My fastest kids win wristbands. Image 2. MPH wristbands ordered from rapidwristbands. There should be a reason behind everything we do. We should have a system of beliefs, a philosophy of coaching, and an overarching set of principles that guide us. My critics promote a sophisticated, complex, differentiated program. They use charts, graphs, and flow-charts to uniquely calibrate the training of each athlete and their targeted event. They quote the complexifiers: Bosch, Bondarchuk, and McMillan.
Some even claim to factor-in genetics even though genetic testing has never been implemented in a high school track program! Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand. Feed the Cats is not a rigid system. Feed the cats is a way to cook, allowing the recipe to evolve.
As a young coach, I coached like Clyde Hart—the way I was coached. Hard things make you tough. Tough athletes win. Even though my teams achieved unusual success in the s, at age, I blew it all up and started over again. No more 10 x I wanted to change the track experience for high school kids. I wanted to attract cats cats are fast-twitch athletes, for example wide receivers in football and basketball players who could dunk. For most of my career, I had one assistant coach throws earning a half-stipend.
Even though I now have 3. Essentialism is the Disciplined Pursuit of Less. If you chase two rabbits, you catch neither. We chase just one rabbit. We might place multiple athletes in the and One of those sprinters will be a hurdler. Another will long and triple. One of them will be great in the Remember what I said about essentialism and overarching principles? There it is. We will maximize team speed. Yep, give me an eight-man team of guys who can run 23 mph, and try to catch us.
One of the best things about being a speed-based track team is that sprints have a lower cost than distance events. Distance runners are seldom able to score high in multiple events. We ran faster times in the finals than we did in the prelims the previous day. We set two state records. Sure, running eight sprints in two days will wear you out, but sprinters can do it. One hundred percent false. Track at Plainfield North is just as nerdy as anywhere else in the country.
We typically have teams of boys, with the majority being freshmen and sophomores. My five all-staters that year ran By treating every sprinter as a cat, every sprinter becomes more cat-like fast-twitch, elastic, and fiercely competitive. Speed grows like a tree, but I have four years with my athletes.
My freshmen love track overarching principle. Therefore they return as sophomores and continue to grow. Sophomores become juniors, and juniors become seniors. Never undervalue happy athletes. In the off-season, pure speed is the focus.
No endurance. No bullshit. At worst, you may be detraining speed. If you do mileage, you are destroying speed. This is so true that most coaches believe speed is genetic and unchangeable.
Old school coaches believed coaches create milers, and God creates sprinters. Since endurance adaptations are relatively easy and speed adaptations are relatively difficult, your off-season focus must be speed. When the season starts, your athletes will have a terrific speed base. Speed actually creates endurance. If you have a kid who can run at 23 mph, that kid can easily run a at 18 mph, which would translate to sub m.
To develop the ability to sprint farther, we must sprint farther. I call these workouts lactate workouts or acidosis tolerance work. Table 1. To preempt hate mail, I have the utmost respect for Coach Hart. Sometimes, my best freshmen have never attended a track meet. Workouts in a Feed the Cats program are categorized and color-coded: green codes for rest, yellow codes for caution, and red codes for extreme.
Forty-two percent of our week flexible practice plan for sprinters is color-coded green. Cats sleep 20 hours a day. Lactate workouts and meets are color-coded red and will have a hour hangover.
Image 3. Color-coded Feed the Cats training plan. Lactate workouts are the hardest things we do. However, we only do them in-season, and we almost always make the next day a code green recovery day. Image 4. My athletes reflect my enthusiasm. I whole-heartedly defended myself. These workouts, like the , require a leap of faith. Acidosis creates a discomfort most athletes have never truly experienced. To call the pain intense would be like calling fire hot.
Lactate work is the price my team pays for a pure focus on speed in the off-season. The good news: the body is a fast-learner. Biochemical adaptations are accomplished at a magical rate compared to improving absolute speed. I see significant adaptations after our first lactate workout. When you run 10 x , you are tired at the end of the workout.
However, you have not improved speed. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. Also, you have not taught the body to deal with acidosis. If grinding through hard, mind-numbing, two-hour workouts is your preference, you are not a Feed the Cats guy.
I have four lactate workouts. Everyone wants the damn recipe, no one wants to learn how to cook! All four of these workouts are linked to in-depth articles. In a Feed the Cats program, all pain is self-inflicted. I never force-feed workouts. My kids build their own house. My guys all choose to do the work. By entering the track season with a maximal speed base, my kids are a couple of lactate workouts away from being solid in the With a week track season, the meets will do most of the rest.
More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. Tony retired from teaching chemistry after 38 years in the classroom and has 39 years of coaching experience football, basketball, and track.
Very good article!! I really like it…i have 1 question…are tempo runs completly out of your program!? I always question myself about those type of workout…if they really are useful or not…a part of me says yes…if you are completly out of shape how will you be able to recover from reps…and another part says no, because i did really good times without doing much tempo run even on m…can you tell me what you think about it. What type of strength work do your athletes do on these days?
Are general circuits employ as well? My coach trained me to run the as a sprint in and It was speed and endurance all the way. Below, there are steps broken down on how to run the meter dash. The first step to running the meter dash is having a strong start out of the starting blocks. The starting blocks are used so that the runner can push out of them with a strong force.
That will give them that quick start that is needed. A runner's start will determine how they finish. Once the race is about to begin, the runner must set up in his starting blocks and get set.
When the gun is fired, the runner will push out and go into his drive phase. The runner should come out of the starting blocks driving full speed for the first 50 meters. During the drive phase, the runner should be running with his head down and with force. They should be in almost a bent over position while running. The drive phase is what allows the runner to reach his top speed. The longer the drive, the better off a runner is to keeping his top speed longer.
After the drive phase, there is the transition phase. This phase is for another 50 meters. So runners should transition from running full speed and go into a nice pace, but still running at a fast pace with the same running stride.
This phase is important because a runner should never suddenly change paces, but transition into a different pace. This is also a critical phase in the race because it allows runners to go into a period of recovery. Once the runner has transitioned from the drive phase, he should be in the coasting phase for the next meters.
Runners should use less arm motion and let his legs do most of the work. This is what allows the runner to "recover". This is a also an important part of the race that keeps runners from burning out so fast. Toward the end of the coasting phase, a runner might begin to feel fatigue, so it is helpful to over-stride and stretch out as much as possible.
After the coasting phase, the acceleration phase is where the race becomes more mental. By this time, the runner has ran meters, the last meters is when the pace picks up.
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