About to find out if a slow 30yr old can run a sub 11 100m.

I'm sorry man. I'm your age, but the first time I ran a 100m FAT was 12.89 (age 13). At age 30-32, you are not yet old enough to have a significant detriment to your 100 time, so you should have run at the least under 13 for a chance at much better times. I think your best bet is to get under 13. However, I think your journey towards this time will make you very fit and lower your bf%. Enjoy the ride. I hope you prove everyone wrong.

former sprinter wrote:

I ran mid 13s as a 7th grader on a cinder track. I barely trained, didn't have spikes, and had no clue how to use blocks properly.

After a few years of puberty, 10+ years of training, sprint spikes, and far better running surfaces, I ran a lifetime best of 11.26.

You have no chance. I am willing to bet a considerable amount of money that you can't run a wind-legal FAT sub 11.

Here's the thing. I think you're correct but I read through the thread and it seems like the guy wants to maximize his ability. Kind of see where it goes.

He has some things to fix so he has not realized his potential yet. To me, it will be interesting to find out how quick he can get.

I agree with everything here.

I didnt mention the tempo runs or him firing his coach because he seemed set on following his coach's training.

I do not agree with doing much extensive tempo / aerobic power work for anyone focused on the 100. I would work on it for a 200/400 runner. I also would NOT work on a high rotating heel as suggested. The focus should be knee drive which the mini-hurdles as was suggested will help.

Intensive tempo would help but that is at 80-89% of best mark. I wouldn't focus on it though. It would be good to have some of this in your general prep phase.

The total session should be between 800-1800 meters.

An example might be 5x200 with at least a 3 minute recovery in between allowing the CP system to rebound to 80%+ before draining it again. Use 80-90% of your current best mark in the 200.

As far as getting rid of his coach, I don't know how you get there given the information we have. His credentials?

Otter, no pure short sprinter should be doing 80% runs and the session of 5-200m is in no way assisting at that pace!

I hear so many sprint coaches yelling "knee's" "on your toes" "arms" Which mean nothing at all! and give the impression of coaching.

Tempo is aerobic capacity/ power correct. however, its used to

a) recover and improve fitness and

b) ingrain running mechanics - which in this case is slightly lacking and needs improving upon at slower speeds first. (every true sprint coach understands this)

If you don't understand the ankle cycle then you are not understanding sprint mechanics.

The whole point of mini hurdles is to improve two things,

1) timing of the leg switch (stance vs recovery etc) and

2) step over mechanics (the raising of the heal over the stance knee, bringing that heel directly under (this is when people start shouting "knees" when they don't know wtf they're talking about) into a step over technique "front side" over the hurdle.

As for the coach, anyone can have a license, it takes skill and knowledge to coach!

I don't need to see credentials to know the OPs mechanics and at least blocks should have already been corrected, further the sessions are not going to address any real speed requirements and are void of structure.

lol This is the internet though so of course everyone has a voice and is free to disagree :)

Infact when I talk to new athletes anywhere I always say to them, ask your coach to explain what they mean by High knees, on your toes etc and that tells you all you need to know about a sprint coach :)

Intensive tempo workouts can help with the last 10 meters where ALL sprinter decelerate.

If you cue the ankle cycle with an athlete you will trigger them to focus on backside mechanics. This is one of the worst things you can do as a sprint coach while cueing an athlete.

Art Mann:

"an effort is made to maximize upper leg flexion at full flexion (larger angle). The "high knee" position gives the athlete a greater range of motion through which to accelerate the leg toward ground contact."

You can buy his book if you want, or you can spend a week with him like I have.

By the way extensive tempo is aerobic based and intensive tempo is a mix. Intensive tempo can help you keep your top speed after 6-7 seconds. You figure out why...

Credentials are important because for instance a Level 5 IAAF certification would tell me that not only would the person have a vast knowledge of the energy systems and sprint mechanics but they would also have been evaluated by the best in the world working with an actual athlete.

