ETG Club History
By the late 1980s, I was well convinced that world records were no where near the limits of human performance since it was plain to me that neither athletes or coaches possessed much knowledge of human cellular function. Following a trip to Colorado Springs in 1988 where I attended the USA Track & Field's Level II coaching education certificate course, I wrote a letter to all of the members of the USATF coaching education committee. The letter suggested that they focus on identifying the underlying mechanisms of performance of each track and field event, and then use that information to develop training programs to apply and teach. Only one person wrote back, basically saying it was a great idea...somebody ought to do it. It seemed plain that they weren't intending to be the people to do it, so I decided at that time to begin pursing it on my own.
Around 1989, I began developing the "Elite Coaching Support Group" which consists of several researchers and clinicians who's work I believed would be the most helpful to me in identifying the underlying physiological mechanisms of performance, injury prevention, etc. I chose people who's names I had come across fairly often while reading research, a few people who I knew personally and knew their knowledge would be necessary to acquire, and I chose researchers [listed on the homepage of this website] whose work was well beyond the norm in the area of sport sciences. Access to information is the foundation upon which the club and all its training programs have been built. It is and will always be the underlying mechanism of our success in every aspect of our lives and sport performance.
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I moved to Austin, Texas on December 31, 1990. When I moved to Austin, I completed development the "Elite Coaching Library" which I had begun in 1984, a list of approximately 60 research journals across 8 - 10 doctoral disciplines, that I follow all year around. I had originally moved to Austin for the purpose of working as an assistant coach for the University Of Texas women s track & cross-country programs. The coach there at the time had encouraged me to come down. I was not informed however, that there were problems within her program, and that the athletic department was about to offer her the opportunity to move on to coach some place else, and she had not told anyone in the athletic department that I was there. Following her departure, I applied for the vacant coaching position, but was not able to get an interview. Fortunately, I had also moved to Austin for other reasons as well, mainly the human performance researchers at the University of Texas [Jack Wilmore (now prof Emeritus, Texas A&M), John Ivy, Ed Coyle, and Larry Abraham]. So at that point [sometime around the spring of 1992], development of the Elite Training Group track club became my primary objective. At that time, the Elite Training Group was to be primarily comprised of distance runners I coached when they were in high school in Virginia, and have since graduated college.
Top of PageHaving moved to Austin with $200 in my pocket, my car, and only one month rent paid, and finding that there was no coaching job at the Univ. of Texas, I was in a financially bad situation. It was partially improved for me by being evicted from my apartment, and basically having few options available, I moved into a small inexpensive room in a boarding house located a few blocks from the Univ. of Texas campus. The rent was cheap and I was allowed to pay late when I was short on money, so this allowed me to only have to work part time, thus I was able to spend several hours a day in the libraries on campus and in the human performance and exercise physiology laboratories, to acquire information. My parents and brothers helped me out financially when I didn't have enough money for food or rent. On average I lived on approximately $5000 to $7000 per year for 10 years, which I believe demonstrates that sponsorship, etc. isn 't necessarily required to gain knowledge (education) or to become a world class athlete. I worked several relatively odd jobs around the Univ. of Texas campus, including bus boy and dishwasher in the Athlete dining hall run by the Men's Athletics department.
My first part-time job in Austin began a few days after I arrived and was through Trina Painter, a local world class distance runner [4th at U.S. Olympic Trials 10,000m, pr for track 10k = 32:14]. I was in a hallway reading research poster presentations outside the lab of Jack Wilmore, one of the world's leading researchers in exercise physiology [and member of the ETG Elite Coaching Support Group]. Trina happened by and asked if I would help her coach a group of runners. I had met Trina when her boyfriend [eventual husband, David Painter] was the roommate of one of my former high school athletes, Gabrielle Pohlmann [now ETG club member, Gabrielle Patterson]. At the time, Trina was the assistant director of the Univ. of Texas Adult Fitness Program, working under runner & researcher, Phil Stanforth. She had begun a running program there and had a group of about 80 adult runners who had joined. Her group later came to be known as "Team Trina" . This job helped me financially and gradually led me to move into doing running seminars and consulting work for local adult runners.
The owners of the running store [called RunTex] Paul and Sheila Carrozza [Paul coached Sheila to a spot on the U.S. team for the 1993 World Track & Field Championships], that has become the center of the universe in the Austin running community, were extremely generous in practically adopting me, allowing me to set up a table in the corner of their store to see local Austin runners as a consultant and in setting up evening seminars for me in their store which I was later able to turn into a lengthy series over several months. Thanksgiving dinner, ice skating,and pickup basketball were other contributions of theirs as well. Friends of theirs, national class distance runner [now masters runner] Carmen Troncoso and her husband Ricardo were also very supportive. That included Carmen giving me a couple of her U.S. National team warmup suits which I made good use of in training on cold and rainy days. Also contributing to a very supportive environment in Austin were other local runners Greg Fuller [800m 1:49], Harry Green [10,000m 28:18], Noyes Livingston [3000m steeple chase 8:33], Melanie Bloch [1990 PAC-10 Conference Champion at 1500m], Steve Sisson [half-marathon 1:03], Barry Coffman [800m 1:48], Gary Etgen [800m 1:48], and a PhD student at the University of Texas who was also a national level cycling coach and one of the world leaders in cycling biomechanics research. Jim Martin.
