Jeff Howser on Speed Training Wisdom From the Dark Side of the Moon

Today’s episode features track and sport performance coach, Jeff Howser.  Jeff has been coaching track and field since 1971, and was himself a 6x ACC champion, named as one of the ACC’s top 50 track athletes of all time in 2003.  Jeff was a sprints and hurdles coach at Florida, UCLA, NC State, Duke and UNC before his time as a speed and sports performance coach, back at Duke University.

If you caught the classic episode on oscillatory strength training with Sheldon Dunlap you may have heard Sheldon mention Jeff as a source of his oscillatory rep training knowledge.  In addition to a number of elite track and field competitors, Jeff also trained the top high school 40-yard dash runner in history, who ran a 4.25 second effort.

In the world of speed training, many folks gravitate towards the “neat, packaged” training methods that are easy to understand and copy, such as sprint skip drills (A-skips, etc.).  Unfortunately, these drills don’t transfer to speed in nearly the capacity that we would hope for.  As Jeff says “I’ve never seen anyone skip their way to being fast”.  True speed is a little more complex, as it involves horizontal velocity and rotation, but is still, simple at its core given the self-organizing ability of the body.

In his decades in track and field, Jeff has seen numerous pendulum shifts in how speed is coached, and has experienced a wide variety of training methods.  As Jeff has said, we often go to clinics and seminars to be fed the same information with a different coat of paint.  The “dark side” of the moon represents what we haven’t seen in the world of performance, and this episode is an epitome of that.

On today’s show, Jeff goes into how sprint training has changed in the last 50 years, what he does, and doesn’t find helpful in speed development, a variety of sprint and speed training constraints and self-governing drills, oscillatory lifting and power development principles, and much more.  This show blends several important elements of biomechanics, strength and program philosophy that are impactful for any coach or athlete.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.

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Timestamps and Main Points:

3:57 – Jeff’s background and story in track and field, and his transition to university speed and strength coaching

8:29 – What track and field/speed coaching was like in the 1970’s, and how it has progressed since then

16:17 – What is the same, and what is different in training team sport athletes, and track and field athletes, in regards to their sprint technique

23:55 – Mistakes Jeff seeing being made in synchronizing the strength and speed components of a program

26:25 – Discussing the role of oscillation training in power development for the athletic program

33:22 – Running a periodization model on the level of “syncing and linking”, going power first and building strength on top of it

39:56 – Jeff’s thoughts on the “canned” (mach) sprint drills that are very popular in training

43:16 – “Down-the-Line” sprinting, and how this benefits athletes and emulates aspects seen in elite sprinters

50:25 – Why Jeff uses “flat footed” running as a sprint constraint, and how this can help substantially once they go back to “normal” running

51:50 – How and why Jeff started using “groucho” runs, which are similar to “squatty runs”

1:01:33 – Details of Jeff’s training of an athlete who went from 4.45 to a 4.25 40-yard dash and ran the fastest high school clocking of all time

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“Back in my day (in the 1970’s) I was actually taught to stay on the ground and push as long as you can, as hard as you can… I had to change my philosophy, I used to coach the way I was coached; when the evidence is there, you can make the choice, you can do it correctly or not do it at all”

“We put 2×4’s down instead of stick drills, because people would really reach out in stick drills”

“About 3-5% of team sport athletes actually run pretty well”

“Team sport athletes are “frequency freaks” (in regards to their stride frequency as opposed to length)”

“The braking phase (of sprinting) in field athletes is way too long”

“The problem with team sports (and speed) is we don’t get them consistently, and often enough to do a good job”

“It’s really easy to build a garbage truck in the weight room”

“The type of strength you develop is more important than the absolute strength itself”

“The numbers driven coaches just care about “are my kids getting stronger” without any regard to what kind of strength it is”

“Obviously strength is the basis of power work, but a lot of power work can be done without a lot of strength behind it”

“If you take that (static catcher position) and do some bounce work with it, and do it at some different angles, you’ll be surprised at how fast you get strong”

“(Oscillatory training is typically used) in the early preseason; it’s typically fatiguing, but you get strong very very quickly”

“Slow heavy (lifting) basically disrupts coordination so he likes to start with power, add strength too it, and then “sync and link” again”

