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.

Check it out and, as always, ask questions if you have them:

#1 Best Seller: Complete Speed Training Volume 2

Sure, I’m biased because I created it. But, if I didn’t know what I was talking about, you wouldn’t be reading this right now, would you? And, here’s the bottom line:

CST2 has sold more copies than all the other programs on this list….combined.

If you don’t have CST2 yet, I’m sure you have lots of great reasons, all of them involving the word ‘price’. And that’s cool. I totally understand. But, it takes money to make money. All of the coaches I go to for advice get  results because they have more tools in their toolbox. Common sense says I should go out and purchase the same tools. And I do, which is why I get results. And you can be sure the elite coaches I study didn’t get those tools from scavenging the interwebs for free sample programs.

If you’re offended, my bad. Really. But I bet no customers are offended. It’s just that you’re probably picking rusted wrenches out of dumpsters and I won’t apologize for recommending a pair of Channellocks.

But, in truth, it’s a win/win for me. If you get a copy, I get the satisfaction of knowing you’re going to help a lot of kids. If you help kids, then I help kids and that’s the reason I started doing this in the first place. If you don’t, it just means even more of my kids get to stand on the podium at the big meets. And kids love that.

Click here to learn more about Complete Speed Training Volume 2.

#2 Best Seller: Complete Program Design for Sprinters

Again, one of my core programs. CPD is more advanced than CST2 because it’s not about showing you how to teach drills and exercises. So I wouldn’t recommend this for novice coaches.

Instead, I get into the science of workout planning, training phases and managing energy systems. I go into the psychology of getting kids to buy into your program hook, line and sinker.

If you already feel good about how to teach the mechanics of speed, but want to know more about where, when and why to do various types of speed work based on training age, event group and training phase, then you’ll be pretty excited about CPD.

Click here to learn more about Complete Program Design for Sprinters.

#3 Best Seller: Complete Track & Field Conditioning for the Endurance Events

At first, I was surprised to see the #2 most popular event group of my list of coaches isn’t jumps or hurdles. It’s the distance events. Then I realized that I live in New England and 9 out of 10 head coaches is a distance coach. (Which explains why so many sprinters around here run on their heels, but I digress.)

Scott Christensen is arguably the top HS distance coach in the country, a 14 year lead instructor for USATF Level II Endurance school, has had 7 Minnesota State Champions at 800 and 1600 since 1996 and has had 4 former athletes go on to run sub 4:00 in the mile since 2003.

So, yeah. That’s pretty solid, don’t you think?

If you’re a distance coach and that doesn’t get you salivating then I highly recommend checking yourself for a pulse because you may have inadvertently ingested some puffer fish.

Seriously, I don’t even coach middle distance/distance runners and I study Scott’s information. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Click here to learn more about CTFC for the Endurance Events.

#4 Best Seller: Complete Track and Field Conditioning for the Jumps

If I have a question about the jumps, I’m calling Boo Schexnayder. If you’ve been involved in USATF Coaching Education, you’re a Boo disciple. If you get involved in The Academy…Boo.

Not only is Boo one of the kindest human beings I’ve ever met, he’s also one of the smartest. (No one draws a series of stick figures like Boo Schexnayder!) And he’s probably the best jumps coach on planet Earth.

So if you’re looking for some introductory level information in regards to workout planning, training inventories and progressions for your jumpers, you would be crazy not to have this book in your library. It’s not Level II school, but if you’re still lumping your jumpers in with your sprinters every day and then just separating them on ‘jump days’, my good friend, please come join us in the 21^st Century.

Click here to learn more about CTFC for the Jumps.

#5 Best Seller: Complete Track and Field Conditioning for the Sprints/Hurdles

I was on the phone with Tony Veney last week and, listening to him talk, I felt a bit like the younger Bizarro World version of…Tony Veney. I agreed with everything he was teaching me, he just has a much bigger toolbox full of better tools. That is the value of experience combined with open mindedness.

I’ll admit it’s a bit frustrating talking to guys like Tony because they understand things on levels I have yet to reach. But, then again, it’s not nearly as hard to humble myself now as it was when I was 22 and knew everything…

At the same time it’s great to know that a USATF Master Coach reads my emails and has positive things to say about my training philosophy. Tony is one of my ‘go to guys’ when I have a question about my sprinters or hurdlers. (And we both agree that speed and power is the key to fast 400 times…yeah, yeah Clyde Hart. Isn’t that what you were going to say?)

Here’s the truth: If you already have CST2 or CPD, then you’ll probably find Tony’s book a bit on the basic side. But if you don’t or you can’t bring yourself to spend the money on those programs, please do your athletes a favor and get Tony’s book on developing programs and training progressions for your sprinters/hurdlers.

Tony’s knowledge is as good as it gets. When you’re shopping for new tools, not every job requires a Sawzall. But that rusty hand saw ain’t gonna get it done either.

Click here to learn more about CTFC for the Sprints/Hurdles.

Got questions about which program is the right fit for you? Ask below.