I didn't invent the wheel but I follow the people who did.

otter wrote:

former sprinter wrote:

I ran mid 13s as a 7th grader on a cinder track. I barely trained, didn't have spikes, and had no clue how to use blocks properly.

After a few years of puberty, 10+ years of training, sprint spikes, and far better running surfaces, I ran a lifetime best of 11.26.

You have no chance. I am willing to bet a considerable amount of money that you can't run a wind-legal FAT sub 11.

Here's the thing. I think you're correct but I read through the thread and it seems like the guy wants to maximize his ability. Kind of see where it goes.

He has some things to fix so he has not realized his potential yet. To me, it will be interesting to find out how quick he can get.

I think you're kind of understanding the way I think.

Sub 11 is a monumental task for me and there's certainly a chance I won't succeed at getting it, I'm perfectly prepared for that. However, for me to train hard, I have to believe in my goals, and I do. I don't

see how a person can stand a chance at a near impossible goal with an "Oh well, let's see" attitude.

I'd rather sound naive and foolish and have motivation for every session than sound pessimistic and defeatist and ultimately give up.

Everyone saying it's impossible and foolish are the same people who'd tell me not to start sprinting as I

lack the talent or whatever. They're the reason I was discouraged to start when was younger earlier. So, why should I listen to them?

My current routine is mainly my own, it's still early days with my coach. His belief is that before you can really start a sprint programme, you have to assess your bio-mechanics, by studying your movement patterns.

Sprinting is at the top of the movement pattern hierarchy, so problems in your sprinting will be traced back there. Right now, we've picked up an imbalance in my pelvis as a result of underdeveloped glute meds, I've been squatting at the gym for years, without flaring out my knees and engaging these muscles. It's going to effect my stride, at best, and result in injury at worst if I don't address it. So, he's got me doing 4 variations of step ups to target the glute meds. Once the imbalance is sorted out, we're good to go with a proper track routine.

My logic was to start track work ASAP, while I'm sorting out my glute issue, as I need all the time I can get to at least rewire my neurological system (impulse) to began firing quicker and this isn't achieved overnight. I've picked up some terrible habits, but I'm committed to sorting them out.

10/10, so I'll bite.

Someone who can pull of a sub 11 despite doing minimal training before age 32 is someone who would have been running low 10s if he started in his early teens and devoted his life to it. That's Olympic level talent.

You can make a slow person fast, but you cannot make a slow or even average person have world-class speed.

You might be a little bit crazy as some of the other posters have mentioned, but your shorter term goals seem reasonable if ambitious.

This is one of the best threads I have read on Letsrun in a while, so please keep updating us. Good luck.

otter wrote:

By the way extensive tempo is aerobic based and intensive tempo is a mix. Intensive tempo can help you keep your top speed after 6-7 seconds. You figure out why...

Credentials are important because for instance a Level 5 IAAF certification would tell me that not only would the person have a vast knowledge of the energy systems and sprint mechanics but they would also have been evaluated by the best in the world working with an actual athlete.

I didn't invent the wheel but I follow the people who did.

Extensive tempo shouldn't be aerobic based, it should definitely be a mixture of energy systems. Anybody who can run at 70% of maximum speed purely aerobically would be one hell of a distance runner.

As an example, a mid to low 11 100m runner can run 10m/s top end. So 70% is 7m/s, or slightly faster than 4 flat mile pace. "Purely aerobic" would mean 10k or longer race pace. So if extensive tempo was aerobic for somebody, they would be setting world records unless they were very slow.

In reality, extensive tempo pace is slower than 400m pace, but faster than 800m pace for the majority of sprinters.

Anyway, you don't agree with AJ that the OP should be doing some tempos. That is fine too disagree on something. But you are suggesting special endurance and intensive tempo work. His coach isn't including those either, so why are you defending his coach?

Really, you and AJ agree on the need for sub maximal work at longer distances, you just don't agree on exactly how that should look or the exact purpose behind that. But nothing the OP currently does looks remotely like what you or AJ is suggesting.

