Today’s episode features track and sports performance coach, Ross Jeffs. Ross is a sprints, jumps and hurdles coach at the Aspire Academy in Doha, Qatar. He formerly worked in the Netherlands as a sprints and jumps coach at Atletiek Trainingscentrum Rotterdam, and has also coached under the guidance of Jonas Dodoo within the Speedworks system. Ross has also worked with a number of athletes from a range of sports including a grand slam tennis player, professional boxers, Olympic medallists from basketball and rugby sevens, and World Cup finalists in rugby. Ross appeared on the podcast recently in episode 145.
In the training of athletes, be it in track and field or team sports, not all athletes respond to the same stimulus in the same way. Give 20 random athletes a diet of fast sprinting and heavy weightlifting, and some will respond amazingly well to it, others average, and some poorly. The same thing could be said of a plyometric focused program, as well as other types of setups. I first remember this idea of individualization in reading how the late Charlie Francis had mentioned some athletes liking heavy lifting, others plyometrics and bounding, while others responded well to the use of tempo training. Since then, I’ve been able to dig into things like Christian Thibaudeau’s neurotyping system, as well as Ross Jeff’s “trainers vs. racers” ideas on designing programs for athletes based on how far or close they can get to their competitive best in a practice environment.
Ross Jeffs is one of my favorite coaches and thinkers when it comes to training setups and organization to get the most out of athletes. He is continually asking questions and getting outside the box in order to help coaches and athletes understand training, adaptation and peaking better. Our conversation focus today is on sprinting, and how the differences of “concentric oriented”, “elastic oriented” or “metabolic oriented” are going to impact how these athletes are best trained and coached. This episode is also incredibly valuable for team sport coaches, where there is guaranteed to be more diversity than in a single track and field event in the process of coaching.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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Timestamps and Main Points
3:20 An overview of Ross’s classifications of concentric, elastic and metabolic sprinters
18:15 How the different sprint types (concentric, elastic, metabolic) might fit with Christian Thibaudeau’s neurotyping system
26:00 The squatted element of how concentric runners tend to enjoy the weightroom, squatting, and are better at sprinting and accelerating with lower centers of mass
30:30 How to help concentric dominant athletes become better at their weakness, which is top-end velocity running
35:25 Unpacking the need for variety in rhythmic upright running in elastic runners
49:10 Strength training ideas in regards to elastic sprinters
53:40 Metabolic sprinters and stride length/frequency concepts
56:10 How big of a factor nature vs. nurture is in the different types of sprinters
1:00:10 Rules of thumb in training strengths versus weaknesses based on sprint type
Thoughts on sprint typing and working in team sports
If the ideas of “trainers” vs. “racers” fits into the sprint typing model at all
Quotes
“Concentric sprinters run fast because of their strong strength and power capabilities. These are usually your 60m and 100m specialists. They perform very well in countermovement jumps and have a deeper lowering phase”
“Concentric sprinters prefer less lactic tempo running”
“They like to do jumps which utilize long stretch shortening cycle mechanisms”
“They also seem to respond well to full-range heay movement”
“When we sprint and strike the ground, the majority of energy is produced by the lower limb and in the foot and ankle complex. (Elastic sprinters) have a unique ability to reuse energy from that area of the body”
“(Elastic sprinters) will dominate more in the maximal velocity phase of the (100m dash) 40-70m when upright, around their maximal velocity”
“(Elastic sprinters) have a higher flight time and a lower ground contact time. They will dominate drop jump tests and have higher RSI’s”
“(Elastic sprinters) seem to like variation and if you do too much of one program for too long, they will be stagnant. They like work that utilize short SSC mechanisms. They usually don’t need big heavy loads on the spine (in the weightroom)”
“The gym is as much for bulletproofing as it is for output with (elastic guys)”
“(Metabolic sprinters) will dominate because of how they use energy. Their style relies on economy”
“(Metabolic sprinters) are the easiest to get wrong for the modern sprint coach”
“If you try to make (metabolic sprinters) too frontside, then you take away their strengths and kill the beast”
“(Metabolic sprinters) tend to have a more cyclical and less aggressive looking acceleration style, it’s more about getting their steps down efficiently”
“(Metabolic sprinters) generally need a higher of volume of running in their program. These athletes need to be fit before they are fast”
“Certainly an athlete’s previous training history will influence (what you might need to put in their program now) even if they are a different type”
“When you squat heavy, you prep the neuromuscular system to have tension in your anterior chain”
“(Elastic guys) have more tone and feeling around their ankle complex. You can only feel that if you have more space in front of you to strike the ground”
“Do enough of (training their weakness) so it can reach a level where it’s not poor, but not so much that it hurts what makes them great”
“When you’ve trained to your strength and you have that tonus, your skill acquisition is better as well”
“For me, that is a different box, if you are a racer or a trainer”
Show Notes
Concentric Sprinters: Coleman/SAFP
Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce 100m 10.76
(Note SAFP next to Dafne Schippers who is more of the elastic-metabolic type)
Elastic Sprinters: DeGrasse, Jeter
Metabolic Sprinters: Michael Johnson, Allyson Felix
About Ross Jeffs
Ross Jeffs is a sprints, jumps and hurdles coach at the Aspire Academy in Doha, Qatar. Ross formerly worked in the Netherlands as a sprints and jumps coach at Atletiek Trainingscentrum Rotterdam. He has worked with a number of athletes from a range of sports including a grand slam tennis player, professional boxers, Olympic medallists from basketball and rugby sevens, and World Cup finalists in rugby. He also spent time coaching under the guidance of elite British coach Jonas Dodoo within the Speedworks system coaching national and international level track and field athletes.
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