Vince Anderson has had tons of success using the wicket drill… My advice to all coaches is to stay within your comfort zone - don’t use anything you can’t coach…
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Don’t forget parachutes, towing apparatus, speed shoes, BOSU… We wouldn’t want to leave anybody out, would we?
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I like chutes and strength shoes.
We found lag with parachutes and consequently did not use them much. Mario was a person around all the time and he was big into working with chutes. What I remember most was how aggravated Charlie would get using towing devices due to the inconsistent drag or pull quality. We were always trying to manage the slack and to do this you needed to make sure you are completely and utterly relaxed.
The thing about all of these gadgets and drills is how it gets executed and how much room there is for error.
There are some good tricks but try to find the pardon the expression “idiot proof” drills.
Power speed drills are not idiot proof without someone knowing how to best cue or comment to the athlete. What I see happening lately at the track is WAY too much feedback or zero feedback. Or feedback that makes no sense. IF you are going to get an athlete to do A skip for example first do that drill over 10 meters before you ask them and the group to do 30 meters x 4 sets. Proper posture independent of running should be something to shoot for. But there is a strength component involved in doing drills correctly as well so it’s not that surprising that many people won’t do the drills correctly over a greater distance than 10 meters.
So where do you start?
The clap drill as a first stop drill for many people is very useful so that you as a coach might be able to see the mechanics of what that particular person is capable right now. Laying flat and then scrambling up to run 10 meters also has the benefit of strengthening the muscles that are and will continue to be needed to perfect 10 meters of running well. No one needs to be running 20 meters of speed if he or she isn’t looking fantastic over 10 meters. But this idea is simple and maybe old school and then it gets discounted so we have all these contraptions and gimmicks to administer more confusion to both coaches and athletes.
The video analysis on this clip is really cool.
The drills done in this video are drills we used to do and are executed well. Don’t let the ease by which you see these drills preformed fool you. They are not easy drills to perform well.
How many coaches are going to be able to make sense or use of this analysis?
Technology has changed our lives. The early stage first adopter issues are how to positively capitalize on such technology.
It’s fine to say to an athlete “this is what you need to do” but as a coach once you put that thought in that athletes head are you confident:
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the thought you put in their will leave their head should they be able to execute a given task keeping in mind the task has yet to be brought up or discussed.
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the drill or method you have in mind will be the home run you need as to not confuse or clutter the head of the athlete.
Maybe I sound like I’m not giving the athlete any credit but everything I know for sure and have been taught was 100 percent old school lessons and drills and always the thought in mind that less is more in terms of instructions. (because the danger of too much information is sprinting is a hind brain activity)
Great coaching is not about how much you know or how mechanically sound your theory and knowledge is. Clearly Mann is the man so to speak when it comes to understanding and knowledge and maybe even teaching and coaching I don’t really know this.
What I do know is you can’t just ask an athlete to execute the extension of their lever because you say as the coach you need that to happen. Right?
Pretty girl, video looks amazing, athlete is already fast, awesome former athlete steps in with PhD , fantastic background music and ‘seemingly’ simple instruction but little information given to viewer overall. My view is the implications of what is going on and or how to fix or change or improve the mechanics is what people really need to know and practice.
Show and tell is for kindergarten students. The Internet is full of show and tell.
Does de Witte get massage daily? On site? How often? Acupuncture? Who coaches her normally? We know she is Dutch. Is Mann coaching her full time, is he a consultant to her or her coach? Is he still in the picture?
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Summary
Gadgets and technology are great but we still need coaches to know how to transfer useable, tried and true knowledge to develop skills so athletes are able to run fast.[/b]
Gadgets are highly likely to have a lower level of transferability to the specifics of running mechanics than traditional methods such as running drills, technical runs. In fact they may encourage poor habits or non standard muscle memories/patterns.
There is a similar risk with activities such as running high knees with a bar overhead …
As stated above the athlete still needs a coach or a minimum of good self awareness to gain benefits from the use of gadgets and there is the issue of how easy they are to use. But its easier to spot good/bad form with an athlete doing a traditional drill/run than it is with a gadget or unusual drill.
I would exclude sleds/heavy tyres from the crticism.
I wonder if the use of modern methods is a another curse of the internet/Personal Trainer era. Many of their protocols are designed with a mindset to get joe public fit and keep him/her interested. Which is a possibly valid approach for improving general health for the population but not for a competetive sportsmen.
Athletics is actually a very cheap sport if followed through the traditional athletics club model. In the UK you can join a national level track club for the price of 1 PT session or a local club for the price of 1/2 a PT session. They have sleds/tyres, free coaching etc.
Unfortunately I have observed (from a distance) an athlete spend the winter at Altis, provide very positive feedback on the experience, and show no improvement whatsoever this summer …
I agree with what you are saying Oldbloke.
I also think there are some business model conflicts with developing an athlete vs running a business to develop an athlete.
Sure it’s easy for me to say this but I think it’s very time consuming to manage athletic development over the short and long run and making a living is usually at the heart of what drives many. Not saying I blame people but creators of special situations or creative anything is not usually driven by money. In the beginning it’s main driver is passion.
Woven throughout the story there’s a little bit of insight into his training and racing this past year.
great documentary. puma are lining him up as their next bolt
Interesting, though impressive as it is, that the 10sec barrier is still discussed by media as “elusive and coveted” considering how well over 100 sprinters have gone sub 10. Further, since Bolt emerged, it is notable to recall how in more than one World Championship and Olympic final, since 2008, the talk was something on the order of “if you don’t run sub 9.8…you won’t medal”.
Link where Charlie’s work gets credit.
http://tspn.ca/podcast/saturday-august-6th-2016-norm-joe-talk-to-tyrone-edge-national-level-coach-in-track-and-field-about-the-2016-olympics/
In a number of these recent videos that show him working on start he is not-IMO-up high enough on his fingers at set. He has too much surface area his fingers are in contact with to clear his hands off of the track as CF would have said.
It could well be the angle as the straight ahead down the track shot he seems to be in a better hand position.
Stormin Norman is a guy Charlie and I met forever ago. I recently met him on the subway and he asked if I wanted to do the commentating on his online radio show. I introduced him to T-Slow as I thought he would be perfect to give insight and interest to the Olympic feed. I declined.
When watching the Fundamentals 1 Strength and Speed video today, I found what I believe Charlie’s response would be at the 57:56 mark. If any of you have the video, please watch it.
Yeah Charlie had very little tolerance watching drills that made no sense. Worse, drills that actually made fast people slow.
I’m really happy that line wasn’t edited out. I literally laughed out loud when studying the video; it was totally unexpected.
au.eurosport.com/athletics/sprinter
Looks like degrasse is finally on the move to Rana Reider in Florida.