206: Ross Jeffs on Individualizing Speed Training by Understanding Concentric, Elastic and Metabolic Sprint Types | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

More show notes at just-fly-sports.com/podcast-206-ross-jeffs/ 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.