Charlie often refers to the state of the muscle and muscle tone or tonus. I found a great description from a book by John Jerome - The Elements of Effort: Reflections on the Art and Science of Running. It’s basically a book for the recreational runner/jogger, but has some great info in it. Jerome has also written a couple of other good books that are a must for your library: Sweet Spot in Time - and - Staying Supple (discussing stretching and flexibility). He is a fabulous writer (he’s a writer by trade, not a physiologist or sports expert) that does not get overly scientific in his writings, but is very concise with his descriptions.
Anyways, here is the quote:
"Skilled movement is possible only if the muscle can read its own state of tension: it must be informed, in contact with itself. The contact is maintained, the muscle kept at the ready – cocked, in effect – by muscle tone, a low level contraction maintained by signals from a neural loop call the gamma system. Keep the signal turned on and tone takes up the muscle’s slack, keeping it purring away at idle, ready to respond without lurching.
Good muscle tone works as a buffer against the shock of sudden action, absorbing forces that can, over time, prove harmful to the less elastic tissue of tendons and ligaments. But it is more than a shock absorber: it is part of our very liveliness, the simple underlying tautness that keeps us quick and responsive to the world.
Of course maintaining muscle tone requires nothing more than that we continue to move. But runners have always suspected something like that, haven’t we?"
Well after my injury at the UK Champs, I’ve been recovering at a decent race. I don’t think it was too serious luckily, and I feel in good enough condition to compete tomorrow. Only a club league match at my home track, so there’s no real pressure to run fast times, it’s just about finishing and getting some points.
My aim was and still is to compete at the CAU Inter-Counties match at Bedford at the end of the month, however I came 4th with a PB last year, so if my times are terrible tomorrow I think I’ll just give it a miss as I wouldn’t want my last competition of the season to be a disappointment.
Looking forward to getting back on the track and racing as I’ve already miss two! My training sessions this week were the first time I’d gone up to anywhere near full speed and I felt absolutely fine before, during and after, but I still doubt I’m 100% fit yet so tomorrow’s competition is mostly just to test where I’m at now.
Yesterday’s competition is over and done with, and I’m actually feeling pretty good today. Legs are less achy than they have been after most of my other competitions this year, and they felt absolutely fine before, during and after yesterdays runs. So if anything, I think the slight pull I had may have evened out an imbalance I had in my hamstrings somehow.
I actually managed some okay times too, 10.87 and 21.39 which although wind assisted actually equalled my 200m PB and was only 0.02 off my 100m PB. So it still shows my legs can move at that pace without the worry of injuring myself again which is good. So I now have a couple of weeks to just concentrate on training, and then I’ll see what I can do at the CAU Inter Counties on the 25th/26th August.
I was quite surprised with the times, I certainly wasn’t expecting sub 11 as I didn’t think I’d be able to pull myself through the transition phase quickly enough as that’s normally my weak point over 100m.
I have CAUs on the 25th/26th August, although I think realistically I’ll only be doing the 200m on the 26th as my legs won’t recover quick enough if I do the 100m on the 25th as well. But other than that, there are Wednesday evening opens near me on the 11th and 18th September which I can do if I want, that’s all that’s on my calendar for this year.
Yeah, it’s a shame that the outdoor season is essentially over by the middle to the end of June for any athlete not involved in a National level competition. At least in my neck of the woods.
I’m quite lucky because I live half an hour from London which is full of track clubs, and also my home club have an open summer series.
But I imagine there are a lot of places that miss out on these sort of competitions. I guess the British track series goes on a bit longer because the beginning of the year is too cold and wet perhaps.
Sorry I missed your original question. You mentioned going into the Trials race that you did an extended warmup to make sure you didn’t feel any hamstring tightness during the meet. This led me to believe that your hamstrings were too tight for racing, and if you went into the event concerned about tightness, and then had to pull up, then I suspect you were too tight.
One of the biggest mysteries to me when I met Waldemar first was “What does optimal muscle tone feel like?” If you order the 10 Day Taper Video, Charlie does a great job of describing how the muscle should feel. Waldemar actually showed me with his hands what it feels like. Most coaches never massage their athletes, nor do they even put their hands on them, which makes it very difficult to know if they have the correct ratio of fired to unfired muscle fibres. As a result, often times athletes themselves aren’t even sure what their muscles should feel like.
