Athletics New Zealand track and field coach, James Sandilands is mainly known as the coach to the current World Indoor and Olympic champion in the jump, Hamish Kerr, but James's current crop of high level athletes spans far and wide from multi-eventers, sprinters, and horizontal jumpers.

He is a former high jumper and hurdler himself with several years of experience as both a performance technique analyst and a strength and conditioning coach for High Performance Sport New Zealand.

In this episode:
-James' transition from athlete to coach and the pivotal mentors who shaped his path.
-The nuances of coaching at the elite level, balancing technical precision with the art of communication.
-Insights into performance analysis, biomechanics, and their critical roles in enhancing athletic performance.
-The complexities of high jump training, from approach strategies to managing the psychological aspects of competition.
-The collaborative dynamics within a high-performance team and the continuous learning curve of coaching.

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In this episode, I chatted with Werner Prinsloo, the coach behind South African sprinting sensation Akani Simbine who in his third consecutive Olympic 100m final, at the age of 30, ran a national record of 9.82 seconds to finish fourth place.  

Werner shares his unique journey into coaching, from a corporate career to becoming a full-time coach for one of the world’s most consistent sub-10-second sprinters and his group of aspiring elite sprinters in Johannesburg. 

Key topics include:
-How Werner transitioned from coaching recreational athletes to working with elite sprinters.
-Akani Simbine’s journey from raw talent to global track star, including the pivotal moments and training adjustments that fueled his success.
-The critical role of a strong support team in sustaining elite performance, including strength coaches, physiotherapists, and agents.
-Werner technical approach to sprinting, including block setup, acceleration mechanics, and the importance of repetition in skill-building.
-The value of consistent mentorship, trust-building, and adaptability in coaching.
-Socio-economic challenges faced by many South African athletes and the creative solutions he employs to support and nurture their potential. 

Follow Werner and his group on Instagram @Werner_Prinsloo and @ontrack_sprint

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Josef Karas is a former Czech International Decathlete and a graduate of Kansas State where he worked under legendary coach Cliff Rovelto.

Since transitioning into coaching, Josef has coached long jumper Radek Juska to 8.31m (NR), gold at the World University Games, Silver at the European Indoor championships and most recently, the Olympic final in Paris. Josef is a well known multi's coach working with 8,000+ point decathletes like Adam Helcelet and current world u-20 champion Tomas Järvinen.

In this episode, he his general preparation phase (GPP), prescribing training for 'workhorses', and adapting technique to the individual athlete.

Josef reflected on the lead up to the Olympics with Radek and how they overcame a very challenging early season that concluded with a spot in the Olympic final.

Follow Josef on Instagram

Episode Sponsor: YMR Track Club - use promo code 'Track20' for 20% off

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 Glenn Smith is a former Canadian national champion and world championship semi-finalist in the 200m sprint. He holds a Master’s Degree in Exercise Science from the University of Texas at Austin and has nearly 20 years of coaching experience. His expertise spans developing All-American collegiate athletes and international-level competitors in the jumps, throws, multi-events, and sprints.
 
A central theme of this episode was Glenn Smith's coaching philosophy, which emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships with athletes, mastering key technical principles, engaging in personal reflection, and structuring training effectively. Additionally, he shared insights into how his jumpers achieved significant performance breakthroughs by adopting new technical solutions to address specific challenges.

Glenn discussed the importance of structuring training to enable the athlete to learn technique - this includes the placement of sessions in a micro cycle and the variations utilised. 

I am lucky to have had Glenn coach me as an athlete and mentor me now as a coach. If you'd like to get in touch with Glenn and avail of his private (in-person and remote) coaching services you can contact via Instagram (here).

Episode Sponsor: YMR Track Club - use promo code 'Track20' for 20% off

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Being the Chief Physiotherapist to UK Athletics/British Athletics at the London Olympic Games (2012) is just one of many major roles that Gordon Bosworth has undertook during his professional career. He has played a key role in several national physiotherapy teams in winter and summer Olympic enabling Bobsledders like Kaillie Humphries to win Olympic gold.

