catered to our strengths. Dr. Brooks brought his sport science background and drafted the most impressive text I’ve seen on the theory and methodology of teaching speed and agility to kids.

Dave Jack, an advisor to Reebok and Boston Celtic Paul Pierce’s Truth on Health Foundation, brings his wealth of knowledge in the areas of multidirectional speed and agility.

And, of course, I demonstrate my most up-to-date progressions for teaching linear speed.

(Become a Youth Speed & Agility Specialist today.)

As you research possible speed and agility programs to invest in, you may be wondering which program is a better fit for your personal needs: my Complete Speed Training (CST) program or the YSAS Course.

So here is my opinion:

If you coach athletes competing in team (field & court) sports like football, soccer, basketball, lacrosse, etc., you will get more bang for your buck with the YSAS course than you will with CST.

CST is very drill dominant. So it does have a larger overall inventory of drills and exercises in terms of showing you the actual things you’ll specifically use to make up your training sessions. And it does a great job of explaining how to teach and cue those drills so your athletes do them right.

I think that is where CST is very strong and why it continues to be one of the most popular speed training programs on the market.

The YSAS course, on the other hand, is very skill and progression dominant. Instead of just showing you all the drills you can use, we actually show you how we teach these skills and progressions to real athletes in a training situation.

(For example, I had never met the athlete I workwith in the course *and* he is a wrestler so ’speed’ isn’t a skill he has developed. So we didn’t stage the filming to work with top tier athletes.)

And I think this is a more effective way for you to learn how to progress/regress, modify and evolve the way you run your practices.

Here is a perfect example of why I think you will see the greatest benefits with the YSAS course:

In the agility DVD of CST, I teach that skill using primarily agility ladder drills and cone drills. There is nothing wrong with using these techniques, but as you learned from our teleseminar, these drills should supplement the skills we teach, not serve as the skills.

So I don’t think CST does a stellar job teaching the multidirectional component of speed.

On the other hand, in the YSAS course, Dave Jack bases all his instruction on the teaching of skill sets, progressions and regressions. He teaches you the general and specific movement patterns that generally and specifically apply to general and specific situations that field and court sport athletes of all ages will face in competitive situations.

He does an awesome job. Personally, I think he steals the show, though Dr. Brooks wrote a fascinating and detailed manual that you’ll learn a lot from.

Simply put, CST was filmed in the summer of 2004. YSAS was filmed in the summer of 2011. Here in 2011, the combination of myself, Dave Jack and Dr. Brooks flat out know a lot more than just I did back then.

Plus, I’d bet the farm that 2011 Latif would severely outcoach 2004 Latif.

And for that reason alone, I recommend the YSAS course over CST. I believe you will provide a better experience and help your athletes achieve the best results with this program.

I hope I’ve given you an honest, objective assessment of the two programs so you can make an informed decision.

When you’re ready to become a better speed coach, invest in the IYCA Youth Speed & Agility Specialist Certification Course.

To your success,

Latif Thomas

Because, the truth is, 8 out of 10 high school coaches could not pass a basic strength and conditioning test. And I’ve worked with quite a few of them.

You know who I mean. That angry, incompetent and morbidly obese dude that clearly hates kids (and Christmas), but has nothing else to do after school except torment some teenagers.

We need to get these people out of coaching. And being really good at what we do is the only way to drive these people into coaching extinction.

Not to mention the fact that these types of ‘coaches’ are the reason your athletes feel compelled to seek outside coaching when they’re competing in a season they’re not with you.

(If you’re one of those ‘outside the school’ trainers, this is another reason to look into this certification…)

And if you’re both equally uncertified, it’s hard for you to tell a kid not to go to that ‘personal trainer’.

If we, as New Breed Coaches, are going to drive the bad coaches into retirement, we have to be the change we want to see in others.

That starts with educating ourselves and then our athletes.

Not only will they work harder for you, but they’ll get better results, have more fun, and, most importantly, stay injury free.

If you agree with what I’m saying, you should take a serious look at this HS Strength & Conditioning Certification from the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA):

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/highschool

I know that certifications aren’t the ‘end all, be all’ of whether or not we’re good coaches.

But I know the guys and the organization who created this one.

They’re smart people who care about our industry and care about kids. And if you study their information, you’ll become a better coach.

And that serves the greater good. It helps you. It helps kids. It helps your sport. It helps our industry. Check it out:

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/highschool

To your success,

Latif Thomas

3 Reasons to Follow Me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/latif_thomas

1. I share info there that I don’t put in my standard emails & blog posts.

2. You’ll get my uncensored thoughts & opinions on every topic anyone would consider interesting.

3. There are no other speed, strength & conditioning coaches saying anything funny, so experience priceless Latif comedy that can only be contained by Twitter servers.

