Experiment in progress.

Oh, it’s basically a running A progressed into running while simultaneously trying to keep your hips up.
This is a tough drill.
Are you doing this drill every day?
Are you able to video this drill so we can see it?

What are dribble bleeds?

Do you know anything to do with an athlete when you notice they are flat? It happens sometimes and might happen at a meet so it’s good to have a few things to do or teach them to bring up the tone.

One thing you can do is do 10 double leg hops on the spot trying to go as high as possible, using your arms and with limited time on the ground. ( as with anything jump). Listen for the sound to be crisp.
Wait 1 minute and repeat but this time holding a 6 or 10 lb weight to your chest. Choosing the best weight is a matter of the athlete’s abilities and your judgment. Remember if it’s not light enough you can always go up next time. If it’s too heavy for the athlete it might not have the desirable effect as they won’t be able to react to this weight effectively with the jumps.
Do a final and 3rd set with No Weight and this set should be the best of all the sets and you should notice more life in the muscles during the jumps but also in the runs.

Did the tone come back or get better ?

You can call it a progressive A’s. That’s right.
And it’s difficult especially at the beginning, I remember last year guys were learning how to do EFE, wow, that was fun. This year they much better executed, it’ll be the same with progressive A’s.
We are doing it before every running session except recovery sessions.
Don’t have videos of running drills.

Thanks for interesting info regarding being bit flat.
Actually I do have similar protocols day before competition. Just to get the right tone.
If we had to travel and we have done training three days prior to comp, day before we might do easy warm up, maybe two starts or vertical rebounds that’s it.
On the day of comp most of the time with most of the guys I was wondering of how to manage the hype. Only one athlete I coach was bit flat time to time. I believe that nerves were getting better out of him.

i’ve used this drill to teach a good sprint position to kids who have their hips tilted over coming down the runway (anterior)… they start in a neutral standing position and cant give up that position as begin slowly forward running over the ankle, then they step higher and eventually push up off their steps once really moving by the end… I havent really found a better way to get them to run in alignment … sometimes it takes 20m segments or even thirty so they dont lose the position of hips and dump forward…i think the key is to end up in a sprint by the last segment with the body in line, and pushing off the track (vertically) …then they know how it feels to run “tall”…

thing is, once they get it, i tend to stop using it and we just run… i look at it as a bridge to better form from previous bad mechanics…once we cross the bridge we never go back… but i dont doubt it cant be used for a warm up and other reasons…

yea i hear you. the way we do it is its slow but it builds in velocity once we get to the over the knee portion, and then try to bleed into running , actually building up speed and ending pretty fast, its another variation…also, takes sometimes 100m to do it so it doesnt fall apart in posture and is a gradual gradual bleed… yours is a more common version… sometimes i have to start a kid stepping over the calf for maybe 10 meters and then try to accelerate away gradually , that’s another one – this is for long jump and tj mostly

It’s good teaching tool.
The first link you posted I think that that was fast enough maybe even bit too fast. Reuben executing this particular drill quite well.
Of course it is up to the coach which tools are going to be used and when.

This week we are training once.
Yesterday was a good session.
After warm-up and drills.
Athlete Y did:
Dribble Bleeds 6x30m
Falling start 3x20
Blocks 4x10, 6x30.

Overall athlete Y looked good, got tendency to popping up I guess the acceleration has been influenced by hurdle starts.
Auxiliary lifts of their choice (3) 2x10
Stretching.

Athlete X had a third scan this week. Looks like muscle healing process is going really well. Got green light form physio re: weights (moderate load)
Yesterday was able to perform almost full warm up (without fast strides) all drills, including calf dribbles.
Physio workout with single leg extensions plus auxiliary lifts of choice 2x10
Hopefully we’ll be able to accelerate next Monday.
We’ll see.

First session after Christmas.
Athlete X was able to complete full warm-up.
We have added dribble bleeds x8 over 30m plus couple of smooth accelerations in trainers. Looks OK. I think scare tissue started to pull healthy tissue around it, we are going to have a massage on Tuesday and we’ll use EMS to reduce it.

