Is it accurate to say that you consciously TRY to drive the knee forward or does this automatically follow from superior strength and technique? Is it TRY or ALLOW? (See the previous comments from Tellez)
As for Vern Gambetta: Mach drills are NOT about knee lift at the expense of extention.
I tire of people who attach themselves to Mach Drills they didn’t invent; don’t understand; can’t replicate, so can’t get results from; then criticize.
Isn’t there a saying about workmen and their tools?
I give a rather detailed explanation as to why the Harvard study came to an erroneous conclusion in my forum response to komy, which is on page 17 or 18 just a little ways before these forum quotes. Essentially their study found that repositioning TIME was equal for Fast and Slow runners. Based on equal repositioning TIME they concluded that repositioining RATE (or rate of leg movement) was also equal. This is an error. It is highly significant because those who use the study’s conclusion will not place proper focus on training the hip muscles for improving peak and terminal velocity. [Please go the komy response and it goes into much more detail regarding the Harvard study.]
The iliopsoas tendon, yes indeed it acts as a spring. It springs the hip forward into flexion during terminal velocity. But there is also an active contraction of the iliopsoas (EMG data is rather conclusive on that one). Spring theorists state that contraction of the iliopsoas is not important in maintaining terminal velocity. They say that the majority of what occurs is the vertical bounce. I am saying the active hip flexion and hip extension is very critical during terminal velocity, but spring theorists disagree with that concept.
Spring theorists (Peter Weyand specifically stated so) state that the spring is largely passive. I have to disagree with that one. How is an athlete supposed to generate greater ground reaction forces if it is a passive event.
Furthermore, because spring theory states that it is a passive event they state that one can not train the spring with exercises. Peter Weyand himself specifically stated this at his lecture. Well I have to disagree. The spring is passive and active. The nearly isometric contraction of the calf m. is one part of the active component. Because there an active component I believe that it can be trained. Spring theorists disagree with this concept.
Next, I do understand that the Harvard was not done with distance atheltes. What I was trying to get across in a prior statement is that when you discuss the spring effect with spring theorists they tend to use data from distance running and extrapolate that to sprinters. I am just saying that, because the biomechanics are different for the two, you cannot use distance data and apply it to sprinters.
In order to understand my point of view really requires a rather long explanation. I have submitted a 50 page discussion on the biomechanics of sprinting to the CF web site e-mail section today. Unfortunately the drawings didn’t go through with the text. If you have the time to go through all of the material I think that it answers a lot of your questions.
These are my points of view. They are based on an analysis of the biomechancs of sprinting. I hope that most is very accurate, but if there is something that I miswrote I would certainly like to address it.
I agree that I don’t know the answer regarding hip flexion. Do you do it actively or does it just come naturally? I merely wanted to make the point that the athlete should not focus on bringing the hip into as much flexion as possible because it could be detrimental.
Also, I wanted to make the point that by focusing too much on the ‘push’ there is the tendency for increasing GCT. It gives the tendency to stride out. Studies (Arampatzis, Med Sci Sports Exerc, 33(6); 923-931. 2001) have shown that an athlete could be taught to control leg stiffness, which determines ground contact time. Therefore, it suggests that, with proper focus, one could probably teach the athlete to decrease GCT. If you could teach this then ??? maybe you could teach more rapid leg movement. I don’t know, just a thought.
I feel from personal experience that, when most effective, the big forces occur automatically, BUT are preceeded by conscious, though relaxed, actions. IE You think about lifting the foot up, or, perhaps more clearly, you think about enhancing the lift of the foot above the support knee after it has already started, which leads to a feel of the knee going forward after the hip starts to turn under. Likewise, you enhance the downward movement of the leg up to the actual foot strike, which, again is automatic. You must “step down” and not push. If you do, it’s all over!
Not that Charlie needs my endorsement, but I think the above is so true. I feel that sprinting is hind-brain but staying on task requires some fore-brain work.
I had the chance to talk with a few sub 10, sub 20 guys and each one had something they would focus on when sprinting(elbow sweep, put the foot down,…etc). Btw “put the foot” down would be the same as Charlie’s “step down”.
My main point is to try to move what is known about the action to what a sprinter should feel and what they can actually do about it.
Just out of interest what did Weyand recommend for improvement in sprinting - it’s a passive ‘event’ or at least some stages of the sprint are.
This is our job to figure out. Weyand has not mentioned much about training. I think stiffness is huge! (In my opinion) More on that later! I think each athlete needs to be addressed individually. Alex, I am still waiting for an email! I want to talk more! I look forward to it!
I got caught up on that one once- didn’t get what they meant by"stiffness" Now I have three definitions! (two good!)
