Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

While I agree with his general principle that distance athletes should engage in strength and conditioning, I believe that he may be overreacting to the value of his specialty. In watching that interview, I've been led to a number of questions I have regarding his approach. The first questions I would ask relate to how he is designing programs. How do we decide that an athlete needs 400s with KB swings and pull ups? I also wonder why are we so focused on constant variation? I would argue quite strongly that constant variation "to the point where you don't see the same workout twice" is disrespectful of human physiology and the basic tenants of fitness acquisition in what we know works from looking at the literature. I think this is an overreaction to a misinterpretation of what the research has shown us with respect to periodization. Variation, good; constant variation, not so much. The reason why workouts are maintained at similar levels or stress levels/types for a certain period of time is to allow first fast adaptation to the new stimuli and then to allow stabilization of the new gains before they are finally actualized in racing. By not allowing a more consistent exposure to said stimuli, we're short changing the body in both short and long term adaptations. In my past experiences with CrossFit practitioners (and there are some who apply the principles well so do not take this as a huge bashing of CrossFit), there is typically a "random" program design and there is no respect given to individual variance in movement skill or limitation. Without addressing these limitations, we are going to put our athletes at a higher risk for injury. Couple this with performing "big" exercises in high states of fatigue we begin to run into a point that Dr. Matveyev would call unsustainable. He mentions as well a drop in running volume, and many runners will take offense to the statement, however, he may be on point to an extent. There are bodies of research showing positive outcomes in middle range of skill endurance athletes by replacing 33% of volume, there are others in better athletes that demonstrate benefits. That said, limiting running work too much as he suggests may not be the best idea given that endurance may be VELOCITY and PATTERN SPECIFIC. If we are not frequently touching on race paces, we will fail to adequately develop them no matter how much non-specific metabolic work we are doing. Finally, I have serious qualms with using high schoolers as case examples given their low training age and how they do benefit best from a multi-lateral approach to training. Biology shows us that this is not true through the lifespan, however. Additionally, I really question his concept of the athlete of the future is 185. No disrespect, but I have a very difficult time making sense of this theory. Even if we were to enhance power output significantly to compensate for the large gains in body mass, we'd require additional vascular adaptations to deliver fuel to working tissues, and we shouldn't forget the constant force of gravity and the idea of what physical work is in reality (W=m x d). The goal should not be to have a heavier athlete because they can produce greater absolute force, it should be to put a better engine (vascular, PHA, relative strength/power/reactivity) in the same size chassis. We want Festivas with Corvette engines, not Ford F250s in our endurance athletes. Just some thoughts. Regards, Carson Boddicker