“That’s My Boy!” The Coaching of Jake Wightman, 2022 World Champion at 1,500 meters, Part 1/3

‘THAT’S MY BOY’!

The Teaching of Jake Wightman, World Champion

by Matt Lengthy 

Matt Lengthy is writing for RunBlogRun for the primary time on this piece. Matt focuses on writing on the Teaching facets of our sport. This sequence of three articles is on how 2022 World Champion Jake Wightman has been coached by Goeff Wightman, who can also be his father. 

IN THE FIRST OF A TRILOGY, MATT LONG HAS A FRONT-ROW SEAT IN WATCHING GEOFF WIGHTMAN MOVE THROUGH THE COACHING GEARS:

World Athletics Championships. 19^th July 2022.

A shocked Oregon crowd is on their toes, applauding the primary British man to win the world 1500m title in 39 years. Abruptly, the digital camera pans away from a jubilant Jake Wightman and tasks a picture of an animated grey-haired stadium commentator onto the large display screen inside the well-known Hayward Fields. The acquainted face is Geoff Wightman, who’s perched on a gantry. Understandably struggling to comprise his emotion, the 61-year-old, with customary microphone in hand he tells the 20,000-odd crowd, “That’s my son. I coach him. And he’s the world champion!”.

IN THE FIRST OF A TRILOGY, MATT LONG HAS A FRONT-ROW SEAT IN WATCHING GEOFF WIGHTMAN MOVE THROUGH THE COACHING GEARS: 

World Athletics Championships. 19^th July 2022. 

A shocked Oregon crowd is on their toes, applauding the primary British man to win the world 1500m title in 39 years. Abruptly, the digital camera pans away from a jubilant Jake Wightman and tasks a picture of an animated grey-haired stadium commentator onto the large display screen inside the well-known Hayward Fields. The acquainted face is Geoff Wightman, who’s perched on a gantry. Understandably struggling to comprise his emotion, the 61-year-old, with customary microphone in hand he tells the 20,000-odd crowd, “That’s my son. I coach him. And he’s the world champion!”.

Teaching journey 

On this three-part journey, we start by unpicking a pattern session from the Geoff Wightman Coaching Group, which he kindly articulated in a current British Milers’ Membership on-line webinar. It’s the kind of session that has enabled Jake Wightman to turn out to be Britain’s second-ever World 1500m champion after Steve Cram in 1983 and the primary British male to land a worldwide 1500m title since Seb Coe’s Los Angeles triumph one 12 months later Cram in 1984. 

Lengthy-term athlete improvement

We’ll work again to Jake’s junior profession to discover the kind of periods which moved him from a promising junior to a global athlete by revisiting the notion of the so-called ‘drained surge’ mode of interval coaching. Having accomplished this, we’ll additional regress down the pyramid of long-term athlete improvement to take a look at the kind of periods Jake would have accomplished when he was a post-pubescent teenager with a growing lactate system and capable of start to diversify the kind of pace endurance work which he undertook beneath the watchful eye of his father and mom, Susan. It’s a journey that may take us again to the work of each Frank Horwill, who based the BMC in 1963, and his shut ally Peter Coe, whose son Sebastian continues to be the one man in historical past to retain an Olympic 1500m title. 

Incomes the suitable to progress 

In teaching training discourses, one usually comes throughout the time period of “incomes the suitable to progress”. It’s certain up with notions of being bodily competent and strong sufficient to undertake applicable actions or periods. Velocity endurance work needs to be undertaken to be a good endurance athlete, and there’s no escaping it as a middle-distance athlete working over 800m and 1500m. Velocity endurance work challenges all three power programs as a result of they’re interdependent however significantly challenges the lactate power system. Wightman senior acknowledges that “Arthur Lydiard was proper” in that one wants a big cardio and energy endurance base earlier than having the robustness to undertake pace endurance work. By way of periodization, pace endurance work tends to be undertaken intensely for a interval of 6-8 weeks within the Spring or Summer season, each earlier than and through the observe season. 

So let’s check out only one instance from the teaching group led by Geoff.

Instance Session from Geoff Wightman Coaching Group 

2 x 1200m  (30s) 200m (400m jog) 

2 x 1000m (30s) 300m (400m jog) 

2 x 800m (30s) 400m (400m jog) 

Rules 

The kind of session listed above shouldn’t be undertaken with out the steerage of a coach. Fairly than obsessing concerning the session’s element, we’ll be taught most by stepping again and a few of the ideas that would seem to underlie it. There would seem like seven golden guidelines.  

• Velocity endurance is designed to problem the lactate power system as a stimulus. 
• Grouping of labor into units to permit for extra quantity of labor to be undertaken. 
• The notion of a break up interval with two distinct elements.
• An aerobically dominant first part of the interval with a lactate-dominant second part.  
• Together with a brief however passive restoration (stroll) between the 2 elements of every break up, interval permits for high quality to be enhanced within the second part. 
• The retention of an lively mode of restoration after every interval (a) to construct cardio quantity and (b) educate the physique to make use of lactate as a productive power supply to gas the physique while clearing acid from the system. 
• Operating every element of the interval based on break up on a observe to purpose race paces. 

The above leaves us with numerous questions for self-reflection.

Questions for self-reflection:

1. Which periods most problem my lactate power system to get me race-ready for my occasion? 
2. What worth might there be in grouping my work into units? 
3. When may it’s applicable for me to make the most of the break up interval methodology? 
4. What size mode of restoration do I undertake in my pace endurance work, and what coaching impact do I hope to realize by it? 
5. Why may it’s vital to run to separate within the pre-competition and competitors modes of the periodization cycle? 

Matt Lengthy served as an England Crew Coach @ the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Video games Growth Camp and welcomes contact by mattlongcoach@gmail.com.