This is from Speed Trap (Conquering Heroes) and relates to certain free-weights work discussed before in the forum(/thread). I know which came first…
“Throughout 1984 I’d followed the lifting theories of Tudor Bompa, a former Romanian coach who now taught at York University. In the fall of 1985, however, I decided to adapt our strength work to my general training philosophy -that less was more. In my experience, larger muscles were more vulnerable to pulls and tears; my sprinters had become so strong that overload and injury were constant dangers. Just as I’d tailored our speed drills for high intensity but low volume, I now did the same for our lifting. Since we weren’t aiming to bulk up (too much body mass might get in a sprinter’s way), I pared our weight program to a few basic exercises which could challenge a high percentage of muscle groups with relatively few lifts. Total repetitions were cut by about 40%. In particular, I did away with the calf exercises favoured by Bompa.”
I hope Charlie doesn’t mind!
At a conference in March 2002 Peter Weyand was asked a question about specific training exercises and he did not have an answer. He mentioned a few things such as plyos, but did not state any specifics.
I just sent it.
Some thoughts on leg stiffness.
Leg stiffness generally correlates with running velocity, but this is not infinite. It has been shown (Arampatzis, Med Sci Sports Exerc, 33(6);923-931, 2001) that: THERE IS AN OPTIMUM STIFFNESS ASSOCIATED WITH A MAXIMUM RUNNING VEOCITY. This means that there is also an optimal leg stiffness, which is associated with an optimal GCT (ground contact time), below which sprinting speed is not enhanced further but begins to decline. WHEN LEG STIFFNESS GOES ABOVE AN OPTIMAL STIFFNESS, THE CONTACT TIME BECOMES SO SHORT THAT THE RUNNER IS UNABLE TO GENERATE ANY FORWARD PROPULSION, AND PEAK VELOCITY DECREASES (Arampatzis).
The fact that a minimal amount of time is required for muscles to generate propulsion is consistent with the need for forward propulsion to maximize running velocity (concerning peak and terminal velocity phases of a sprint).
Furthermore, Arampatzis showed that leg stiffness can be controlled if the athlete is given verbal instructions to focus on decreasing GCT while running on a treadmill. This suggests that increased leg stiffness (hence GCT and running speed) may be taught and influenced with proper training focus.
Are these athletes at top speed??
I believe so.
Leg stiffness has been suggested to help running economy of endurance athletes, so it would be interesting ( :eek: ) to see if something similar has been “proven” for sprinters as well -even under these conditions…
What was the participants’ sample?
This is a huge part of this.
Furthermore, Arampatzis showed that leg stiffness can be controlled if the athlete is given verbal instructions to focus on decreasing GCT while running on a treadmill. This suggests that increased leg stiffness (hence GCT and running speed) may be taught and influenced with proper training focus.
As an athlete runs faster, their GCT decreases, not the other way around. If you try to tell an athlete to decrease his GCT then he will spoil his mechanics by making a conscious effort to decrease GCT. What are these proper training focuses they talk about that does this? Specific examples? Throw me a bone here?
I am trying to get a video posted here soon! It might help clarify some things
I misspoke or confused the issue when I stated that the athlete should focus on moving the thigh forward as rapidly as possible. It is more accurate to say that the athlete should place focus on moving the hip into flexion as early as possible during early swing phase into hip flexion. Let me try to explain.
It has been suggested (by Ralph Mann, I believe, but cannot say for sure) that faster runners have a faster stride rate due to the fact that during early swing phase (when the swinging hip is extending) the F runners convert from extension to hip flexion at an earlier point, or more quickly in time. The rate of forward speed during the forward thrust of the thigh may not be faster than S runners, but the rate of change from hip extension to hip flexion appears to be the key.
When I stated that the athlete should concentrate on moving the thigh forward as rapidly as possible I am referring to moving it more quickly from extension to flexion. The maximum speed that the thigh rotates does not seem to be that important (which is from Ralph Mann and his analysis of elite vs good collegiate sprinters).
So maybe it would be more properly phrased that the athlete needs to place focus on a quick change from hip extension to flexion, rather than on attaining maximal hip flexion speed.
This is consistent with your quote in a further response that: “You need to “step down” and not push.” If you analyze rapid sequence photos of the sprint, then you can see that when you focus on stepping down, this occurs at the same time that the contra-lateral hip is converting from hip extension to hip flexion.
I guess its a matter of what you want the athlete to place focus on (assuming that you even want him/her to have some focus in the first place). Should it be on the ‘step down’ or on ‘rapid conversion to hip flexion’ in early swing phase.