Competitive Longevity in Sprinting and Coaching with Pascal Mancini

Pascal Mancini is a coach and elite athlete from Switzerland, having represented his country in multiple World and European Championships. He has been self-coached since 2014 and ran his personal best in the 100m at 33 years old (10.20sec) and his 60m PB at 34 years old (6.58sec). He was a semi-finalist in the 60m at the World championship in 2024 (6.62) and finished fifth at European Championships in the 4x100m relay.

At 15-years-old, he knew that he wanted to be a sprint coach and began to think about how to prepare for this, using his own career as an opportunity to gain relevant experience. He began coaching in 2018, and his top male athlete (Bradley Lestrade) has run 10.29 for 100m.

At the end of the 2023 season, his top female athlete, Hélène Parisot, had the following personal bests:

• 60m: 7.51
• 100m: 11.35
• 200m: 23.26

By the end of 2024, she had run:

• 60m: 7.33
• 100m: 11.20
• 200m: 22.55

Parisot also won a bronze medal over 200 metres at the European Championships in Rome and placed ninth in the same event at the Olympic Games in Paris. We caught up with Mancini to learn more about the process that brought about these notable improvements.

1. Primary Coaching Influences and Personal Athletic Background

David Maris: You’ve been self-coached for a while, but you have been coached and advised by some very well-respected coaches in the past—additionally, you are a keen reader of Henk Kraijenhoff’s work. What are some of the principles you have learned from these coaches that you now apply to your training and the coaching of your athletes?

Pascal Mancini: Throughout my career, I have worked with several excellent coaches, including Ralph Mouchbahini, Laurent Meuwly, PJ Vazel, and Adrian Rothenbuhler. Perhaps my two key takeaways from the accumulation of these experiences are that there is no one way to get fast and you need to be smart to be a great coach!

I try to take a holistic view to improving sprint performance. I think it’s easy, and risky, to assume that performance will improve simply based upon how tough the training is, says Pascal Mancini. Share on X

When I was coached by Mouchbahini, we did not use much specialized equipment and the approach was quite simple, but he was able to get a lot out of me. Training sessions were shorter than I’d been used to, sometimes as short as forty minutes and up to as long as seventy-five minutes, but in the three months I worked with him in Berlin, my 60-metre personal best improved from 6.79 to 6.67. Since I was training quite a bit less than I had previously, I was anxious that I was underprepared. I hadn’t done any lactic work, nor had I done any tempo, and the strength training I did was minimal, perhaps once per week, with a greater focus on how the load was moved as opposed to how heavy the load was. I would categorize Mouchbahini’s approach as being focused on quality and elasticity and he was very intuitive in the way that he coached me.

Laurent Meuwly was extremely methodical—everything was thoroughly planned, and he would make small adjustments based upon what he had observed in previous cycles. Currently, I am trying to implement this in my own coaching by creating more structure.

PJ Vazel is known for being an encyclopedia of sprinting (and general track and field) knowledge and he has a superb memory. He has read everything he possibly can to improve his understanding of how to develop sprinters and has even learned different languages so he is able to read more, such as books in Russian and Chinese. He is also in contact with many coaches, past and present, and asks them lots of questions to be able to obtain information that many other coaches do not have access to. I still have a great relationship with PJ, having been in contact with him since about 2010.

I also want to mention Adrian Rothenbuhler, who I worked with for my strength training and learned a lot from.

For a while now, I have been self-coached, and I have tried various methods, and have even changed things up when I was running well because my primary goal since I was 15 years old was to be a coach as opposed to an athlete. Therefore, I wanted to learn firsthand about the impact different training methods may have on an athlete. For example, in 2014, I trained a lot, somewhere between four and seven hours a day, six days a week, and I ran 10.28. Two years later, I was probably less motivated but trained three times a week for maybe 40 minutes each session and ran 10.33! However, in 2016 I was quite a bit less consistent. In cases such as this, I think it is important to acknowledge that the work done in previous seasons can impact our performance as well.

