A quick note, I will be away in Perth from the 26th of July (2014), then South Korea (Seoul) from the 2nd 'til the 14th of August as I am working as a team mechanic at the UCI Junior world track titles.

Sessions will run as normal, I just won't be there to run them.

It's not over for us, it is just going to be different

Yep, things are changing in the Vic sprint scene, quite dramatically.  Hopefully very soon we'll be able to quash the rumours, put out the fires and show you all a new structure, with progression and direction and it will be a big win.

At the Aussies, we saw the best under 15's, or at least, the best that came through the state teams.  We saw them ride flying 200's and make poor pacing choices.  Read this article on it that I wrote.

From Clay Worthington, WAIS sprint coach :

Hello All,

Please pass word around that TCWA has agreed to run a winter sprint series in Perth. We have targeted the last Friday of every month starting in April (and with one exception … please see attached), and we think it doesn’t clash with many major events (although there are likely to be clashes with road events). The better it is attended the better the racing experience will be for everyone.

Racing format is still being developed, but we’ll start smart and let it grow. At this time we’re planning a F200 qualification to determine racing groups by ability (not age, gender, or category). We’ll run 2up match sprints, derby’s, and Keirins depending on numbers and all in sprint formats and distances (i.e. sprints 2-3 laps, derbys 2-4 laps, Keirin 6-8 laps). I’m not planning any “Coach’s Kilos”, but will keep working on DB and Muzz to line up opposite one another. J If you attend, expect to race 4-6 times plus a 200.

Registration will run through TCWA as per a typical Fri Night Racing (i.e. Tues midnight deadline, through TCWA website, or email Ken Benson), but please feel free to express your interest to me as we’ll need attendance to keep it running. Same $15 as is typical.

At this time, I’m expecting to be registration desk, session coach, commissairre, motorcycle driver, etc as it’s being listed as a TCWA Sprint Training session; but we’ll be racing for training. Warm up starts at 6p and racing starts at 7p with qualifications, and we’ll plan to finish by 9p. Electronic timing gates will be on track with hand timing for back up and to deliver splits.

If you have questions, please call/email/text me. If you know of folks who want to sprint but haven’t gotten a chance yet, please tell them their opportunity is here!

Thanks for your attention.

Clay

http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2013/08/15/cargo-cult-administration/

http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html

Interesting, it applies to a lot of fields (all of them?!) - People do things because they've seen them done, not necessarily becaise they understand the reasons why or how they work.

As a coach, it's important not just to "do" but also to understand why we do what we do.  It's ok to copy/learn from other programs, disciplines and coaches, but ONLY if we know why and how - or at least, have some understanding of the method.  Not everything in coaching is clear cut and often the "evidence base" is pretty flimsy, but we must strive towards greater understanding of what we do, why and how it works (or doesn't!).

Coaches are not scientists, we're engineers.  We apply the best available science, mix in some gut feeling and experience where the science is lacking, and run with it to build bridges.  We need to understand science much as an engineer does, we have to be able to speak the langauage and ask the right questions (see this : http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/exercise_science_presentation_2013_part_i as an example of how to read and question ex phys papers).  We're not scientists, but we have to think like them sometimes, and call them if they're making mistakes.  It happens, a lot.  A lot more than we'd like!

(I'm a big Feynman fan, I have a few of his books, the guy was a once in a lifetime genius)

At the Vic Track cup, I did some hand timing, it's interesting to compare to the electronic system - my average error was 0.04s, the worst was 0.13s (I was distracted for that one by people in front of the start line).

Touted around is that hand timing is no better than 0.1s, I say "rubbish", if you're concentrating and not having your line of sight blocked, you can be around 0.05s or better pretty consisantly.  Here's the raw data, electronic timing rounded to hundredths.

Thank you to everyone that attended our winter Spin program at Blackburn this winter.  Our last session was last night, 17 brave souls completed the grueling session and enjoyed the end of winter BBQ.

A very special thank you to our hard core regulars and long termers, Tom Leaper, Nic Mark, Mick and Bridge, Snibbo, Bev, Jarrod, Chris Dann.  And also to James Dann who ran the sprint group for me while I yelled encouragement at the enduros.

Next year, we'll be back!

At present there's no standard for riders who lob up on Friday nights at the Blackburn DISC sessions I'm running for the club as the senior coach present.  This is a problem, there's a culture of "just show up, you'll be right".  This is NOT acceptable - we've had a number of close calls and some crashes resulting in injury due to this problem. 

