The Track and Field Performance Podcast

Angus Ross is the Strength and Conditioning and Power Physiology Lead with High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ), working with elite track & field athletes and multiple Olympic sports across lead coaching, s&c, and sport science. He is also a three-time Winter Olympian in bobsleigh and the full-time coach of New Zealand 60 m record holder Tiaan Whelpton.

His PhD focused on sprint performance and tapering, complemented by many peer-reviewed publications on topics including eccentric strength training and acceleration biomechanics.

In this episode, we dive into athlete profiling, training elastic vs muscular qualities, eccentric loading, and...

Dr. Christopher Stanley (CMPC) is a sport and performance psychology professor at the University of Western States, former Lead Sport Psychologist for USA Track & Field across the Tokyo–Paris Olympic cycle, and the Atlanta Track Club Elite.

In this episode, Chris illustrates how coaches can implement mental skills training in track & field without adding extra time—covering practical tools for confidence, focus, and performance under pressure. In addition, the relational aspect of coaching is discussed throughout the conversation; Chris provides practical tips on how to improve communication and trust in coach-athlete dynamics. He is also the author of R...

This episode brings together three coaches with documented success coaching the 400 meters and 4×400 m relay within the NCAA system.

Ernie Clark, the Head Coach for sprints, hurdles, and jumps at Northern Arizona University, previously coached at San José State and Ashland University. He has guided athletes such as Trevor Bassitt, Myles Pringle, and Jeremiah Walker to 45-second performances, while also producing multiple school and conference record holders in the 400 m. Most recently, Clark led the NAU women’s 4×400 m relay to the NCAA Championships, where they ran a school and conference record of 3:31.28.

Bob Thurnhoffer, the f...

Craig Pickering – former Olympic sprinter, Winter Olympian in bobsleigh, sport scientist, and now Director of Performance Sustainability at Athletics Australia – joins the show to unpack what it takes to build a world-class sprint and relay system. He shares insights on athlete transitions, skill acquisition, and the systems driving Australia’s sprint resurgence.

We explore his journey from elite athlete to high-performance leader, how Australia has built depth and buy-in across its relay program, and why “training in chaos” has become central to his coaching philosophy. Craig also speaks on data-driven decision making, performance support, and the innovation shaping th...

Marco Airale has been one of the fastest-rising elite sprint coaches of the past five years — and one of the youngest — guiding athletes like Reece Prescod, Andre De Grasse, Daryll Neita, Amy Hunt and others to fast times and global medals. With a background in physiotherapy and osteopathy, Marco blends therapy and coaching to maximise performance and keep athletes healthy. 

In this conversation, we discuss:

From being a 6 meter pole vaulter back in 2005 to coaching the 2024 Olympic gold medallist Nina Kennedy and 2023 World Championships bronze medallist Kurtis Marschall, Paul Burgess has transitioned from elite athlete to coach with huge success, particularly over the past 5 years.

That journey, however, hasn’t been totally straightforward. In this episode, you’ll hear real humility from someone who has clearly stayed curious and driven to help his athletes perform at their best. 

We spoke the technical and physical training behind pole vault, specifically as it relates to Kurtis and Nina --- including the key chang...

Eamonn Flanagan is the Head of S&C at the Sport Ireland Institute. In this episode, Eamonn shares deep insights from a career that spans elite Olympic (including track & field), Paralympic, and professional rugby environments. He is very well known for his work on jump or plyometric training with peer-reviewed research, online courses and much more on this form of training. 

We unpack a range of topics including:
-Eamonn's career journey and some key perspective shifts along the way
-Varying physical preparation based on sporting demands
-Coaching and progressing plyometric training
-Technique and a...

Joseph Coyne, PhD is the Director of High Performance & Sports Development, Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar and Strength & Conditioning Coach, Elite Sport Program & Swimming, Bond University

Joseph's experience in Track & Field extends far and wide; we dug into his time working with the Chinese athletics federation including his work supporting Olympic-level sprinters and jumpers alongside world-renowned coach Randy Huntington. Joseph shares practical insights on plyometric training, athlete profiling, special strength training, contrast methods, as well as how he adapts his approach across youth, developing, and elite athletes.

Joseph conducted his PhD research on training load at Edith...

Dr. Chris Shambrook, is a renowned expert in performance psychology with over five Olympic cycles of experience. In this episode, Chris shares his journey from earning a PhD in sports psychology to working extensively with British Rowing, Olympic athletes, and high-performance teams across various sports and business settings.

We explore the evolving role of sports psychology in elite environments, discussing how athletes and coaches can integrate psychological skills into daily training rather than treating them as separate sessions. Chris explains the challenge vs. threat mindset, the importance of psychological adaptability, and how mental preparation can influence an...

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...

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 journe...

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 t...

 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 achi...

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 h...

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...

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...