2. Training Smarter

David Maris: You mentioned that you like your athletes to feel like they did not reach their limits. How do you go about progressing the development of the athlete without the focus being on working harder?

Pascal Mancini: I try to take a holistic view to improving sprint performance. I think it’s easy, and risky, to assume that performance will improve simply based upon how tough the training is. For a sprinter, the toughest type of training on the track is anything that causes high levels of lactic acid. However, an athlete can only work so hard before recovery is compromised and injury risk is heightened. Inflammation is increased, runs are performed under fatigue with poorer mechanics, so unless an athlete is extremely robust, with an excellent nervous system and a lot of talent in terms of resiliency, I do not think this is a good way to go. For ninety percent of athletes, I think they would see less injuries and more success by broadening their focus and targeting more qualities to improve their performance. Finally, when an athlete has worked harder than ever before and doesn’t improve, it can be extremely demotivating and I wonder how many athletes we have lost from the sport because of this!

When an athlete has worked harder than ever before and doesn’t improve, it can be extremely demotivating and I wonder how many athletes we have lost from the sport because of this, says Pascal Mancini. Share on X

Helene knows that she has many areas in which she can improve, which will all contribute to her running faster—and I like my athletes to understand that it’s not just the ability to complete tough lactic based sessions that will enable them to improve. To put an arbitrary number on it, I’ve seen some approaches that may place 65 percent of the programme emphasis on lactic development, whereas I prefer to have that number at more like 15 percent. I like to emphasize other qualities, such as flexibility, mobility, technique, relaxation, strength, and power. For example, Helene was limited by her flexibility when she joined me, so it is something that we developed, which has enabled her to run with more range and relaxation as she is not fighting the restricted movement, which has enabled her to be more efficient and therefore faster over 200 metres.

In my opinion, training for the sprints is almost like an intelligence challenge, and as I said, not simply about how hard you can train. I enjoy this problem-solving aspect of training and coaching and trying to figure out the best way to manage the training variables to get the best result. People talk about “training smart” quite a lot, and I really think there is a lot to be said for trying to do so. I follow quite a low-volume programme, and a lot of athletes who start training with me are anxious that they won’t have done enough training.

For ninety percent of athletes, I think they would see less injuries and more success by broadening their focus and targeting more qualities to improve their performance, says Pascal Mancini. Share on X

This season, Helene opened 0.5 seconds faster than her 200 metres personal best, albeit with a 2.1 wind, and I like showing athletes that they can run fast training this way.

3. Age Is Just a Number: Progressing Beyond the Age of 30

David Maris: You and Helene have both run your fastest times in your 30s, whereas many athletes do so in their 20s. Why do you think you were able to keep improving late in your careers? At what age do you think it becomes unlikely that an athlete can improve? Do your training methods/principles change for athletes as they get older?

Pascal Mancini: I think there are multiple factors that can allow an athlete to continue to improve well into their thirties. Personally, I believe that I am fortunate enough to have good genes—which means that I did not have to train that much to run quite fast. This helped me to avoid injuries and therefore stay healthy and consistent. My training philosophy complements this genetic factor as well. I’ve learnt to focus on the quality of my training more so than simply working hard, which again assists in health and consistency.

Due to my long-standing interest in coaching, I have kept a close eye on the effect of different training programmes on my body, so I think that with each year I have an improved understanding of what I need to do to stay healthy and to run faster, which has led to performance improvements over a long period of time. Related to this, I also think the fact that I have continued to learn theoretical concepts relating to sprint training has enabled the efficacy of the training programme and training sessions to improve each year, which has led to improved performance. When I coach an athlete, I continually reinforce what I believe to be the important training concepts and technical aspects, and I am often demonstrating these, and I therefore need to make sure that my technique is of high quality when doing this. This means that these factors are constantly being reinforced within myself as an athlete, which I think contributes to my being able to run fast as an older athlete.

