Q&A With Clyde Hart

[eldrick]

don't waste your time pauly

the guy i discern, is romanian - i remember reading his rubbish in feb '06, when he reckoned walt davis stood no chance of moscow gold against oprea

he's not an east german, but more likely romanian - i don't know what level of male 400 guys that nation's coaches have ever seen, but i'd be surprised if they ever had even 45s substrate to enzyme...

[Pierre-Jean]

To be fair, regarding Germany, FRG dominated in the '70s and GDR the '80s, and GDR had faster 4x4 NR. Schönlebe's success can't be forgotten.

[eldrick]

schonlebe was different - he was a legend !

i still remember that race like yesterday

he just ran around so easily, clocked 44.33 & looked completely shocked after - holding his arms spread out low down either side in disbelief

he looked a 44.0 - 44.1 guy that day if he had needed to

( although, it's worth noting skamrahl of fgr ran 44.50 in '83, which shocked me at the time - made him fastest guy ever going into '83 wc & favorite :

all-time low-altitude list at the time was :

44.26 caballo
44.40 newhouse
44.50 skamrahl
44.60 markin
44.66 matthews )

[paulthefan]

i have no doubt that the germans could produce 10 sub 3min relays if they were motivated and interested, no doubt that they could have 10 schonlebes or even a Kaufmann every year.. but they are not. As for coaching, there is a bizarre belief that 10 pointy headed guys in lab coats can reproduce let alone exceed what a continuous string of a 100 years of coaching knowledge and tradition, coaching history and instinct produces.. IT Never happened and it AINT GONNA HAPPEN... guys like Hart, Smith, etc... are not dispensible. .. they are the essential ingredient...


Fact: the best German 400m man ever was trained in the US.

[eldrick]

pauly

you are giving no credit to borzov - the complete "scientific" sprinter of maybe all-time

he ran 10.07/20.00 easing down on a munich track, reputedly so slow, athletes fell over on it ( whatever that implies ?! )

i doubt that was a modern 116/84 either ( was it ? )

anyhows, that means

?~ 10.00 - 10.02 / 19.85 - 19.90

on an ancient, slow, ?tight track at 520m

what are we talking on modern tracks ?

9.85 - 9.90 , 19.65 - 19.70 ?

[jumplove]

Since I don t think is fair the way I was attacked and missunderstood, I found honorable to delete my posts as my intention was never to diss somebody, but to share opinions and help myself and others to undertstand track and field better

[eldrick]

see post prior to yours...

[paulthefan]

I have to agree that Oprea was a big time talent, I saw him jump a few times and I think he was as talented as any US TJer ever... so I have to disagree with my mentor Eldy.

My comments had nothing to do with the race makeup of German vs. US.. I dont doubt that there are factors there, I dont think they account for Germany's dismal showing in the 400 over the last 40 years... and I dont think they account for the USs great showing there either.... great sprinting tradition, great vibrant culture that is what does it. Germany once had both, today they have neither.



Eldy, Borzov was a mega talent. pure and simple. no arguement there, I have no doubt that the EG machine had more than their share of Borzov like talents yet they never produced one to match him, They couldnt even get a sprinter into the Moscow 80 final.. that is dismal.. that is pathetic. They were doing something wrong or they were not getting kids motivated to be sprinters. 20 years prior a free Germany could produce a 10.25 sprinter ON DIRT!.. 20 years later they cant get one to do the same on synthetic.. it was not the genes that went sour it was the culture.

[jumplove]

Since I don t think is fair the way I was attacked and missunderstood, I found honorable to delete my posts as my intention was never to diss somebody, but to share opinions and help myself and others to undertstand track and field better

[paulthefan]

I think you have proved that Coach Hart would have a WR 43.18 MJ if he were in Europe as MJs HS prs match better the Euro list...

Conversely can you imagine a Martyn Rooney NOT going sub 44 if he were under Hart?

Lastly, how much of this difference is cultural?.. how much more excited about being the best you can be at 400m are american kids relative to euro kids?..

oh and your "notes" are not universally accepted.

[cladthin]

Re:even paced 400 performances. Not that he is the only one, but I seem to remember that Lee Evans was one who was mentioned as having used this strategy.

I'm not a big fan of such a method because if you go out too easy and don't use the atp-pc system to a significant degree, after 6 seconds or so of effort, you can no longer access that energy system later in the race. Perhaps one way to reason why even paced sprinting generally does not result in top performances is that virtually no one runs a very fast last 100m whether it be off of a fast pace or a slow pace. Therefore, better make sure there is some fast running earlier in the race-especially in the first 200. Part of what contributes to fast early paces and being able to finish strongly, if executed properly, is the skill of being able to coast on the back stretch. Relatively high speeds with minimal effort. For the good ones, they don't have the pedal to the metal in the first 200 but their speeds might lead some to believe they are close to doing so.

I read once that to use the atp-pc fully in the performing of a 400(going out fairly hard) is, in most cases, an advantage to the athlete. To avoid or neglect making it part of your strategy means the loss of an opportunity to develop early race speed/momentum which comes at no real metabolic cost to you later in the race.

Such momentum(a sort of "cruising speed" or coasting) can carry you through a significant portion of the backstretch with very little effort.

You only "pay" late in a race when one does not use this or a similar strategy, imho.

Completely agree with all this.

You have to use the atp-pc immediately for greatest efficiency because acceleration takes place at the start of the race. You have to acess that energy quickly. It is not available later in the race so must be used for a quick start.
The person who slows down the least ( has the greatest developed glygolitic system, in other words has-trained their body to convert lactic acid into atp the most efficiently) will win in most cases.

As a general guide the first 200 should be 48% of the total time. This seems to be the most efficient distribution of effort.

In Michael Johnson's WR his last 100m was 11.55 which seems slow but was a lot faster than the others in the race. :shock:

Excellent analysis cladthin.

Thanks Mojo. It must be the Canadian influence via Francis/Mach/McFarlane that we spoke or rather posted about previously, emerging

[jhc68]

IMHO, jumplove has posted a whole lot of nonsense here.

I want to see these 11.5 "kids" (define kids?) who later run low 10's.

And the only way the eastern bloc coaches could have produced 42's would have been to take naturally very fast guys (the one's jumplove mentioned) and juice them up the way they did their best females.

Tafnut is right when he says leg speed is 98% God-given. Speed can be improved, but not to the dramatic extent that jumplove seems to believe. It's got a lot more to do with the genetics of reaction time than training.