You even agreed with AJ on mini hurdle drills being useful, you just didn't agree why. Again, why did the OP's coach not include something even that basic? Practically even every high school program near me includes mini hurdles for the sprinters, it isn't exactly a secret of high level coaches, it is basic stuff.

otter wrote:

Credentials are important because for instance a Level 5 IAAF certification would tell me that not only would the person have a vast knowledge of the energy systems and sprint mechanics but they would also have been evaluated by the best in the world working with an actual athlete.

There is a lot of politics in the top level of credentials. There are some great coaches with credentials but bad ones too. The bad ones got those credentials because they play the right game, which isn't necessarily what we think of as coaching.

I went to a university with a coach with excellent credentials in the jumps. As a result, his position at the university was secure and he was able to attract some great talent. Unfortunately, the majority of this talent failed to improve in college. While some athletes not improving in college is normal for a number of reasons, when 80% of your jumpers are doing worse than high school, something is wrong.

Since this jumps coach (also the head coach/director of tnf/xc) was selected as the head coach for USATF for two worlds teams, surely he was the issue?

A few years after college, my now wife and former teammate wanted to get back into jumping. She was not nearly his best talent, she jumped only 18-6 in high school and had failed to improve on that in college. I had been dabbling in coaching at that point with the local hs, so I agreed to coach her. Year 1 she jumped 19-4. Year two she went over 20 feet, and year 3 (our final year), she went 21-4.

Our college coach was great at the technical aspects of the long jump, dont get me wrong. He also had many other positive qualities, I genuinely learned from him about being a positive person in general, he absolutely earned my respect in that regard. But he was mediocrr at best at developing speed and explosiveness for the horizontal jumps.

I know this is just anecdotal, but my point is, credentials arent everything. If they were, his were pretty much as good as they get, so he should have had 80% of his athletes improve instead of the opposite. But the reality was that his career had been built around his excellent ability to forge relationships with important people in the ncaa and USATF community, not on his ability to coach. For that single athlete we both coached, me, a nobody with zero credentials and a background as a distance runner was able to apply what he had learned on forums, books, and talking to other high school coaches and completely transform one of his athletes and IMO, maximize what she could do with her talent.

Anyway, that is a long winded way of saying that I agree with AJ, the OP's coach's credentials are irrelevant. Also since the OP seems so open to ideas, I doubt that his coachability is the issue. Unless he is greatly misrepresenting the workouts given to him by his coach, his coach is dropping the ball in this case.

Just uploaded a clip of today's session, I managed to upload it in slowmo.

Just did Sdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdf's tape method and while it feels a bit strange and I don't make it all the time, seems to work quite well, it feels like it keeps me relatively lower and I get the sensation that I'm driving more. I cover 10m in 6.5 - 7 steps now (which I believe is the magic number) instead of my previous 8.

I still have a bunch of other problems with my start, but it's easier for me to focus on one thing at a time.

Just to be clear, the tape should be about: 2 foot lengths, from the start line, 5 foot lengths from the first tape and 6 foot lengths from the second? It feels like a bit of a stretch, I adjusted it a bit.

Thanks again!

Trollfeeder wrote:

10/10, so I'll bite.

Someone who can pull of a sub 11 despite doing minimal training before age 32 is someone who would have been running low 10s if he started in his early teens and devoted his life to it. That's Olympic level talent.

You can make a slow person fast, but you cannot make a slow or even average person have world-class speed.

I was just under 11 at that age after having been trained my whole life and gotten sub-10.5 not doing solely sprint training. Had an intervening ACL reconstruction, but came back strong. Probably could have gone 0.2 faster at 32 with real training.

I didn’t crap all over the OP because nobody knows who he is. It is not impossible, even considering his current level. Maybe he did have that level of talent and is just totally out of shape.

But yes, that is a super longshot. With his training he should be at 11.50-11.75 right now to have any realistic shot at sub-11.

