This week’s guest is Derek Evely, Canadian track and field coach, and renowned expert on training organization. Derek has coached all of the track and field events, but is particularly experienced in the throws. Our talk today centers around the Bondarchuk training method, and its implications for other track events, such as sprints and jumps, as well as physical preparation concepts.
Talk about the Bondarchuk system (responsible for an absurd number of Olympic Gold medalists in the throws) is very popular these days, even amongst non-track and field coaches, such as those coaches involved in the physical preparation of team sport athletes. The thing with Bondarchuk style training is that it is so different than every other training style, and applying even its principles to team sport situations can be difficult, due to the chaotic workloads of field/court sport practice and play.
Even for those of us in track and field, using a non-wave loading, do the same workout (or 2, maybe 3 workouts) every time you hit the track, seems like a difficult proposition to dive in on. In order to get the most out of this system’s ideals, as well as the direction it is headed, I can’t think of too many people better to talk to than Derek Evely. Nick Garcia, our guest for Episode #6 (it seems so long ago) is also a coach who has great experience with Bondarchuk and traditional methods.
Today, Derek shares with us knowledge of the Bondarchuk system, and a myriad of applicable ideas on long term development, short and long term improvement, individualization and athlete reactions, differences between throwers and sprinters in the context of the Bondarchuk system, velocity-based training applications, and much more.
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.
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Key Points:
- Derek’s background in coaching
- A general take on how principles from the Bondarchuk model can spill over into traditional cycles of training
- Ramifications of switching from traditional training to the Bondarchuk style in a long term training format
- Tackling exercise diversity, and the number of exercises in a program
- How single workout models in the complex method differ from having two or three types of workouts in the complex model
- Applying Bondarchuk ideals to sprinting and speed training
- What entails “peak condition” in Bondarchuk modeling: neural and motor learning-based, or physiological/hormonal?
- The process of learning how to adapt a program to an athlete based on their history and how training unfolds
- How to utilize Bondarchuk principles as a supplementary/strength and conditioning coach
- Utilizing velocity based training and bar speed to give more insight into the reaction of the athlete in the developmental cycle
Quotes:
“Coach the athlete, not the event. You will be far more successful if you try not to take every athlete that comes to you and fit them into your event group, but coach them at what they are going to be good at”
“I think all these coaches are going to evolve the way of doing (Bondarchuk programming) and it’s going to be a good thing”
“The non-waveloading element of the Bondarchuk system is the hardest to get your head around if you are not used to it”
“Even the smallest changes in the program will change the results of the program for better or for worse” “Change is powerful, and you want to use it to your advantage”
“There are some limitations of this system (Bondarchuk), particularly maximal strength, which isn’t really part of the system”
“I’ve seen athletes respond very very well to the Bondarchuk system after they’ve come from a non-Bondarchuk approach”
“Bondarchuk has told me himself, every 5 years, and athlete needs to change his approach with an athlete”
“Athletes with sensitive nervous systems that are at a higher ability to output force, they tend to need more change”
“The more programs, and the more exercises in training that you have, the longer it’s going to take for an athlete to reach peak condition.”
“The sooner you come into peak condition, the sooner you can go into a rest cycle, or maintenance, and start another one after that. This means the more peak conditions you can get in a given year or annual cycle, the more growth”
“When you use more programs (types of workout days), the strength of the overall reaction is better”
“Sprinters are not going to peak as many times as a hammer thrower could (over time)”
“All abilities in the Bondarchuk system should peak together, so that’s why we train them all together”
“Rather than using bar velocity to stay within a zone, I just measure bar velocity the way I do throws, and I track that. The first time I did it, I got a near identical curve to the throwing results that I was getting. It was stunning!” “I’ve also used back heaves, you don’t need to always use bar speed”
“We assume there is a correlation between (a strength exercise/bar speed) when there may in fact not be as much as we think there is”
“I found the closest correlation in bar speed with exercises that someone mimic the form of the hammer throw. Olympic pulls kind of do that”
About Derek Evely
Derek Evely is a Canadian track and field coach and a renowned expert on periodization, planning and organization of training.
Derek was the Head Coach of the Kamloops Track and Field Club (where developed international athletes and medalists Shane Niemi, Gary Reed, and Dylan Armstrong, amongst others), before moving to Edmonton to work alongside Kevin Tyler as the Sport Science Manager at the Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre (CACC).
In 2009 Derek became the Centre Director of the Loughborough High Performance Centre. Additionally, Derek coached a young group of throwers in the UK, including Sophie Hitchon, who under his tutelage won a World Junior Championship, broke the British Record in the hammer at 19 years old, and qualified for the Olympic Final in 2012 at the age of 21!
Since 2012 Derek has returned to Kamloops and started a small training group focusing on the hammer throw. In 2014 he guided Sultana Frizell to a Commonwealth and North American record, as well as a Commonwealth Games gold medal and also worked with Olympic hammer thrower Heather Steacy.
Through his coaching career, Derek has been named to 4 World Championship Teams, 2 Olympic Teams, the European Championships, European Team Championships, European under-23 championships, and many others.
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