I have the honor of speaking at the Colorado High School Track and Cross Country Coaches Clinic tonight. John Hancock of Mullen HS has arguably the best list of speakers of any state clinic.

I will post all slides and pertinent links in the coming days, but I wanted to share this video for anyone with 10 free minutes.

The following video was produced as a supplement to an article in the current issue of Running Times.

While I like all of these exercises in the video above, yet unlike most videos I share on this site, these exercises DO NOT fit together as a routine, but rather as individual exercises to show runners what can be done with a medicine ball. [Read more →]

You don’t have to answer, but I couldn’t think of a better title as I’m up…and I probably shouldn’t be as tomorrow I hope to do the running portion of Renee’s workout.

But I thought I should share the email I just sent to Richey. Richey is Dr. Richard Hansen and he’s making me a better coach. When I have a question he pours over research articles and texts, then thinks a bit, then responds. He’s the reason you should open a twitter account; if you follow him @ARTSportsChiro and you’ll be a better coach, I promise. At the bottom of this post is a video of him working on Hatch following Hatch’s race two weeks ago.

Here’s the email I sent to him; in it I refer to the PNS and CNS. PNS is Peripheral Nervous System; CNS is Central Nervous System [Read more →]

Dan Pfaff is arguable the world’s best track coach; he’s coached 29 NCAA Champions and 33 Olympians (old bio here). He is now heading the Britain’s Track and Field program and has identified injury prevention as the single biggest issue facing UK Athletics.

With that in mind I want to share this video. There are several times where he says things that run counter to conventional wisdom and that’s the reason I wanted to share it and hopefully we’ll have a useful discussion below. He’s forgotten more about coaching than I’ll ever know and I’m so glad Dr. Richey shared this video via his twitter fed. Below the video are quotes and thoughts that I found important or surprising. A ton of information in just a 10 minute video.

“Don’t think sprint drills will make you run faster….for us they serve as a great dynamic warm-up and a great evaluation method for injuries and (tell us) if we should change the workout or not.”

- Power output doesn’t go down with a static stretching warm-up. He doesn’t see that science out on the track (i.e. that static stretching pre workout will decrease power output, meaning a sprinter would run the 60m slower after doing a ton of static stretching before a race). [Read more →]

I am fortunate to write a weekly training tip and weekly Q&A for NikeRunning.com.

I normally don’t post any of the content from NikeRunning.com but I thought this post applies to everyone that reads this blog. So here it is, why you should consider training like a toddler. [Read more →]

The reason I’m asking is that it’s just after 8:00 pm MST and James Hatch is lifting now and in this day and age we could all be watching him live. Obviously it’s not ideal that I’m not there in person, yet I’m confident that we’ve done enough work together in a weight room the he can handle tonight’s lift. Last week I watched the squat progression live via Google Chat and it was awesome. If you think this is something we should do then just comment below or send me an email (coachjayjohnson@gmail.com)or a direct message via twitter and if the response is good we’ll do it.

Here is the lift. [Read more →]

If you’re a fan of the sport or a student of the sport or a connoisseur of the sport, then you’ll want to read Dathan Ritzenhein’s blog. It’s honest and unlike many blogs from endurance athletes, he tells you what he’s doing and why he’s doing it, giving his blog a level of candor that is missing from most other athlete’s blogs.

In this post he shares snapshots of his high school training, his collegiate training, his post collegiate training with Brad Hudson and his current training with Alberto Salazar. On one hand it’s only a week of training from each coach, but on the other hand it’s a fantastic longitudinal look at the training that helped a kid from Rockford earn a medal at the 2001 IAAF World Junior Cross Country Championships (the winner was a guy named named Bekele) and then run under 13 minutes and become the American Record Holder at 5,000m.

I want to share the seven days from his University of Colorado training log. [Read more →]

I’ve been focused (obsessed?) with this weekend’s Houston Half Marathon, which was the USATF Half Marathon Championship race. Brent and Renee were both running their first half marathons and so the focus was as much about “Are they ready to run the distance well” as it was “How competitive will they be in the race?” Brent finished 3rd in his debut; Renee finished 4th in her debut. Good results and after a couple of days to analyze the performances I’m quite pleased. A lot of work and thought went into that race and I’d like to take the next couple post to discuss topics that are germane to preparation, race execution and recovery. But I’d like to work backwards and start with recovery because it’s what the athletes are doing today and because Eric Richey (@HCXCdistance on twitter) asked, “Can you blog about Renee, Brent, and Austin’s recovery from the 1/2. What will this week look like?” [Read more →]