Experiment in progress.

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61

Well, we had a mixed session yesterday.

Athlete Y did a few starts over 2h (apparently did five times) and moved to 8h rhythms (91, 91, etc with last two 1m and 1.07m)
Knee of the trial leg is in front during ground contact however shin is not exactly perpendicular to the ground.
Touch-down times were quite good between 1.03-1.07, we are on target.

Athlete X,
Well,
2x3x60 was smooth, dropping toes a bit overall quite happy with the execution.

First 150 was very fast with good form last 20m started to loosing form as some athletes do when they are going for the finish line, hands moving side to side etc… I cannot stand the lack of disciplines/form through the finish line. (how many races were lost in the last 20m because of technically poor execution?)

Well, second one was disaster (F!!!), 30m into the athlete stopped because experienced pain around TFL and origin of Vastus Lateralis.

62

This is something I regret not posting before the injury…

There’s an old thread somewhere on here, where I mentioned workouts John Smith had for indoors in January, which were 5X60+3X200, and the 200’s were special endurance pace, not tempo. Charlie responded by posting that he didn’t like mixed workouts like that because of the risk of injury. This type of workout isn’t that unusual–Borzov did some of that–but my impression is that Charlie was right about the injury risk, as usual. Tony Wells had a 3X150 workout that was used for outdoors only that could be used instead; Everything else was push/explode short starts and explosive jumps.

63

I think there were two factors contributing to the injury.
First factor was that I wasn’t at the track when athletes were warming up they tend to waste time on socialising rather than preparing for the workout.
Second one most important one that the first 150 was done with wind and athlete was going really fast. Even with 12min recovery, second 150 performed to the wind should have never happened in the first place.

I thought that second run to the wind would be safe, unfortunately instead to going with my first thought that the first was fast enough and second even sub max would be unnecessary, I have decided otherwise and I have messed up.
Bollocks.

We had a meeting with national team physio, assessments of range of movements, state of tissue, contraction in the area, movement of tissue etc was done and everything seems to be fine. They were bit surprised that injury occurred giving the conditions of the athlete.
Scan also was done. Unfortunately there was fluid around area and assessment of injury couldn’t be fully performed.
Second scan is going to be done next week.

I am gutted.

64

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Athletes must be held accountable for taking their process of advancement as seriously as any competent coach does.

For this reason, the fact that you state they don’t warm up as diligently as when you are there indicates that they do not yet possess as level of discipline commensurate with yours. Further, the fact that they are willing to lack professionalism in your absence also suggests they will demonstrate a lack of professionalism elsewhere.

Be sure to generate this sort of discourse with your athletes, regardless how young they are, because unless you’re a masochist I’m sure you have better things to do with your time than spend it coaching athletes who take the process (all of it, not just some of it) less seriously than you do.

65

I am sorry this has happened to you.
In my opinion there is no excuse ever for a coach to NOT be paying attention to the warm up.
If you don’t like the way it goes during the warm up why are you not changing it?
Pretend this is not about the athletes right now.
What is your job? Because this is also about you and why you coach and what you expect or want or hope or dream for as a coach. Their success is yours and vice versa.
Whether your paid or not, you have a job and you need to execute to the best of your ability to follow through with exactly what will give your athletes ( and therefor you) the best results.
Remember that a larger group creates internal competition. If you don’t have a larger group than you can sit on the athletes more or ask them to leave. Just remember there will be no end to the stupid crap athletes do if they are young and or inexperienced as it’s their job. Over time the results sort themselves out. Just my opinion but think about it.
As for running into the wind or not, judgement will be learned the hard way ( you likely will remember this lesson or you will keep repeating it over and over again right?) . Injuries happen and your job is to mitigate them as best as possible with the variables you may or may not have control over. LESS IS almost always more.
And learn not to second guess yourself. Men tend to not be as instinctive as woman. Go with your gut and learn to go with your gut and learn to pay attention as you would have been right. Again, not the end of the world as learning happens with mistakes.

About the hurdles.
do a few over 2 and then a few over 3 or 4 and then go to 5 or 6 and then 8.
Doing several over 2 and then going straight to 8 is a big jump. Never forget the value of progression in warming up, training, recovery. Things take time. Just my quick thoughts.
As an athlete I was always in a rush. there are a lot of reasons for this but Charlie used to always say we can get there faster but it won’t be better, it will just be faster.

66

The injury has happened and it’s getting looked after. That’s the important thing to focus on now.

Injuries happen with all things going properly. Coaches and athletes are not perfect.