Athlete Y did hurdle session.
After warm-up we did:
3x20m, 3x2h, 2x2h on signal.
5x5h first two alone, next two with other hurdler last one alone.
Generally speaking still working on the hand action. Just moves it too high from front to back. However there was an improvement today, we had three runs with decent posture and arm action.

Last year run 8.3 over 60mH.
Based on the speed alone athlete should be able to run PR in the first race, we’ll see.

Yesterday we had a decent session.
Athlete X:
3x30 dribble bleeds
3x20 falling start
2x3x60 controlled
Athlete X was able to complete full workout without issues or soreness.
Recovery is going really well, we’ll see whether we are going to compete indoors or not, maybe in February.

Athlete Y had a good session.
3x20
5x2h
4x8h (two feet in, 1-6@91cm, 7th@1m, 8th@1.07m)
Touchdowns h1 were between 2.60-2.68 I am very happy about those figures and even happier about form of execution.
8h runs were quite smooth. Athlete was told to slow down just enough to retain full control while running.

Interesting thing happened.
By slowing down and improving technique athlete was able to run faster then when trying to run fast with touchdowns between 1.01-1.08.

Because we didn’t go the the gym I decided to use sled 10kg and medballs
Athlete did:
3x30m
Both athletes also performed medball throws
x5 single hop chest push for distance,
x5 double hop chest push for distance,
x5 BLF.
200 abs
Stretching

Also I have purchased EMS unit
GLOBUS Premium 400 for a quite good price.

Yesterday we were mainly focusing on acceleration.
Athlete X didn’t feel too great, looks to me like ordinary cold symptoms, didn’t want to go home, so we did dribble bleeds over 30m x6/8

Athlete Y did
3x20
4x2h
4x3h
H1 has to be improved.
There has been a good overall improvement re: technique, however athlete tend to go too high over the 1st hurdle.
We’ll have first competition next week Wednesday. I think to let hurdlers to do 60 flat instead of hurdles.

Training is going reasonably well.
Even thou we were training (couple of days) during Christmas /new year time I am finding that this period knocked us out of the routine and sharpens.
Wednesday athlete X was feeling better on Wednesday. We focused only on acceleration after warm-up we did dribble bleeds 4x30m and accelerations 6x30m,
Upper body strength:
Shoulder press, bench row, lats 3x10
Also physio exercises with leg extensions and half squats.
I think that we’ll be ready to go bit faster on Monday.

Athlete Y did 3x20, 3x2h, 2x3h @1m, 1 foot in and 3x8h @91cm 2feet in.
Decent form, looking bit more stable.
Having said that running at 91 and at 1m height are two different things.
First hurdle comp around end of Jan so we have about three weeks to tune up.

Friday athlete Y did
3x20m falling start
4x10 blocks
3x30 blocks on signal
4x50m times were between 6.05-6.12
Looked relax, to be honest thought that was able to travel bit faster.

Tonight was a good session.
Athlete Y did:
3x20 falling start
3x10 blocks
4x30 blocks
2x50 blocks
Starts looked good, even thou the condition weren’t the best bit too cold.
Guess the second part of the season should be dedicated towards improvements of initial phase of the acceleration. We have improved however there is too much cycling to my taste.
Two 50s were smooth, yet again not particularly fast but. We’ll it be able to step up when it’s matter, that it remains to be seen.
After 50s we performed 3x10m blocks start, they were much better then the one before 50s.

Athlete X did
Dribble bleeds 4x30
Falling starts 3x20
Rolling starts 3x30
Athlete looks good, I think there is bit of psychological barrier, not ready to fully commit to the execution.
I planned 6x60 but finished after 5th rep it was good run so decided that it was enough.

Session for athlete X was 4x20m and 2x300 outdoors couldn’t use indoors because of the competition.
Athlete X is buzzing, however I am trying to have bit more of conservative approach until athlete is ready to go.

Competition day for athlete Y.
Start wasn’t the best one, instead of being relaxed, athlete was trying to force the acceleration and consequently was a bit too tight. Came up too soon.
After 20m was able to relax (had a weird arm action was bit side to side I do prefer bit more linear action) Nevertheless managed to run low 6.9.

Based on the second 30m I decided that we won’t be running in the second round.