I don't whinge about things, I fix them.  Here's a fix.  A set of skills a rider must demonstrate before they come :

Skills required to attend Friday DISC sessions run by Blackburn Cycling Club

• Ride sprinters lane solo at ~30km/h

• Ride blue line solo at ~30-35km/h

• Ride the fence solo at ~35-40km/h

• Competently display 1/4 lap RAC (Rolling acceleration/Powerjump)

• Competently display solo flying 100

• Competently display held start and gate start

• Competently roll turns in a bunch at 30km/h

• Follow motorbike at 50cm distance or closer

• Follow motorbike for motorbike acceleration

• Roll turns behind motorbike

• Roll turns with motorbike

• Change own gears

• Accelerate out of saddle in bends

   

On its own, that's not enough.  Here's a rough syllabus to teach these skills :

Progression for attendance at DISC sessions

Eash session is ~30 mins, small groups – no more than 4 riders per coach, coach to ride with riders as a demonstration, leader, pacesetter etc

Anywhere

• Change gears

• Understand appropriate equipment for DISC – tyre selection, range of gears, warm clothes for winter.

• Recommended tyres for DISC : Vittoria Rubino Pro-lite, Vittoria Rubino Pista

• Expressly not permitted at DISC : Michellin Pro-*-race, Michellin Lithium.

• Default warmup gear 82" (49x16)

At BBN on 82" (49x16) or relevant junior gear if J15 or younger

Session 1

• Ride sprinters lane 30km/h 82" gear (49x16)

• Ride blue line 30km/h

• roll turns in small group

Session 2

• Held start

• Gate start

• 1/4 lap RAC15 (powerjump)

• Accelerate out of saddle in bend

• Flying 100

Session 3 :

• Motorpace 50cm from motorbike

• Roll turns behind motorbike

• MAC

• Roll turns with motorbike

At DISC on 82" (49x16) or relevant junior gear if J15 or younger

Session 1 :

• Ride the sprinters lane at 30km/h

• Ride the blue line at 35km/h

• Roll turns in small group

Session 2 :

• Consolidate rolling turns in small group

• 1/4 lap RAC15

• Accelerate out of saddle in bend

• Ride the fence at 35-40km/h

• Flying 100

Session 3 :

• Motorpace 50cm behind motorbike

• Roll turns behind motorbike

• Roll turns with motorbike

• MAC

Let it be known that I am volunteering to teach this, but NOT AT DISC ON FRIDAYS DURING THE SESSION (6:30-9:30pm).

Many people run "spin" classes.  There's sessions done at gyms, there's general sessions done by coaches, Personal Trainers (PT's, or "cheerleaders" to the rest of us!) and so on.  The vast majority of these sessions are essentially context free.  You roll up, you do the session, get tired, feel good, go home.  Maybe there's some variables in the sessions but on the whole they're pretty general and there's no real progression or structure to them.  It feels good to be tired, so it's doing some good ... 

What's different about our enduro ergo program?

It's 26 weeks long - that's right, six months.  It's not "drop in whenever you want", it's structured.  If you do the "A" stream from the start, it builds up base in E3 then gradually inserts higher intensity intervals and more race-specific drills through the 26 weeks.  You can attend casually, and that's why we have a "B" and "C" stream to provide paths into the "A" stream, but on the whole, you get much, much more out of it if you attend for the entire 26 weeks. By the end of it you're able to do things that would have killed you during the first few weeks.  We know, we've been evolving the program since 2006.  Every year we see our regular attendees get stronger and faster.  From recreational roadies to former professionals and developing elite juniors.

Why do we do this?

Over winter the vast majority of your riding is long, slow distance.  There's not many crits, there's a little track but it's irregular or you're already doing it (Tues & Thurs at DISC).   The weather is cold and wet, the mountains are dangerously slippery etc.  You're not doing high intensity intervals much.  This program has evolved over years to fill that high intensity gap.

It's easy to go to any old spin session and get tired, but if you want structure and progression and don't want to shell out for a coached individual program, ours is pretty good. It also includes a good quaility meal after the session that's high in protein to help you recover.  For $15?  That's some seriously good value. We're so happy with it that we give it away for free to anyone that wants to do it at home but it's more "fun" to share the suffering with us and enjoy the feed afterwards.

http://maaml.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/ideas-for-visualisations.html - have a read.  For us, as sprinters, we're not THAT dissimilar to martial artists.  We have skills that we need to master, moves and countermoves that use those skills, and then "tactics" which is essentially the application of the right moves at the right times.  Very similar to martial arts.  I think we can learn a lot from them.

In the UK :  

youth A u16..6.93m - ~7m, ~same as us, 1 year offset younger kids
youth B u14..6.45m  - bigger than us
youth C u12..6.05m  - bigger than us
youth D u10..5.40m  - ~same
youth E u8..5.10m - do we have U8's?!

They're not falling apart, in fact, Le Poms seem to do pretty well ...

