John M.

I have coached athletes from the youth age groups through high school. I've coached track at several high schools, most recently I just finished a season at North Point High School (Winter 2020). I've traveled nationally attending a variety of elite training centers, camps, clinics, seminars, in search of coaching excellence, as well as persistently studying materials at hand; books, tapes, videos, etc..., to stay in touch with the latest info. I've coached numerous high school state champions, and even had an athlete that was a 3-time High School All-American, that went on to be a multiple NCAA Champion, Olympic Trials Champion, and an Olympic Finalist. I got to travel nationally and internationally with this athlete and I got to be around and learn from those experiences of being around world class coaches and other world class athletes. As for certifications, I am certified as a Personal Trainer by the American Council on Exercise and a Certificate of Completion of the Altis Coaching The Short Sprints Course

I competed in track from my youth though my mid thirties. At the collegiate level I was a 3-Time All-Conference sprinter at Tri-State University (now Trine) at the D3/NAIA level.

A session begins with jogging and limbering to initiate the warm up, then depending on the athlete's preference we'll continue from there. Some athletes prefer a fairly extensive dynamic warm up routine that includes dynamic stretching. As for my method, after jogging and various limbering exercises to loosen the joints and warm up the muscles, we'll do dynamic stretching, before beginning some progressively more intense warm up runs of anywhere from 40 meters to 70 meters. Between the runs we'll do various range of motion exercises, legs swings, drills, and other exercises to not only address any tightness, but to also teach good technique. If an athlete is to do his/her own warm up/stretch routine, I need to be satisfied that the major muscle areas have been addressed, and that intense enough warm up runs have been done prior to me asking the athlete to sprint during workouts. I want to assess the athlete before doing a lot of teaching. I believe it is important to identify what the athlete is already doing well and to attempt to build upon that. I also want to assess the athlete's understanding/opinions of how to perform the various tasks at hand, and I also want to assess the athlete's learning style and how they best respond to being coached/taught. I make use of filming the athlete on a regular basis. For speed training, the primary emphasis is to develop max velocity (top speed) basics. This requires a combination of patiently developing technique and fitness, with the goal being for the athlete to be able to efficiently, effectively, and repeatedly accelerate over the distance required by the sport. I'll break down the sprint into; first three steps, steps 4-11, continuing toward max velocity, max velocity (top speed), speed maintenance, deceleration (if the sprint is long enough). We'll work on those phases of the sprint, trying to improve body positions, technique, efficiency of movement, etc... My passion is training athletes for the 100 and 200 meter dashes in track, and for the 40 yard dash at football combines, but I am able to help athletes improve speed and agility in their particular sport, so, of course, the needs of the athlete will dictate the specifics of the workout.