In addition to sleep and nutrition, we use some recovery techniques, such as meditation and Wim Hof breathing, which can be combined with visualization, says Pascal Mancini. Share on X

In the case of Helene, I also think she has good genetics, with a good nervous system, and she does not get injured easily, which again has allowed for consistency. I think we are now optimizing her training in her thirties, which has allowed her to run significantly faster than she has in previous seasons; therefore, she has been able to go from making national relay teams in the past to winning a medal over 200 metres at the European Championships and finishing ninth at the Olympics in the same event.

This past year, she has improved her nutrition and focused more on her sleep and recovery. She does not enjoy stretching, but we have paid extra attention to this, and her improved flexibility I believe has helped her performance. I have also removed resisted sprints from her training, as I believe, when sprinting, she was not able to relax as much as she needed to in the past, and resisted sprinting was encouraging her to focus on the concentric component, which led to excessive tension when she was sprinting without resistance. I have also reduced the volume of lactic tolerance-based training that she does, as I believe she was perhaps excessively fatigued in the past.

Obviously, as a 200 metre runner, there does need to be some attention paid to be able to tolerate the acidic environment within her muscles towards the end of a race, but I think we only did four sessions to really address this between the end of the indoor season and the Olympics. However, it is important to mention that prior to the indoor season, we would complete a couple of sessions each month to work on this quality. All this has contributed to keeping her fresher and able to deliver higher quality training sessions, with a smoother, more relaxed, and overall better technique.

People talk about “training smart” quite a lot… I follow quite a low-volume program, and a lot of athletes who start training with me are anxious that they won’t have done enough training, says Pascal Mancini. Share on X

From a training perspective, I think a few things perhaps change as an athlete gets older. For example, the volume of tempo runs can decrease. I think they are a useful tool to possibly assist with recovery, and for younger athletes to reinforce smooth, relaxed, and technically sound running mechanics, so I am not against implementing them in a training programme; but, after a point, I am not convinced it helps anymore. I now prefer to use technical sessions with skips and drills that bleed into technically focused runs to serve the same kind of purpose.

We have already spoken about reducing the focus on lactic sessions, but being technically more sound means an athlete is moving more efficiently and has been more economical with their ATP-PC system, so that they do not need to be as reliant on their lactic pathways later in a race. This, therefore, makes those types of sessions less important, especially for an athlete like myself who predominantly focuses on the 60 metres and 100 metres.

One final thing that I think is important for both the mind and the body is time away from training at the end of the season. After the European Championships, I took two months off training, without doing much in the way of physical activity, and having only returned to training for only a couple of weeks so far, I already feel great. Once an athlete is in their thirties, it is likely that they have done this sport for so long that some time away from it at the end of each season becomes very important as a sort of mental and physical reset.

Kim Collins ran his personal best time at forty, and Dwain Chambers has recently run very fast in the 45 to 49 age category, so I think it’s possible to continue to run fast as an athlete gets older. I’m currently 35 and I believe if I focused purely on training, I could still run 10.20 when I reach forty.

4. Addressing Strengths and Weaknesses

David Maris: You mentioned that Helene’s start was not a strong part of her race, but you didn’t focus on specifically improving it. Can you elaborate on how you play to an athlete’s strengths?

Pascal Mancini: To build and maintain the confidence of an athlete, I like to primarily focus on their strengths in training. I’m a big believer that the mental side of sprinting is very important, and this is another example of how the mind can impact performance. If we have spent a long time in training focusing on the weakness of an athlete, when they get to competition, this weakness can still be a focus, which may create stress for them. Related to this, I like to give instructions as opposed to corrections when coaching an athlete. Instructing and correcting may sound similar, but there is a subtle difference, because the latter addresses what has been done that is wrong or sub-optimal, whereas the former does not.