Especially going into an important meet, it is important to be sure your tone is not too high. This is where you will run into trouble, especially because your adrenaline is flowing and you are operating at higher than normal speeds.
I could be way off in my comments- if so I hope I’m not offending you. I’m just going on what I suspect might be the case.
Well the CAUs have come and gone for another year, didn’t go anywhere near as well as I’d have hoped. I felt a bit lethargic on the day, and due to fewer athletes turning up this year, it was just heats and then straight into a final. So unlike last year where I had chance to ease into the races running, 22.00, 21.43 and then 21.39 in the 3 rounds, I had to go flat out in the first round which is something I’m never able to do properly. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I warm up, until I’ve done a race I never seem to be fully stretched out.
Anyway, the result of that is that I ran 21.65 -1.7m/s and came 3rd in my heat, missing out on the 2nd place automatic qualifying spot by 0.04, and then unfortunately didn’t get through based on my time. Which is frustrating as I know I could have gone quicker had I got another run, but it doesn’t always go to plan on the day.
I think I’m going to make that my last race this season and just concentrate on getting back into decent shape for next season as I’m clearly still lacking in fitness a bit after my injury. Stepping up the training again now as I’ll be able to train Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays from this point onwards. And definitely going to get some gym sessions in during the off season as that’s a big hole in my training schedule.
I wouldn’t argue with that, if you think you feel too tight, then you almost certainly are. But that’s how it’s been all season really so it wasn’t anything abnormal on the day.
I’ve never even been to a physio so I wouldn’t know what it feels like either, one of the guys in the group I train with at my new club is a sports physio so I’ll definitely be getting some time with him over the winter to get me back in full working order for next season.
Okay so first competition of 2014 yesterday (Sunday).
I was competing indoors over 60m, I got 2 runs. One at 2pm and the other at 5pm.
1st Round: I ran 7.06, which is 0.04 off my PB, and I at least 0.1 faster than my first indoor of last season. That run felt good, I got a good push out of the blocks and seemed to transition well. But I think I may have left my head down a bit too long any perhaps lost a bit of top end speed in the last 20m of the race.
2nd Round: Not as good, I put a foot down slightly too far back on my 3rd step, which had the affect of lifting me up too soon which allowed the field to open up a metre or two gap. I was closing them down at the end but the damage was done by then and I only managed 7.15 in that run. (seen during video playback of my race which I will upload once I get the files)
Overall I’m pleased with how it went though, especially as those were my first competitive runs in about 5 months. Sub 7 is my target, and I think that’s achievable with a bit more practice.
I’ve also completely reworked my warmup routine, as I think that improper use of static stretching was actually the main cause of a lot of last seasons problems.
My warmup now is shorter but with less breaks, and it 100% dynamic. It’s roughly 40 minutes from start to finish, whereas before it was easily over an hour. Which when I have 3 runs in a day will save me a lot of time and energy!
Also thanks to wermouth who was there with a couple of his athletes and came over and said hello after my races, it was good to meet you!
I’m curious what your warmup consisted of last year, and what you switched to this year. Specifically, I’m curious about the placement of static stretching in your warmup last year when you were using it. If you get a chance to upload your warmup routines, it would be nice to see what you’re doing.
Last year I was under the illusion that extra static stretching would help with my tight hamstrings, so I would include lots of static stretching in that area (I didn’t know any better at the time). However with what I know now, that was probably a contributing factor to my hamstring pull in July.
So for example I have taken out the static hamstring stretches and replaced them with things like front leg swings (picture below) and one where I walk backwards ‘sweeping’ the floor with my fingers with each step.
Here are the videos as promised! I thought the first run was okay technically, good push out of the blocks, feet staying low during acceleration etc. I’d love to hear your thoughts though guys.
So today I had another pair of 60m runs. First of the day was a 7.08 with what I was told was a bad start (still coming up too soon).
However I then followed that up with what to me actually felt like a worse start, but stopped the clock in a new PB of 6.99! Can’t complain at that, and still definitely more time to come off it if I get the start sorted!
I’ve only got one more competition scheduled in for this indoor season, which will be an open at Birmingham on the 16th Feb. Only 1 x 60m and 1 x 200m (no multiple rounds), and once that’s done I think I’ll just get back to training properly.
Sub 7 was my target this indoor season, so time to turn my attention back to getting ready for outdoors.
