Gay ran with a VERY illegal wind–+4.1, so the numbers are going to be affected by that, but he still maintained his MaxV through to 70m (if you can believe the 0.80s) and held up to .83s through 90m.
Remember who is coaching Gay–Jon Drummond. He is well connected to the HSI camp, and got to his 9.68 by using an extended drive phase. There are several comments to this effect on the web. It is the SAME race modeling.
Bro, forget Gay, what about Bolt, Dix, Holiday, Doc etc all these guys ran fast 30-60-70-80-90 etc without a so called extended drive phase.
Charlie’s description of running a 100m race to me was simple: flick the wrist and pump the arms.
The reference to acceleration patterns I think has more training applications, e.g., flying sprints. If you do say a 20m flying sprint with a 50m lead in (total 70m), it’s really a 60m sprint with an extra 10m to get started so you’re not expending as much effort to overcome inertia. Hopefully, this will allow you to conserve energy at the beginning that can be applied later in the run to reach a higher max velocity than if you burned all out from the start. However, this does not necessarily result in a faster overall time for the run. In a race, Charlie always advised his sprinters to go all out from the start. That’s in Speed Trap as well.The point of my original post is that once you start to decelerate, don’t fight it. The very top guys can run to the end with little deceleration, but that’s a conditioning question. If for whatever reason you don’t have enough speed/conditioning to avoid deceleration there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You can only make it worse.
As far as acceleration training is concerned, it’s also a relaxation issue. Those “submaximal” starts you’re referring to are probably faster than your “maximal” starts. As a general rule, you usually run your fastest when you think you’re only going 90%. If you push the acceleration too hard, it causes you to tighten up. There’s a slight delay between when you apply effort and when you feel it get translated to the track. It’s only a fraction of a second but it seems much longer. A mistake many runners make is to keep pushing when they don’t feel instantaneous power.
Oh, yes, you can do something to minimize deceleration. You can keep your head down and accelerate longer, so there’s less time to slow down–and that’s what the people at the top of the sport are doing. Bolt DID run 6.32 for 60 but 30-60 slower than Ben despite a higher top speed…and you do that by keeping your head down and accelerating longer. You can’t argue against this: It’s there in black and white in the splits! There is also a conditioning issue…and a power issue, but there IS a race modeling issue.
As far as acceleration training is concerned, it’s also a relaxation issue. Those “submaximal” starts you’re referring to are probably faster than your “maximal” starts. As a general rule, you usually run your fastest when you think you’re only going 90%. If you push the acceleration too hard, it causes you to tighten up. There’s a slight delay between when you apply effort and when you feel it get translated to the track. It’s only a fraction of a second but it seems much longer. A mistake many runners make is to keep pushing when they don’t feel instantaneous power.
I am not talking about submaximal starts! I’m talking about extended acceleration AFTER the start, which is what you get from keeping your head down. John Smith emphasizes “not pressing” in the start, which is the same thing you’re saying with relaxation. What else Smith says here is a bit different: He points out that the time difference between pressing and starting relaxed without pushing as hard is negligible, but the difference in energy consumed is significant, and that’s what the whole HSI start/accel is all about: Running the first part more efficiently so you can run faster from 60 to the end.
Don’t you have to be very strong to be able to “use power but not energy” at the start ? Can anybody just tell themselves " ok, i’m gonna start with power, but not press too much " ?
Same for keeping the head down longer than your natural gear shift times…
Most of it is natural, thats why i’m asking. I never think about when to raise my head up, it depends, if I am strong that day and my nerves are firing, I can push it longer than usual, if I feel weak, the body automatically cuts my acceleration, and forcing my head down in that state feels pretty useless.
Of course I am talking about a 100m, sorry if it’s off topic.
"‘Don’t you have to be very strong to be able to "use power but not energy’ at the start ? Can anybody just tell themselves ’ ok, i’m gonna start with power, but not press too much ?’
Same for keeping the head down longer than your natural gear shift times…"
To a large extent, there’s your answer. I think most people, if they say to themselves, “I’m not quite going to try as hard as I can,” they end up running relaxed and getting out of the blocks faster. For one thing, if you go in there with the idea of applying absolutely the maximum force on the pad that you can, the time needed to apply that force is longer. Power without pressing too hard. But, you have to practice this.
For keeping your head down, everybody has a maximum point for keeping your head down and accelerating, and keeping down beyond that point leads to slower times. Find that point by experimenting in practice, then practice it again and again and again, and you’ll be able to do it in races.