The first and only time I ran at Melrose I had lane 1. I felt amazing in the warm up. John Smith later told Charlie I looked like I was ready to run very fast. I did not make it over the first hurdle as I slipped and fell and crashed. Lane one was right next to the long jump pit. There was sand on the wood track and I slipped because of the sand. Turns out I had the wrong spikes. I was pissed. I felt it was Charlie’s fault. He told me it was my fault. At my age he was right. But I had put him in charge. ( How did that work for me? It didn’t) . The rest of my season was messed up due to that fall. It was not Charlie’s fault. I should have known better but I counted on him without counting on myself.

Be careful following other coaches 'alleged workouts" with out having all the facts. Also, when you follow any “recipe”, you stop thinking and the judgement is gone.

If I am cooking and stop thinking the food never turns out. The information of what volumes to do it for you as a coach in your head. You may or may not feel that work should be performed. Remember the application and combination of art and science can be unbeatable when solving problems.

67

Yes Angela, I cannot agree with you more on some points you have made.

However, I don’t know whether you have MISSED IT or just deliberately addressing key elements for the warm up/workout prescription for the readers.

As far as I concern it’s hard to supervise athletes you coach or make a changes to the program when you are NOT AT THE TRACK because of the work commitments.
Isn’t it?
Not everyone can be in two places at once Angela, unless track is your workplace.

And it’s going to be even harder during competition phase.

They are going to compete in different places at the same time, how we can supervise that?

Just an example.

Last year/season we went to regional champs I have watched athletes compete and was drifting between warm-up area and competition area where I had few field eventers.
I got to the warm-up area 40min before heats and athlete X is seating down, I asked how warm-up is going? (I have discussed with guys what they need to do prior to the comp, I actually said that we’ll do nothing different to what we have been doing on every training session so they will know where they are and what else need to be added to feel ready (maybe couple strides or skipping if really necessary))
Well, I got this answer that athlete X didn’t start warming up yet.
Then parent comes and said that they will do short warm-up to preserve energy for the run (WTF?!!!)

Ok, so you are the coach now. Fine! See you later.

I think that some guys need to realise that we are together in the same boat.

68

The progression of the drills for our hurdle session as followed:
Standing by the wall trial leg rotation 2x10 (each side)
Standing by the wall trial leg slides (hurdle side way) 2x10 (each leg)
Low hurdles 5 feet apart, 3 in between, x3/4
High hurdles 16 feet apart, 3 in between, trial leg drills x4
High hurdles middle with the spacing above, 3 in between x4
Then we are going to do starts/accelerations.
After that we are doing starts over the hurdles and then after that couple 5 strides in between over 4/5h in regular spacing and then we are moving to 8h rhythms,
I thought that I wrote in earlier post how we are getting ready, or maybe not.
Never mind.
For now
It is what it is.

69

Yesterday session was quite decent,
Athlete Y did:
(all hurdles at 1m height)
2x20m
3x2h
3x3h
3x5h
2x40m
3x2h was done individually.
First rep of 3h was also done individually, next two were done with other hurdlers. I have an issue with lead arm. When athlete is moving arm from front to back, tends to move around really high, consequently compromising form during touch down.

Auxiliary lifts in the form of circuit: 3x(Arnold press x10, hyper-extension x10, upright row x10, Russian twists x20)

Stretching.

Athlete X had a second scan today.
(btw. We started treatment on Friday athlete had a ultrasound therapy to reduce swelling) with regular icing and treatment fluid is almost gone.
Series of exercises and treatments are prescribed.
According to specialists we should be able to run in spikes at the beginning of January.

70

Athlete X getting better with every session, performing static strength exercises on daily basis.
We were able to do bike workout.

Athlete Y
We did today
Falling accelerations 3x30
Starts from lying on the chest 4x20
4x flying 20 from 20 splits were:
1: 1.03/1.05
2: 1.03/0.99
3: 1.01/0.97
4: 1.00/1.01
Than we did 3 flying 20 from 30
1: 1.01/0.99
2: 1.03/0.99 (dragged head for too long on this one)
3: 0.97/0.98

Keeps arms bit tight,
We are at the point where relaxation is not fully there. Waiting for the moment where athlete is fully relaxed than will be able to move to another level.

No gym unfortunately it was closed (prep for weight lifting comp)

So, good stretching and home.

71

You have made interesting point about youngsters and larger groups.
I think that almost always there will be someone in the group who is going to be little bit less responsible cutting corners re warm-up/prep when coach not around.

Learning happens with mistakes.
I wish that the learning curve was less painful for athlete I coach.

Rehab is going well.
Actually we have been advised to use EMS to increase blood flow low intensity.
Bike and number of static exercises
Static quadriceps straight leg raises
Straight leg extension holds with roller underneath knee.
Wall slide half squats.

