I might be coming across as a bit hyped up and possibly (I said possibly) out of line. I think it’s based on what I have been seeing out there at the track this past few months. The coaching and the struggling and how I am clearly not doing a great job teaching and coaching coaches how to coach.
The politics are killing me but I am running fast and as fast as possible and as far as possible away from the politics so I will be able to share the passion I have for the kids.
My posts are not meant to be anything except helpful and if they are not helpful than ignore me.
I have been thinking of ways to better connect with some of you to impart what I know for sure.
There appears to be some big disconnects going on with information and execution and I feel for some of you because I am not long one the other side of things ( LOL) and wish to share, and connect and give what I am able. PM me anyone or info me should you have questions. My heart is in the best possible place to assist.
Internet, YouTube and look good fitness articles are the bane of sports training programmes and add very limited benefits to the body of knowledge of athletes.
I can read Speed Trap and watch the GPP and SPP videos. Or get a contrasting view from the Clyde Hart 200 and 400 published schedules. That gives me about 80% of what I need to know sprinting.
I can read one of Arthur Lyddiards books or Frank Horwill articles. That tells me 80% of what I need to know about endurance running. The rest - well thats for understanding the basics of recovery, regeneration and nutrition.
So what makes up the rest of the internet and You Tube and why bother reading it ???
I can join a road running club for £25 a year or a national level athletics club for £60 pa. Free coaching, subsidised use of track and reduced/free entry to races.
Or I can pay £50 per hour for a single PT session.
There is too much cutting and pasting or rehashing of activities and programes that make up very little of the content of the true sports training programmes of the above gurus.
No doubt some content is valid for Joe Public wishing to get fit but I rarely see much relevance to athletes.
The pareto principle, The Vital Few or whatever you want to call it.
So thats me getting hyped, and I havent started on some of the science and statistics out there !!
This is where we run into the limitations of using general cues. What works for one person might not work for another. It’s difficult without providing feedback in person on the spot. It sounds like you might be rushing the acceleration, which is very common. Without hands on coaching I think the best advice I could give is to cut the power and emphasize smooth, relaxed technique until things settle into place.
And this is where the monetization of information goes wrong quickly.
“If you can’t show them confuse them?” CMF said this about some coaches who will remain nameless.
This site has been based on an entire athletes career and then an life time of coaching. It is the same in the nutrition space online but worse because losing weight and making sure you are healthy are not always the same thing. You can lose weight and not be really concerning yourself with hormonal balances and long term implications to the content of your calories.
People have different way of describing that early part of the race, and I’m still learning more about it. Though, even things I already understand, I find are very difficult to execute. Understanding and physically doing are really different, though related.
You’re right, thank you. I need to find what speed I need to execute it because if I go too slow, I lose balance, but too fast will make me lose rhythm and control.
Try this drill. Mark off about 10m. Start lying down in a pushup position or on your side or back. On command from a training partner or just on your own initiative, scramble to your feet and run toward the marker. Don’t go full out, just 80% effort. The chaos from scrambling to your feet keeps you from thinking too much about your movements. Just relax and get there. Do a couple sets of 10 with walk back recovery.
Part of your problem might be a simple lack of strength. You might not have enough strength at this point to properly extend your body over the ground. It will come. Generally, the younger you are and the earlier in your training you are, the less you need to emphasize the early stages of the race anyway. That’s where you get the lowest return from your efforts. Don’t ignore it completely, but don’t get too hung up on it either. Over the long term your training emphasis should start at the end of the race and work backwards. That’s where a lot of people go wrong, including yours truly.
I know the drill and spent a lot of time practicing it until I got this nerve injury I have now. On the videos I have, I seem to extend well on the first few steps, but lose rhythm and become awkward as I transition to more upright technique. It’s just that in the first few steps you start with more of lean because your hips are in anterior pelvic tilt, and then it becomes more neutral as you become more upright. Going upright and pelvis going neutral has to go together harmoneously, but for me they don’t occur together. It’s just very difficult rhythm issue.
don’t wanna hi-jack the thread, I mean in the sense of the social posts etc, Ive seen and heard so many athletes who now just want to do wickets as that’s what they see only the big guys doing etc
Showing the 10% and people thinking that’s 90% and not wanting to do the hard work that’s all
Totally agree.
Had an exactly situation as you have described above.
Guys have been sending me instagram videos, “coach?, I can do this, we should do that, bla bla bla” and not only youngsters but senior athletes as well.
I have to admit that sometimes I have let them do it, elements that I know for sure that won’t work for the athletes that I coach, so that those element can backfire in their face and bring them back to planet earth. Time to time they have come up with some useful stuff, rarely, never mobility and flexibility, lol.
It’s sounds like a general strength issue. I assume you don’t have a coach. So, my advice is to get away from it for a while and work on other elements for the time being where you’ll get better results.
Wickets. Ugh. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard about using wickets over this past season. A coach said that I looked like I was over-striding and that I should look into wickets to correct the issue. Another athlete told me that he was going to address a supposed swing phase issue with wickets. Add that to the Kelly Starret influence of further beating up sore areas by jamming lacrosse balls into the tissue instead of treating the body on the whole and working around the specific area first.
Speaking of Atlis. My therapist works with a few pro athletes. Last year at the JA trials he was telling me about a atlis athlete who arrived at the trials all jacked up. After she didnt make the team she let him work on her. He said her body was all out of alignment, Ham jacked up, hips off. After he finished the next day she said she hadn’t felt that good in months. She said atlis therapist where not getting the job done. He said she called him with the atlis people on the phone trying to get him to explain what he did. lol
When the idea of monetization meets performance something gets lost.
Or then you have the NFL teams like New England who strike the balance.
Track is not there yet. Track doesn’t have the depth of organization yet or backing.
It’s all about the individual in track and so you have small one off type situations but the system is not really a system yet.
And some countries love the deterioration of track in all most places of the planet because… The notion of politics plays such a key role in track because the athletes are not united.