I eventually worked as an academic tutor and academic mentor for the women's athletics department, where I worked several years [7 and 5 respectively] until Spring 2001 semester, when I delivered a letter to the University's Director of the Office Of Legal Affairs, reporting potential NCAA rules violations in 3 women s sports, and more importantly, .that several athletes on the women's track team were experiencing emotionally violent and abusive behavior from their assistant coach. I learned from several athletes that the abusive situation had escalated over a period of years, with some athletes having sought psychological counseling and/or psychiatric treatment, as a result. The coach's behavior appeared to be consistent with the tenants of intentional infliction of emotional distress which had been specifically laid out by the Texas Supreme Court [ie. Priscilla Owen, subsequent Bush appointee to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court Of Appeals]. The department's history that I witnessed, in dealing with coach problems, was one I believed would leave the coach unsupervised with the athletes. An athlete capable of overcoming state sovereign immunity issues, could rightly bring suit. Thus, to me, this was no longer a "coaching" issue, but had become a legal issue, hence my letter to the University's legal affairs director. Eight (8) athletes quit the track team following the season, six of whom had been trained by the assistant coach, three of them transferred to other schools, and one filed a formal grievance against the coach [I was called as a witness during the investigation by the UT Office of Legal Affairs, and interviewed for 3 hours]. I was not rehired as an academic mentor after this [which seemed to violate at least "the principle" of state whistle blower laws]. I went back to the Athletic dining hall job as a food server and dishwasher, but eventually decided to no longer work for the athletic department all together. I worked at UT's graduate school of public policy [also known as the LBJ School Of Public Affairs]. I was the sales manager for publications in their communications department. And I later worked as a security guard at the Dell Jewish Community Center in Austin.
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Top of PageWednesday, March 25, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
[by Brom Hoban]
[Austin American-Statesman March 25, 1992]
--- Marshall's Parents.....Civil Rights movement
--- Old Awards
--- portion of Runner's World UK article about the ETG Training program.
--- "The Marshall Burt Interview" on blogtalkradio show "Consumer's Guide To Health"
Current Residence ------- Austin, Texas
Born ------- April 3, 1963
High School & College ------- Graduated from Fort Hunt High School in Alexandria, Virginia in 1981. College....graduated from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
Some History ------- Marshall burned out on training and racing around 1984 and moved into coaching. He returned to serious training in 1993. His last serious race with some degree of a good fitness level was in college in 1983. In 2010 and 2011, Marshall will focus on the 1500m [his main event] and 800m events before adding the 5000m and 10,000m events in 2012. He plans to add the marathon, likely around 2013 or 2014.
Top of PageBegan sports at age 5
Began running at age 13
Marshall has (2) older brothers [Byron and Jeff]. Byron was a High School All-American in the triple jump, and Jeff competed in distance running in high school and ran at the University of Texas at El Paso during the school s string of multiple NCAA cross-country titles. Marshall's parents Moses Jr. and Audrey, both graduated from North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.
-- basketball (guard), began play in organized league at age 7. Was named to several league All-Star teams, and won team MVP awards. Made the cut for a Fairfax County, Virginia league team at age 14. Stopped playing upon entering high school. -- Football (offensive tackle, defensive tackle, linebacker, punter, kicker, backup quarterback, receiver, defensive back). Began play in organized league at age 12. Won several team awards (best offensive lineman, best defensive player). Averaged 45 yards per punt. Stopped playing upon entering high school. When I was in 6th/7th grade, I played on the same team with one of my best friends at that time, now Hollywood actor, Blair Underwood.
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-- Track & Field (sprints, middle distance), participated in elementary school "Field Day". Ran 50 yard dash, and 600 yard run. In 5th grade, was soundly beaten by Robin Roughton, daughter of Henley Gibble (president/executive director of the Road Runners club Of America). Began training with a friend in 7th grade in preparation for "Track & Field Day". Ran 880 yard run in 2:28 in 8th grade.
graduated June, 1981
Fort Hunt is now closed. In the mid-1980's it merged with Groveton to become what is now West Potomac High School, using the Groveton campus. The Fort Hunt campus is now Carl Sandburg Middle School
Cross-Country -- 16:30 for 5000m cross-country at the Virginia State cross-country championship (42nd place) in senior season (about 20 seconds outside of the top 10). Completed all Four years of high school without earning a medal at any Championship [Top 14 in district, regional, or state] competitions.
Outdoor Track....Freshman year ran 4:58, 10:42, along with a 2:10 800 as a sophomore. Completed all Four years of high school without earning a medal at any Championship [Top 6 in district, regional, or state] competitions.
High School personal bests
400m...59 sophomore year
800m...2:05 junior year 1
600m...4:42 senior year
3200m..10:25 senior year
I ran the second and third Marine Corp Marathons when I was 14 and 15 years old. My race report: the first one I ran at the end of my freshman year [high school] cross-country season. I took a week off after averaging about 18 miles per week in training. At the end of that week, I ran my first marathon. The first 18 miles averaging around 6:20 per mile pace. I then stopped for about 10 minutes to use the bathroom. I did a walk/jog to the finish line. We didn't have Gu packets, etc, in those days, and I knew little to nothing about hydration and carbo intake during the race. I finished around 3:25. Prior to the second one, I had averaged close to 30 miles per week in my sophomore cross-country season. I took 3 or 4 days off, then ran my second marathon. The second I ran slower in the first 22 miles. I made an effort to keep the stopping to a minimum, thus I finished in around 3:18.
Top of PageDuring my 4 years in high school [Fort Hunt High School], I had several different coaches. After a long time coach retired, a couple people stepped in for a season or two until a regular coach was hired. My high school coaches:
Joe Rose, Al Perrault, Andy Tissinger, Duel Ballard, Marshall Windsor
Marshall Windsor later gave me my first job in coaching. He, Al Perrault, and Andy Tissinger were extremely successful coaches, having produced a significant number of runners ranked on the east coast and nationally among high schoolers. That kind of environment helped lay the foundation that led to my deciding to become a coach who was capable of producing athletes of that level of achievement, and later to creating the ETG.
