Lashawn Merritt had changed coaches from Dwayne Miller to Loren Seagrave and had run essentially the same time under both coaches. Now he has changed to Brooks Johnson and finally had a breakthrough even after a major injury at the beginning of the season. Does anyone have any idea on what he did in training to get to his PR of 43.65?
Chased a guy in a championship final who ran faster than him for the entire 400m. Strange how that works.
Brooks is VERY much a speed guy who originally competed in 60m indoors. Merritt had been doing more aerobic stuff with Miller, including mile repeats in the fall that he maintained with Seagrave until doing faster track training starting in January I believe.
Merritt used to be faster in 200, but got about a half second slower in that event, and now he's racing a guy who used to be a 200 specialist. Brooks is certainly going to put more emphasis on 100/200 speed.
Strength != speed
Brooks has always been an ahole!
The Cardinal Red wrote:
Brooks has always been an ahole!
Ive read about that on Charlie Francis blogs. He's very defensive of questionable workouts and training philosophies. I recall reading about his 3x 3x 300m workout with a 100m jog recovery at 90%. He also once made an athlete warm up from being dead cold by running a 47 second 400. Like what??
Sounds like BJ picked up Merritt after Oliver dumped him.
coach d wrote:
Brooks is VERY much a speed guy who originally competed in 60m indoors. Merritt had been doing more aerobic stuff with Miller, including mile repeats in the fall that he maintained with Seagrave until doing faster track training starting in January I believe.
Strength != speed
What times does a 400 specialist do mile repeats in? What's the structure of such a workout?
FAST wrote:
coach d wrote:Brooks is VERY much a speed guy who originally competed in 60m indoors. Merritt had been doing more aerobic stuff with Miller, including mile repeats in the fall that he maintained with Seagrave until doing faster track training starting in January I believe.
Strength != speed
What times does a 400 specialist do mile repeats in? What's the structure of such a workout?
Dwayne millers program has a lot of easy distance running. The miles aren't particularly fast they are put in place to ease into faster training. He drops down from 90 minute XC runs to 1 mile runs to 800m to 600m to 500 etc, etc.
Ask David Oliver about Brooks Johnson. Why did Merritt leave his old coaches?
FAST wrote:
coach d wrote:Brooks is VERY much a speed guy who originally competed in 60m indoors. Merritt had been doing more aerobic stuff with Miller, including mile repeats in the fall that he maintained with Seagrave until doing faster track training starting in January I believe.
Strength != speed
What times does a 400 specialist do mile repeats in? What's the structure of such a workout?
Dwayne millers program has a lot of easy distance running. The miles aren't particularly fast they are put in place to ease into faster training. He drops down from 90 minute XC runs to 1 mile runs to 800m to 600m to 500 etc, etc.[/quote]
Whereas Clyde Hart will start with tempo workouts like 15X200 in about 35 seconds and Intensive tempo/special endurance II workouts like 3X600 at 60 seconds/400 with 15 min rest for 46 second 400 sprinters. I frankly don;t get why Miller would waste all that time with low speed aerobic when the aerobic piece of the event is going to use high end aerobic.
I'm quite sure Brooks' first step was to get rid of that XC/mile repeat stuff. You normally do the aerobic development from jogging 20 minutes once or twice a week.
The Cardinal Red wrote:
Brooks has always been an ahole!
Nice. Shows the type of person you are....
By the way, Brooks also coached Martin McGrady to a world indoor 600 yd record on a very slow Madison Square Garden 11 laps to the mile track and that was no joke.
How many quality athletes have you trained? Name names....yea, get back to me when you develop a world class athlete.
justthefacts wrote:
The Cardinal Red wrote:Brooks has always been an ahole!
Nice. Shows the type of person you are....
By the way, Brooks also coached Martin McGrady to a world indoor 600 yd record on a very slow Madison Square Garden 11 laps to the mile track and that was no joke.
