Expensive but worth while if you have the funds available. Margot Wells definately knows her stuff.

www.wellfast.co.uk

I read about her - I think it was an article in one of the Rugby mag's - She has this thing called the 2-3-3 - bascially you sprint 233 metres - Apparently she and her hubby Alan found that that distance worked best for training sprinting - not sure how many reps you do - But apparently it's a real killer - The quote wa somehting like if you mention 2-3-3 to her trianees they almost blanche as it's such a hard session Puking is optional but more likely than not.

Alex, have you trained with her then?

Also, sprinting 233m doesn't (in my limited experience of hands-on sprint training, but more read-based knowledge) seem like an ideal distance. I think most top class successful athletics sprint coaches would keep that distance lower (100m sprinters for sure). imo especially for things like rugby when wingers will rarely sprint for more than 30m for example.

Still, cannot argue whatsoever with her clients ("squad") and if it works then that's all that matters. I'd love to learn from her.

No, I haven't but would have liked to in my younger days when playing but now would probably be a waste of my money unless I got into a coaching role. I've heard nothing but good things from other coaches and players both in and out of the press about her techniques and she's one of those than can almost instantly spot weaknesses from your running.

Wow, she sounds great. At the moment learning more about sprint training isn't a priority for me. If I was strength coaching a rugby team or two etc then I'd probably do it.

But one important often forgotten point, is that in order to run faster you must be able to put more force down into the ground. And to do that you must get stronger. And you get stronger legs by lifting more weight

After that, then sure technique is important.

Same here. You should maybe try going to RugbyExpo next year.

She says the easiest improvement anyone can make to their running is to use their arms more as she thinks that good running technique starts with the arms.

^^ yep. Also, when you really start going fast aka sprinting (lol) you need to kind of over-reach the stepping. Really works. Just watch Usain & Asafa Powell (esp the latter).

^^ This cross over is rather interesting. Certainly in freestyle swimming, in order to maximise the forward momentum of your stroke and maintain efficiency and speed you need to almost over reach as you extend your arm out in front of you at the end of the stroke, thereby aiding rotation. I'm particularly fascinated that such a similar technique would be so useful using your legs on dry land! Very interesting.

Alex wrote:Same here. You should maybe try going to RugbyExpo next year.

She says the easiest improvement anyone can make to their running is to use their arms more as she thinks that good running technique starts with the arms.

When I was younger my sprint coach claimed he could knock half a second straight off of my time by improving my arm movements/technique. Never knew it was so important,real eye opener.

Alex wrote:No, I haven't but would have liked to in my younger days when playing but now would probably be a waste of my money unless I got into a coaching role. I've heard nothing but good things from other coaches and players both in and out of the press about her techniques and she's one of those than can almost instantly spot weaknesses from your running.

Sounds like the chap at Crystal Palace sports centre gym - forget his name but he's training a good mate and spotted weaknesses in his running instantly.

But one important often forgotten point, is that in order to run faster you must be able to put more force down into the ground. And to do that you must get stronger. And you get stronger legs by lifting more weight

Definitely true Health but after the first 10m it becomes more of a case of applying that force in the shortest time possible. From my experience of running training I am the strongest lifter out of everybody in my group (this shows over the first 10-25m when there is more time to apply the force. However past that distance the people who have the reactive or elastic strength show their speed as they are better at applying maximum force in a short space of time whereas I am still spending in comparison a long time per step on the ground applying the force to move and not almost bouncing and springing off the floor.

I think something to improve this is eccentric strength work and definitely plyos

Coop_de_Ville wrote:

But one important often forgotten point, is that in order to run faster you must be able to put more force down into the ground. And to do that you must get stronger. And you get stronger legs by lifting more weight

Definitely true Health but after the first 10m it becomes more of a case of applying that force in the shortest time possible. From my experience of running training I am the strongest lifter out of everybody in my group (this shows over the first 10-25m when there is more time to apply the force. However past that distance the people who have the reactive or elastic strength show their speed as they are better at applying maximum force in a short space of time whereas I am still spending in comparison a long time per step on the ground applying the force to move and not almost bouncing and springing off the floor.