Adding to that environment in a huge way were 2 coaches at summer cross-country camps that I attended while I was in high school. John Cook was a coach at Edison High School in Springfield Virginia [John Cook has since coached Abdi Bile to a 1987 World Championship at 1500m, and coached Shalane Flanagan in 2006-07 to American Records at 3000m, 5000m, and 10,000m]. I attended his camp during the summer of 1977 just prior to the beginning of my freshman year of high school. A coaching friend of his, Martin Smith [coach at Oakton High School in Vienna Virginia, developed Jim Hill who went on to become founder of the running apparel company called "SportHill"], worked the camp with him. They were both extremely successful at the high school level in our area having produced a significant number of runners ranked on the East coast and nationally among high schoolers. That level of success continued when they both became coaches at a local college, George Mason University . I attended their camp there during the summer prior to my sophomore year [learned about running form and began making large scale changes in mine, in areas of arm carriage and foot strike (went from heel striker to forefoot striker)]. Martin Smith went on to coach at Univ. of Virginia where I attended his camp during the summer prior to my Junior year [After coaching UVA women's cross-country team to national championships, Martin Smith went on to coach the men's team at Univ. of Wisconsin to a national championship, and coached at Univ. of Oregon [now at Univ. of Oklahoma]I went to college at George Mason University where I was coached by John Cook. As my college coach, he preached "think big" pretty aggressively and was a good example of it himself. That contributed significantly to my deciding to become a coach, focusing on getting my high school athletes to the east coast and national levels, and later to creating the ETG.
Top of PageRan cross-country and track in Fall 1981, Winter/Spring 1982, and Fall 83. Ran very few meets during these time periods. Set many personal bests during track and road training sessions with the team, but ran very few races. Highest estimated fitness/ability level for 800m ~1:58, 1500m ~4:00, 3000m ~8:40, 5000m~ 14:50, 10,000m ~30:30.
- December 1984 -- June 1985 at Fort Hunt High School, Alexandria, Virginia.----- Coached with Eric Parcells [head coach], Mike Scuderi [former college teammate], and Mike Braxton [former college teammate].
- August 1985 -- December 1988 at West Potomac High School, Alexandria, Virginia. ----- [Fort Hunt & Groveton high schools merged to form what is now West Potomac high school] Coached with Nels Kloster [head coach]. The head coach position became open in the Fall of 1986. Two people were hired. One served as head cross-country coach, and head girls track coach. The other served as head boys track coach. At the end of the Fall 1988, I was fired for having "philosophy differences" with the head cross-country coach.
- March 1990 - December 1990 at W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, Virginia. ----- Coached with Matt Murray [Head Coach], Craig Davis, and Vicki Verender]
(3) All-South United States Team runners [Kinney (now Footlocker) Southern Regional -- placed in top 24]
(1) two time National Championship qualifier
(1) two time Harrier Magazine High School All-American
(4) Runners on the East coast rankings list [Eastern Track Magazine]
(2) National Scholastic Championship qualifiers
(6) Virginia State Championship Medalists
(2) East Coast Championship meet medalists
(2) runners ranked on the U.S. National list [Track & Field News Magazine]
----- I coached at the high school level in the northern part of Virginia for a cumulative total of about 5 years. I had 6 male runners who ran 4:23 or better for the mile [Craig Schenkenberg, Bill Gorton, Kevin Lawrence, Al Thresher, Bill Thresher, Conan McDonough]. I had 2 female runners who ran 5:02 or better for the mile [Gabrielle Pohlmann, Sara Burke]. Between Conan, Sara, and Gabrielle, the 3 of them qualified for, and competed in, 4 National Championships and 3 East Coast Championships, during a 3 year time period, between Cross-Country, indoor track, and outdoor track. Add to them, a second tier of 4 [2 boys(Craig/Bill), 2 girls (Sara/Teri Snell)] who were among the 35 fastest on the East Coast. Mike Morgovnik was among the top 30 on the East Coast in Cross-Country. I was a secondary coach to Maria Mireles [mainly coached by Matt Murry] 8th place 1500 meters National Junior Championships [her bests were 4:58, 2:14]. Maria was later one of the founding members of the ETG.
Top of PageAround 1988-90 I began work [an informal internship I designed for myself to gain knowledge of sports medicine] as a physical therapist assistant at the Virginia Sportsmedicine Institute in Arlington, Virginia which was among the nation s first and largest sports medicine clinics. Learned from (9) physical therapists and (4) Orthopedic Surgeons. As part of the clinic's involvement with the Sport Science Committee of the United States Tennis Association, I also assisted in sport evaluations and testing of top world ranked tennis players [Monica Seles, Pete Sampras, Mary Jo Fernandez, David Wheaton]
for about 50 other runners aged 26 - 55 years old, in Austin during the early 1990's. Prior to doing consulting work, I worked for the UT Adult Fitness Program with Trina Painter [32:18 track 10,000 meters]. During that time period, I also worked with Melanie Bloch, who had just graduated from Stanford [1990 PAC-10 Conference champion at 1500 meters] a few months earlier. She was training to qualify for the 1992 Olympic Trials at 1500 meters. In her first race, a road race in March, she PR'd, low 16:50's at the Daisy 5k to break the course record in 1992. She tied her PR in her first race [4:25] finishing a few seconds behind Patty-Sue Plummer [at that time, the American Record Holder at 5000 meters], and ran a couple seconds slower in her second race. Qualifying was 4:18 that year. I also worked briefly as a consultant with Steve Sisson when he took a semester off from UT. During his time away from his college program he ran 1:03 for the half marathon, and in the 48's for a 10 miler where he beat his previous 10k pr in route, running in the 29:40's. Around 1985 or 86 I coached a 26 year old elementary school teacher in her effort to qualify for the Olympic Trials. Her previous best was 3:06. She ran 2:56. Qualifying time was around 2:47.