Effective training systems are about taking what you’ve got, understanding the realities, knowing what’s best and then turning out what makes the most sense for your situation. And the key to understanding how to effectively train high school athletes may not be what you think.

The IYCA’s own coaches Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, Brian Grasso & Wil Fleming got on a call recently and covered their step by step system for training high school athletes. They ran this exclusive teleseminar last week and I thought that you would greatly benefit from it.

The content they covered was great but they only sent it out to their members. So, I had to convince Brian Grasso to send me the recording so I could share it with you (thanks again Grasso!). I hope you enjoy.

Click the play button below to learn more about high school strength and conditioning…

If you’re like me and would rather read then listen, I have included the transcription of the teleseminar for you – Click Here to Download the Transcript (PDF) or Click Here for the Word Document Transcription

Please leave your comments below and let me know what you think.

To your success,

Latif Thomas

P.S. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll follow me on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/latif_thomas

I recently heard Boo Schexnayder say acceleration is about finding the ‘resonant frequency of oscillary patterns’ in terms of developing and improving the efficiency of locomotive mechanics.

I recently heard Gary Winckler say, “90% of speed development is technique.”

I once heard Will Smith talk about understanding how the universe works by ‘studying the patterns.’

Well, I’ve been studying the patterns, and, in doing so, one fact has become overwhelmingly clear:

Our athletes will be faster when they develop this quality.

Our athletes will be more explosive and powerful when they develop this quality.

Our athletes will be on the board (instead of over and behind) and won’t trip over hurdles (or themselves) when they develop this quality.

Our athletes will consistently hit their times during tempo runs and race modeling sessions once they develop more of this quality.

So, if all I’ve said here is true, then what is the most important word in all of speed training?

Coordination.

Everything we do in practice is designed to improve the ability to express technique in order to positively influence performance. An athlete’s inability to express said technique simply boils down to lack of specific coordination.

Of course, I didn’t invent this concept. I heard Gary Winckler talk about it. Then I thought about it. Then I stole it. Now here we are.

Here’s an example. Last week I ran the exact same workout with two different athletes.

One was a 16 year old high schooler with a 200m PR of 26.1. The other was a 22 year old post collegiate with a 200m PR of 24.7.

The high schooler has been doing consistent technical work all summer and fall, going back and forth between me and another great sprints coach, Marc Mangiacotti. (He and I will be running a sprints clinic this summer, so, when they come, your sprinters will get to learn what we’re doing first hand…)

In our last session, she looked incredible. Her bad runs are now vastly superior to what good runs looked like in June. She can break down her own technique before I say anything which, to me, is a sign of wildly improved kinesthetic awareness and skill acquisition. Her confidence is light years ahead of where it was 6 months ago. I’m very proud of her and can’t wait to see her reap the rewards of her hard work.

The post collegiate, on the other hand, comes from a (Division I) college program that did absolutely no technical work, no speed work and sent 200m specialists out for 30 minute runs on a routine basis even in the middle of the competitive phase. She came from a good high school program (cough, cough), so that’s roughly the last time this athlete had good technical instruction (a 25.02 HS PR vs 24.71 collegiate PR is not a comforting improvement over the course of 4 years at the D-1 level).

Needless to say, this athlete was some sort of Hot Mess. She could feel it wasn’t right.

It wasn’t lack of effort or focus. And it sure wasn’t lack of ability. It was pure lack of coordination.

She lacked (’lost’ might be a better word) the strength (coordination training under resistance), endurance (coordination training under event specific time constraints), speed (coordination training to express highest force in the least amount of time and resulting in optimal displacement) and mobility (coordination training to dynamically express forces through desired/required ranges of motion) to accelerate to top speed and maintain that velocity with any semblance of efficiency or consistency of execution.

Once she acquires the coordination that the high schooler currently possesses, I know one thing for sure, she won’t be grinding to dip under the times she ran when she was 16.

My point is pretty simple. If you want to run a 21^st Century program, it’s not enough to just run fast in practice. As coaches we have to have our own process for solving the acceleration equation. And, just as importantly, we have to be able to help our athletes solve it themselves. Because we can’t cue them or engage in technical feedback once the gun goes off. Their success fundamentally depends on the ability to feel what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ and make corrections in real time, under the stress of competition and with 6-7 other athletes trying to beat them. Or with a crowd of people staring at them while they barrell down the runway.

