Here is your chance to get many questions answered and concepts explained that may have been puzzling you for years. Watching this DVD is just like having a front row seat at a coaches clinic hosted by Dr. Jack Daniels, who has been honored as NCAA Cross Country Coach of the Century, and Runner’s World magazine described as the World’s Best Coach. You may know him best from his book, Daniels’ Running Formula, and this presentation is the ideal supplement to his written work. If you have ever had a hard time understanding or explaining VO2 max, lactate threshold, issues of blood chemistry, or limiting principles of performance, here are the answers (as science can best explain at this time). Daniels provides you clear and informative explanations of these fundamentals based on years of testing runners in the lab and his extensive coaching experience.
This clinic was held in the summer of 2006 and it took about eight months to craft the information into four distinct chapters: Principles of training, physiology of training, 5 ingredients of success, and bonus material. With each chapter broken into 8 to 15 scene selections, you can navigate directly to the material that interests you the most or that you want to review again. When Daniels writes on the white board, you see him doing so in the corner of the screen while the easy to read professional graphics are predominantly displayed. It is as if he brought an interactive power point presentation, a very nice feature that more instructional DVDs should utilize in the future. In addition to being professional and informative, this presentation is fun, engaging, insightful, and plain old entertaining at times.
Here are a few quotes from Dr. Jack Daniels:
"You often reach limits and you can’t train harder hoping to get better because training harder might impose so much more stress that you don’t have enough time to sleep. The benefits of all the stress come during the rest. They don’t come during the stress. You stress yourself, then you rest so your body can build up resistance to that kind of stress. So the rest is really really important."
"You do what you are capable of doing and don’t worry about the other people. If they have something go wrong that’s their problem. You didn’t beat them, they beat themselves. I call it concentrating on the task at hand."
"You could call your lactate profile a measure of your endurance because it tells you what intensity, or what speed of running, you can endure for a period of time without trouble."
"So I always say, if you are going to go run try to get in 30 (minutes) because you get the biggest return (aerobically) for the time spent."
If you are looking to improve your own coaching ability or personal running performance then obtaining this DVD will be money well spent. Visit McMillanRunning.com to buy your copy and then start examining your workouts, individual differences, and the art and science around what you choose to do to improve running performance. After seeing this DVD you may even have a new perspective on breathing, altitude, injuries, attitudes, maximizing efficiencies, rest, lactic acid, and a host of other elements commonly discussed in running circles all over the world.