Top of Page- December 1987 -- Level I Certificate....Manhattan, New York (Columbia University)
- August 1988 -- Level II Certificate...Colorado Springs, Colorado (Olympic Training Center)
[Potomac Valley Association of USA Track & Field] January 1990 -- December 1990.
Founded and Chaired the Sport Science & Development Committee which organized sport science researchers and sports medicine specialists to provide training information and injury prevention advice to coaches and athletes. Potomac Valley Association of USA Track & Field governed the sport in the Northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C. areas of our country.
----- In 1990 and again in 1991, I was given United States Women's Track Coaches Association recognition awards for people "who have made significant contributions to women's track and field" in the United States.
----- In the 1980's & 1990's, I authored several articles which were published in "Track & Field Coaches Review" a journal produced by the U.S. Track Coaches Association, and in "Track & Field Quarterly Review", a journal produced by the NCAA Track Coaches Association, and "Athletics Science Bulletin" produced by a USA Track & Field Development Project. One can purchase the articles in Athletics Science Bulletin [www.track-tech.com/articles.htm](page down after the link appears)
----- During the early 90's, I gave about 30 lectures at RunTex to a cumulative total of about 200 runners.
----- During the mid - late 1990's, I've given a cumulative total of 4 lectures to the Austin Runners Club and Austin Triathletes Club.
----- I've taught about 50 class sessions on sport sciences applied to running and the science of health through the University of Texas Informal Classes program.
Top of PageMy oldest brother ran for Univ. of Texas El Paso during the Suleiman Nyambui era of world records and NCAA Championships. My high school had 6 High School All-Americans my first year there [one of whom was my older brother, triple jump] and 5 High School All-American ---distance runners--- my senior year. My freshman year of college I was the 8th of 8 on our cross-country team, which was #4 on the East Coast the previous year. There were 6 older, white American born runners in front of me, all of whom had attended high school in Virginia [most of whom ranked nationally in high school] and one Somalian. Of that group, one became a collegiate All-American in cross-country, one later became a World Champion at 1500m, and another qualified for the Olympic Trials at 10,000 meters [28:40's].
Our version of "local runners", did things such as run 3:51 for the mile [John Gregorek] Georgetown University, or like my college teammate [Abdi Bile ] went on to become World Champion at 1500 meters and collegiate record holder [3:31 at 1500 meters....overal PR's 1500m = 3:30....800m = 1:43] ----[in the final at the World Championships, he set a record for the fastest time ever run over the final 800m of a 1500m race =1:45]. Rob Muzzio , another college teammate [out of local Robinson High School] went on a 5th place finish in the decathlon at the Olympic Games.
Our version of "local high schoolers" did such things as run 1:48 for 800 meters [Ray Brown], run 10:01 for 2 miles indoors and 16:14 for a track 5k. [Erin Keogh], finish in the top 15 at the World Junior cross-country Championships [Jim Hill], or later era runners such as Alan Webb, 3:53 for the mile [national record] and Sharif Karie 4:02 for the mile.
Our "local high schoolers" went on to do things like start businesses called SportHill [founded by Jim Hill], the maker of some of the running close you can buy at RunTex in Austin. Our version of "local adult road runners" started companies like Moving Comfort , maker of women's running clothes, or became president of the Road Runners Clubs Of America [Henly Gibble] the headquarters for which was also in our area.
Our version of "local high school coaches", earned jobs at our country's most storied college programs, such as Martin Smith former head coach of the men's and women's cross-country and track programs at the University of Oregon [now at Univ. of Oklahoma] . Our version of local high school coaches , also went on to do things like my college coach John Cook , who produced NCAA team titles at our local college, George Mason University, produced a World Champion at 1500 meters [more recently he has coached Shalane Flanagan to American Records at both 3000 meters and 5000 meters.], and was meet director for one of only 3 IAAF Grand Prix track meets held on U.S. soil, and broadcast on live network television nationwide.
Our version of a typical "local all-comer track meet" over the summer consisted of the usual 40 - 60 year olds doing their thing in a heat of the men's 1500 meters followed by things like the men s American record holder at 1500 meters [Sydney Maree] getting beat by the NCAA champion at 1500 meters [John Trautman]. An assistant women's track coach at the University of Texas at Austin, Dana Boone , was a former high school All-American in our area [Lake Braddock high school]. She attended the same high school which later housed a hurdler named Allen Johnson , who went on the become the American Record holder and World Champion. Out of local West Potomac high school, Tiombe Hurd went on to become the American Record Holder in the triple jump
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Top of Page- Personal growth and self improvement oriented psychology
- Coaching distance runners, track & field
- Human performance in sports, particularly distance running, football, basketball, golf, soccer, and tennis.
- Business and financial aspects of elite sport
- Sport promotions, sport marketing. sport advertising
- Sport Law [publicity rights, trade marks, drug testing]
- National politics, foreign policy, public policy, constitutional law
- Learning languages of track & field oriented countries [past 2 years and presently working on learning track and science related...arabic, chinese, japanese, german, french, spanish].
