The Track and Field Performance Podcast

Dr. Ken Clark is a professor and coach at West Chester University where he balances teaching, sprint science research and in-person coaching with several collegiate teams including track and field. He is also widely known for his role as a biomechanics consultant for USA Track and Field's high performance sprints and hurdles program. 
Over the past 15 years, Ken has been at the forefront of several key published research papers relating to sprinting performance. This conversation starts by covering the current landscape around sprinting-related research before moving to how the evidence informs his coaching practice on a daily basis.
Timestamped Topics:
0:00 – Introduction & Ken's roles at West Chester University, USA Track and Field, and Ken Clark Speed
2:09 – The origin story: how Ken's father reading a Peter Weyand paper in 2000 eventually led to Ken doing his PhD under Weyand a decade later
9:09 – What we know about sprinting now: vertical ground reaction forces, ground contact times, and what separates elite sprinters from team sport athletes
13:10 – The force signature: why the first half of ground contact — not the second — is where elite sprinters differentiate themselves
16:14 – Thigh angular velocity and foot velocity at touchdown: extending the research chain from force to kinematics
22:36 – Evolving away from a binary technical model: why Ken's thinking on front side mechanics has shifted over the past decade
26:32 – Research comparing track athletes and team sport athletes: same speeds, very different movement strategies
33:13 – Why technique still matters even when it doesn't predict performance — injury resilience, race sustainability, and long-term development
40:07 – How Ken coaches differently across groups: fine-tuning USA Track and Field athletes vs. developing collegiate sprinters vs. team sport athletes
43:16 – What Ken actually looks for at top speed: practical KPIs for ground contact, swing thigh position, and pelvic control
46:17 – Wicket drills and technical buildups: how constraints-based training works across both track and team sport populations
50:14 – Biomechanical facts vs. coaching cues: why it's okay to cue things that aren't technically true if they produce the right intent
51:05 – Braking forces in acceleration: why they're inevitable past step three, and when they become a real problem
1:03:40 – Short-to-long periodization in practice: how Ken structures fall preseason and why max velocity work comes in early
1:07:00 – Capping distance to cap velocity: a simple but underused principle for load management and return to play
1:13:00 – Resisted acceleration and sled coaching: hip extension, swing leg recovery, and why Ken prefers a waist harness
1:16:56 – The vertical impulse problem: why the online obsession with horizontal force in acceleration ignores an essential piece of the puzzle
1:23:44 – Where sprint science is heading: the need for more training studies and the untapped potential of motorized resistance and assisted sprinting technology
1:27:41 – Where to find Ken: kenclarkspeed.com and @kenclarkspeed on Instagram
Ken's Website
Ken's Instagram
Recent Publications:
Clark, K. P., Meng, C. R., Walts, C. T., Ryan, L. J., & Stearne, D. J. (2025). Angular kinematics during top speed sprinting in male intercollegiate track and field and team sport athletes. Frontiers in sports and active living, 7, 1535798. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2025.1535798
Clark, K. P., Ryan, L. J., Meng, C. R., & Stearne, D. J. (2023). Horizontal Foot Speed During Submaximal and Maximal Running. Journal of human kinetics, 87, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.5114/jhk/159578
Alt, T., Komnik, I., Ryan, L. J., & Clark, K. P. (2024). Top speed sprinting: Thigh angular motion and eccentric hamstring strength in faster vs. slower sprinters. Human movement science, 98, 103280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2024.103280
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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 prevention, and the technical nuances of the triple jump.
Timestamped Topics
0:00 – Introduction & Ross's coaching journey from Jersey to London to Rotterdam to Aspire Academy in Qatar
3:30 – Categorizing athletes: concentric, elastic, and metabolic types across sprinting and the jumps
7:14 – The metabolic athlete — backside mechanics, rhythm, and why front side cues can backfire for certain athletes
12:19 – Can athletes shift along the continuum? The risks of overwriting an athlete's natural movement solution
12:49 – Force plate monitoring: why relative peak power output from a shallow CMJ has become Ross's most sensitive tool for fatigue and performance prediction
16:09 – How to execute the shallow CMJ correctly and why it sits between a traditional CMJ and a reactive strength test
19:16 – Hamstring injury management in triple jumpers: why Ross overhauled his approach after two grade 3 injuries and what he does differently now
23:04 – Why Nordics and direct eccentric loading may be adding to the problem rather than solving it in-season
27:19 – Triple jump influences: Paul Weston, Keith Hurston, Jeremy Fisher, Randy Huntington, and lessons from Cuban and Eastern European methodology
31:03 – The Cuban jump system: 800 contacts in a single GPP session and what modern coaches can learn from it
37:40 – Structuring plyometric progressions from sand to grass to track across the training year
43:03 – When to individualize: moving from general bounding skills to athlete-specific phase work closer to competition