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.

Very few coaches can say they've had five athletes run 1.44 or faster in the 800m. Joseph Deng and Peter Bol (among several others) have risen to the top of the event -- thanks to the guidance of Justin Rinaldi.

His group named 'Fast8TrackClub' not only highlights their aim, but it matches how they get there -- they run fast, all year round, but the devil is in the details, so in this episode, Justin unpacked his coaching philosophy which was born out of his own experience as an athlete, and the mistakes he made along the...

Sports and Exercise physiotherapist, to many of Australia's top track and field athletes, Sam Leslie, discusses his multi-layered approach to rehabilitating and reducing injuries as well as improving event specific performance.

Sam, who works out of MyPhysio Evolution, in Melbourne Australia, takes an evidence based approach to help establish timelines for the returning to full health and selecting methods that match the athletes characteristics and the current stage of the injury among other variables. He explains the contents and application of direction-based programming which is a focal point of his practice throughout this episode.

Lifestyle...

Daniel Davey is the Founder of DaveyNutrition and has over 15 years experience as a Performance Nutritionist, 9 of which were spent in elite sport environments with Dublin GAA and Leinster Rugby. 

We sat down to discuss topics like fueling and recovery based on individual demands like event groups in Athletics as well as creating processes to make nutrition feel like a fun and sustainable experience. 

Daniel has been around several players who have been in the conversation of 'best in the world' at what they do. In this episode, we spent a lot of time talking ab...

Coach to Olympic, Paralympic, World, European and Commonwealth Medalists, Steve Fudge has not just harnessed the talent of elite level prospects, but over the years he has developed a system that is building  world class sprinters from a very earl stage in their career.

In this episode, Steve spoke about how the initial movements at the start can impact the acceleration, the transition and max velocity 'phases'. When executed well there is fluid continuity from one step to another instead of erratic or disjointed movement.

Steve carefully explains his methods for developing the technical and p...

John is a well-known coach, content creator, and writer on all things athletics, but perhaps most pertinently, he has a massive aptitude for horizontal jumps training.

In his first few years of coaching he guided two men under the age 20 jump over 7.70m in the long jump -- one became European Junior Champion. Since that time, he has guided several more athletes to jump 7.70+, 6.30+ (for women) and16.20m in the mens triple jump.

John believes that specificity can be achieved early in the winter and over training is often a major hinderance to long term...

Boo is one of the worlds leading track and field coaches, educators, and rehab consultants. He's coached world champions, he's delivered coaching education  workshops around the world, and now he primarily helps world class athletes return to their best.

Boo coached 17 NCAA champions in his initial 11 year stint at Louisiana State University. During that time he led Walter Davis to becoming a world indoor and outdoor champion in the triple jump. In 2018, he returned to assist the program as a Strength and Conditioning coach; shortly after both Rayvon Grey and Juvaughn Harrison won individual NCAA titles in t...

Texas Techs Jumps and Multi's Coach, Keith Herston, is quickly becoming one of the worlds top jumps coaches having had success with various national and international athletes across different event disciplines. 

Keith has coached , 3 Olympians, 4 World Championship Finalists, 1 NCAA Champion, 63 NCAA All Americans , and 6 Top-10 NCAA All-Time Performers (WTJ, WLJ, MLJ).

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Head Coach, History Teacher, and Author of the Sprinters Compendium (among many other things), Coach Ryan Banta has been at Parkway High School for 20 years. During that time, he has successfully coached everything from cross country to the short sprints. In 2022, Coach Banta was named the Missouri TFCCCA girls coach of the year. 

In this episode, we talked about how he uses his background in Positive Psychology with his athletes, the Critical Mass Training Philosophy, the Development of his coaching and the Sprinters Compendium. This one is loaded. 

Thank you to Coach Banta for sharing so...

Coach Carrie Lane works with Under Armours Elite group of distance runners based in Baltimore Maryland. Prior to that, she spent several years as the Throws coach at the University of Wyoming and regularly lectures at the USTFCCCA coaches convention and other seminars on this particular topic. 

This episode provides insights into her current role as well as some of the key principles she uses to guide her training philosophy. 

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From former collegiate triple jumper at Cornell University turned Olympic-level coach; Aaron Gadson shows his passion and knowledge for the event across a multitude of subjects. His breakdowns of training and coaching are detailed and thoughtful making for a rich episode that both athletes and coaches can enjoy. 

Be sure to follow Aarons's Instagram page for much more content: @youngjumps

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Coach of 2x World Champion Kelsey-Lee Barber, Mike Barber (her husband), has a diverse coaching and sports performance background. Before becoming a Javelin coach he was a Decathlete turned Biomechanist working for the Australian Institute of Sport.