- Following and learning to apply sport sciences research [applied human physiology, psychology, sport psychology biomechanics, mind-body medicine, brain research, sport promotions-marketing-business].
- Kung Fu [earned yellow sash in mid-1980's from a former monk from Korea. His focus was on forms and weapons. I plan to start-up again in Austin at some point.
- Archery
Top of PageElementary School [Fort Hunt Elementary School] ----- Mrs. Howerton.....[and my best friend Greg Henry]
Middle School [Stephen Foster Junior High] ----- Mr. Candelori.......[and my best friend John Martin, who got me into running]
High School [Fort Hunt High School] ----- some members of a track clique I was in; Nadim Ahmed, Kelly Shawn, Sue Miley [now Murphy], Mike Barrett, John Hubbell, Robert McNinch, Tony Ewing, Mark Pfeiffer, Debbie Kern, Nancy Davis, Russ McGuire, Mike Vardac, Dennis Normyle, Chanley Bregman, Robin Roughton, Bob Murray
Nadim Ahmed has a website that provides extensive information about running trails in the metro area of our nation's capital, Washington D.C.. The site was originally a book project started around the mid-1990's. Nadim mapped and measured the courses and provides them in computer format called Running Around Town: Washington D.C..
Rusty McGuire [now goes by Russ] wrote the book Power Of Mobility. He is the Director of Corporate Strategy for Sprint. The book is about the future of mobility of phone & computer services and how businesses can use them.
College ----- my track coach John Cook.........[and the teammates who were the most supportive; David McCormack, Chuck Wimberly, Pat McCoy, Jon Babcock, Bobby Seale]
Post-College ----- Christie Befort, Allan Besselink, Ed Coyle, John Ivy, Jack Wilmore, Larry Abraham, Ellen McGuire, Paul Carrozza.
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Top of PageOne of my numerous part-time jobs within my first few months in Austin, was working at a dining hall on the Univ of Texas campus that was for athletes only. At the time, Marsha was the assistant manager. I saw an ad for a job there and applied, so I first met Marsha during the interview. Aside from her managerial work, she also worked as a nutrition consultant to the athletes across all sports. Marsha lived [still does] on a farm, so her extensive knowledge of all things food, her hardcore Texan common sense, and her years of working with high level athletes in a setting that fed everyday, 300 at lunch and about 200 at dinner time, naturally led to lengthy conversations about the science of Sport Nutrition. That obviously led to her becoming the ETG Sport Nutritionist.
I first met Allan sometime in late 1991 or early 1992. Paul Carrozza [owner of RunTex, Austin's globally known running store] had put together a series of seminars for me to give to some of the local, relatively high level runners, coaches, medical and science people who lived in Austin at the time. He arranged for about 10 - 15 people to come. One of the people he invited was Allan Besselink. Starting about a week later, every Sunday for about 6 years we got together at his place for dinner which included talking physical therapy, talking track and field training, and watching The Simpsons and Married With Children. During those years he gave his couch, a pillow and a blanket on more than one occasion on short notice [usually 2 minutes or less] for several ETG athletes when they came to town. Allan is from the small town of Brockville in the province of Ontario, Canada, located just north of New York state, along the St. Lawrence river that separates Canada from the United States. He left Canada for Austin [he has U.S. residency], wanting to get into the live music scene [he plays guitar and has written music]. Through the decade of the 1990's, for 8 of the 10 years, he traveled with me to the annual meeting of USA Track & Field, sitting through 2 - 3 days of meetings from early in the morning to late at night. Allan is heavily science based in his practice which led to him becoming the ETG Physical Therapist.
Allan has published a book titled "RunSmart: A Comprehensive Approach To Pain Free Running"
He serves on the editorial board for the publication,"Spine Universe"
He was an invited guest speaker at the 2004 National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) National conference [here is an online video of his presentation].
He hosts his own BlogTalkRadio show. The show is 30 minutes of discussion and call-ins as well. The subject of the first show was "A Consumer's Guide To Competent Self-Care". The call-in phone number is [646]929-1567. The blog site for the show is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/abesselink
Allan has served on the medical staff for numerous United States National track & field teams [including teams that competed at the Track & field World Cup, World Championships for Half-Marathon, World Championships for Race Walking] and on the event staff for the Olympic Games, U.S. Olympic Trials, USA Track and Field Championships, and the World Junior Track and Field Championships.
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Top of PageHumans compete in sport, human cell function determines the level of sport performance. Human performance in sport requires knowledge of how human cells can be trained to function optimally, whether the subject is brain cells, blood cells, or muscle cells. I believe that coaches should be as sport science based in their training as humanly possible. Athletes deserve to have access to the best training they can get, without excuses from coaches who generally as a rule, have tended to be afraid of science, or apply it in piece-meal form. The amount of information that coaches, athletic trainers, and doctors have had, even those who function at the highest levels of elite sport, has been extremely low. People have deluded themselves into thinking that what they are doing is "high tech", or are at the other extreme and truly believe that sport science is a waste of time. "Success" in sport has been a relative term, since one only has had to out perform everyone else, who have trained just as blindly.
Top of PageThe most important ethical issue I've faced, unfortunately had more to do with the adults in the school system than the adolescents being coached. I was fired at West Potomac High School for having "philosophy differences" with the head coach. Some of the athletes would compare myself and the head coach since we both were working with distance runners, and each of us had a group to coach usually of mixed genders. Each season, several of the athletes in his group would ask him if they could train with me. This was the main thing that led to my firing. The coach was more concerned with his ego than in the development of the athletes or in improving his own coaching ability.