But, he will get injured. He doesn’t think he will, but he will. As fitness and speed improve, forces rise and coordination suffers without superior natural ability—and even if he does have it, pushing the boundaries gets everyone injured, even the pros. If he is using, he will be able to recover much faster but the injuries will still come, and interrupt training.

Injuries that he never even knew were possible, will happen.

I still wish him good luck and good health. I have no idea who he is.

Jd: that is definitely improvement.

- come up higher into your set position. Since you are alone out there, review video of you just getting into your set position and repeat until you are consistent. Starting point is come up until that back leg is at about 120 degrees, so quite a bit straighter than it is now.

- your shoulders look in a good spot over your hands, so make sure coming up higher that you don't lose that.

- the tape is helping you be a little more powerful in your first steps. Avoid the temptation to reach to the tape though, this is causing you to pop up a little still. Imagine yourself driving off the support leg "past" the tape as opposed to moving the recovery leg "to" the tape.

- when you are past that third piece of tape, keep that feeling going, you can see in the video how you revert back to choppier steps as soon as you pass the third tape.

It is definitely an improvement, though, clearly more explosive looking.

Yes much better :) As pointed out already, you' reaching slightly which is causing your shin angles to come upright and then your body etc. But that is already more efficient. Block settings are always difficult so id suggest a standard of 'front block 2 foot spacing's back from the line and the rear foot 3 foot spacing's' and then adjust to suit. You're correct in everyone tries to aim for 7 steps at circa 10m, and as long as the body angle is good this should be a good target, at the moment though you are overreaching the steps to reach that goal, although proper step spacing's will allow you reach a great forward trajectory and make those 7 ish steps. Otter, I'm glad you've spent a week away and read a book :-P My library is full of his and a lot others work. Id like to say its full of every sprint book possible and I've probably spend circa 2k on reading materiel alone, i've been coaching since I was 24 and still competing, and if we're going there, spent time with Seagrave, PJ, CF, Paff, Stu Mc and Jonas to name a few if I must. LOL I love this keyboard warrior stuff, haha were both being rather childish. I think its funny. But it doesn't help the OP. so now that's done. lets move on :) Now to hand, emphasis on driving the knee (Knees Knees Knees) will not result in front side mechanics or a correct heal recovery that allows it! Rather..... emphasis of bringing the heal directly under the body into a 'flamingo' position (high figure 4) results in that 'knee' position) and then into a step over. will result in correct and optimised front side mechanics (a lovely somewhat circular motion of the heal where the 'hub' if the wheel is approx. mid thigh length in front of vertical stance position) This is best worked by using wickets where you are bringing the heal up and stepping over the hurdle (I find 6inch hurdles work best) these wicket runs don't need to be a full speed.

The start is better. Second step is better.

Butt could be a little higher in the set position. How far back is the rear block? Your leg angles look pretty good so I'm just being a little picky. Sometimes you're looking for comfort if you're coming out ok.

A couple of things that will amount to a couple of hundredths of a second. Keep your jaw loose in the set position. Sounds weird but clenching down with your jaw will delay your reaction response. Not by much, but you take whatever you can get right? Also, concentrate on a specific movement rather than just the sound.

Get someone to come out and practice starts with you. Two short 2x4's and a cheap hinge at home depot clapped together makes a good starting noise. We even use a clipboard sometimes pulling back the metal clip and letting go. The more you can do this the better.

I tried to slow down your top speed clip. I caught something there. It's really hard to see because of the speed of the video but it appears that when your left leg strikes the ground your right trail leg is recovering well. Again you look for the knees to be close together on impact, but when your right leg lands the left knee appears to be too far back. This is really apparent on your last step that is viewable. I thought at first it might be just the angle but I think there is something to it.

Just a guess, but a 40 inch standing vertical or 4.40 40 yard dash are probably more attainable for OP. You need some serious hamstrings and ass for top end speed as well as the ability to properly lift your knees for a fast 100 m.

All the power to OP though.

They can you can't