In general good day for the whole squad.
Several PRs if they didn’t run PR most of the time were within 0.02 from PR. I think it is a good opener

Excellent! Sounds like great progress thus far! Congrats! (:

Congratulations on a solid opening wermouth

Brett and James, thanks a lot guys.
Much appreciated

Wermouth.

Athlete X did today dribble bleeds 3x4x30m. With every session is looking better and better. We have been using EMS extensively, I think that athlete will be ready to go as of next week Monday.

Athlete Y, I decided not to run today and shift focus on technical aspect of hurdles, we did 2x3x5h @91 height 15feet apart.
Focus was on arm and quick steps in between.
Execution of steps was good however rep 3&4 started to swing arm out too high. I asked to drop speed a bit and focus on correct execution. Last two reps were very good. Finished as always with stretching.

Athlete X had a treatment recently, Physio decided to do massage and acupuncture and athlete went along with the suggestion.
Good news is that injured place doesn’t hurt, well the bad news is that after sticking several needles leg hurts in what seems to be total healthy place, WTF?!

Last week was decent.
Athlete X.
Moving better than last week/two weeks ago.
On Monday we did dribble bleeds 3x3x40

Wednesday.
I have abandoned running session. Athlete looked bit odd to me. Literally after 2nd rep of planned accelerations we finished the running part.
Moved to gym. We are still doing physio workouts on top of our workout.
Which is fine cause we have been developing upper body.

Friday. Session was short athlete X had to go somewhere so.
Dribble Bleeds x4 over 30m+ acceleration 4x20m.

Athlete Y.
Monday (last week) wasn’t up for hurdling after 3rd start we stopped the hurdles and moved to flat runs.
2x20m, 3x30m finished with 3x50m full recovery.
I tried bit of luck on Wednesday with hurdles, it was much better.
Session was 3x20m, 3x2h, 2x3h, 3x8h @0.91m. It was quite smooth however lead arm just drives me crazy, doing all the drills athlete is looking very stable and compact, as soon as we are going sub-max lead arm is all over the place.

Friday.
We did falling starts x3x20m, blocks 3x10m+3x30,
Finishing with 3x50. First 50 was done with other athlete. After first run I decided that athlete will finish the workout but, has to run alone.

Yesterday.
Athlete X
Falling start 2x4x20
2x3x60
Finally
We are able to move.
Session was good. Didn’t finish the workout. Workout was finished after 5th rep of 60m.
I was expecting to be at this recovery stage about three weeks ago.
Unfortunately it didn’t happen.
We are where we are.

Athlete Y didn’t have the best session.
Arms all over the shop,
Did 3x20m, 3x2h, 3x3h, 3x5h
I think upper body is going to sorted out when action of lead leg get better.
From observation I can say that most of hurdlers performing actions bit out with lead leg creating more effective stretching shortening reflex, athlete Y has action in consequently not allowing trial leg to fall in the right position /place. To be honest I am bit frustrated.

Athlete X,
Dribble bleeds 4x30
3x20m falling start,
4x10 blocks + 5xEFE (20m)
I am pleased with the movement and sharpness. Form of the runs was good. The only thing that changed visibly is ground contact, athlete is not as stiff around ankle joint as it was about six/seven weeks ago.

Athlete Y- hurdles day, I decided to do starts.
2x20m falling start
2x30m falling start
6x2h+4x3h from blocks.
Session was much better then on Monday.
At the full speed still attacking not as I want it, still, better then on Monday, too much medial movement (left leg is our lead leg, too much movement to the right) with lead leg. All drills at closed spacing with one or three steps in between looked very good, but, yet again when moving with higher velocities the elements which I do try to develop falling apart. F…!
I feel a bit of a strain, I guess that I am running out of ideas of how to sort it out.
I said to myself that if athlete is not going to make a good improvements over the hurdles this year we’ll abandon the hurdles and move to the flat events.

There is something about that athlete which makes me feel that when it will gets right, it will be very fast.
As history showed us, time (training age) in hurdles is essential and necessary aspect in development even in further stages of athletes career.
Maybe we need more time, maybe athlete needs more time to understand the event.
We’ll see.