Exploration captures many points of this discussion because Mike's coaching journey and the one with Kelsey-Lee comprised many moments of exploration, from technical sessions to liaising with experts in sports performance; this process continues year after year to create the synthesis they need to throw far and be successful at the major competitions - both of which they are very...

Sprints and Throws Coach, Statistician, Researcher, and so much more; PJ Vazel has made some major contributions to the sport of Track and Field and in this episode, PJ provided a little glimpse into the internal workings of his great mind. 

Topics:
-Journey to becoming a Hammer Coach
-Coaching Philosophy & Influences
-Learning from Failure
-The Unpredictability of Sports Performance 
-Coaching the Hammer Throw

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In this episode, Sprint Hurdles coach at Altis, Andreas Behm provides an overview of the physical and technical characteristics he looks for in elite sprint hurdling. 

Andreas talks about the nuances of in-practice coaching; cueing, session modifications, technical refinements and, complete revamps. Moreover, Andreas highlighted how he's remained inspired through the years -- even after guiding Aries Merritt to a world record in 2012. 

Thanks for your time and wisdom Andreas.

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Whilst severing as the National Coach of the Dutch Federation, Laurent Meuwly has taken several sprint athletes and relay teams to international stardom. Prior to arriving at Papendal, Coach Meuwly worked with the Swiss Athletics federation, there he coached European champions like Lena Sprunger and Ajla Del Pointe (who he still works with today).  

In this episode, Coach Meuwly shared some of his non-negotiables when it comes to training and recovery - particularly for the longer sprint events. 

Follow Laurent: 
-https://www.instagram.com/laurentmeuwly 
-https://twitter.com/LaurentMeuwly

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The Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Centre is home to some of the best athletes in the world. 

Coach Kris Mack leads a group of world-class multi-event athletes at the center as well as several Paralympians. 

In this episode, Kris talks about his progression as a coach and how he applies a high degree of event-specific knowledge with other variables like the anthropometric of the athlete, training age, time of the season, body language, asymmetries, etc. 

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Luis is the owner of 'The Peak' a sports performance facility in Porto, Portugal where mainly works as a Strength & Conditioning coach and Physiotherapist. He boasts an extremely well-rounded resume working with elite jumpers and throwers in Track & Field as well as Soccer and Volleyball teams.

Our discussion comprised of multiple topics surrounding the principles of training specificity -- on and off the track. 

Follow Luis:
-LUÍS MESQUITA (@luismmesquita)

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Harvey Maguire is a Performance Physiotherapist who operates out of the UK's leading university for Track & Field in Loughborough. 

He works with the track and field team to provide comprehensive treatment and rehabilitation strategies to facilitate the advancement of their health and performance. 

Harvey recently interned at Altis to advance his expertise and adopt a more integrative approach involving all stakeholders.

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Since joining Coastal Carolina in 2019, coach Karl Goodman has accumulated 12 All-American honors -- 11 of which were this season -- leading him to being promoted to Associate Head Coach this summer. That's not all, Melissa Jefferson, (one of the many All-Americans) won the US National Title in the 100m running 10.68 in the process. 

There is ton a value in this one, I hope you enjoy and thank you Coach Goodman.

Topics:
-Journey to becoming a coach
-Training philosophy, influences, and structure
-Coaching this generation: personality types, interests, social norms
-Managing Melissa's transition t...

Strength and Conditioning is a popular topic of discussion across all event disciplines within Track and Field. Decathlete and Strength coach for the University of Arkansas, Mat Clark shows his versatility by outlining the benefits of strength training, methods for building sound lifting technique to access those benefits, and prescribing training for athletes with varying characteristics.

Important Links:
-Mat's Instagram: Mat Clark (@trackstrength) • Instagram photos and videos
-Twitter: Mat Clark (@MatClarkansas) / Twitter
-Blog: The Art of Training | Mat Clark | Substack

TrackBarn: Custom Track & Field Uniform-TrackBarn
-Promocode: TNF10 

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Head Coach of Brooks Beasts Track Club, Danny Mackey has over 10 years of experience coach elite level athletes ranging from the 800m to 10k. 

Coach Mackey outlines the primary energy systems utilized in each of these specializations and how that looks in a weekly cycle. In addition, he describes his background in Bio-mechanics, enabling his athletes to move more efficiently and stay healthy.

Affiliate: https://trackbarn.com/ - promo code: TNF10

Important Links: 
-Brain of the Beasts Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mowR3rYVPKM
-Danny's Instagram: https://www.instagram.co...

For the past 10 years, Coach Nic Petersen has led the University of Florida jumps program to so much success that it is widely regarded as 'Jumps University.' 

Coaching an array of high level athletes with varied experience and skills has given him a level of wisdom that is on full display in this episode. 

Coach Petersen discusses how he builds a foundation with his athletes; physically, mentally, and technically. 

In addition, he describes the three pillars of the approach run as well as working on other components like the flight and landing in...