When Helene came to be coached by me, we knew her start was a relative weakness, but I didn’t spend too much time worrying about it and this allowed her to feel good in training—and I think this helped! I have seen cases where an athlete has a poor start, so a lot of time is spent addressing it, and it may improve sightly (or it may not), but at the same time, the rest of their race gets worse, so they end up with a slower overall time than they had before.

Interestingly, PJ Vazel told me of a study about two groups of athletes: one group did sessions of 20 block starts, and the other group did two block starts plus 18 other types of runs, and it was the second group who improved their start more significantly. I implement accelerations from different positions, which then transfer to a more effective start, something I learnt from Ralph Mouchbahani. For example, have an athlete place their feet on the floor and create a straight line through their knees, hips, and head, whilst leaning into, and placing their hands on, a Swiss ball. The athlete then rolls the ball away to the side and they are left with no choice but to push and accelerate, otherwise they will fall over. This exercise replicates the impact of gravity on the athlete when they exit the blocks optimally and encourages them to engage their hips correctly. Once the athlete is comfortable with the sensations generated by this drill, they can then look to generate the same feeling from blocks, which will likely mean they are doing a lot of things correctly in their start.

I once heard a quote that I stress to my athletes: We judge a start not at 30 metres, but at the finish line. The job of the start is not to get to 30 metres first, but to effectively set up later stages of the race.

A further issue Helene had related to acceleration was that her body angle to the ground would continue to rise for too long, so that she became “too upright” and could even lean back slightly once she reached maximum velocity, which led to her running with excessive tension. Therefore, we did longer accelerations to allow her to practice finishing her acceleration in the correct position, which allowed her to complete races with more relaxation—this may also be an example of how maximum velocity training can help acceleration. There is certainly an argument that the coordination developed by maximum velocity sprinting can have a positive transfer to an athlete’s acceleration. Also, she improved her general strength and power by about 20 percent while keeping the same bodyweight, which contributed to her improved acceleration.

We judge a start not at 30 metres, but at the finish line. The job of the start is not to get to 30 metres first, but to effectively set up later stages of the race. Share on X

5. Approaching Sprint Technique

David Maris: What are some of the technical considerations you think are important? For example, you mentioned that you thought Helene lacked vertical displacement.

Pascal Mancini: When I teach an athlete how to sprint, I typically like them to focus on a feeling more so than specific technical aspects. I think it’s very important for an athlete to feel smooth and this allows them to run freely without the metaphorical brakes on.

Henk Kraijenhoff has a saying regarding an athlete’s technique: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Technique is something that is easy to overcoach and this can cause the athletes to overthink, and their performance can suffer. I have a young 200m runner who runs 21.6 as a 17-year-old, with many areas he could improve technically. I think what was happening is that he was almost scared to run as fast as he could, as it gave him the sensation of losing control, so to subconsciously self-sabotage, he would change his body position and become tight. So, we worked on teaching him to “embrace the speed,” which helped us to break the brakes!

This comes back to making the athletes feel good and feel confident—I continuously reinforce the concept of embracing the speed because some of the previous habits tend to creep back in.

When an athlete sprints, “pursuing a feeling” means that they have fewer thoughts going through their mind. If they are thinking about multiple cues, it can be hard to perform well under pressure, and there are examples of athletes with excellent technique who sometimes do not deliver their best performance when it matters. Helene, like many sprinters, was over-emphasizing the horizontal component when sprinting, by both pushing back and reaching forward excessively. I therefore provided her specific exercises to give her the sensation of running more vertically, such as skipping before transitioning into a run. This felt better and she was able to apply this concept in training runs and then competition, and I believe this contributed to the improvement that we saw in her performance in 2023 culminating in the Olympic Games. This is one of the things I am so proud of with regards to Helene: She ran her best times in the Olympic Games and the European Championships this year, which were her most important races.