In the US (not so much a powerhouse anymore, but interesting all the same) :

17-18: Unrestricted
15-16: 6.78 meters (22'3")(48x15)
13-14: 6.36 meters (20'10.5")(48x16)
10-12: 6.00 meters (19’8”)(48x17)
For Juniors 16 and under who are competing in Championship team sprint, team pursuit, keirin, or Madison the 17-18 (unrestricted) gear limit applies.

I don't have the rules for other countries yet, watch this space ..

Some stats :

150kg of mince beef

25kg of tomato paste

1.5kg of oregano(!)

50kg of canned tomatos!

That's a lot of bolla sauce!

Our busiest night had 27 people training at the clubrooms.

The hardest enduro session was the last one (it' a buildup)

It gets quiet once September starts, sprinters come en-mass, but enduros go road riding.

Very cold, wet nights seem to see attendance down a little, which is odd, because you didn't go riding that day, it was awful!

We went through a lot of deck tape on the Kurts with the sprint group using the big flywheels.

We'll be back for more in 2013, thank you to everyone that came, if you do it regularly, performance improves considerably.

Earlier this week CA announced that J17 gear restrictions would be lifted to a 7.0 meter rollout, which is around 90 gear inches, it was to be lifted to 86" (6.75m), up from the previous limit of 82" (6.5m).

Many of you reading here know I am very much in favour of this, but not everyone is pleased.  I hope to calm the storm a little, or at least provide some argument in favour.  Note please that this is my opinion, and I am not representing any organisation except for aboc Cycle Coaching (me!) when I write this.  Furthermore, I don't have any influence on the people that made the decision that I am aware of. I don't even know who they are.

Enough with the preamble ...

Firstly, the rule change does not mandate that every J17 rider ride 90".  It means they are allowed to, which is not at all the same thing.  J19's are allowed to ride up to 104" or something, they don't, because they usually can't.  I work with J19's who can squat small cars and deadlift your fridge, full ... they're not anywhere near being able to rev out the J19 gear restriction yet,. and managing them through J17's is a challenge (be patient, your time will come, being restricted to 82" sucks, but next year ... repeat and hope the kid buys in to the argument).

If a J17 is a great revver, they will choose smaller gears, if they're a big, strong kid, they will push bigger gears.  Up 'til now the rules have biased against strong kids and towards super-revvers, at least in sprint, which is where my attention is focused.  I expect it's the same in enduro circles.  Big, strong kids can't rev as fast as the hummingbirds (heavy legs, can't move 'em quite as quick, but they can accelerate!).  We build kids up to be strong so that they can be competitive as J19's and seniors, and not spend another 6 years trying to get them strong enough, this is an even bigger task with girls than it is with boys - they put muscle on a lot more slowly than boys.  One of the causes for the loss of elite sprinters after J19 is the almost insurmountable gulf between a J19 and a senior (hey, kid, race Perko, who is pushing 108" or more and Anna who is superstrong! good luck ...).    I've interviewed a number of guys who've given it up after J19's and this is a common theme.  They don't want to spend 5 or more years getting smacked before they're even at a level where they can keep up and not be embarrassed.

By better preparing J17's to use bigger gears, we hope to lift the standard in J19, and thus, make the transition to senior riders be less daunting.  If J17's filters out a lot of the strong kids in favour of super spinners (which, at present, it does), that means J19's are in general, weaker than they could otherwise be as a population, and then less likely to manage the jump into senior ranks.  There's loads of examples of this in sprint in recent memory, in particular in the girls, but also many of the boys have failed to make the jump past J19.  This is for many reasons, but one is that the jump is too big for most of them to manage in a realistic timeframe.

Some of my colleagues have mentioned that by allowing J17's to push 90", that this will kill the sport and other hyperbole (and a half!), or that we shouldn't change a working formula (hey, it's NOT working!  We bleed riders after J19, you haven't noticed?! Where are they all?).  Nonsense.  The current situation is that strong kids are held back (and they're often some of the best talents, so they go off and play some sport where their talent isn't nobbled), hummingbirds prosper and the less talented kids are off the back on 82".  The only difference by allowing bigger gears is that the strong kids will be able to keep up with the hummingbirds.  The less talented, or younger, or less developed kids will be off the back no matter what anyway. It happens now, it will continue to happen. I don't think much else will change.  If it does, the rules can be changed again.

OR

And this is the rub.  Many are suggesting that club racer kids will give it up because 90" is too big and they can't keep up, there'll be no tactical development etc etc.  Here's the thing.  At club level, clubs are free to introduce their own gear restrictions anyway.  You want a race where no-one can push bigger than 82" - NO PROBLEM!  Just put it in the race rules.  Brunswick did this on Saturday, everyone was on 90" (magic number?!) and it was great.  Close races, lots of skill and tactical development.  GOOD!  We had first year J19's (the ones I trained overgeared last year and got strong and who hated being forced to ride 82" in competition) keeping up with senior sprinters, which made for good training races.  But, for opens, state and national championships, the talented kids should be allowed to display their physical talent.  It may well keep them in the sport longer and help us find the next group of champions.  State and National titles are not "every kid's a winner" races, they're championships and the best kids should be able to win them.