It’s not enough to send kids into the weight room if you don’t have the same technical standards for a squat or clean as you do for coming out of blocks or doing phase work in the triple jump.

But if you reframe your training perspective with coordination being the ultimate goal and strength, speed, endurance and mobility being interdependent qualities, it will be easier to connect the dots between movements, event groups and specific skill development.

At your next practice, watch your athletes perform all the drills and exercises that make up their practice with this concept of ‘coordination as the ultimate goal’ in mind. It will be both liberating and overwhelming at the same time.

Here’s the first step to solving the coordination equation:

How to Build Champion Sprinters

To your success,

Latif Thomas

UPDATE (March 24, 2011): I will be running a sprints/hurdles clinic this summer with ‘Building the Perfect 100m Sprinter’ creator Marc Mangiacotti. It will be for athletes AND coaches. I will have a website up with full details and we will begin taking registrations (we have a limited number of spots available) in the next 2 weeks. However, this much is confirmed: The clinic will be held in Massachusetts  on Saturday, July 23 and Sunday, July 24, 2011. Send your athletes and/or attend yourself.

How do I effectively coach my sprinters while also appropriately developing their jumps and hurdle needs, without turning practice into a mass of kids going in different directions at the same time?

If you coach at the developmental level, you wrestle with this issue on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

I’m going to answer this question in 2 parts. Today I’ll outline the weekly training goals/demands for each ‘subgroup’. That way you’ll know what you need to get done each week with each group of athletes. On Thursday, if you’re a Complete Speed Training 2 or Complete Program Design for Sprinters customer, you’ll get a video showing how I break this down into an actual week of training, what I do, when I do it and how to make sure every athlete competing in multiple events gets the just the right amount of training.

(If you still don’t have CST2 or CPD, order now so you get access to Thursday’s video.)

In the meantime, check out this video:

Invest in the success of your athletes and program by joining the
New Breed of Coaches using CST2 and CPD as the foundation of our sprints programs:

 
Complete Speed Training Vol. 2: How to Build Champion Sprinters

Complete Program Design for Sprinters

To your success,

Latif Thomas

P.S. Don’t forget, in 2011 I’ll be speaking at:

- Wisconsin Track Coaches’ Clinic (February 11-12)
- New England Track & Field Clinic (March 18-19)

Sold on the idea. Sold on me. Sold on my programs. Sold on something. And I completely understand that. Open minded skepticism is rarely a bad thing.

Earlier this summer, I was contacted by a producer from a Boston television station interested in doing a feature on the importance of training speed in today’s athlete, especially at the developmental level.

That segment aired this past Wednesday and I really had no idea what to expect. Since they told me they’d be interviewing several speed coaches, I didn’t know if I’d get anything more than a quick sound byte. By the looks of the video, they liked what they saw and heard…

Like I said, it’s one thing when I tell you how important this is for you and your athletes. You might take it with a grain of salt. But when a major market news station builds a segment around what you’re doing, you know you must be on to something.

So check out what they came up with…

Got questions or comments? Post them below and I’ll do my best to answer them.
- Latif

This winter I’ll be taking over my third sprints/hurdles/jumps program in the past decade or so (I’m the Larry Brown of HS track coaches) and I have high expectations for the group. This is a program used to experiencing success, so I’m excited to get the season started!

When I get back, I’ll be diving head first into preparing for the upcoming year. I’m not one to wait until November to start preparing for the winter season. Because if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.

And I’ll be explaining everything I’m doing, studying, changing and thinking about along the way.

In the meantime, here are the three most popular videos I posted during 2010.

1. How to run the 400m

2. The fatal flaw in your sprinters’ technique

3. How to run the 200m

A few weeks ago I sent out a survey to get a sense of who was opening my emails. The #1 area of interest from the group was “Program Design/Workout Planning”.

My friends. If that’s what you want to know more about, then you’re looking for my Complete Program Design for Sprinters program. It walks you through everything you need to know about writing workouts that lead to PRs in meets that matter. You can watch the above videos until you’re blue in the face. But if you don’t know what workouts to do, when to do them and why you’re doing them, all that technical stuff has little value. If you’re looking for an upgrade to your program design/workout planning/periodization skill set, invest in Complete Program Design for Sprinters now.

- Latif Thomas

And, while I feel pretty good about the evolution of my strength training progressions, I still put myself in this category.

It’s easy for me to focus on speed work and technical analysis because that’s what I’m good at. And we all like to focus on the things we enjoy doing.

BUT, if you want to develop faster, skilled athletes who don’t get injured, you need to do a better job with your strength/power training and weight room program.

(If you coach high school athletes and you’re not in the weight room at least twice per week all season, your program automatically gets a failing grade.)