After a cross-country meet, while discussing a disagreement about which athletes to run at the upcoming district championship, he blurted out [in front of several athletes] that "you won't be coaching here anymore after the end of the season." I asked for a meeting with he and Athletic Director later that week to find out what that was about. During the meeting, to highlight our "philosophy differences", the head coach stated that "sport science is a bunch of crap".
That caught me by surprise. Within the previous 12 months, I had coached a girl to High School All-American honors in Cross-Country. I had coached a different girl to a time that put her among the 25 fastest high school milers in the nation that year. I had coached a guy who ran 15:23 to qualify individually for the State Cross-Country Championships. And I had coached a different guy to an 18th place finish at the Southern U.S. Cross-Country Championships, missing 8th place and the trip to the National Championships by 15 seconds. All of this was done having only 5 - 12 athletes to coach in any one season. They were not recruited, and were not transfer students, so I thought Sport Science was doing pretty well. The Athletic Director didn't seem phased by that, at which time I became more fully aware that I really wouldn't be coaching there anymore after the end of the season.
The head coach told the parents of athletes he coached that I was "hypnotizing" my athletes, and teaching them "a bunch of voodoo". The Athletic Director refused to investigate the situation, stating that "he always backs his head coaches in situations like this". Following my firing, when a group of parents of the athletes I coached went to talk to the Athletic Director and the Principal, he refused to speak about the reasons I was fired, citing that it was a "personnel decision". I applied for coaching jobs at other local high schools in the immediate area [within our athletic district], everyone refused work as paid coach and as an unpaid volunteer, including the other head coach [boys track] at West Potomac high school. About a year and half later I asked a couple of friends [Matt Murray and Craig Davis] at WT Woodson High School [Fairfax, Virginia] if I could work with them, and they agreed.
Top of PageFocus on setting personal bests, and other mastery oriented goals, rather than on winning or placing.
We have a sport psychology protocol that we follow. It focuses more on long term development as an individual, gaining self-mastery, rather than on short term "peak performance" type issues. Our athletes go through a program consisting of everything from identifying early life traumatic experiences to present day character and life skill development.
We train all year around. Generally, each athlete mostly trains alone. The athletes are highly motivated and mature, and thus are able to train unsupervised.
The athletes are highly motivated and mature, and thus are able to train unsupervised. The club that I coach is restricted to athletes I have coached when they were in high school, thus I never have to work with people who are not used to how we are as people, and how we live our lives. When I coached them in high school, I simply created an unspoken expectation of how they were to conduct themselves. I made no rules, practice was made fun and something to look forward to, thus few athletes missed practice voluntarily.
Learn to do things outside of the norm. Sport has plenty of coaches who invest no energy into improving themselves and their coaching ability....we don't need anymore. Do one of three things; 1) Train yourself to be the best coach you can be; 2) tell your athletes up front that becoming the best coach you can be is not an option you're willing to choose; or 3) don't coach. Learn as much about human cellular function as possible, and learn to apply it to sport training, performance, and injury prevention. Your athletes deserve the best from you, thus you should give it to them or let someone else do it.
On this issue, our sport has many people who know not what they say and are willing to say it anyway. It is foolish for a so-called athlete to say drugs improve his/her performance&it is foolish for someone with a PhD or MD degree to say that long term use of drugs increases fitness in spite of decreasing health&it is foolish for fans of the sport to say that all athletes use drugs& it is foolish for sport governing organizations to say they'll spend millions of dollars on drug tests that fail to test directly for the drug being tested for&it is foolish for anyone and everyone involved with the sport in any way to say that no one can run that fast without drugs. Drugs are not the problem in our sport...foolishness is the problem.
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Part of the mission of the Elite Training Group is to proliferate the application of Sport Sciences based training programs. Toward that end, listed below is our Official Paper trail of published ETG articles;
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www.track-tech.com/articles.htm
Volume 1 #4...October 1989
-Theoretical Applications Of Exercise Physiology to Distance Running & Distance Events Training
- Distance Runner Sport Psychology
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Volume 90 #2....Summer 1990
- Distance Runner Training & Performance
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www.track-tech.com/articles.htm
Volume 4 #4....October/November 1992
- Distance Training
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www.track-tech.com/articles.htm
Volume 4 #5...December 1992
- Power & Speed Development For Distance Runners
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September 1993....page 12 - 13
--Finding The Right Training To Improve Leg Speed, Endurance, And Acceleration
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[formerly "Track Technique" volume 133, Fall 1995........"All Interval Training All The Time"
can page down to Track Coach 133 - Fall 1995
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March 1996...page 20 - 23
-- Mechanisms Of The "Overuse" Injury In Running
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October 1991 - 2000
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[message board/forum]
1998 - 2000
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[message board/forum]
1999 - 2000
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1992 - present
[forum]
July 2007 - present
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"There are no setbacks or side-treks, there are only experiences along the path to where you choose to go."
Around 1993, I put out some newsletters that stated that the ETG was just about ready to begin achieving its mission statement of taking down American and World records.
Obviously...that didn't happen.
Along with numerous delays in that coming to pass, were other newsletters providing projections/estimations/predictions as to when we would be ready. Around 2000, I made the decision to stop offering any more projections, etc. as to when all this would happen. Since I believe that there are no setbacks or side-treks, but that there only experiences along the path to where you choose to go.what follows is a relatively brief summary of those experiences along the path to where we choose to go.
I was living a contradiction, which was in the form of ----- my objective to design a training program full of highly potent individual workouts, while also trying to cram as many of those workouts as possible into a 10 - 16 day training cycle. Obviously, if each workout is highly potent, one should not need a bunch of them. A few should be enough.
