Today’s guest is Andreas Behm, sprints and hurdles coach and education director at ALTIS. He is the coach of Aries Merritt, the London 2012 Olympic Champion at 110mH, the 2012 Diamond League winner, and now the World Record holder with his 12.80 at the Brussels Diamond League.
Andreas’ upbringing and mentorship in the field have been highlighted by some of the biggest names in the sport with the likes of Dan Pfaff and Vince Anderson. He also works alongside standouts in the coaching field such as Stuart McMillan at ALTIS.
Today’s episode touches on Andreas’ specialty of hurdles, but we largely discuss practical, general concepts for all athletes seeking speed through better training design and management. This is one of the best “nuts and bolts” episodes we’ve done on the podcast thus far, and Andreas’ willingness to share his insight into the training process is really amazing.
Between listening to Stuart McMillan speak at TFC-4 in Chicago, and then talking with Andreas for the show today, I feel like I’ve literally jumped several levels in my knowledge of not only speed coaching, but athletics coaching in general. Many of the concepts that Andreas has mentioned are also highly relevant to me in my training of swimmers.
Topics on the podcast that Andreas gets into are thoughts on weekly training setups, individualizing potentiation sessions, the relationship of the hurdles to other events and athletic arenas, addressing and instilling rhythm in athletics, ideas on special strength work for sprinting, and much more.
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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Key Points:
- Andreas’ background in coaching and mentorship
- Andreas’ philosophy on speed training in the context of his mentors in the field
- Thoughts on weekly training setups
- Individualizing potentiation sessions
- Managing and understanding good vs. “bad” training sessions
- Relationship of the hurdles to other events and athletic arenas
- Using wicket drills in context of hurdling
- Addressing and instilling rhythm in athletics
- Ideas on special strength work for hurdling (and general sprint and speed athletes)
- Balancing explosive vs. static strength work in sprint athletes
“We have a day where we do some short, explosive quick things in the track, or in the weightroom to get them ready for our big session, which might be Tuesday”
“Generally our big sessions are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with our regen days being Wednesday and Friday and Monday being the potentiation day”
“Everyone’s setup is generally a little different depending on how they handled different training densities volumes and intensities, so we tend to play with that to make sure that we can work on trying to figure out their pattern to dial them in for competition”
“(For potentiation days) On the track, some guys may need a couple real explosive block starts, other guys might just warm up. Others who might need to feel loose and free, they might do some sort of dribble session or some kind of smooth tempo running to get in the flow of the week”
“We tend to stay away from the heavier lifts on potentiation days”
“To us, on that Monday, if they leave the session feeling better than when they started, we have successfully prepped them for the harder session on Tuesday. Tempo is a great tool, it’s loose, open flowing. They get a lot of great contacts if their posture is right. It’s also a great systems check.”
“There are lessons in every session, and there are probably more lessons that come out of bad sessions than good sessions”
“Rhythm is inherent throughout life and anything in the universe”
“We’re exposed to so much rhythm, and it’s so engrained in us, that it makes for a great communication tool from a teaching standpoint”
“We can use mini-hurdles to force athletes into different rhythms… we’re kind of building kind of an obstacle course that we’re having an athlete navigate to the best of their ability, and forcing them into certain patterns that we want to see, and once they’re proficient at that we can contrast or remove the obstacle course, and they can do it free and on their own”
“Multi-throws, I either do at the end of a track session, or at the end of a weightlifting workout”
“We have a parallel hierarchical system in our training. If it’s important enough to include, it’s important enough to include year round”
“We do have athletes who feed more off max strength. We try to feed the beast and give them what makes them a great athlete and what drives that machine if you will”
“To boil it down in the simplest form to give our athletes purpose in the weightroom, we have three very simple objectives that almost anyone can understand: We’re trying to get stronger, move more weight, we’re trying to move something faster, or we’re trying to do more of it, for a work capacity or structural improvement standpoint, in the weightroom.”
About Andreas Behm
Andreas Behm is the lead sprints and hurdles coach, as well as recruitment and education director at ALTIS. He is the coach of Aries Merritt, the London 2012 Olympic Champion at 110mH, the 2012 Diamond League winner, and now the World Record holder with his 12.80 at the Brussels Diamond League.
Prior to ALTIS, Andreas spent time at Texas A&M, The University of Texas, EXOS, The University of Tennessee, and has been mentored under some of the best coaches in the world, such as Vince Anderson, Dan Pfaff, and others.
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