The weight room I have to deal with this year is a joke.

But that’s not a pass to neglect strength training. There are a million options you can utilize that don’t require 2000 square feet and 15 power racks.

So what do you do?

One of the most experienced and successful strength coaches on the planet is Mike Boyle. Over the years I’ve jacked a ton of his information and applied it to my programs with obvious results.

So here’s my resource recommendation of the week:

http://www.functionalstrengthcoach3.com/trial

Boyle’s site has a ridiculous number of articles, videos, etc., on every component of strength training.

You can test drive the whole site, for 2 weeks, for only $1.

After that, it’s less than $10 per month. I know the site and it is worth far more than the cost of lunch.

So spend the dollar and check out the site. If, for some reason, you don’t like it, then you’ve wasted…

One dollar.

To me, strength training is just as important to success as speed training. After all, if both of us have a good 55m runner, but mine is stronger than yours, your will lose to mine over and over again. End of story.

Check out Boyle’s site and evolve your strength training knowledge:

http://www.functionalstrengthcoach3.com/trial

To your success,

Latif Thomas

P.S. Based on my recent survey, 86% of you recognize that you can’t get something for nothing. Programs run by coaches only looking for a hand out (aka Welfare Programs) will experience the success found by people who are only looking for hand outs…

But this offer is as close to ’something for nothing’ as you’ll find. I highly recommend you take advantage of it. My season starts the Monday after Thanksgiving. I’m already training my staff and plotting my progressions.

Coach Boyle’s site is part of the process.

http://www.functionalstrengthcoach3.com/trial

1. Define Your Expectations

Notice I didn’t say ‘Goals’. I don’t believe in goals. Goals are things that never actually happen. Like the dream you had last night. And tomorrow.

Expectations eliminate wiggle room, excuses and sad stories. Young athletes have lots of these. So I simply don’t allow them in my program. Think about it. Which athlete do you think will win the big race today?

The athlete with a goal: ‘My goal is to win today’.
The athlete with an expectation: ‘I’m going to win today.’

Action is the first step to manifestation. So take action before running a single workout and set specific, exact expectations for the upcoming season. Most kids don’t set clear expectations. So I just don’t let them off the hook. You shouldn’t either.

ME: What are you going to run in the 200 this year?
ATHLETE: Umm. 26?
ME: Are you asking me or telling me? 26 what? Flat? .9?
ATHLETE: Um. 26 flat?
ME: You’re going to run 26.0 seconds this year?
ATHLETE: …..Yes. 26 flat. That’s what I want to run this—
ME: That’s what you what?
ATHLETE: What I want to—
ME: What you…
ATHLETE: What I’m going to run this year.
ME: Soooo…..
ATHLETE: I’m going to run a 26.0 this year.

Good. Now we have established an expectation, not some half ass, ‘gee it sure would be nice to…’ nonsense that will never happen.  And everything we do and say will come back to whether or not we’re doing what it takes to meet the expectation. I’m committed to their commitment. So we’re in it together. It’s not specifically about ‘winning’. I never pressure little kids to win. PRs and winning are byproducts of committing to your expectations. That’s an important distinction. Skip or ignore this and you might as well run all your races in trainers instead of spikes.

Try it. You’ll see just how wishy-washy your athletes are because they’re afraid to commit to something they think may be difficult. My philosophy is: Feel the fear and do it anyway. (That’s also a great book by Susan Jeffers and you should read it.)

And once you convince a kid they can meet their expectations on the track, it’s a natural extension to get them to believe they can meet any expectation in any aspect of life. And I call that character development, which is the real goal. Again, and I can’t stress this emphatically enough, running a 26.0 is just the physical manifestation of focus, attention and action narrowly aimed at meeting a particular expectation.

My athletes do what I say because I empower them. And few other people in their experience (they don’t count their parents) show that much personal interest. It’s really that simple. Last year, at the end of the season, one of my kids said to me, “Thanks for not giving up on me coach.”

Truth is, all I did was not allow her to give up on herself. That’s the difference. And it starts with setting an intention and establishing an expectation for success, whatever that means to the athlete.

P.S. Coaches need their own set of personal expectations. I know what my expectations are each season in terms of school records, championships, etc. for individual athletes, relays and the team as a whole. You simply can’t meet an expectation that you never bothered to establish.

2. Easy Does It

The temptation is to start training like animals because we’re excited for the new season. Or because we learned some information over the summer that we want to try out. (You have learned new information since last season, haven’t you?)

But I say: Relax.