But I designed a training program, that for at least 10 years, had high intensity workouts done in 2 - 3 day phases followed by a day off [keeping in mind that there are no "easy" days in my training programs]. That put 2 - 3 very high intensity workouts in back to back days of training. Over the period of a week, one might do 4 - 5 very high intensity workouts.
I was able to justify this for so long, in part, because I was determining the "time course of recovery" for these workouts based on the time course of muscle glycogen repletion and muscle damage repair. I failed to take into account the "time course of recovery" for things other than muscle, such as the brain and nervous system.
High intensity work is more taxing on brain and nervous system proteins, than it is on muscle glycogen and damage to muscle proteins. When we inevitably began experiencing a stalling-out and rather wildly fluctuating rates of improvement, I erroneously attributed it to a failure to consume a sufficient amount of carbos to deal with the muscle glycogen depletion part of the recovery equation. In an effort to resolve that issue, I adjusted our protocols for carbo intake, increasing the number of grams.
Adding to this calamity of errors...the gram per kilogram numbers I came up with was one that would likely be appropriate for people in a training program that depleted large amounts of glycogen...on a daily basis. Our training program was -not-- such a program. Thus, over a period of 2 - 3 years [approx 1995- 97/98], substantial weight gain became another confounding factor while trying to resolve the training program design problems.
Since I had already attributed the stalling-out of improvement to the underfeeding of carbos, the plateau persisted, because I never changed the 2 - 3 day periods of high intensity workouts, but only re-arranged, fiddled with, tweaked, and/or overhauled the details of the workout protocols...rather frequently.
Another confounding factor was the "mileage" and "long run" concepts of traditional training programs. Since I had put little of either in our training program, I wondered rather frequently, if that was contributing to the problems we were having in the stalling-out, and wildly fluctuating rates of improvement. Resolving this issue was confounded early on by my having also attributed frequent stalling-out of our improvement to detraining, caused by an insufficient frequency of mitochondria developing "distance" workouts. That was a major error.
I went through a period of years of adding, subtracting, manipulating, and changing a number of various protocols for long runs, short runs, progressive pace runs, and many other runs in our training program. After several years, I determined that this area, likely had little or nothing to do with resolving our problems.
The stalling-out of improvement...on top of the weight gain from an overly high carbo intake...placed on top of the wondering whether I had enough "distance work" in the program...clouded the ability to figure things out, and kept the waters very unclear for many years, in terms of being able to accurately identify what was wrong.
The main problem was that I was eventually able to put 1 + 1 together on some issues [ie. I eventually figured out that we were overeating carbos -- that was around 1998]...but it took until 2003 for me to put 2 + 2 together..in figuring out I was living a contradiction in the area of the detraining issues surrounding the "distance workouts", in contrast with the obvious over-training problems. I got around to reasoning that the workouts that I designed to be highly potent stimulators of fitness improvement, were indeed that. Then I came around to accepting that it must logically follow, that if these are highly potent workouts, I should stop scheduling them to be done on an almost daily basis, there must be more rest. It must logically follow that even in a low mileage, few long runs type of training program, that 2 - 3 day periods of very high intensity workouts is too much...rather than not enough. It was time to acknowledge that each individual workout I designed was doing what it was supposed to do, and that I must thus, schedule them as if such were the case, rather than continuing to assume that we were not getting to where we wanted to be due to a lack of certain "distance workouts", either in volume or frequency. Around that time, I figured out that the brain and nervous system were what I should have been basing the time course of recovery on, rather than muscle glycogen and muscle damage.
From this point, it took another year and-a-half to accept and get around to completely abandoning all back to back days of run training from the program. Once done though, this officially ended the multi-year fiasco, and my multi-year task by default, of --accurately-- identifying what was going wrong with the training program, causing multiple years of repeated stalling-out intermittently mixed with wildly fluctuating rates of improvement. I had the workouts all along. I didn't have the structure that they needed to be placed in. I went many years thinking that I did have the structure, but didn't have the workouts.
Basically, this is a decade long story of overtraining being embedded in the structure of a training program [The consequences of overtraining can come in 2 forms. One is injury, which occurs when the strength of one's tissues is insufficient to handle one's training loads, and when the rate of application of the training loads exceeds the rate of adaptation of the body. One can rather easily design protocols to address those major mechanisms of injury. The other form of overtraining is the more broad aspect of over-training to deal with, the one that primarily involves the movement of the body out of an anabolic [tissue and fitness building] state. Going into this type of over-trained state insures that movement in fitness level will stall, stop, or reverse]. Over a period of years, I fiddled, tweaked, and overhauled everything except the structure of the training program.
With each fiddle, tweak, and overhaul, I was convinced that I had successfully dealt with and solved the problem. I announced such resolutions in the ETG newsletter nearly every year between 1993 - 2000, having been thoroughly convinced that we would then move quickly towards our fitness goals. With an unfortunate frequency, I announced that we would be at such-and-such a fitness level, by such-and-such a date. A few months following each episode, I found that the fitness related problems had not been solved, hence there was a significant number of false alarms.
I did eventually decide to at least temporarily, stop making such announcements, projections, etc.
I am guilty of engaging in an unfortunate behavior that a number of coaches/athletes at a certain level in our sport have a tendency to do repeatedly, which is the making of projections/predictions followed by a failure to achieve them.
Coaches/athletes often make projections based on where a given fitness level is at the time and/or based on the rate at which they feel their fitness level is improving at that time. Often, due to foreseen or unforeseen circumstances [or in my case, due to "should have been" foreseen circumstances], the projections did not get reached.
