Chapter 725 - 650: The Training Is Too Meticulous

Chapter 725: Chapter 650: The Training Is Too Meticulous

The Phoenix Suns’ unexpected elimination wasn’t something Chen Yu couldn’t accept.

With the team on vacation, he could now free up some of his energy.

Otherwise, he would have had to constantly worry about the team’s situation.

He had too much on his plate. He’d been so busy this year that he hadn’t even held his rookie potential training camp.

However, while Chen Yu wanted a break, Brian had no intention of letting him stay idle.

What was once a retirement center had now been renamed the training base. Some of the landscaping and buildings were demolished to make way for a high-spec, standard 400-meter track.

At this very moment, Chen Yu was by the straightaway, watching workers install canopies over two of the lanes.

In the center of the field, the kids from the training base were practicing their fundamentals under the guidance of football coaches like Jia Xiuquan and Li Shubin.

For this entire year, Chen Yu’s only plan for Han Zhilu and the other kids was to build up their physical conditioning and drill their fundamentals.

Technically, Jia Xiuquan and the others were supposed to be students themselves.

But letting a group of professional coaches sit idle would have been a waste, so he had them all lead the training sessions according to the requirements set by his own Trainers.

This freed up Chen Yu’s own staff to develop his business in Europe.

For the past two years, Chen Yu’s company had been operating in Europe, but mostly in the secondary leagues.

Teams in the Five Major Leagues, even those fighting relegation, already used the world’s most elite training resources.

The secondary leagues, on the other hand, had funding issues and couldn’t afford top-tier Trainers, creating a demand for his company’s services.

However, this year—especially after the Pioneer’s eighth-seed upset and elimination of the Phoenix Suns—the number of teams from the Five Major Leagues in Europe contacting Chen Yu had noticeably increased.

"General Manager Li, what are they doing over there?" Jia Xiuquan and Li Shubin stood together on the sidelines, their eyes fixed on the installation progress in the distance.

For reasons unknown to them, Chen Yu was having a roof installed over the starting portion of the high-spec, competition-grade track.

A hard plastic canopy.

One was 50 meters long, and the other, 100 meters.

They were propped up by retractable brackets and secured to the track.

Most importantly, the front end of the canopy was sloped. Its lowest point was at the starting line, just over a meter high, and it rose steadily until it surpassed two meters and straightened out. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Li Shubin had been watching for a while, and a theory was already forming in his mind. Pointing to the starting line, he said, "Look at that slope. The height keeps increasing. Doesn’t that perfectly match the height of a sprinter’s torso as they gradually rise after the start?"

"You’re right," Jia Xiuquan exclaimed.

He pictured it in his mind.

For sprinters, the first 30 meters of a 100-meter dash is the acceleration phase. Their upper body gradually straightens as they run until they reach their top speed.

For 100-meter sprinters who fight for every millisecond, this phase is critical—stride frequency, step count, and the time it takes for the torso to straighten are all key factors.

These were the exact things they needed to train.

Once they passed the 30-meter mark, it was all about maintaining rhythm and running all out.

But finding the right rhythm for one’s body is difficult, and committing it to muscle memory is even harder.

But with a canopy like this, following Chen Yu’s design, the hard ceiling would force a runner to control their body according to its height, allowing them to execute a perfect start.

"No wonder they’ve been adjusting it for half the day," Jia Xiuquan added.

Installing the canopy was relatively quick, but most of the subsequent time was spent adjusting its height.

They were using a spirit level, and Chen Yu and Nelson, along with the technical team, were huddled in front of the equipment on the sidelines, constantly cross-referencing the data.

They were truly making adjustments centimeter by centimeter.

Li Shubin sighed with admiration. "The level of detail is just incredible."

During his time in the United States, Li Shubin had learned many of the world’s most advanced training methods and techniques. But what impressed him most wasn’t any of that; it was the meticulous attention to detail that Chen Yu’s world-class team applied to training.

It was truly painstaking and precise down to the smallest detail.

Back home, the mentality during training was often that ’close enough is good enough’ and ’it’s not a big deal’.

Take physical conditioning, for instance.

Say a player was given a target time of 28 seconds to complete a certain training drill.

In China, if the player managed to get it down to 27.5 seconds after intensive practice, the coach would probably think that was good enough and that the drill was mastered.

But not with Chen Yu’s team. If the target was 28 seconds, then it had to be met exactly—not a millisecond more or less.

And once that 28-second mark was achieved, they would immediately set the next goal, constantly pushing for improvement until the athlete reached their absolute limit.

This focus on detail left Li Shubin with a deep sense of admiration.

’The media is always saying Chinese Super League players lack ambition,’ he thought. ’Thinking about it now, the problem really starts at the very foundation.’

’If the coaching staff themselves relax their standards, how can you expect the players to perform at a high level or have the drive to keep improving?’

Beside him, Jia Xiuquan nodded in agreement.

To go to such lengths—micromanaging the body height and stride frequency of every single step during the start—was, frankly, a little terrifying.

More than half an hour later, Chen Yu’s team finally completed the last of the adjustments.

"Get Usain over here first. Have him give it a test run."

After the Olympics last year, Bolt had officially made the 100-meter dash his primary event.

He had been training in the United States since March.

As for Liu Xiang, he was busier this year. In the past, he had skipped numerous competitions in order to focus on training.

That meant giving up a lot of prize money.

This year, however, having already set a world record, he could start reaping the rewards and chasing prize money in various competitions.

So he had been competing constantly.

He competed in the Osaka Grand Prix in May, and now he was in Eugene, Oregon, for the Prefontaine Classic.

The 100-meter canopy was prepared for him.

He not only needed to adjust his stride pattern from eight steps between hurdles to seven, but he also had to continue refining his technique over the barriers. The canopy would be used to limit his jump height on every takeoff, forcing him into a perfect state where he just barely cleared the hurdle without jumping too high, allowing for the quickest possible landing.

The other 50-meter canopy was, of course, for Bolt.

He was taller than the average sprinter and had a greater need to fine-tune his stride frequency and body rhythm during the start.

Before long, Bolt and Mills hurried over.

He had been training indoors just a moment ago.

He knew what the canopy was for. After examining it with curiosity, he immediately stepped up to give it a try.

He ran three times in a row.

A high-speed camera on a parallel track filmed his every move.

Chen Yu told Bolt to stop for a moment.

In all three attempts, his rhythm was off. He was either too far below the canopy or he brushed against it, which disrupted his stride frequency.

Chen Yu wanted to pause and analyze whether the issue was with the height settings or with Bolt himself.

The current height curve had been created by collecting data from long-term filming of Bolt’s starts, but it wasn’t necessarily a perfect fit.

While Nelson’s team and Mills were huddled together, deep in a heated discussion and analysis, Brian appeared on the sidelines.

He strolled over, glanced at the canopy, then at the data on the monitor. He lingered until he was in Chen Yu’s line of sight and received a pointed look, at which point he gestured to Chen Yu, asking if they could talk.

Chen Yu moved to the side, pulled two cold drinks from a cooler, and sat down under a large umbrella. "What’s up?" he asked.

"Chen, the season’s over. The draft is next. We still have our first-round pick this year. It’s not a high pick, but it’s a first-rounder nonetheless."

"I know you didn’t hold the rookie potential camp this year, but I remember you did the prep work for it. That means you should have plenty of data on this year’s rookies, right?"

Brian, for his part, had already officially started his offseason work.