To your success,

Latif Thomas

Oh yeah…

Clear your schedules my friends. In 2011, I’ll be taking my talents to:

Wisconsin Track Coaches Clinic – February 11-12

New England Track & Field Clinic – March 18-19

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)

And I will be stealing as much of it as possible.

Back in the day, when I was an inexperienced coach attending events like this, coaches would talk about endocrine system profiles between males and females or what kind of training caused muscle spindle fatigue and my eyes would start to bleed. After all, I don’t have a degree in exercise science or kinesiology, and, especially when dealing with the elitist attitude (some….many) college coaches take toward HS coaches, it was easy to feel like I was in over my head.

When they talked about their training progressions, there were so many holes in what I was doing I wondered how I would ever bridge the gap. Despite the fact I thought spontaneous combustion was imminent, my contempt for mediocrity pushed me to keep learning and refining what I was doing.

Can I get the Cliffs Notes on Rotational & Oscillary Factors in Locomotive Mechanics?

That’s why it was a good feeling to go to this conference and see that what I’m doing now, where my program and philosophies are trending, is very much in line with what these guys are doing. They just do it much better and work with a completely different level of athlete than I do. They have girls running 11.5 in the 100. Most of my boys can’t run 11.5 in the 100.

So if I had to take that whole weekend and wrap it all into one big Takeaway that you and I can both apply immediately to our programs, it would be this:

Efficiency.

My focus this year (in all areas of life) isn’t so much about adding layers of complexity to my programs. Instead, I need to focus on taking what already works and make it work better…in less time and with less chaos. Because a practice involving speed work, hurdles, jumps and weight room is chaos for high school coaches like me with a staff of one or two. 

First and foremost, making this work requires knowing why one method works and why another doesn’t work or doesn’t work as well. So I’m not saying we don’t need to learn anything new. Quite the opposite. The more tools you have in your toolbox, the easier it is to streamline your progressions. And therefore get results.

I’m expecting my biggest group of sprinters of all time this year. And I’ve never worked consistently with any of them. So it’s going to be a hot mess. I also don’t have a track in the winter and our weight room is a crime against humanity.

Welcome to the first day of track practice!

But there are a lot of people paying attention to the results I get. In fact, my business depends on those results. So, pressure or no pressure, good facility or bad, no one cares about my sad story. Therefore, one way or the other, I need to make it happen.

In order to address the demands of God knows how many kids with essentially no training age and ranging from 55-400m, plus hurdles, long jump and high jump and with no track and a bootleg weight room, I need to get the most out of every drill and exercise I do.

I suggest you take the same approach when planning out your season. (Which, I hope, you’re doing by now.)

The results I expect won’t come from obsessing about how many 200s to run on our tempo day. Or whether to do 150s or 300s at 77% or 82.5% with 3 minutes rest. Or 4. Or 4.5.

Irrelevant.

So what does this ‘Efficiency Model’ mean in practical terms?

Here are 3 specific areas I’m making changes this year.

       1.  Thematic consistency throughout practice

If the theme of practice is ‘Acceleration’ then everything we do in practice, from start to finish, should be geared toward teaching the skills required to accelerate explosively and efficiently.

Foot prep, overcoming inertia, glute activation, low heel recovery. Not only does this aid in teaching acceleration, but it also addresses many of the general strength, mobility, coordination and endurance/work capacity qualities we need to develop.  Hmm. I think the warm up just covered all 5 biomotor skills. I wonder if that’s important to running faster…

Same goes with your plyos. If the focus is on acceleration, then do exercises that develop similar qualities. Standing long jump would be an example.

Same with the weight room. If the focus is on acceleration, then do exercises that develop similar qualities. Cleans from the floor and deep squats would be examples.

      2. Even more strength training

If we have practice, we’re doing strength training. I didn’t say we’d be in the weight room every day. But we will strength train. But we’ll keep things in line with the topic I just discussed.  If it’s an acceleration day, we’re training power or max strength in the weight room, depending on the training phase.

Recovery day? We’re doing bodyweight work. Intensive tempo? We’re bodybuilding or doing some type of circuit. But we’re going to get stronger and more coordinated even at the expense of volume on the track.

That’s right. I said it. I will sacrifice volume on the track and still run fast because volume is highly overrated.

        3.    Technical/Coordination Focus vs Volume Based Approach

I’ve been saying this for a while and it was great to have it validated. Technical skill and coordination are more important to success in the sprint events than obsessing about hitting X amount of volume for the week.

Sprinters are not distance runners who just run shorter repeats.

Your sprinters shouldn't be built like this guy

So my focus will continue to trend toward developing the ability to coordinate increasingly powerful and efficient movement patterns and not on getting out to the track to run repeats as soon as possible. This approach will do more toward putting your sprinters in a position to develop consistent patterns and maintain posture at high intensities than following a protocol of endless submaximal running. Not only do sprinters hate doing that type of work, but you’re going to have a rash of shin splint, foot and knee problems and your kids will burn out.

Sure, they’ll get faster at the beginning because any progressive overload in a 15 year old is going to stimulate an adaptation. But long term, that approach is a little too 1970’s for my tastes. And I don’t think it works as well.

