MICKY Ruben may have been shivering on his arrival to St Laurence O’Toole’s athletics club on Saturday morning but he and over 100 athletes and coaches who had come to hear him speak were soon warming up as the Trinidad and Tobago native took a hands-on workshop on how to build strength for speed.
Ruben is strength and conditioning coach of none other than world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt so few people in the world are as qualified as he to speak on how to get your body in shape for sprinting and his advice was welcomed by those who came to the Carlow town club.
Before the workshop, Ruben said that much of the reason why Ireland hasn’t excelled in the shorter events is down to tradition.
“Each country has their event,” Ruben said.
“Jamaica is sprint capital so coaches there are a lot better at coaching sprints, the Finnish are better at coaching javelin because they have the tradition, and here coaches have expertise in events that they have been traditionally better at, middle distance, and a lack of information for preparing athletes for other events.”
Ruben soon had his guinea pigs working up a sweat as he showed various simple techniques to strengthen up core muscles without the need for expensive equipment.
Perhaps, we will see the sprint times of Carlow athletes starting to tumble in the coming months as his lessons sink in.