46:03 – Key differences between long jump and triple jump takeoff: why the triple jump is flat until the hop-to-step transition
47:45 – The role of the free leg and why displacing well at takeoff without a strong free leg recovery creates a different problem
49:41 – Pelvic posture on the runway and its influence on phase mechanics and lower back health
53:18 – Solving over-rotation at landing: why blocking is often misunderstood and can make things worse
59:54 – Managing fouling athletes: a sensory-based approach to steering, walking takeoff drills, and why it's a skill acquisition problem not a psychological one
1:07:47 – Where to find Ross: Coach Ross Jeffs on Instagram
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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 not just develop elite athletes - but also people.
Topics
0:00 – Introduction & Jack's current coaching role in Saudi Arabia
3:27 – A candid reflection on a stop-start career and the fall at London 2012
6:45 – Mental health struggles following the Olympics — depression, anxiety, and 18 months out of the sport
7:34 – Rebuilding with Lauren Seagrave and self-coaching through the final years of his career
10:37 – Why he retired at 28, still ranked top 10 in the world
16:03 – Jack's coaching pillars: human first, seeing the individual, biomechanics, hurdling all year, and athlete independence
23:02 – The coach-athlete relationship: moving from director to facilitator
26:57 – What good communication actually looks like day to day
38:05 – Why less can be more
43:03 – Creating psychological safety and a sense of home for athletes
46:48 – Meeting the athlete where they are: minimum standards, cultural awareness, and role modelling
57:52 – Playing the long game and reframing what success actually means
1:05:13 – Identity, fear, and how the mindset that drove early success can become a long-term limitation
1:09:47 – Start Line Thinking — Jack's self-published book, available now on Amazon
Jack's Book: Start Line Thinking: Amazon.co.uk: Green OLY, Jack, Pindar, Joe: 9798258845047: Books
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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 — David's background as a collegiate coach, USA Track & Field national team development administrator, and current consultant working across multiple sports
5:10 – Why Biomechanics? — What drew David deeper into the science of movement, why track and field's objectivity makes it the perfect laboratory, and the mentors who helped shape his thinking
8:00 – Fixing the Right Problem — Why the flaw you see is never the root cause, and how to work backward through a performance sequence to find the real breakdown point
13:00 – The High Jump Curve Problem — Why athletes drift instead of committing to the curve, the "lean is a byproduct" principle, and how poor curve mechanics have quietly reshaped the event
17:00 – 2D Thinking vs. 3D Reality — Why coaches and scientists analyzing three-dimensional movement through a two-dimensional lens creates critical blind spots, and David's concept of "2.5D" as a practical stepping stone
22:00 – The Third Dimension in Sprinting — Why foot orientation and lateral placement are being overlooked in sprint analysis, even at the elite level
26:10 – US Athlete Development — The structural tensions in NCAA track and field, the cost of prioritizing recruitment over development, and how USA Track & Field's Talent Protection Program tried to bridge the post-collegiate gap
38:25 – Whole, Part, and When to Intervene — When to isolate components vs. train the whole event, why stabilization matters more than early adaptation, and the danger of over-coaching innate movement patterns
47:00 – Start Point Geometry in High Jump — The counterintuitive truth about why a tighter start point along the bar axis makes curve mechanics worse, not better
51:27 – Dick Fosbury and a 50-Year Stagnation — Why Fosbury's 1968 technique still benchmarks elite collegiate high jumping today, and why high jumpers sustain career-ending injuries at a far greater rate than pole vaulters
57:00 – Body Type, Force, and Career Longevity — What Jonathan Edwards, Mutaz Barshim, and Sotomayor reveal about the relationship between mass, force application, and how long a body can sustain elite performance
1:03:12 – How to Reach David — David's open-source approach to mentorship and how coaches and athletes can get in touch

Contact David: dkerin@kerinperformanceinsights.com
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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 the art of individualising strength work for sprinters and jumpers.

Topics / Timestamps:
0:00 Angus’ background (PhD, high performance sport, Olympic experience)
3:05 Athlete profiling: vertical jump, drop jumps, optimal cadence & fiber type links
5:50 Training strengths vs weaknesses — what actually moves the needle
10:30 Case study: developing extreme power in sprinters
16:00 Force expression vs elastic efficiency in acceleration
26:30 Integrating S&C within a technical coaching framework
29:00 Pairing speed & strength — when to combine or separate sessions
34:00 Eccentric training: benefits, risks, and long-latency adaptations
42:50 How to program eccentric work without compromising speed
49:00 “How much strength is enough?” for elite sprinters
57:00 Isometrics, sarcomeres in series & speed development
1:05:20 Communication, trust & the evolving role of the coach

Angus's Research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angus-Ross
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