“I used to be the old-school guy, starting with strength and going back to power.  Now I find it much better to start with power”

“I’ve never seen anyone skip their way to speed… the proprioceptive value of the (sprint skip) drills are the greatest (benefit) I’ve seen”

“I personally have never used a wall drill, because I don’t like locking the shoulders down”

“I do down-the-line runs a lot to get the shoulders to link with the hips”

“Team sport athletes have a significant stride width between the knees… Stride width is something that effects top end speed; the people who run the fastest have the least distance laterally”

“The theory between running on the line is letting the hips and shoulders go through a full range of motion”

“I’ve had some really good results with my athletes doing box step ups with the heel off of the box”

“When you bring athletes back to a normal run (after flat footed running) they say “wow I feel so much faster””

“When you are doing a squatty/groucho run, you can’t mess up the frontside component”

“Running with “high knees” doesn’t go well at all; you have to put athletes in a self-governing situation”

“There’s no force being applied in an A-skip”

“More elite sprinters tend to run with more knee flexion at take-off than slower ones do”

Show Notes

Running on a Line Over Mini Hurdles:

 

Drop Lunge Into Start Video:

 

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About Jeff Howser

Former ACC champion and All-America Jeff Howser is in his 20th season as Duke’s speed and conditioning coach.

A graduate of Duke, Howser was a six-time ACC champion, and was named as one of the ACC’s top 50 track athletes of all-time in 2003. He went on to earn a bronze medal at the World Championships in the 110-meter high hurdles and was an alternate on the U.S. Olympic Team. Howser ran on the international level for 17 years, was a four-time U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier and two-time U.S. Olympic Trials finalist.

He served previously as the sprints and hurdles coach at the University of Florida, UCLA, N.C. State, Duke and the University of North Carolina, and was on the British national staff for Track and Field from 2004-2008.

Howser also has coached a number of top-world ranked professional track athletes such as Anwar Moore (13.00-110m hurdles), Jason Smoots (6.51-60m, 10.01-100m),  Bershawn  Jackson (47.30-400m hurdles), Leonard Byrd (44.45-400m), Michelle Collins (50.00-400m ,  22.18-200m indoor), Daniel Caines UK (44.98-400m), Crystal Cox (50.34-400m, 22.34-200m), Jordan Vaden (19.98-200m), Marion Jones (7.08-60m, 10.91-100m), and other athletes from Jamaica, Great Britain, Trinidad, Ghana, Bermuda, Finland, Barbados, and the Bahamas. He also has served as a consultant in training program design for several other top-ranked track athletes from various countries which include LaShawn Merritt, Tyson Gay and Veronica Campbell-Brown. Howser also assists Athens 2004 Head Olympic Coach George Williams in coaching the Nike GW Elite Track Club. His coaching resume includes seventeen Olympians, five Olympic Gold Medalists, four World Championship Gold Medalists, and one World Cup Gold Medalist.

In addition, one of Howser’s athletes ran the fastest high school electronic 40yd dash ever recorded (4.25 electronic at the Nike SPARQ Combine), which is also the second fastest time in history.

He holds certifications from:

• National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) – Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS)
• US Track and Field Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) – Certified Speed Specialist
• US Track and Field Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) – Certified Sprint / Hurdle / Relay Specialist
• US Track and Field Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) – Certified Endurance Event Specialist
• US Track and Field Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) – Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach
• USA Track and Field Association (USATF) – Level III Certification Sprints / Hurdles / Relays…..National Coaches’ Registry
• National Sports Performance Association (NSPA) – Certified Speed and Agility Specialist
• National Association of Speed and Explosion (NASE) – National Certification Instructor / Certification Curriculum Coordinator / North Carolina State Director
• USA Track and Field Elite Athlete Coach
• USAW (USA Weightlifting) Level 1

During his time at Duke, Howser has trained 275 All-American selections and has worked with 26 different teams that have won 33 ACC team championships and 6 NCAA national team championships.

In addition to his duties as overall head strength coach for Women’s Lacrosse, Men’s Cross Country and Men’s and Women’s Track and Field, Howser designs and implements the speed, agility and conditioning programs for Men’s Lacrosse.