How many quality athletes have you trained? Name names....yea, get back to me when you develop a world class athlete.
Brooks has destroyed more world class athletes than he has developed.
Most that don't get the job done, have destroyed themselves. Amazing what can happen post-collegiately. Seen it time and time again.
moreofthefacts wrote:
Brooks has destroyed more world class athletes than he has developed.
The Cardinal Red wrote:
Brooks has always been an ahole!
I heard a pretty crazy story about Brooks from an old coach.
Back in the 1980s, a high school team from around the Stanford area used to be allowed to practice at the Stanford track in championship season, as their high school only had a dirt track, with no relay zone markings.
This high school's relay team made it to the CIF-CCS (central coast California state qualifying meet) finals, and was on the Stanford track, practicing their baton handoffs. The anchor leg of the school's relay team was a huge, super fast guy. 6'2, around 200 pounds of solid muscle. 10.6 or 10.7 runner. Real stud, especially for that section of California (the 10.2/10.3 guys are usually from the southern section).
Anyway, the anchor's running through some handoffs, and he's you're typical cocky sprinter; playing around, tossing the baton, joking with his friends, the usual. At some point, he tosses up the baton, drops it, with it clanging onto the track, and he bends over to pick it up.
And, as he's bending over, he feels something slam into the back of his head. Really, really hard. Like, it completely floors the guy. Everyone else on the track looks over, and sees Brooks, standing over him, holding a clipboard that he's just smacked him with.
Brooks looks down out the huge dude whom he's just demolished, stares straight into his eyes, and says, with perfect clarity. "Never. Drop. A. Baton. On. My. Track. Again." Scares the dude shitless.
Mind you the whole story's anecdotal; I have no idea how much of it is true. I've heard he's the sort of coach that's great with some runners, and just breaks others. The ones that succeed succeed big though.
Although if it IS true, i'd say he'd be a solid replacement for Mitchell as a relay coach!
track legends wrote:
Although if it IS true, i'd say he'd be a solid replacement for Mitchell as a relay coach!
God NO!!!!!
He was FIRED as both head of High Performance for USATF and as USA relay coach for incompetence. He was the relay coach for the 2008 Olympics, when neither men's nor women's 4X100 teams got a medal. You do not EVER want to bring him back to USATF, and if this isn't enough for you, I know there are many people here that can fill you in with more details.
That said, he did a great job with David Oliver, he helped Gatlin get started, another guy he helped rebuild was Tyree Washington (400m guy). Just keep him the hell away from relays.
J Cap wrote:
Sounds like BJ picked up Merritt after Oliver dumped him.
I read that Aries Merritt also switched to Brooks Johnson earlier this year.
coach d wrote:
track legends wrote:Although if it IS true, i'd say he'd be a solid replacement for Mitchell as a relay coach!
God NO!!!!!
He was FIRED as both head of High Performance for USATF and as USA relay coach for incompetence. He was the relay coach for the 2008 Olympics, when neither men's nor women's 4X100 teams got a medal. You do not EVER want to bring him back to USATF, and if this isn't enough for you, I know there are many people here that can fill you in with more details.
That said, he did a great job with David Oliver, he helped Gatlin get started, another guy he helped rebuild was Tyree Washington (400m guy). Just keep him the hell away from relays.
I've heard some wild stories of antics by Johnson at track meets when he was coaching at the college level.
Being a good coach does not preclude him from being an ahole (and vice versa).
justthefacts wrote:
The Cardinal Red wrote:Brooks has always been an ahole!
Nice. Shows the type of person you are....
By the way, Brooks also coached Martin McGrady to a world indoor 600 yd record on a very slow Madison Square Garden 11 laps to the mile track and that was no joke.
How many quality athletes have you trained? Name names....yea, get back to me when you develop a world class athlete.
exthrower wrote:
Merritt and Oliver...both dopers....and liars....and cheats....
Do...you...have...any...evidence..?
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