Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #66: Gill1918 presents David Neville "QnA Developing Sprinters" Part 2 | Glazier Clinics

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#66: Gill1918 presents David Neville "QnA Developing Sprinters" Part 2 | Glazier Clinics · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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Hey gang, exciting news here today is Part 2 of our Gil 1918
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project presented by Glazier clinics.
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If you didn't hear Part 1, make sure you listen to yesterday's
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Part 1. You're going to need it for
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today. Today's the Q&A section of that
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presentation. We're partnered up with Glazier
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and clinics for this December 2025, bringing an amazing online
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coaching education clinic for free and you need to be there.
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Make sure you take a look at the show notes, future episodes and
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my Twitter and Gil athletics Twitter and we'll we'll have
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more information on sign up when that's available.
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But right now, here's the Q&A section of David Neville from
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Georgia Southern University. Welcome to the Gill 1918
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Project, a podcast series by coaches for coaches powered by
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Gill Athletics. Think of this as the Ted talks
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of track and field coaching. Short, insightful and packed
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with valuable strategies to help you grow as a coach.
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We're bringing the once a year track clinic straight to your
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ears daily. Interested in creating your own
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episode? Everyone's welcome to
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participate. Check out the show notes below
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For more information. Now let's get into today's
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topic. Well, coach, thank you for a
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great session and sharing that knowledge with us.
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Again, coaches, if you have any questions, just type them into
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that Q&A box down there and I can address them to coach.
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Looks like the first one was, can you go back to your last
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please? I'm assuming they meant like
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last slide maybe? Last slide, I'm assuming we're
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talking about the one with with the Wickeds.
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Yes, the one with. The All right, let me go back
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there like that. I don't know if you're wanting
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to see this video or not, but, and I'll kind of guide it here.
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So it's going slow MO. She's got her 30 meters here, 20
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meters, excuse me, running. And then right at the 20m mark,
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we put our first. We use the discs here as running
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through you. There are certain spacings that
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you need to use when we're talking about wickets.
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And so we have, we have at times played with the spacings
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depending on who the athlete is, what their ability is, what
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their power output is, because it's all based off of strive
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length, OK. And so when you're working with
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Wickeds, you want to make sure that you're not having your
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athletes reach because that's how you get hurt.
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And so you want to make sure that they the distance of the
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space is far enough to make sure that they're keeping their
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stride open, but close enough to make sure that they're getting
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your foot down on the ground, putting their foot on the ground
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so that they can produce force to propel them on that next
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step. It looks like the next question
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is can you give examples of of a speed endurance workout?
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Examples of a speed endurance workout.
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OK, so an example of a speed endurance workout would be if
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I'll say they're short speed endurance and they're long speed
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endurance. So an example of a speed
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endurance workout that I've done with my 100 meter runners is
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during the indoor season. I'll go 60.
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No, I'll, I'll for 100 meters. Let's just go 100 meters.
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During the outdoor season, we'll go 608110.
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So 60 meters, 80 meters, 110 meters.
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I'll do two to three sets of that if they can make it that
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far. And what I'll do is I go 6
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minutes recovery in between each run.
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Now mind you, when you're doing speed, speed means it's 100%.
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It's all out. There's no such thing as sub,
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sub maximum speed work. OK, so if you're wanting your
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athletes to run one 50s and you're wanting them to get
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speeding because 1-4 times or five times, one 50s are also
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speed endurance. That's long speed endurance,
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right? But saying that you're going to
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have your athletes run 62 hundreds and you put a pace on
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it, like let's say for a high school guy, 30 seconds, that's
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not speed endurance work, That's just temple work.
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All right, So speed is you're running it as fast as you
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possibly can. So if I'm running 60s, well,
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I'll say speed is anything that's 90% or faster, all right,
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So 90% or faster. So if your athlete is a is a,
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you know, 10 second, that's that's just use a round Number,
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a pin flat 100m runner. Well, then they they need to be
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running each of these runs at 11 second, probably 11-5 pace.
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All right. If you're actually trying to get
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the speed work in that you say you're trying to get, hopefully
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that answers your question. All righty coach, your next
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question is how will a sprinter weight room workout differ from
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a football in early season? Yeah.
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So we're not trying to get big. There's there's no desire to get
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big and put on a whole lot of muscle.
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We want to be strong and explosive.