There’s that conversation Mo and Ato had about the 100 meters being a choreographed dance…
Though this picture doesn’t look exactly like the ‘heads down’ position we usually saw Mo in. I think Mo’s head was down way more, and his eyes and face were facing the track, not looking ahead like Michael is in this shot.
This looks more like the ‘head in line with the spine’ we’ve heard CF talk about, but correct me if I’m wrong. I’m not judging either method, they are almost the same IMHO, and I can’t argue with the results.
What do u mean by conditioning? Is this the same as SE? or is it more towards the fitness end of the spectrum?
lkh what do you think about Dan race distribution in the 100.
Well, the part about don’t floor it from the start tends to be a bit of a “Motherhood” issue around here. I also think Tom Tellez’ comment about what works best for 60 doesn’t necessarily work for the best 100 applies: Look at Mo’s 6.39 and his 9.79 on youtube and you will see a difference in the first 10-20 which some could describe as holding back.
I actually haven’t had the best results by holding back. I’ve had the best results by:
1.In the blocks, concentrating on pushing on the first step from the blocks (go for power or triple extension) but without pressing for maximum force (where you go in there and tell yourself, “I’m not quite going to try as hard as I can”).
After all the discussions about the Jamaicans (and I did do more overdistance in the offseason and hard 200s once a week up until the last 4 weeks of GPP1), I seem to have gotten the real improvement from Vince Anderson and Tellez. And the difference is pushing LONGER. Everybody pushes and works the arms hard during the initial drive out to 15-20m, but I’ve gotten an improvement by concentrating on pushing (in practice) as I’m gradually coming up all the way out to 50m, then once up and looking at the line, I concentrate on relaxing and turnover as you said.
As Tellez says, the pushing is only down and back at the beginning, then concentrating on pushing DOWN. If you haven’t seen the Tellez interview mentioned earlier, you can find it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsXHPpL78_U
Once again, I’m not saying to push for the whole race, but all the way until you completely come up.
Interesting comments!
Also note Anderson studied under Tellez when he started out, which is why you probably find alot of overlap.
Hello Charlie, I ran the 100/200 yesterday the plan is to rest Sun/Mon, I am wondering would it be to much to perform a couple 30m starts and one submax 150 on Tue if I am competing on Sat in the 100/200?
Tue: Starts/sub max 150
Wed: tempo
Thur: rest
Fri: starts etc
Sat: 100/200
In the "The Structure of Training for Speed " e-book you mention a similar weekly training template as above.
How challenging was the meet? If it was, that’s fine. If it was fairly easy you could do 2 x 150 sub-max on Tues. Or you could do Tues as you have it, Thurs with starts and 1 x 80 sub-max and Fri off. There are, of course, many options.
I would say challenging because I finally felt like myself, the temp was 50degrees with strong headwinds (-2.5/-2.8) I still manage to run my best 200m time of the year. My body actually feels like it had a race yesterday because I have a little stiffness in my lower body etc, could be from the weight session last night.
I would like to keep the starts on Friday since the race is finals only, I am in the meat of my schedule and I am ready to start posting some good times.
Stick with your original plan then.
Thank you! I have three more regular season meets then a championship meet, this is the plan for the next three weeks.
Tue:
2x30 3pt
1x150
throws 2x5
Wed:
6x100
Thur: REST
Fri:
2x20 3pt
throws x5
Sat: 100/200
Mon:
3x30 3pt
1x80
Tue:
tread walk 15min
Wed:
Rest
Thur:
2x20 3pt
throws x5
Fri: 100
Mon:
4x30 95%
Tue:
REST
Wed:
2x20 3pt
throws x5
Thur 100/200
Three week training block follow by 10 day taper.
Hello Charlie I am coming towards the end of my regular season. I have been racing in the 100/200 for most of the season, at which point would you take a week off from the 200 to allow the body to recover etc? Below is what I have done and the reminding of my season:
First meet: 200
Second meet: 100/200
Third meet: 100/200
Fourth meet: 100 (two meets in one week)
Fourth meet: 100/200
Fifth meet: 100/200
May 8-Friday
May 14-Thursday
June 07-Sunday
BTW, I haven’t done much SE work; I am using the meets as SE.
It is always an option to use one race as mild recovery from a multi-race schedule. You can determine that in part by how you are feeling overall.
Great advice CF.
Well I ran my fastest 100/200 of the year yesterday and my next race is on Friday after that I have a short race week of only 5 days before I race again. My thinking was competing in the 100/200 on Friday and then trying to do it again in 5 days may be tough esp when trying to post fast times, then again since my training is very light I may be ok.