Snowy,

You're on my subject here,
You've got to be really careful what you do in terms of sprint coaching because a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Try and apply certain techniques and you can easily make your lad slower!

Speed is a combination of things but three main attributes will govern your ability to run fast, leg speed, stride length and applied ground force, I won't go into all the biomechanics.
If you try to increase leg speed in the wrong way you will almost certainly reduce stride length and thus reduce overall speed and vice versa.

If you're set on going down to an athletics track, which is a good thing, then make sure you get proper coaching from an athletics sprint coach and not some half cocked training programme set by someone who just thinks he knows what to do.

We are not dealing with 100m sprinters we are dealing with a young developing rugby player who wants to get faster to improve rugby.

I am not going to fight about it, all conditioning has to be sports specific, when I was at Wakefield I was the fastest player at the club by some distance, still never got me a contract as other areas were physically lacking. I coach rugby players who to get faster and I know how to do it, and the products of this re running round the pitches of SL week in week out, not wanting to get into a debate about it, just offering my assistance to another young lad wanting to improve himself at rugby.

All sounds too complicated, just get on the 'roids

I'm not saying you don't, but why bring height into it then? You say you were short and powerful and designed for sprinting, whereas Lewis is a little taller and not the normal sprint design, yet there doesn't seem to be a "normal sprint design" if you look at the fastest guys in the world. They're your words, not mine.

when I was there as a colt I remember a lad that had speed to burn and could turn on the after burners to get away from me and I was no slouch but his size made him weak in the tackling department and couldn't do the full package

I don't think he did its more his frame that does make him a sprinter and he wasn't changed over the last couple of years

Usain Bolts a freak, talk about mutants he's a glimpse into the future of mans evolution!

The techniques of the taller guys like Bolt, Johnson Carl Lewis etc is far from text book it was very much unique to their build. It is also very much sports specific. Harriers are looking for athletes not rugby players. I was asked to chose very early as despite showing great promise at sprinting all I wanted to do was play rugby and ended up more or less being asked to leave because i prioritised by rugby. (not saying that is the case now by the way!)

As I said I honestly get tired of having people attempt to pick my posts apart on here. Just trying to help Snowie, if he wants to take me up fair enough if he does not also fair enough.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Not if you take a walk round Wakefield city centre, he isn't.

one of the reasons I started this thread is that at his age from being one of the fastest in the school over short distances I ended up being the fastest over the 1500 doing at a time of 4 - 08 with no one pacing me and a half a lap in front of any chasing pack.

he hasn't either to be truthful line speed is slow to get off which I now believe he has a body posture problem (due to the wear on his school shoes) and stamina to last the full at a high pace, don't get me wrong when the lad is in full flow and has got up to speed he powers through well it just needs a tweak

Pretty much summed me up, in a straight sprint I would have confidently backed myself against most playing the game in England including first team level, but I could not break a tackle and I struggled with size, due to my lack of size late development.

that's why I thought it might not be the ideal place for him, like I said to him it would be like chasing the rabbit

Why so tetchy? It's a discussion board, after all. If you want to offer private advice, you can do that. If you want to deliver general statements of fact, be prepared to justify them.

I think i did but you seem to think by throwing a hand full a sprinter names out there that they are the norm rather than the exception....as good as they are, and also because they are not the are the norm they have a very unique style that is not what you would normally look to coach a developing junior rugby player.