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So think about it as how quickly can I move this weight without
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getting bigger? That's the, without getting,
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obviously you're going, there's going to be some mass that will
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come about. But my, my desire is never to
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take an athlete who is a sprinter and make them bigger
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than they already are. It's going to happen, but I'm
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not trying to get in the way or stop another player or another
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person. My objective is to get from A to
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B as fast as I possibly can. And if I weigh more, because I
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put on a whole lot of weight, that completely defeats the
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purpose. So the difference is if I'm
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doing if, especially when I get to certain points in the season,
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I'm trying to move. I'm and I'm doing cleans.
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I'm trying to move out of weight quick and fast and get it to the
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point, the point where I can move this weight fast without
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getting any bigger. So if I can do, if I can walk in
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the weight room and, and knock out three sets of three cleans
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and I'm in season power cleans and I'm in season and I can take
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go out there and knock out, you know, them at 225 lbs and I
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weigh 165. I'd be much happier than that.
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Then going in there trying to knock out six, eight cleans for
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three or four sets and I'm 220 something pounds.
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Like it's just not going to it. It it that the weight doesn't
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the weight of my body is the thing that I'm trying to keep
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the lowest. So for me as a sprinter I ran at
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my My competition weight was 161 lbs.
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As a grown man 161 lbs. My favorite lift to do was power
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cleans. I thoroughly enjoy power cleans
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and I I could probably easily clean 275 for multiple reps, but
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I never had the desire to get bigger.
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I just wanted to stay where I was, be as strong and as fast
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with the movements as I possibly could, but not put on any more
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weight. Coach, your next question is how
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many times per week are you using sleds?
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It depends on what part of the season I'm in during the fall
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and and depending on what cycle of training I'm in.
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So when I train sprinters, well, when I train athletes, I train
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in either four or six week cycles.
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So in four week cycle, I may be focusing on a speed and power
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cycle. I'm probably going to do some
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sled work twice a week. So it it truly depends.
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Now the next cycle that I'm in may be more of a specific
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endurance cycle where I'm specifically working on some
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certain keys for for sprinting or for certain races and I may
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hit the sleds once during that week.
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There have been weeks where I did not do any sleds.
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So it truly depends on what cycle of training that athlete
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is in. Don't just put people in sleds
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just to be putting people in sleds.
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Training philosophy and understanding why you're doing
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what you're doing is even more important than having all these
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tools and having all these wickets and these training
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things that I talked about with Med balls and circuits and all
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that kind of stuff. It is very, very important to
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make sure that you, you know that you understand that portion
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of, of the training. And I've got see if I can pull
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it up here. I've got see if I can share this
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with you all. There is a circuit that I use or
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a circuit sheet that I use and you all can see, hopefully you
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all can see this. And so I have Med ball circuits.
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I have 4 circuits, glute circuits, body weight circuits.
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If you don't have a weight room, you can do body weight circuits
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as well with your athletes. But these are some of the the
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different things that I tend to do with my athletes as you are,
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are seeing and looking at some of these things that they go
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with certain workouts in certain times.
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Yeah, of course you can do that all, you know, 2-3 times a week.
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You can do core, you can do Med ball circuits.
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I do Med ball pretty pretty much two times a week depending on
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what I'm working on in the in that point of the season as
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well. So.
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All righty, coach, your next question is, can you explain
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some differences between track and field weight room workouts,
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first football workouts, I guess that's kind of a similar
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question to the one you just answered.
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Next question is what are examples of technical runs?
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What are examples of technical runs?
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So a technical run could be something that is I typically
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use them for more I guess kind of recovery type of days.
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So one of my athletes, I may have us do two sets of 10 down
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and back runs and by that I mean 100m run.
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So I'll have a specifically we are working on making sure we're
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running with good technique. And that's what I mean by
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technical run, like making sure that our hips are tall, making
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sure that we are swinging our arms properly, that arms aren't
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going across right, that our bodies aren't twisting like
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those things are, are not going to help you run faster.
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When you run all out of whack, the heads are back right at the
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legs, at the heels are coming up to to the butt.
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When you're doing a technical run, you're not trying.
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The athlete is not trying to technically run correct.
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It's all about putting their bodies in the best position, the
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optimum position to put force on the ground properly.
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These runs, technical runs, I never do technical runs at full
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speed. They are, they're probably 75 to
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80% when we're talking about pace.
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So we're not trying to run them fast, we're trying to run them
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technically correct. So it could be any distance.
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You could say we're just going to do them over 50 meters and
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you could say we're going to do, you know, we're going to build,
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you know, go from a jog for 50 meters.