Gordon who owns his own practice 'The Bosworth Clinic' in Oxfordshire, England extrapolated many key theoretical insights, assessment techniques, and treatment strategies.

Follow Gordon:
-https://www.thebosworthclinic.co.uk/
-https://www.instagram.com/thebosworthclinic

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Dan Pfaff is widely regarded as one of the most influential track and field coaches of all-time with over 50 years of experience. 

His thought provoking insights on sports performance concepts always come with a lot of dept and in this episode, He spoke about the rationale for having a holistic knowledge base and how coaches can develop that. From there, we dove into debriefing throughout the season so that coaches can make the athlete aware of the overall objectives to facilitate 'smoother' sailing throughout the year.

The horizontal jumps is an area where Dan has had a lot of success coaching athletes like Greg Rutherford, Fabrice Lapierre, and Kareem Streete-Thompson to name a few. He described how he navigates complex issues like approach accuracy and take off mechanics. The final big theme of the discussion was the necessity for mental resilience so that athletes can perform under pressure. 

Thanks to Dan for coming and sharing his lifetime worth of wisdom

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Coaches Jeremy Lyons, Gerard O'Donnell, and Aideen Synott have created a high performing environment for sprinters in Ireland to thrive both collegiately and post-collegiately. Through years of hard work and collaboration, they've enabled the likes of Sophie Becker, Cillian Greene, and Jack Raftery to become Olympians, European medalists, and household names in Irish Athletics.

In this episode, Jeremy and Gerard began by discussing how the club came to be and the characteristics they look for in prospective athletes before diving deep into the details of their annual training plan and how they manage volume, intensity, and density throughout the year, but perhaps what is most impressive and noteworthy, is how they adapt when met with constraints and opportunities in season.

If you like learning from passionate coaches who think outside the box to get the most out of their athletes, look no further than this conversation -- thank you Jeremy and Gerard.

Instagram: Dublin_Sprint
Gerard's website: https://www.godspeed.ie/

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CEO of Altis and world class sprints coach Stu McMillan came back on the podcast to talk about the importance of pursuing what is interesting to you as an individual, the core features of high level sprinting, trialing new methods with your athletes in an informed way, and much more.

I hope you enjoy. Give Stu and Altis a follow if you haven't already.
-Instagram: FingerMash and Altis
-Altis Website: https://altis.world/

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Rolf Ohman is a coach and innovator with over 35 years of experience in global sports such as Track and Field; he was a high level decathlete before beginning his coaching career. 

Between 2016 and 2017, he served as Head Coach for the Dalian Olympic Sports Center before becoming the Assistant Head Coach under Randy Huntington for the Chinese National Team in Sprints and Jumps, he then moved to a  Head Coach role at the Hong Kong Sports Institute until the summer 2023. Now, Rolf is coaching athletes like Jacob Despard - one of Australia's hottest prospect in 100m. 

He is also the renowned creator of the 1080 Technology, including the revolutionary 1080 sprint device and 1080 quantum.  In this episode, he explained some of the key pillars of his training philosophy such as periodization, weight room, and plyometric exercises -- particularly for elite/highly trained athletes. 

Thanks Rolf for such a thorough insight into your years of hard work.

Follow Rolf: https://www.instagram.com/tailwindsquad

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Jim VanHootegem has over 20+ years of experience as a collegiate coach working at schools like Texas A&M, The University of Oklahoma, and Arkansas. He has achieved great success with athletes like Fabrice Lapierre and Julian Reid -- both who have achieved medals at World and European championships. 

In his career so far, he has guided his programs to 12 NCAA team championships and 27 conference team titles as well as 72 All-Americans as an event coach, and another 55 honorees as a head coach. He currently serves as the sprints and jumps coach at South Plains Community College in Texas.

In this episode, Jim spoke about the foundations of his coaching philosophy, essential technical elements in the horizontal jumps, setting expectations for athletes, and much more. 

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