Top of Page1991 -- Identified the major mechanisms of performance based on previously identified adaptations to training.
1992 -- Identified the critical intensities-velocities necessary to most potently produce the desired adaptations to training.
1994 -- Backed up the 1992 info, through learning about "gene transcription and translation"..the underlying mechanisms of inducing the major adaptations to training, This lead to the formal establishment of the concept of "All Interval Training All The Time".
1995 -- Learned to intentionally design a protocol for making "Progressions" in the durations of intervals.
1996-2000 -- Began moving away from basing training velocities on a percentage of Vo2max. Moved toward a focus more on training at goal pace. Gradually began abandoning the traditional concepts of anaerobic power, lactate tolerance, etc, and removed any such workouts from the training program. Abandoned traditional concepts of "periodization" as well as the non-traditional manner in which I was applying the concept in the cycles structure in my training program.
2003 -- Began removing all "stagnant" workouts from the training program. Insured that everything had "Progressions" of some sort embedded in their protocols. Began moving towards an all goal pace training format.
2004 -- Formally established the concept of "All Goal Pace Training, All The Time". In February, finished dealing with "distance work" issues by creating a Marathon goal pace workout to the 10k. goal pace workout already in the program. In June, removed what may be the last source of improvement delays that was embedded in the workout protocols for max velocity and acceleration work combined on the same day with goal pace workouts for 100m and 800m. This may likely end the "living a contradiction" portion of the problems we were having.
2005 -- Made the final changes necessary to the Training Period and Megacycle structures into which the individual workouts are plugged. This combined with a necessary change in the nutritional protocols [protein intake, calcium intake] have completed this rather lengthy [13 year] process of designing a training program thats gets us to where we want to go.
2006 --- Moved away from broad aspects of the training protocols to focusing on the details. pH Level........The body's pH level is a critical aspect of the ability of cells to adapt to the training you do. I had this information in the 1980's because the Soviets were making a big deal about it back then. I had info in the 1980's about how in clinical nutrition, some hosptals in the U.S. were putting patients on "alkaline" diets to aid their recovery from surgery. Little research that I came across since then followed-up on that information, and I lost track of the subject matter until late 2006. Being "anabolic" means the environment inside your body is in state where it can build tissue, thus its in a state where it can adapt to your training. The ability to keep your body in that state can tend to compensate to some degree for poorly designed workouts and/or a poorly designed overall training program. "Stay Anabolic", written in bold 72 font is the title to a page[written in the late 1990's] in a section of the ETG Training Packet. Until the end of 2006 "stay anabolic" meant to ingest certain amount of protein in your diet; to put rest days and break periods in your training program; and to avoid adding more intensity in your training than goal pace training already provided. Conceptually, those items contained only 2 or 3 of the 4 legs of the "Stay Anabolic" table. The last part necessary is the pH of the body, and the provision of the gene level essential nutrients [ie. B-vitamins, magnesium, zinc, calcium].
Essential nutrients at the gene level......Essential nutrients critical to training adaptations at the level of the gene, can be depleted if training intensity is high enough, and nutrient intake is low enough [a relatively easy situation to create]. B-vitamins are among these, and likely the most important. The list at present, are B-vitamins, magnesium, zinc, and calcium.
Avoid depletion of essential nutrients........In following a goal pace only training program, if you set high goals avoid having training velocities for --all-- of your workouts being well beyond your current fitness levels. Cumulative nutrient depletion and low pH status will exceed your ability to compensate with supplements, rest days and break periods. Go a few weeks to a couple months with intermediate velocities to elevate your fitness level to a point where nutrient utilization will be less of a massive stresser on the body. In short, avoid having a massive gap between your current fitness level and your goal paces for all of your workouts.
Standardized menu on training days.......Following a standardized menu that is set for all training days is extremely effective. It creates an easy, mindless way of providing a basic foundation of essential nutrients.
Progressions.........Following a training program that has intervals that start at short durations, progressing to longer durations, is extremely effective.
Cap on training volume.........Setting a 3 repetition cap on intervals is extremely effective in keeping the training stimulus within the ballpark of optimal [particularly when intake of essential nutrients and maintenance of pH level is taken care of]2007 --- Learned to avoid stepping out of the "standardization" aspect of the training program, keeping the progressions in the duration of the interval repetitions relatively short. Patience is a good thing, and not something to be avoided. Our training protocol in that area was updated in the latter part of 2007. Even while keeping the progressions short, one will find that this training program moves fitness levels forward at a fairly rapid rate, and likely more rapidly than traditional mileage oriented programs [it was designed with that as one of the primary objectives]. Due to the focus on training velocity, making short progressions may actually be the only way to insure that objective is met since making longer progressions will likely result in a state of "intensity related" over-training. Forward movement in fitness will stall and perhaps reverse. Greed is not good, patience is. Its also important to place limits on the training velocity itself by setting it beyond one's current fitness level but not --well beyond-- it. This avoids creating too high of a load.
2008 ----- The ETG training program is now in a 2 week Megacycle format. It took most of the calendar year of 2008 to come to the realization that in terms of impact on the body, the workouts are basically miniature races that get longer as progressions are made. Thus it is necessary to treat the workouts as races by scheduling 2 days rest following each workout and a 4 day Break Period at the end of each series of 4 workouts. Some tinkering was done with having various numbers of rest days following some workouts but not others, and having the Speed day and power day on back to back training days. These resulted in suppressed training adaptations and slowed progressions as the durations of the workouts progressed. The current 2 week Megacyle effectively prevents the accumulation of fatigue and suppression of training adaptations.
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