I think something to improve this is eccentric strength work and definitely plyos

interested in hearing your reason for eccentric strength stuff? Always seen eccentric work as more for hypertrophy reasons but i could be very wrong, is something i don't know incredible amoutns about..

eccentric work is bad news for fast twitch muscle fibres. If you want to be very strong and explosive then avoid lots of eccentric work. Whilst plyos does work eccentrically it's not the same extent that I mean; so slow lowering tempos are not great. Plyos are great.

I would have thought some concentric only work such as deadlifts, supersetted with pylo jumps, might be in order.

I know what your saying but for example for somebody who lacks reactive strength and "spring" when your foot is making contact with the ground instead of the force going through a eccentrically strong muscle and allowing this force to be transferred to the concentric contraction quickly, the force is lost as the muscle cannot control the eccentric part of the stride and then you can only generate force from the concentric.

If you know what I'm saying lol?

Coop_de_Ville wrote:I know what your saying but for example for somebody who lacks reactive strength and "spring" when your foot is making contact with the ground instead of the force going through a eccentrically strong muscle and allowing this force to be transferred to the concentric contraction quickly, the force is lost as the muscle cannot control the eccentric part of the stride and then you can only generate force from the concentric.

If you know what I'm saying lol?

Interesting point.

Proof is in the pudding though. A mate of mine dislocated an elbow last year and all he could train for a good 4 months was his legs, so he went through a phase of Hungarian leg blasts. For those that don't know, this culminates in 1 set of continuous squats for 8 minutes!! Absolutely brutal. Think he was using 60kg, which is actually damn impressive for 8 mins. Thing is, his tempo throughout was something like 3-0-X-0. When he was done, he'd lost SO much speed it was ridiculous. He did get massive legs though.

True but so long as you use the training smartly you shouldn't lose speed, I am not suggesting you do all but slow negs etc. A good balance is healthy.

health4ni wrote:eccentric work is bad news for fast twitch muscle fibres. If you want to be very strong and explosive then avoid lots of eccentric work. Whilst plyos does work eccentrically it's not the same extent that I mean; so slow lowering tempos are not great. Plyos are great.

I thought Plyos improved speed by making the stretch reflex better So training the eccentric movement is not what they're aimed at.

If you want to be very strong and explosive then avoid lots of eccentric work

What im saying is if it is something you are weak at as my story was anecdotal it makes sense to train it.

ollie wrote:Thing is, his tempo throughout was something like 3-0-X-0. When he was done, he'd lost SO much speed it was ridiculous. He did get massive legs though.

Combo of not running, increased weight (surely due to bigger legs), and slow eccentrics making his fast twitch fibres turn slower.

Ader wrote:

health4ni wrote:eccentric work is bad news for fast twitch muscle fibres. If you want to be very strong and explosive then avoid lots of eccentric work. Whilst plyos does work eccentrically it's not the same extent that I mean; so slow lowering tempos are not great. Plyos are great.

I thought Plyos improved speed by making the stretch reflex better So training the eccentric movement is not what they're aimed at.

Plyos do improve speed. I never said they don't. The time under tension of the eccentric part of a Plyo exercise is minimal; less than a second 99% of the time... often far faster. But slow eccentrics like 3-4+ seconds is not good for speed. It has other advantages but not for speed aka fast twitch fibres.

From what you have said there Health I am just wondering if an advantage would be top end speed where you are extending and lengthening the muscle more so than normal running. Would the length of time spent on negs also help with the specific endurance aspect of a 100m for example?

However I am aware that a programme should consist of a good balance etc but including some slow negs would have an advantage?

health4ni wrote:Plyos do improve speed. I never said they don't.

Didn't mean to imply that - I was always aware plyos are good for speed, it's just I thought it was the stretch reflex that they worked, which I thought would be helpful when, as Coop mentioned earlier, after the initial 10m or so it's better to have short contact time on the ground and that's when a quick stretch reflex will help- Anyway that's what I thought.

And I can see why slow negatives wouldn't be good for speed - OK for strength maybe in the strength phase of a 'complete' programe, but I wouldn't want to do them too much.

IMO any slow exercises are to some extent counterproductive if you're training for speed - great for BBing maybe but not speed.