These resources were written from practical coaching experience beginning more than two decades ago. The new archive improves navigation, typography and mobile reading while retaining the examples, acknowledgements and personal perspective that make the material useful.

Read the Oztrack story

Built for serious athletics

Coaching knowledge that still applies

Oztrack is primarily a resource for coaches, while also helping athletes and parents understand the reasoning behind a well-planned program. The material is especially relevant to national-level junior and senior middle-distance runners and sprinters.

Experience behind the archive

Steve Bennett coached many national-level junior and senior middle-distance athletes, along with a smaller group of successful sprinters. Those athletes included men who ran under 11 seconds and women who ran below 12.50 seconds for 100m, including one female athlete who recorded a hand-timed 11.3 seconds.

How the ideas were developed

When these resources were written, the information was cutting edge. It grew from practical coaching, research-journal articles and networking with leading coaches from around the world. The aim was to understand why successful methods worked and adapt those principles to developing athletes.

Why it remains useful today

This is more than a historical collection. Many of today's middle-distance runners and sprinters use approaches detailed throughout the archive: year-round speed development, carefully managed strength and power work, technical practice, recovery and long-term planning.

Much of the detail behind modern training is not openly shared. Oztrack keeps these practical ideas available so coaches can compare methods, athletes can understand their preparation and parents can recognise the value of patient development.

About the Oztrack training archive

Who is the site for?

It is designed for coaches, athletes and parents, with particular value for coaches planning the long-term development of talented juniors and senior competitors.

What standard of athlete does it address?

Much of the material was developed around national-level junior and senior athletes. Coaches can adjust the volume, intensity and complexity to suit each athlete's age, experience and current ability.

Is the training information outdated?

The examples come from an earlier coaching era, but the central principles remain relevant. Current athletes still use variations of the speed, strength, technical and recovery methods explained here.

How should the programs be used?

Treat them as coaching resources rather than universal prescriptions. The athlete's health, development, event, training history and response should guide how each idea is applied.

What subjects are covered?

The archive covers sprinting, 400m preparation, 800m and 1500m training, long-term athlete development, trunk conditioning, plyometrics, nutrition and recovery. It includes both coaching principles and practical examples such as repetitions, recoveries, seasonal planning and exercises. The free ebooks bring several of these subjects together in longer downloadable guides.

Why preserve the original coaching examples?

Training language and presentation change, but athletes still need to develop speed, strength, coordination, endurance and resilience. The original examples show how coaches approached those problems in practice. Preserving them allows today's coaches to evaluate the sessions, compare them with current methods and adapt the useful principles rather than losing the knowledge behind them.

Original downloads

The Oztrack ebook collection

Six original athletics guides remain available as free PDF downloads, gathered together in one simple collection.

01Training for 400m PDF ↓ 02Maintaining Form During Middle Distance Running PDF ↓ 03Training for 800m PDF ↓ 04Training Kids for Speed PDF ↓ 05Developing Speed PDF ↓ 06Modern Speed Training PDF ↓