Today’s episode features track and field coach Mike Goss.  Mike is a physical education instructor of 20 years, and has been coaching track and field on the high school, club and NCAA Division I collegiate level for over 25 years.  Currently Mike is coaching independently the club “Flying Without Wings”, and is an assistant at Parkview HS, the Georgia 7A state runner-up in 2017.

I first met Mike at the Central Virginia Sports Performance Seminar back in 2015, but I knew of his work well before then by reading his track and field, jumps training articles on Speedendurance.com.  Mike is an experienced coach, has a thirst for knowledge, and has lots of success over the years, coaching numerous track and field champions in the long, high and triple jumps.   His creative and unique practice methods contain ideas that we can all utilize in our efforts to get the most out of our athletes while building a great environment for them.  

Not only is Mike a great coach, but he is also one of the most generous people I know in terms of giving his time to coach those in need of assistance.  His spirit and love for the sport is something we can all aspire towards.  

One article of Mike’s that stuck with me, and prompted me to purchase Tadeusz Starzynski’s book on jump training was looking at his work with speed squats, where he tracked the amount of time it took athletes to perform a particular amount of reps, and weight could only increase given only a small increase in the time needed to perform the repetitions.  

For today’s episode, we’ll cover Mike’s philosophy on training track and field jumpers, coaching rhythms, approaches to plyometrics, particularly in setting up competitions for those plyometric exercises, as well as strength training for jumpers.  

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.  

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com/podcast-85-mike-goss/