The Track and Field Performance Podcast

Ross Jeffs: Profiling Sprinters and Jumpers, Preventing Hamstring Injuries, and Coaching in Realtime 08.07.2026 1godz 10min

In this episode, we sit down with Ross Jeffs — jumps and combined events lead coach at Aspire Academy in Qatar, and former sprints and hurdles coach with experience across the UK, Netherlands, and now the Middle East. Ross brings a deeply curious and evidence-informed approach to coaching, shaped in part by his own experiences as an athlete, working directly with coaches like Jonas Dodoo, and much more. This conversation gets into the weeds on athlete profiling, monitoring, injury preve...

Jack Green: The Human Side of Athletic Performance and Coaching 07.06.2026 1godz 19min

Jack Green is a two-time Olympian, World and European relay medalist, European U-23 champion in the 400m hurdles, and now the lead coach for Saudi Arabia's long hurdles and sprint relay program. Jack's athletic career was shaped not only by his successes but also by his promise as an adolescent and the battles he faced thereafter. Now, channeling those difficult lessons combined with the knowledge he has gained from working with coaches like Lauren Seagrave, Jack is in an ideal position to no...

David Kerin: Fixing the Right Problem 15.05.2026 1godz 8min

David Kerin is a former collegiate coach, USA Track and Field national team administrator, and performance consultant. David brings a refreshingly unconventional lens to some of the sport's most persistent challenges. His articles on '2D, 2.5, 3D Coaching' and 'Fixing the Right Problem' and most recently, developing a provisional patent for an innovative movement analysis system shows that he has never stopped asking the questions others overlook. Topics 0:00 – Introduction — Da...

Angus Ross: Enhancing Strengths & Weaknesses; Eccentric Training for Speed and Power 07.03.2026 1godz 12min

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 eccent...

Dr. Christopher Stanley: Mental Skills for Managing High Pressure Moments 07.02.2026 1godz 6min

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 coa...

Ernie Clark, Bob Thurnhoffer, and Jason Wakenight: Training for the 400 meters 08.01.2026 2godz 22min

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 ...

Craig Pickering: Developing Elite Sprint Relay Teams and High Performance Systems 06.12.2025 56min

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 pro...

Marco Airale: Sprint Mechanics, Intensive Tempo Training, and Warm Ups 06.08.2025 1godz 12min

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: Balancing step length and step frequency for each athleteUsing intensive tempo t...

Paul Burgess: Vaulting from Elite Athlete to World-Class Coach 07.07.2025 1godz 29min

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 spo...

Eamonn Flanagan: Key Principles Behind Effective Plyometric and Jump Training 19.05.2025 56min

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...

Joseph Coyne: Giving the Athlete What They Need When They Need It 22.03.2025 1godz 13min

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 trai...

Chris Shambrook: How Psychological Preparation Fuels Performance and Resilience 01.03.2025 1godz 14min

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 rat...

James Sandilands: The Art and Science of High Jumping 03.02.2025 1godz 23min

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 ...

Werner Prinsloo: Akani Simbine's Journey to 9.82 and 4th Place at the Paris Olympics 04.01.2025 1godz 18min

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 incl...

Josef Karas: Nailing General Prep, Coaching Workhorses, and Battling Physiology 09.12.2024 1godz 16min

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 Järvin...

Glenn Smith: Breakthrough Performances, Technical Qualities, and Coaching Philosophy 27.11.2024 1godz 25min

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 i...

Gordon Bosworth: Wisdom from 40 years of Physiotherapy with Elite Athletes 13.10.2024 1godz 38min

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 tec...

Dan Pfaff: Horizontal Jumps, Performance Testing, and Debriefing 01.08.2024 1godz 15min

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 'smoo...

Dublin Sprint: A Breeding Ground for Irish Olympic-Level Sprinters 27.06.2024 1godz 12min

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 fo...

Stuart McMillan: Influencing Sprint Performance 24.05.2024 1godz 52min

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/ Support the show