It seems like I’ve touched a sensitive nerve again when I mentioned a certain Younger Technique Guru recently. One of those who claim they can train a runner to align with the proper force vector while running at high speed.

Overlooking his inability to understand any analogies, it was a bit shocking to read that what I've proposed in the "My Ideas....Hardly" series is nothing more than pseudo science in his mind.

At first I was not sure how direct information from research papers by legitimate scientists from UC Berkeley and published by the respected Journal of Experimental Biology became pseudo science. Then it dawned on me that the research was contrary to what YTG claimed. The research subjects were able to do what YTG claims must be taught...without being taught!

YTG is the very same individual who claims a vast amount of knowledge of the science of running but could not account for why peak force measurements did not appear where he alluded that they would (in all fairness to YTG, he could not distinguish between a high speed force tracing and a schematic of a slow jogger, evidenced by his attempt to prove his point with the latter tracing).

YTG also has the order of contraction a little bit mixed up, but he shouldn't be derided for that. It's not unusual among those who spend their time (and rely heavily upon) kinematics--completely ignoring force.

I do blame myself for wandering over to YTG's site to try to give some insight into what actually happens during high speed running. YTG believes the heat was too much, so I slinked back to the safety of bearpowered. I don't think he looked at the 500+ posts from all sides on the Charlie Francis site. I don't walk from an interesting challenge, but I do run from endless blind repetition of the same meaningless mantra that has NO scientific basis.

Oddly enough, YTG mentioned his curiosity about my response to a recent article about Allyson Felix and her strength training under Bobby Kersee.

Here's what I think:

Looking at the workout from Kersee, along with the explanations, it's easy to see why it's been 4 years since Allyson left high school and she still hasn't beaten her high school time. Kersee would benefit greatly from some of the more recent research papers. So would YTG.

Oh my! There I go again. I guess I'll never learn to keep the research and my comments to myself.