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And then once I get the 50 meters, I want you to want great
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technique for the next 50 meters.
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And then you shut it down and you have them walk back all the
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way back 100 meters. You can say, hey, we're going to
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do 10 of those and this is what we're going to do is kind of a
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recovery day, keeps them moving. It's a shake out, but it also
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helps emphasize and focus on good technique.
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Your next question is looks like they're wanting a little bit
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more explanation on the detail of your Med ball circuit
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workouts. Yeah.
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So let me go back to go back to that sheet here.
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So for Med ball, Med ball workouts, we use what's called,
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we have certain things, they're called multi throws or multi
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jumps. And so these are just to work on
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some somebody, some muscles and body parts that your body may
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not get on the normal to make sure that we're very, very
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explosive. And so like I said, spring is
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all about being explosive. And so that's why we do these
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Med ball circuits. Circuit A here.
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Let me see if I can blow this up just a little bit.
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Circuit A, this is just very basic overhead backwards throws,
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right? You've got your Med ball and
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you're just literally you're launching it behind your head
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overhead. I typically partner all my
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athletes up together. If it's one person, you can put
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them up against the wall, they can throw the Med ball up
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against the wall, right? You do 10 of those ankling with
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the overhead. So we, we hold the ball above
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our head and what we're doing with this doing is making us
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very, very tall and we're ankling.
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So ankling is basically it's like a cycling motion, striking
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the ground on the ball of your feet, just like you should
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always be doing, but you're cycling around your ankle as
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you're running. So we do that for 20 meters
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down, 20 meters back, underhand, forward is literally what it
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says. You take the Med ball between
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your legs and you throw it underhand.
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We do those with a jump throw forward, right overhead slams,
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you slam the ball down straight on the ground, one jump, chest
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pass. You have the Med ball here, you
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take a jump forward and then you chest pass it as hard as you can
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afford. And then we do some over under
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hurdles. That's just work for some hip
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ability. That's circuit A.
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So that gives you an example. All of those Med ball circuits.
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Literally it's just what what it says on the paper, whether it's
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underhand or overhand or you do it with the forward hop.
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So you may do a forward hop 1st and then throw the ball.
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All right, So you see some of that on the second one chest
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pass or if it's a a throw for Max, like you're doing it
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underhand to the sky as high as you possibly can, things like
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that. Circuit D is a mixture.
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I have some netball stuff and then I do somebody weight stuff.
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So I do some planking jacks, I do toe touches.
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So I kind of worked in some core with that.
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And so my athletes, they all have this sheet and I and I say,
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hey, today we're doing, you know, Med ball circuit E and
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they, they know. All right, let's get to work.
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Your next question is so when setting your times for your
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tempo or speed endurance, do you set your rest times and time
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runs by your fastest athlete? No times that I shouldn't say
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that I have. Like I said, coaching track and
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field is a science. So there are certain rests that
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you should always have rest periods or rest time that you
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should always have based on what you're trying to accomplish.
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So if I'm doing speed endurance work, my rest is supposed to be,
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I believe it's like 5 between 5:00 and 7:00 minutes.
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If I'm doing pure speed work, I need to make sure that I have
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even longer rest if I'm doing if I'm doing extensive tempo work.
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So say I'm having my athletes run, say they have 5, three
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hundreds long Springer. Say we got 5, three hundreds and
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we're trying to build some some strength and stamina.
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This is an extensive workout. I'm probably going to have those
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athletes run, say if say, if it's guys say I want to run 45
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seconds, but it's just 15 seconds per 100 meters.
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I'm probably going to then give them 3 minutes recovery because
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it's based off of the, the distance and what I'm trying to
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what the actual workout is. And it also depends on the
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number of the runs I'm doing now, the time that they run, the
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time is going to be based off of the individual athlete.
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I, even though there's a, a method and a plan that I have
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for how I train my athletes, I still train my athletes on an
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individual basis. You have to, everybody's not the
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same. Everyone's not built the same.
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Everyone can't do the same thing.
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So it's important to make sure that you take those athletes and
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hey, you may have a better athlete and you say, hey, I want
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you to run this pace and I want you to run that pace.
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The rest is the same regardless of who they are, but the times
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may be different. It's like we got.
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Two more questions here for you. During the outdoor season, do
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your 400 meter runners run the Open 400 in every meet or do you
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limit the number of Open 4 hundreds leading up to the
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championship meets? They do not run the 400 at every
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every race, regardless of what the event is or who the athlete
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is. I don't have any of my athletes
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run every single, you know, their, their primary event every
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race. Now, I don't, I guess for
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different people it would differ based on what their schedule is.