I see my job as being to help each athlete figure out what allows them to run free and fast, and I think too much technical correction can be dangerous at times. Ultimately, we are working to run fast, not to run pretty. If a coach had tried to change the way Michael Johnson had run, despite his technique being unorthodox, would he have run any quicker? Of course, at times it is appropriate to provide some technical feedback, but I usually prefer to do this once the athlete has got to the point where they are able to run freely and smoothly. We can improve the efficiency of the athlete by giving them individualized work like drills, core exercises, and strength exercises, for example, that will improve their technique without the need for lots of verbal feedback during training sessions.

I have a young athlete who couldn’t lift his knees, but his father didn’t want to let him strength train with me, which led to him underperforming. When we finally did two strength sessions with individualized exercises, he beat his PB on the 100m by 0.6 seconds. He went from 12.9 to 12.3 in just a couple of weeks simply because he learnt how to activate the appropriate muscles with the appropriate timing.

6. Lifestyle Factors and Longevity

David Maris: What are some of the important factors to be controlled away from training and how do you manage this? You have highlighted some changes to Helene’s diet, the use of an Oura ring, and meditation, for example. How else do you manage recovery? Helene works close to full-time hours for an insurance company, how do you balance that with her training?

Pascal Mancini: This year, Helene’s goal was to be on the French 4×100 metres relay team at the European Championships and at the Olympic Games. With the World Relay Championships being in May, it meant she needed to be able to run fast in April to be on that team; then she needed to maintain her form to qualify for the European Championships in June; and after that she still needed to qualify for the Olympic Games in August. As I mentioned, she ended up running a personal best in the semi-final there, missing a place in the final by one position. This is to say it’s been a busy season and it’s been important for Helene to manage her lifestyle away from training, so she was able to consistently deliver high-level performances. My impact on this was made easier by the fact that I live with Helene, but an additional challenge is that she works 80 percent of a full-time position for an insurance company!

In terms of Helene’s lifestyle, we have made sure she sleeps a lot. She is usually in bed by nine o’clock and wakes up at seven in the morning, and we use an Oura ring to quantify her sleep by looking at two metrics:

1. Her quality of sleep.
2. Her readiness score.

Our goal is to have both of these scores at above 90 percent, and this motivates her to go to sleep early and avoid staying up late watching Netflix! I also think the Oura ring is helpful for athletes to learn what high-quality sleep feels like. Simply by seeing a poor sleep score after feeling like they have slept well could encourage them to improve their sleep habits.

Helene’s diet is something we have worked hard on this year, because in the past she has enjoyed sugary foods, so we have tried to reduce her intake of those types of things. She does not like to eat in the morning, so typically for breakfast, she will have a protein shake, with collagen, creatine, and a multi-vitamin. For lunch and dinner, she will have beef, rice, and avocado or similar healthy sources of protein, carbohydrates, and fats. After weight training sessions she will also have a protein shake and any snacks will typically be fruit.

Throughout the sessions, there are often constant adjustments being made, so it is difficult to provide an exact example of what my athletes do, says Pascal Mancini. Share on X

In addition to sleep and nutrition, we use some recovery techniques, such as meditation and Wim Hof breathing, which can be combined with visualization. I think that in Helene’s case, active recovery techniques, such as going to saunas, for example, all take time and can be tough to fit in around work and training and can cause added stress! Therefore, we try to keep it quite simple and pay a lot of attention to balancing training and recovery. In past seasons, she has done five-hour sessions, whereas this year the sessions have generally been smaller and less difficult. Throughout the day, she and I will communicate about how she is feeling, and I’m happy to reduce the training load for a given day or even have her take the day off training entirely if necessary. I also use the sleep data to provide information regarding whether I need to adjust training sessions to reduce the risk of injuries, etc. As I’ve got to know her better as an athlete, and because my training isn’t overly taxing, I do not have to make too many adjustments despite her hectic schedule. But, for example, a technical session may be eight runs over 100 metres (with specific instructions), and if she is tired, she may do six runs instead.

7. What Training Sessions Look Like

David Maris: What might a typical week of training look like? Are you able to elaborate on the warm-up you devised for Helene?

