Thoughts on feed the cats vs clyde hart for training high school sprinters

Feed the Cats is much better for the vast majority of high school sprinters. I believe the main limitation is developing 400m runners. Fine if you are just going to throw guys in the 4x4, but need to add a bit of speed endurance to the program to properly develop guys to run competitive 400s.

When it comes to sprinting you generally have two philosophies: Long to short or short to long.

Clyde Hart works under a long to short philosophy, aiming to extend the endurance before working on speed. Keep in mind Hart was also getting talent who already had elite speed to begin with, which is the main argument against this philosophy for high school runners.

Your average high school runner doesn’t have elite natural speed and needs to develop it, which is where a short to long philosophy comes in. The only unique thing about Feed the Cats is that is basically just stays short the entire time and never goes long. If I had to guess, and I’m no sprint expert but they’re probably leaving a little something on the table in the 400.

I’m a Hart fan but unless you have a young kid who is naturally very fast and wants to be a strict 400m specialist I’d work under a short to long program.

But Tony Holler is also a d1ck so I’m all for not inflating his ego any further.

Agree on this. I wonder if he has faced any discipline due to his methods.

Keep the training light in high school. If you want to call that Feed the Cats, great. If a kid goes pro at 18 or runs for a college at age 18, they can suffer through compressed time intervals and deal with running to muscle failure then.

Note: Pure speed is developed from age 1 through your teens. Suffering through grueling compressed time intervals and running to muscle failure does not make kids faster sprinters.

Feed the cats, for myself, is great for freshman and sophomore but for a high schooler who is successful may need more work by junior year. I like to think I'm careful about over racing but come relay season it's hard to not double and triple an athlete- especially when the kids really want to compete.

It depends on the kid who goes out for the team. For the ones who think they're sprinters but obviously aren't, I'd rather they do more volume so that they're prepared for the 800 (and 1600) sooner. For the kid who plays another sport and goes out for track to get faster for that sport then feed the cats works better.

As a way over 65 400m runner, I've experimented with both techniques. I can't begin to do Hart's stuff. It's way too much volume for me.

I've experimented with Feed the Cats since last summer. I think it's a far better approach for high school boys... who as a group, have the discipline and attention span of puppies.

That said, Holler talks a lot in absolutes. He said he's never had an injured runner. I got injured almost immediately trying to implement his methods. In fact, it's been over 6 months and I'm STILL injured to the point that I can't do his all-out speedwork.

I love the X-factor drills Holler imploys. I think they have helped me immensely.

Holler doesn't believe in lifting weights. I think he's dead wrong on that. His runners lift. He just leaves that to the other coaches. I do think that some lifts are a waste of time. I think sprinters should use the... (trying to think of the name)... French Contrast(?) method/approach to lifting. You can find videos of it on youtube. You start with a strength move and then follow it with a power move. Or, you start with a power move and then follow it with a speed/power move.

I read the thread title and thought this was a bot-generated nonsense spam thread. Who named this program "Feed the Cats" lol

I hate the fact that it's called feed the cats. I don't know the reasoning behind that name but it disgusts me. I would rather it be called : change the litter box.

I have really enjoyed and enhanced my speed on FTC over the last two years. It is especially useful as an antidote for the "work like a dog" mentality of those of us coming from distance or middle distance. His program allows for more fun and humanity in approaching recovery and rest intervals, and gives a useful emphasis on recording and performing at a relaxed but high level every week, year around. I do blend in some harder sessions like 10x 100 a la Hart, but now am more likely to pull the plug at rep 6 or 8 if I'm not feeling it.

As I felt more fresh and plyometric I introduced hurdle training which to be honest led to a hamstring injury as I did too much volume of that on top of speed endurance (violated FTC). Fortunately, using kneesovertoesguy recovery methods gave me full recovery and bulletproofing in the year since then. But that would be another thread.

Hart's methods work well when you have someone gifted with good speed before you start doing a great deal of specific training.

Holler's works well when you get the kids for a few months, coming off the back of season's doing other sports where more other athletics qualities are deveoped.

Personally I prefer a blend of work at different intensities addressing all energy systems throughout the year, the emphasis shifting to reflect the competition schedule.

Agree. FTC makes sense for 50-200m, but I think a 400m runner would need more speed endurance than FTC provides.

I hurt my knee, left hip, calf, and hamstring when I tried the FTC pure speed so I don't do much of Holler's FTC.

My big takeaway from FTC is the x-factor drills. I have nearly doubled my normal warmup routine doing those drills and it is paying off.

Now that masters indoor season is over for me, I have to switch to 800m training, but I'll still do the drills before every workout and a flying 30 pure speed workout every couple of weeks.

How often does Tony Holler field an elite 4 x 400 team? How many sub 50 second 400 runners has he produced? Outside of 1 super talented sprinter a few years ago, what has he done coaching-wise?

I think much of what he has to say needs to be heard by football coaches. It's a terrible system for developing high school sprinters who need to be able to run further than 100 meters.

I've sat down with Clyde Hart on multiple occasions to get clarification on how is training is laid out over a year and to understand the why behind what he does. I draw heavily from his influence and it has resulted in excellent results. Hart did incorporate short speed development in his training pretty much year round. Training sprinters/quarter milers doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach.

Feed the cats produces rough 400m results but good 100-200 results, saw it with my own eyes in High School

As a college coach I see several things I like and many I don't. As I talk about this keep in mind I am thinking in terms of the USATF education curriculum for sprints and jumps. First is FTC is an incomplete training system. Holler has no background in physiology that I can tell and does not understand how doing glycolytic and a lactate work enhance each other and are interrelated to with acceleration and max velocity work.
His ideas about publishing the times and having adequate rest and the acceleration development stuff is all fun and good and appealing to those football/baseball kids that don't really want to run track. I think it works great for jumper training. But essentially he is just using the first part of the training and avoiding the stuff that will make football type kids quit (tempo 200's for example).
As a coach he really hasn't done anything special at the elite level. Lots of sprint high school coaches around the country having been doing things like this for years.
The difference is they don't have the ego that he does or the cult like leader qualities he has. I never trust anyone who talks in absolutes or tells me they have the "special way" that know one else knows or is using.

Coaching kids to do difficult workouts and challenge their limits is hard. Holler presents an easy way out that resonates with many coaches. They are eager to hand over their money to hear there is an easier path to success.

People will pay to hear what they want to hear rather than get the truth for free.

His teams seem pretty good for short sprints...for a public school in Illinois. 7 kids 11.0 or better, but only 4 under 50. 4x100 is 10 teams under the state Q (sub-43) and 9 teams under the 4x200 standard (1:30)

So yeah, as a stand-alone not a 400 program, but I use his stuff to apply to pure speed work, which I had never done before, and going light on the volume works well for that. As fisky said, more proportionality is towards drills. Most of my other work is 800-specific. Again, it is the chef more than the recipe that makes the meal. The program should be challenging but fun.

I was always very intrigued by the FTC philosophy until I read some FTC thoughts on hurdle training.

Anybody who could master hurdles in the low volume advocated there is a top national talent already.

i know there's still a lot to learn form the FTC way, but I don't believe in it as a complete program philosophy. At least not with the type of talent that I get to work with.

its funny you mention FTC hurdle training - based off of this thread and some other stuff ive been reading, the FTC approach to hurdle training is one of the few parts of the program I agree with. I had several teammates train under a FTC hurdle training method last year for the first time, and their times dropped massively - one guy went from being stuck at 42 for 3 years to running 38 high, and we had a girl go from 46.1 to 44.8, not to mention the high hurdle times, where the same guy went from 16.3 to 15.00.