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But so give an example. I may be in a speed cycle of
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training even though we have a meet.
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If I'm a speed cycle of training with my 400m runner, I'm
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probably not going to run them in the 400 that weekend.
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I would probably run them in the 100 and the 200 or on the four
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by one and the 200 because I'm focusing on speed that weekend
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and there's sometimes I don't have them run at all.
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I may say, hey, you're not reaching this weekend.
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It all depends on the athlete. There are some athletes that
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need to run a little bit more so they can get, you know, get used
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to it or they're just trying to figure the race out.
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They may be younger, that's OK. But when I'm talking about kind
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of kind of my seasons athletes that know what they're doing,
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there's no need to run them every single weekend.
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It's just not. It's not going to be that
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helpful in my opinion. All righty.
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And next question is how many times a week and distances?
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Do you work or? How many times a week and
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distances do you work out with the sled and wickets?
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I use wickets every single week. Sometimes I'll use wickets as
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just part of our warm up just to make sure that the athletes are
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locked into what they need to do.
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From a technical standpoint, because it's all about
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technique, I'm big, big, big when it comes to technique.
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Technique also helps prevent injury.
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So if you have athletes that are having issues, whether it's
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hamstring and probably overreaching, if they're having
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quad issues, whatever it may be, ankle or feet, they may be
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placing their feet too far. That may be braking, producing
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braking forces. So if this is the ground, if
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their feet are going into the ground toe first, they're
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breaking, which is going to cause a lot of other issues on
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up the leg. So we do a lot, lot of wicked
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stuff in the fall. I do wickets in the morning
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before class, I do wickets in the afternoon.
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So when we when we come back to do our afternoon practice in the
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spring, we don't do anything in the morning.
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And I and I'll typically will have wickets at least twice a
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week. Sleds.
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Like I said, it depends on what the cycle is.
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So I I've done sleds and wickets at the same practice, it just
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varies on what we are working on during that training cycle.
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Last question is after the sled and wickets, do you have your
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athletes do the same distance and quantity freely at 90% or
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faster? It's individual once again, it's
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individual. Some athletes or bodies, you
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know, you as you learn your athletes, you know they can
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handle it or they can't handle it.
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So when I'm talking about sleds, say I may have a workout where
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we're going to do 30 meters, 30 meters sled pool and then we'll
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go and we'll do a 30 meter Sprint right after that.
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So I'm going to say, hey, basically we're going to pull
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that bad boy. I want you to take it off and I
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want you to Sprint back the other way for 30 meters so that
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they feel the difference is obviously they're trying to move
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that force and now they're free flowing, they can move and
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hopefully be able to create the same pushing forces that they
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were down the track now without the sled.
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And so if I have a, a workout this set and it's, you know, it
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could be 4 * 30m slip pool, 30 meter Sprint and then we're
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going to go and do something else and maybe a little longer
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or me say, hey, you know, we're going to go around 2:50 after
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that all out. That's what everybody's going to
22:14
do that day. Don't matter who they are.
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But if their body is jacking up or they're dealing with some
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other things, I may offer that. I may say, hey, I only want you
22:24
to do 2 of these sled pools or I want you to do all the sled
22:27
pools and the 250 or I may, you know, cut out the 250.
22:33
It depends on who it is and what they need.
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Well then, looks like we just had one more come in.
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What's the total of amount of meters your athletes run on a
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speed day or speed dumps day? Off the top of my head for a
22:53
short sprinter, probably somewhere between on a speed
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day, 5500 to 900 meters, probably probably between 507
23:11
hundred meters total. Like I said, I have, I have
23:16
certain charts that I go to and I try to keep, I try to keep the
23:22
math within the charts, right. So if I have my athletes and
23:25
we're running, like I had mentioned, I have a 61608110
23:31
meter workout, then what I'll do is I'll run the 60.
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I'll, I'll plug in and all right, well, if I'm going to do
23:37
2 sets of that, you know, what's this going to add up to?
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And I'll make sure it stays within the chart of what it says
23:43
that I should from the science of for a speed day or speed
23:48
endurance workout, This is this is where what we're looking at.
23:52
So when it comes to speed endurance, obviously you can go
23:56
a little bit longer with what you're trying to do and that's
23:59
probably somewhere between 700 and 900 or 711 hundred meters.
24:10
Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
24:13
episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
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It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
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The Guild 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
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