Stoke City: Sprint star Campbell on his marks with Potters

CAN you imagine the day when Ricardo Fuller can run 100m in under 10 seconds, or Jon Parkin in less than 30?

It might just happen one day, particularly if former Olympic sprint medallist Darren Campbell can work the oracle when he meets the Stoke first-team party shortly.

Campbell is due to drop into the Michelin training ground and work out a programme with a select number of Stoke players in a bid to improve their movement off the mark.

Attention will be focused on both their acceleration and deceleration to maximise speed and minimise injury.

Campbell is already involved with Stoke as his company Pro Athletes Supplementation (PAS) provides the club with all its nutritional advice on products.

Now he is offering his services for free to improve the efficiency off the blocks of their more explosive players.

“I met him earlier this summer to discuss nutrition for the season ahead,” said Stoke's fitness coach John McKeown, “and we got talking about sprint programmes for sports such as football.

“Football is different to athletics because players are not running in a straight line, nor going off at the sound of a gun. But there are things to be learned and Darren has played a fair bit of football, so knows the demands.

“The plan is for him to come here for the day and work with particular individuals, but we haven't decided which ones yet.

“We're looking to start it pre-season when we get back from Austria and then maintain it during the season.

“It might be a case of 'as and when' on a consultancy basis once he's been up here.

“There's no cost because he's an extremely close friend of mine and we are already doing business with him anyway on the nutritional side.”

So does such sprint training work?

“We just don't know because it's relatively new,” said McKeown. “But he has worked with Andrei Shevchenko at Chelsea for a couple of months last season and he says there was an improvement.

“It's about acceleration and deceleration. Deceleration is important because of the effect it has on your hamstrings and doing it quickly helps you to go again in another direction.

“Thierry Henry is quick, but the most important thing is his acceleration and deceleration, his ability to move and stop quickly.

“Darren also says it's important to know your top speed and to learn to relax at that top speed, rather than try to push yourself further to a point you can't really get to anyway.

“Darren says that when he was older he knew what his top speed was, learned to relax at that speed and won more races.

“He also wants you to run efficiently and with economy, so you're not wasting effort, while balance is also important because you are sprinting while being knocked or are running round corners.”

On yer marks then, Parky...