I'm sure there will be people who will cite examples of successful riders who came through our current system, they do exist, and this is good (look closely at their development path before you cite them though, some will surprise you at how they got into the system, Cadel rode MTB, Matthew Glaetzer was a pole vaulter and did not come through gear restricted juniors etc), but we can do better (we have to, everyone else is!) and we can't say everything  is great because some physiological freaks have survived it, if they even came through it.  Our rules and development programs should not be judged by the success of the very rare genetically gifted athletes that pop up, but rather by the health of the whole ecosystem.

Finally, the knee injury furphy.  Where's the corpses?  We train our guys overgeared ALL the time, putting out much greater torque and power numbers than anyone else in the state (wanna bet?! I have data ... ), I have not seen a single knee injury.  Not one.  If a kid isn't strong enough to push a gear (86, 90, whatever) they simply won't be able to push it.  They can grind at 60rpm up a hill (that's ok ...) in a road race out at Eildon or the 1:20 etc already if they want or have to.  Knee overuse injuries come from throwing kids at huge miles and on badly fitted bikes, not from pushing a gear that's too big for them.

So there you go.  I don't think it will kill anything, I think it's for the long term good of developing better senior riders

Racking up the frequent flyer points ... I'm off to assist Hilts with the Vic sprint group this weekend in Adelaide.  Jayne and Nic will be able to run Friday and Sunday's DISC sessions so they will run as normal.

I've been pretty busy of late... Last weekend (no, sorry, the weekend before, June 23 and 24) I was looking after a bunch of VIS/Sprint Academy sprinters* at the Perth Speed-Dome on a flying visit to race a Grand Prix and the Westral, we flew in to Perth on Saturday morning, drove to the velodrome, trained, back to a motel, dinner, sleep, back to velodrome for a full day's racing, packed and drove back to the airport and flew home.  Phew!  I was so tired when I got back to Tullamarine I couldn't see straight, thank you Jayne for rescuing me! If I'd have tried to drive home it would have been a dangerous trip indeed.

We've also, in conjunction with Blackburn, started running Friday night training sessions at DISC.  So far they've had low attendances, but hopefully word will spread and we'll get more numbers - we run a sprint and enduro session, with each group getting roughly 20 minute time slices.  It's a format that works well and I've been using it for years with our Sunday sessions, but the Friday nights we have the luxury of three hours, not two on Sundays.  More time!  Sundays are chugging along well, it's been pretty cold in at DISC but we're doing good quality work and the guys are going faster (when they attend regularly!). Our program is always published in advance on this website, and I am more than willing to entertain requests and suggestions for additions and alterations to the program.

Also the Tuesday evening Spin sessions at Blackburn are trundling along - we've had some huge nights and some quiet ones - if you're not coming, I'd really like to know why, it will help me to improve the sessions if I know why you're choosing to do something else.

So that's Friday and Sunday and Tuesday evenings locked away.  What else?  Wednesdays I'm at DISC doing the Victorian Sprint Group coaching, assisting Hilton Clarke, and he's away in the US for a holiday until the 16th of July, so that's Wednesdays from ~11am 'til 7:30pm or so.  This also happens on Saturdays, from ~11:30 'til 5ish.  Lock away Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat and Sun.  Anything else?  Oh, yeah, coaching and lifting in the Powerhaus gym on Mondays and Thursdays from ~3pm 'til 8 or so.

That's, ahh ... pretty busy!

So if I've been a bit slow in getting back to anyone with emails etc, now you know why! I have to set dates for next summer's Summer Sprint Series, urgh ... Calendars ... Clash. clash clash ... Keep an eye here for dates.

* - No, I am not employed by the VIS, I was sitting in as a Sprint Academy coach for Sean Eadie while he's in Italy with the seniors in the leadup to the Olympics

With the co-operation of Blackburn, we're going to be at DISC on Friday nights as well as Sundays for a couple of months.  This is a three hour track session, from 7-10pm.  Mixed sprint & enduro, programs, as with all our training, published online in advance on this website.  It will either be $15 or $22 to attend and I am hoping to have an enduro coach to assist me, while I look after the sprinters.  So if you're an aspiring enduro coach and want some mentored time at DISC, or just some time at DISC, get in touch with me ASAP!

Cut the corners! 

Read this....

Last night at Spin, I set a new power PB of 1,597 watts.  I had a goal of 1,600, how close is that?  Given that it's a Powertap and not 100% accurate, I could stretch the truth and say I got it, but that's bollocks!  Anyway, power is going up reasonably consistently, it's amazing what a bit of unbroken training can do.  There's a hint - consistent training ... Keep working ...