On Saturday we did.
Bike workout easy.
Physio exercises reps of 10
TH work 2x10
Waterloo, Pillar, Pedestal x10 all explosive exercises were avoided eg rocket jumps etc…

We can have an opportunity now to work on upper body.

72

[u]Yes Angela, I cannot agree with you more on some points you have made.

However, I don’t know whether you have MISSED IT or just deliberately addressing key elements for the warm up/workout prescription for the readers.

As far as I concern it’s hard to supervise athletes you coach or make a changes to the program when you are NOT AT THE TRACK because of the work commitments.
Isn’t it?
Not everyone can be in two places at once Angela, unless track is your workplace.

And it’s going to be even harder during competition phase.

They are going to compete in different places at the same time, how we can supervise that?

Just an example.

Last year/season we went to regional champs I have watched athletes compete and was drifting between warm-up area and competition area where I had few field eventers.
I got to the warm-up area 40min before heats and athlete X is seating down, I asked how warm-up is going? (I have discussed with guys what they need to do prior to the comp, I actually said that we’ll do nothing different to what we have been doing on every training session so they will know where they are and what else need to be added to feel ready (maybe couple strides or skipping if really necessary))
Well, I got this answer that athlete X didn’t start warming up yet.
Then parent comes and said that they will do short warm-up to preserve energy for the run (WTF?!!!)

Ok, so you are the coach now. Fine! See you later.

===================================================================================

[b]I’ve reviewed the “Experiment in Progress” in “My Training Journal”.

I must have missed the post or could not find where you talked about having work commitments and not attending the athletes warm up.

If a coach is not going to be around for the warm up it’s really important to write down and demonstrate the warm up you expect your athletes to perform. There are many things you can do as their coach to facilitate that the warm up is done correctly and as you wish. Maybe each person in the group could take turns leading the warm up. Put someone in charge of timing the warm up as well. Quiz each of them once you arrive ( as best you can) and before the session begins as a way of continually reinforcing how the warm up is supposed to be.

It takes a long time to teach athletes the skill of warming up independently while at the same time ensuring the quality is maintained as you expect. Training your athletes to warm up on their own will be an ongoing process.

I see from reading this thread that you are putting in a great deal of time, energy and thought and you should be both proud and pleased with the work you have done so far.

Parents can be both amazingly helpful but also not understand what is going on as well.

Here are some of my thoughts and comments regarding “ Your Experiment In Progress”.

  1. You explained from the beginning that this is an experiment and from the looks of what you are reporting things are going very well. I would continually be asking daily questions to the athletes about the warm up and institute some standardized plan which it sounds like you may already be doing. Would it be possible to arrange with your work to check in with them to see the warm up on occasion? If not just continue your diligence towards quality when your eyes are not on your athletes.

  2. The athletes you have been discussing are both under 18 yeas old. I think it will take a long time to get them to do some of the things you wish them to do. I understand the learning curve for them is steep but hang in there. It will take them even longer to do what you want correctly. I am certain they want this for themselves. And if they don’t they will stop or you will move on. You get to decide.

  3. I felt the improvements you listed for both athletes were very good. Any improvement as long as it’s steady and consistent over time is excellent.

  4. I need to see the hill with the runs to properly judge. I would be careful about the steepness. You don’t want to promote struggle or tightness. I’d focus on progressively increasing the angles over time. That’s what we did and eventually they will be able to handle anything. Remember you are practicing the mechanics you wish to ingrain. There is no rush as it will happen when they are ready and it’s totally individual to some extent.

  5. Without my looking at the numbers closely the volume seems high. However I also think you are thoughtful and prepared to back off when needed. What are you basing your current volumes from?

  6. Be careful attempting to replicate the world-class athletes training routines. We likely know very little about Dayton Robles. The drill is amazing but replicating this drill even a tiny bit will be tough for most. Your two athletes are 11 years younger than Robles and for this drill to be desirable it needs to be performed as he is performing it.

  7. 10/19/2015 You mentioned explaining to your athlete repeatedly what you were looking for. Charlie used to talk about this a lot. How you deliver information will have a great deal to do with who listens. Just keep repeating what you need and want and are looking for, put your athletes in the best time and place to achieve that and it will happen. It already sounds like you are doing a very through job and over time they will get the job done.

  8. 11/02/2015 was the first day of SPP 1. First day of something so it’s not surprising you had to make comments about the warm up again. 11/04/2015 was a great day and 11/06/2015 you decided there would be no running. My only point here was this was classic to me when I read it. First day of Spp 1 does not go the way you want it to , next day everything falls into place and then the next workout they are still paying the price for the top notch performance. It means everything is working exactly as you hoped. 2 or 3 years from now if you are still working with this group the consistency will be smoother with less bumps.

