Charlie - Valsalva clarification

Charlie - for some reason I can not connect to the discussion we were having on Valsalve Manoeuvre… Please Help

Your quote…

Charlie I am sorry to keep bothering you on this. If you would like to email me personally please feel free. coach_luc@hotmail.com

Trying to get clarification

In Brent McFarlane’s book The Science of Hurdling and Speed 4th Edition he states that an IN is " 100% intensity … with the breath held" and an OUT is “maintenance or recharging while exhaling” - He has specific distances for each phase of the race model and phase of training year.

Example
PRE COMPETITIVE
Ins 15m
Outs 15m
PEAK SEASON
Ins 20m
Outs 5m

Charlie you state that an IN (Hold breath) starting at set command. Then immediately start exhaling slowly. Is this then considered an out?
I was under impression IN was inhalation and out was Exhalation.

I am so confused and don’t want to be teaching in correct breathing, I want to limit the amount of mistakes as much as possible

Thank you in advance Charlie

Coach Luc,

Here is how it would go:

“On your marks.” >>Breathing normally.

“Set”>>Breathing IN (Inhale). By holding your breath here, it just means don’t breathe out anymore.

“BANG”>>Breathe out. This should take you to about 30m as Charlie says.

To coach this is a bit trickey cause athletes tend to forget to breathe in at 30m that they start to sag like a ballon that has been untied and left to fly around for a couple seconds and then falls flat to the ground. (Good analogy Herb! Why thank-you.).

Charlie give a good drill for this where the athlete stands with their arms hanging down and then they react to the sound and fire their arms (without moving their legs), and breathe out on the sound. What happens afterwards with breathing in a race should come naturally. I would have them focus on “stepping over”, or something else to get their minds off breathing after the gun goes off.

Once the first breath is over with you don’t concentrate on the breathing. That will just happen naturally. If you are having problems with athletes forgetting to breath you could just set up a cone at say 30m and prompt them to perform another action at this point (perhaps just maintain speed or check relaxation), to shift the focus of the drill.

If you really want to emphasise the above breathing pattern perhaps you could incorporate it into the split runs in a short to long SE workout in SPP1? This would be from a falling start not from blocks however. There are hundreds of possabilities.

The Quote has it ass-backwards! Blowing out under extreme pressure (not letting the air out except very slowly) raises the temporal bp and allows more force. This isn’t complicated - it’s just like weights. Forget about precise phases, just do it naturally. Because you’re resisting the release of the air, the out part consumes most of the race time (usually 3 x in the 100, with two brief inhales.)

Hey guys thank you very much - I am very upset that I have been doing this worng for so many years and excited about the gains the athletes will receive from doing it properly.
Have any of the high end coaches here ever confront Brent McFarlane on that issue?