My New England Champion 4×100 team still broke the school record in the 4×4 (the only time they ran it) training like 100m runners. Because speed and strength are the key in *every* sprint event.

Follow this approach with your sprinters this season and not only will you see outstanding results, but you’ll keep your head from exploding.

To your success,

Latif Thomas
Complete Speed Training for Sprinters

Workout Planning for Sprinters
 
P.S. This year I’ll be speaking at both the Wisconsin State Track Coaches Clinic (February-6 sessions!) and the New England Track and Field clinic (March- 3 sessions) so if you live in those areas, make plans to attend!

What you do in practice determines the results you get on the track. As the saying goes:

The devil’s in the details.

Before you start planning any workouts for the upcoming season (something I spend time on each day) you’ll want to know if Complete Program Design for Sprinters (CPD) is the right program for you.

Are you familiar with the concept of a ‘training inventory’, but don’t really know how to create one? Or more specifically, how to use it to guide you in the workout planning process.

Or maybe you know that the body has three energy systems. And that appropriately challenging these energy systems to different degrees based on event, time of year and individual needs will lead your sprinters to PRs in the big meets. Or injuries.

If a better understanding of these concepts *and* their application sounds like something that would help you, then investing in Complete Program Design for Sprinters is a good idea.

You probably want to know more about how to progress your workouts so that your sprinters run their fastest times during the Championship Meets.

This requires strict adherence to the parameters defined by the three training phases: General Preparation, Special Preparation and the Competition phase.

Understanding of these training phases keeps you from running back to back to back quality workouts during GPP  (or, for that matter, ever) or running 8×200 at tempo pace during the Competitive Phase.

The more you know the more you control. The more you control, the more likely your sprinters are to achieve their goals.

If you don’t actively use the Rules defined by the training phases to keep you coloring between the lines, then your athletes kindly ask you to invest in a copy of Complete Program Design for Sprinters.

There’s one area of coaching that is more important than training phases and energy systems.

And that’s the psychological work you specifically and methodically plan with your sprinters. (Especially if you coach high school girls!!)

Do you do goal sheets with your sprinters? (You’re screwed if you don’t know all of your athletes’ goals!)

Do you utilize the magic of the ‘Track Walk’?

Have you established your ‘WWE Personality’?

The reason I get results is because I know how to get inside the minds of my athletes. In Complete Program Design for Sprinters I show you all my tricks and techniques.

To your success,

Latif Thomas

Become a fan on Facebook:

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/facebook

Get my uncensored opinions on Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/latif_thomas

However, you might not know exactly what you need.  Today we’ll see if Complete Speed Training 2 is the  right fit for you and your athletes. Read the rest of this post and honestly answer the questions in
your head.

By the time you finish, you’ll know exactly what you should do.

Are you still using static stretching as the primary focus of your warm up? Do you run specific warmups geared toward the specific demands of that day’s practice (acceleration vs top speed vs recovery vs tempo)? If not, you’re practicing checkers to prepare for the big chess match.

If you’re doing the same old stuff every day before practice, all season long, you’re looking for Complete Speed Training 2.

Do you do a training inventory before the start of each season? Do you know how long each training phase should be and what the workout expectations
are for each of the 3 training phases? Answers to these questions are fundamental to the success of any sprinter.

If you don’t really know what I’m talking about, you and your athletes really need Complete Speed Training 2.

Do you have a progression for engaging in technical feedback with your athletes? Can you spot problems with technique and immediately provide solutions to the athlete for fixing them? Would you be confident
pointing out those problems and addressing them with e standing ext to you?

If not, your athletes would really appreciate it if you would invest in Complete Speed Training 2.

Do your sprinters have a clearly established routine for getting into the blocks, even in practice? Do you instruct them to be first into the blocks? Or
second to last? (It matters.) Do you have them focus on responding to the gun or on a particular movement? One leads to good reaction time, the other doesn’t.

Be honest. If you’re not really sure, then your program could use an injection of new ideas. Do you know the difference between extensive and
intensive tempo, what they do to the body and how they affect the rest of the week’s workouts? Do you give your athletes specific times to hit during
their tempo work? (I hope so!) Do you know the rule for when to shut a workout down so freshman and seniors aren’t running the same number of reps? (They shouldn’t be!)

If you’re not coloring between the lines here, then you’ve got a gaping hole in your program. And Complete Speed Training 2 has your answers.

Are your sprinters in the weight room, religiously, 2-3 days per week? Do you understand how to structure exercises, sets, reps and loads so they get stronger without getting bulky? (Not all strength training is created equal.) Do you walk around the weight room teaching and correcting technique so athletes don’t injure themselves…or others?

Outside of speed work, the weight room is the most important part of practice for any sprinter. If you’re using machines in the weight room, doing reps higher than 8 for a set or, God forbid, not in the weight room at all, you and your sprinters need Complete Speed Training 2.

Obviously, I didn’t cover all the elements of your program requiring new blood. But I hit a few of the big ones. The coaches and programs that win
year after year aren’t just making things up as they go along or trying to remember what they did in the past.

Invest in Complete Speed Training 2 right now while I’m offering the lowest prices of the year!

To your success,

Latif Thomas

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