  9. I’d like to know the duration of their warm ups and I’d like to know the entire duration of each session. This was something I always did and I also logged it and kept track. I do this to this day. Time volume is an easy variable to track and it’s telling of many things with regards to performance.

  10. You made a comment with how frustrated you were with lack of discipline with the form over the finish line. This is totally understandable. Continue to explain how the difference between 1st and 2nd can be photo finish but to never give up until you cross that finish line. At some point they will learn this.

  11. With regards to the injury. I think it’s important you learn to follow and trust your instincts. Especially when your instincts seem to be serving you well thus far. Secondly I am not sure there are any good reasons to intentionally run an athlete into the wind.[/b]

73

Thank you very much Angela, for your thoughts, advices and critique.

I didn’t write that I miss workouts or warm-ups cause it is happening very rarely.
To be honest I don’t miss warm-ups or workouts unless there is something that has to be done.
TBH, I think that I have missed maybe six/seven warm-ups and maybe about eight sessions in the last five years (have to check in my planner)
All athletes I coach have been given written warm-up.
But, I know that youngsters treating that time like time off and the thing which annoys me is that they admitt via group chat messaging after the workout.

Re: volumes.
There is about 10/12% increase in total volume from last season.
Last season was basically their first one with me and volumes were based on the observation, the way they looked. Comparing to years before (from what I was told) the total weekly volume of last year session was nearly half to what they have run with previous coaches.

Re: Dayron Robles drill
I like that for couple of reasons
Great way to improve coordination, also great exercise to improve rhythmical ability.
Of course some athletes are performing that drill better than others, overall it’s great way to add something little bit more challenging. That drill is done on low hurdle.

Re: duration of warm-up.
Our warm-up with drills is somewhere between 50/60min.
Duration of our session is between 2h30min/3h depends how they run during workout, how they feel, sometimes we have abandoned weights.
Depends. More or less time of the sessions above.

Yeah, nothing like gut feeling.

Thank you for the support.
Much appreciated.

74

It was not clear to me what the warm up situation has been so thanks for clarifying this.

I spend a great deal of time on the topic of the warm up as it’s so often done poorly, quickly or progressive to fast with the wrong balance of exercises.

Dealing with younger kids will be exactly like this and we can expect that it’s their job to not fully understand right away. You are doing the right thing by addressing this and teaching them different.

Yes, our eyes will tell us where the starting point of the initial volumes are. Remember to always work well under their volume tolerance and not at the volume tolerance. One you see fatigue or technical deterioration it’s already gone too far and make that adjustment next time.

75

Last week training went reasonably well.
Athlete X started to jog without any issues so that’s good progress re: recovery from injury.
Athlete Y
4x20m, 4x30m 5x80 on Wednesday was quite fast and relaxed upper body strength.

Friday
Dribble Bleeds 3x30
4x20m lying on the chest.
I have planned flying 20s
4x20 from 20 and 3x20 from 30.
Unfortunately athlete was bit flat and at the end did 2x3x20 from 20.
Weights:
Squat 3x3,
Circuit: 3x(incline bench x10, hyper-extension x10, upright row x10, Russian twists x20)
Stretching.

Saturday session was short.
Warm-up B
3x quick steps in between over 6 hurdles 10 feet apart.
With the same spacing we did trial leg x2 over 10 hurdles, one step in between.
And 4x through the middle the same spacing, one in between.
Finally, arm action was very good, nice movement from front to back, very stable, wondering whether will be able to do the same at higher velocities.

76

Dribble bleeds??

77

during one run=running under control, stepping over the opposite ankle for maybe a 10m segment, then over the calf for the next 10m, then over the knee for ten, then sprint for 10 to 20m… Thats one version of it, there are likely more… its not the only way but you are bleeding in the full movement

78

//youtu.be/H2rZXu6k3rM

79

//youtu.be/1j_1LfQr9Jo

80

From KCE.
“For example, in sprinting, you can dial up the muscular demand yet maintain a lower CNS load by running into the wind and reverse this by going with it for the same running time”

Also 2002 Forum Review.
“I would always run with the wind unless I was concerned about muscle tightness or it was very cold (a head wind shortens the stride and may serve a protective function in some cases)”

Well, I thought that running into the wind would be safer and less stressful because you are not going down the road as fast.
I wanted to keep the volume therefore I decided to run into the wind.

Thanks for the advice.
Much appreciated.

Pretty much as you have described above. Only we are not sprinting, the action on the final meters is as close to the sprinting mechanics as possible.
The speed is way lower to what athletes are going to travel in the further stages of the workout.