New partnership now off and racing
IT IS all about quality, not quantity, for The Sprint Stable at their new Gordonvale training facility.
The Sprint Stable, led by long-serving sprint coach Stuart Dempster, in collaboration with Djarragun College, Gordonvale, will now base their training and athletes at a new facility at the college.
The group held their first training sessions at the new venue this week. The partnership is set to run for the next two years.
The Sprint Stable was previously based at Barlow Park and Djarragun College principal Kathryn Todd is happy with the new partnership.
“We’re excited to welcome Stuart Dempster to our college,” Ms Todd said.
“It’s a great opportunity for our students to be involved in and we very much look forward to working with Stuart for the next two years.”
The Sprint Stable’s two basic requirements for athlete preparation are an 80m grass track and an Olympic weights facility. Djarragun College has come up with both and more.
Dempster believes the college is perfect for training young athletes.
“We have now got the facility to do the weights, strength and conditioning training at the one venue,” he said.
“We can run, then lift weights and vice versa, and then add in hurdles.
“The grass surface is a fair surface for training on.
“The school has been very accommodating – it should work out well for both parties.
“We can recover in the shade at the new facility. We are really happy with it so far.
“Training young people on a synthetic track session after session leads to injury issues, which some of the Stable ath- letes are already experiencing.
“Ever since we set up here 18 months ago we have been looking for this type of set-up.”
Under the agreement, Djarragun College has funded two sets of Olympic weights and guaranteed a grass track.
The Sprint Stable currently trains a mixture of junior athletes and masters age athletes, with 12 under Dempster’s watch.
“We are quite happy with the number of athletes we have got (but), we could always do with a few more,” Dempster said.
“We could do with some under-25-year-old sprinters.
“In terms of numbers, it does not bother me because where I come from, it is about the quality of the coaching.
“If you have got 25 in the squad, you can’t give them all personal attention, so if we did get more numbers, we would look to split up the groups. “It is about quality.” Djarragun College will also provide access to changing room and shower facilities, as well as an auxiliary room with video analysis capacity.
“Having the weights facility on the same campus as our track will increase our effectiveness as we will be able to do combination sessions as well as a very specific ‘Plan B’ in the event of inclement weather,” Dempster said. SPRINTERS arguably have one of the toughest training regimens around.
They put in extreme maximal effort in everything they do to continually develop those fast-twitch muscle fibres, resulting in explosive power when the gun goes off.
But what do sprinters actually eat?
Food of course … and lots of it. But it is extremely important to remain as lean as possible and not lug around any unusable weight.
There is a very fine line between fuelling that fire pit of power and sending extra feed to the paddock.
Carbohydrate is a key nutrient as our mitochondria generate more power per gram from carbs than any other nutrient, but you can imagine that if we ate bowls and bowls of rice and pasta, we probably would not get off the start line.
THERE IS A VERY FINE LINE BETWEEN FUELLING THAT FIRE PIT OF POWER AND SENDING EXTRA FEED TO THE PADDOCK
Energy availability is key, so including several small snacks of carbohydrate across the day – such as rice crackers, fruit and good-quality muesli bars – is ideal for providing that rocket fuel without bogging you down.
Training can be gruelling and long, so snacking throughout is absolutely essential.
Consuming a low-fat diet goes without saying, however protein is just as important as carbohydrate when it comes to recovery.
Combining protein sources with those small carbohydrate snacks is essential to help your body recover more quickly.
Examples include adding cottage cheese to crackers or including a good-quality Greek yoghurt in your diet.
Ultimately, you want to fuel your body frequently and give it the nutrients it needs while being mindful that you can’t just hang out in the paddock grazing all day long.
An accredited sports dietitian can help you with a structured eating plan to match your training requirements.
Mitch Smith is the managing director of Health Management Dietitians