Pascal Mancini: I think the warm-up can be a difference-maker between good athletes and elite athletes. It is also what sets the athlete up to be able to execute their best possible sessions, so it is something I take very seriously.

I have had athletes who have just started with me and only done “warm-ups” in training and have gone out and run personal best performances. They progressively felt better and better throughout the few weeks of doing only the warm-up, and it’s led to them running faster than they ever have before!

When a new athlete joins my training group, I ask them to show me the warm-up they have been doing up until this time. Based upon what I see when they run, I will adjust it. For example, if an athlete has excessive rear-side mechanics and has butt kicks in their warm-up, I will remove them. I make sure all the athletes have specific exercises in their warm-up related to what they need in terms of technique, flexibility, and posture, amongst other things. For example, Helene has abdominal exercises in her warm-up to help ensure she can maintain a more neutral pelvis when she sprints, which has a knock-on effect to improving her technique. I see the warm-up as an opportunity to develop weaknesses in an environment where they worry about it less because “it’s just the warm-up.” For example, Helene was not great at one-legged jumps, so they are worked on as a part of her warm-up.

As mentioned, flexibility can be targeted in the warm-up, and ideally, I like to have a second person to help manually encourage an athlete through a greater range of motion.

I coach a lot of my sessions intuitively, which means I may not know the exact distances, numbers of runs, and recovery intervals before the session starts. In the past, I might write the training programme for the next two weeks and feel like it might be too much or it wasn’t appropriate, so I’d throw it away! Although I have said I want to have more structure in my training programme, I think it is very important to allow for flexibility based upon what you are seeing from the athletes.

Throughout the sessions, there are often constant adjustments being made, so it is difficult to provide an exact example of what my athletes do, but the following is a broad outline. Of course, the time of year will also dictate exactly how the sessions might look.

Monday: Technical

• Drills
• 6×40-100 metres technical runs with self-directed recovery periods (I find rest periods can be stressful for an athlete if they know they must run without being recovered).
• This session prioritizes establishing a good feeling, and therefore the emphasis is on how we run, rather than the number of runs we do or how far they are.

Tuesday: Strength

• Often includes contrast training implementing jumps. For example, squat followed by jump squat followed by assisted jumps. If Helene is tired, she may do a session with the kBox at home instead.

Wednesday: Acceleration/Speed

• 30m individualized warm up with 15-20 different exercises.
• 45min of drills, jumps, mobility exercises all together.
• 1×10 metres fly with a 40-metres run-in timed using a Freelap.
• 2×80 metres blocks. I time last 30 metres with a Freelap. They run against each other, and their goals are to both win the rep and have the fastest last 30 metres. I have also done this over 60 metres, with the last 20 metres timed. This is a session I learnt from Randy Huntington, when I joined in with a group of his athletes from China.

Or

• 1-2 x 10m fly.
• 20 metres, 30 metres, 40 metres, 50 metres all from blocks.
• It may be controversial to have speed and acceleration in the same session, but I have had good experiences with this.

Thursday: Strength

Friday: Technical

Or

Or

This session depends on the athlete’s needs. Helene may need more relaxation in her runs, so this would be her focus. This session also serves to prepare for the next day’s session on Saturday.

Saturday: Speed

• 30m individualized warm up with 15-20 different exercises.
• 45min of drills, jumps, mobility exercises all together.
• 4-6×50-60m technical runs done alone. These runs are focused on searching for a “smooth” feeling.

The following runs are done together in a competitive environment:

100 metre runners:

Or

200 metre runners may progress over the months from doing:

• 3×300 metres with 20 minutes rest (this session is completed around four or five times).

To

To

• 1×300 metres (this session took place this past year right before the indoor season).

Alternatively, the following session may be run alone:

• 2-3x 250 metres, untimed, with a focus on smoothness and maintaining technique and frequency (John Smith once gave me a piece of advice, and said “always look easy”).