The first thing must be on what direction we can take the athlete to maximize his full potential in an event. We then evaluate what his strengths and weaknesses are and distribute them in order to not put too much emphasis on one thing. We will also spend time looking at recovery aspects like nutrition, sleep and lifestyle aspects that can determine one's progress.
To evaluate during long prep cycles we will use video feedback in order to progress technique throughout the session, a lot of times athletes just see video after a workout and almost seem to forget it come the next session, so the key will be to get the athlete to actually see the thing they need to improve and actively do it within the session. Another key evaluator is how the athlete is responding to the training stimulus put in place; some athletes may only be able to perform 2 sprint sessions a week, when others might be able to perform 3 sprint sessions a week. Every athlete varies so we must assess properly and make sure the athlete is progressing throughout the training cycle.
Testing for a 100m sprinter during the preseason would be some more general stuff, a parallel squat, bench press, standing broad jump, 30m start. Things like that as with a short to long program would contain. Testing is rarely done as the workouts are your tests in the fact that we can get sprint times in the workout, measure a standing broad jump or see what our five rep max is on squat. Midseason and Championship phase, the meets become our tests. Again along the way we might have a five bound that is measured throughout the workout and a PR in that five bound could be a good indicator of a good upcoming performance.
-Seth Boomsma, NAIA All-American Sprinter