It’s the fall. You don’t have any meets until mid/late December at the earliest. Do you really need to start training 5 days per week starting in August? Not so much. Especially if you’re dealing with developmental level athletes or kids going into their first year of college. It’s a long season.

I’d rather have my sprinters show up the first day of practice a little bit undertrained and chomping at the bit to get going than feeling like they need a vacation from their offseason training.

Besides, does a 55m guy really need to train 5 days a week during the fall? The farthest he’s going to run at once is 200m. (Or in my case 300m, the most underrated event in all of track and field.) Short sprinters just don’t need to do the amount of ‘work’ that a 400m runner needs to do.

So I say 3-4 quality days per week for short sprinters and 4-5 quality days per week for long sprinters.

3. Build a ‘Base’.

When most people hear the term ‘base work’, they think of endless,  boring and exhausting aerobic workouts. And to sprinters, you might as well tell them that their training consists of repeatedly getting punched in the face. Because that’s what slow running feels like to a sprinter or speed/power athlete.

We get this false truth because we have a ‘go for a run’ mentality in this country when it comes to ‘getting in shape.’

This, of course, is nonsense. So, to me, ‘base work’ is establishing the general, foundational qualities that facilitate the ability to handle higher loads of higher intensity training later on in the season.

Simply put, develop foundational biomotor skill: speed, strength, coordination, mobility and endurance. This process is covered extensively in Complete Program Design for Sprinters and Complete Speed Training 2, so refer to those programs for a step by step look at how to achieve this.

Don’t go crazy with maximal loads in the weight room in September. Focus on general strength (GS) work.

Don’t go crazy with Special Endurance runs in September. Focus on acceleration and consistency of execution.

Speaking of acceleration…

4. Speed work is a ‘Year Round’ Process

I once had an athlete at the HS level who was All State Champion at 300m and 400m. In fact, no one in my state has run faster than his PR at 300m since that happened back in ’06.

He got to college and promptly stopped doing any speed work at all. He asked his coach why and was told, “You never hit top speed in the 400, so there is no need to run at top speed in practice.”

Hold on, I have to wipe the tears from my eyes. And the vomit from my shirt.

This coach clearly did not read my article on getting athletes to drink the Kool-Aid. And this athlete did not run a PR until he started ignoring his coach. I’m not condoning ignoring your coach. But, it’s hard not to when your HS coach has you running faster at 17 than your D1 coach does at 21. And I could give you a dozen more examples off the top of my head of former athletes who didn’t get faster in college. Like I’ve said countless times, once you see the Truth, you can’t go back inside The Matrix.

The whole point of training for running is to get faster. Even in the 2mile. (It’s not ‘how long can you run for?’ it is ‘how fast can you run 2 miles?’) So speed work is a year round process.

Your sprinters need to be doing speed work each and every week. Train 40 weeks a year, do speed work 40 weeks a year. (+/- 2 weeks)

My suggestion for fall training? Again, focus on teaching acceleration and consistency of execution.

5. Get Stronger!

I mentioned this already, but it deserves its own topic. You can’t do much for your athletes if you don’t get them stronger. Sure you can clean up technique and that will get you immediate results. But there’s a low glass ceiling in place when strength becomes the major limiting factor.

During the sprints camp I worked this summer, I had some kids with a lot of potential. But, at some point, all I could tell them was, “Until you get stronger, you’re not going to be able to execute X, Y and/or Z.”

But I’m not sending a 14 year old girl who has never touched a weight into the weight room to do heavy deadlifts. That is negligent. (It’s also the reason why I believe, when possible, you shouldn’t have freshman triple jump in meets or do full approaches in practice. Too weak, too dangerous. Not worth it.)

Strength comes in many varieties. And you can’t do max strength work from September to February, switch to power and then go heavy again in spring. I mean, you can. But your athletes will run crap times, then get injured.

Bodyweight circuits. Core work. Maybe even a hypertrophe phase. Start there in the fall. You’ll be surprised how strong developmental athletes can get on a strict diet of bodyweight exercises. Building a foundation here will develop the soft tissue strength and mobility to handle the heavy stuff later on. Trust the process and follow your blueprint.

(Have I ever mentioned that all your strength training options, general to specific, are covered in your CST2 program? Oh, I did? Nevermind.)

Build your offseason training around these core concepts and it is physically impossible not to build fast, skilled sprinters.
To your success,

Latif Thomas
Resources I recommend:
Speed Training for Sprinter The Godfather of Sprint Training Programs

How to Write More Effective Workout Progressions for Your 55m-400m Sprinters -  Program Design for Sprinters

Sports Nutrition for Athletes (The Uncomplicated Version)