Glute/abductor isolation exercises.
I feel that the Stretch Relax program is a better massage than the massage program.
Yes, only massaging and using EMS above where the inflammation is.
Thank you, I will use the Stretch Relax program
Your role in keeping your daughter injury free will be based on other variables that have nothing to do with the schedule of events. YOu have no control over the timing of events , how the meet is run, or how on time various events are.
You will be able to teach your daughter to keep herself warm, as dry as possible and between the two of you decide which events are most important when. One meet you may need to focus on the 400 meters and maybe the next meet you want to make sure her relay advances. There will be conflicts constantly when it comes to dealing with coaches/ trainers in school settings.
Try and do the best you can.
It’s pointless to discuss what the ideal times are to recover. Untill you are at a very high level you will never get to choose this but you will need to learn how to best JUDGE what is going on and what you are going to do about it.
I hope some of this feed back helps.
It has been my experience that teaching coaches, athletes and trainers the idea of " judgement" is a difficult task.
[QUOTE=glaeser;249732]Hi Angela, thanks for detailed response. When I originally read the post about “speed workouts” and reviewed the times I assumed these were 10 m fly-in sprints, but having read ESTI’s comment about starting the clock on the first touchdown and a conversion factor, I’m not sure.
Was this workout 10 m accelerations or 10 m fly-in sprints?
Thanks for your further questions Christopher.
The workouts you have seen me post recently were 10 meter accelerations not 10 meter fly-in sprints ( which I assume what you mean by this is a fly-in sprint is a run I would take a running start into? Sort of like EFE?)
I may have said before that our fly drills ( EFE and or FEF ) were not time recorded. Charlie usually timed anything he could but his eyes were doing most of the work.
This workout ( as most that I will post unless I state different ) are timed runs from a standing, crouched start. They are NOT fly-in sprints. I don’t know what a fly in sprint is.
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I will agree with James in that muscles do not like the combination of wet and cold. The fitter and stronger you are the greater your general resilience but also the greater your ability to stay warmer for a longer period of time in horrible conditions. You would not expect a young athlete to have such resistence to bad conditions. Consequently good judgement needs to when it makes teh most sense for your athlete to compete.
Based on my 25 years experience and the experience I had as a high school runner your daughter’s warm up was not so bad. I might include a 10 min jog before and some side skips etc that I have discussed in previous posts/ blogs but generally young kids are doing well if and or when they any warm up at all.
James I am not sure what you had in mind but there is no way I would ever have any athlete do the volumes / distance for drills you are suggesting. Am I miss understanding what you are saying? 10 meters of drills are perfect as I would not do more than 15m. 100 meters or 50 meters of what drill?
Again, Rich, instinctively your daughters warm up was pretty good.
Conditions were horrible.
You travelled a long distance to do this, an entire team was a part of this, it would have been tough to decide at the last minute to do better.
Let’s talk about how it can be different next time.
If she PB’d last week this is the first very important piece you needed to focus on. ( maybe you didn’t know or you forgot. THat’s okay but now you are paying the price ( maybe?)
Either way you need to deal with what you have.
Likely she was not able to skip the 200m.
Rich , you need to do work behind the scenes with your daughter and coach her on what to do.
It was very good she went ahead and did some kind of warm up in spite of the others not wanting her to do so. Maybe in the future she might have some influence there or maybe you need to spend some time with who ever is coaching?
Keeping the athletes as warm and as dry as possible is very important in a setting like this.
ALWAYS carry green or clear garbage bags and or lots of rain gear or both. STAY out of the rain, stay dry and stay warm.
Rich, what happened before the race? Did you check your daughters legs before the races? Has she ever done hot and colds? What about epson salt baths?
Upon the arrival into the hotel late Friday night it might have been a good idea to loosen up with some light jogging and easy leg swings with light numbers of sit ups… All you are looking to achieve here is a sweat on the brow. 10 - 15 min and that’s it. I am not sure I would do an epsom salt bath the night before a race.
I would never do squats the day of a race, or lunges or anything intense as James has suggested. EVERYTHING done in a warm up the day of a race is gradual, slow , intentional and you are repeating what has been practice day in , day out for weeks ands months.
Angela, appears as if you misunderstood me. The extended distance drills are not executed as conventional power speed. The movement amplitudes and intensities are diminished in order to allow for greater volumes to be performed. These work fantastically well as warm up as well as tempo substitutes when athletes get board of running.
Second misunderstanding- the exercises I indicated between drills are bodyweight only, no different then what would routinely be included in Warm up I
To resolve the first problem I would just use extra layer to maintain temperature after warm up and go through normal warm up routine, I am founding unnecessary to use “greater volume” 1) routine of prep for the comp is not there any more. 2) If we haven’t done the alternative prep before why to try to do it on the competition day?
Re: drills over 50-100m or more, what for? Even if they are done as you have stated above with lower amplitude, the form won’t be there and most importantly what we are prepare ourselves for? strength endurance or elastic endurance just before the race, there are other forms of keeping body warm.
Youngsters I coach have squat, lunges, abs in there warm up routine in very low volume 5-10 only! Using them to activate the muscles and are done during first parts of the warm up, having said that I would never recommended those exercises for someone who has never done them in the routine.
“Do what you have done a thousand times before, nothing else, nothing special never ever! And If you can repeat what you have done hundred times before you win!, That’s it!”
More than enough experience, as well as research, supports low intensity activity to initiate warm up in order to raise total body temperature. I have used the stated protocol with tremendous success across a broad population of athletes (sprinters, field sport athletes, in my own training, …). I use the stated exercises as a substitute for jogging on occasion and in cold/wet weather they are more efficient than jogging as they are more dynamic yet still very low intensity.
I agree, however, that this is not something to do if it hasn’t been done before on race day; hence my stating it now which then gives Rich the option to encourage his daughter to broaden her warmup vocabulary.
Agreed. The calisthenics are, again, a suggested warm up means for Rich to integrate into his daughters warm up moving forward in time.
Readers must remember that minimizing the nature of warm up activities, particularly in such a young athlete, is a glaring mistake; not dissimilar from minimizing the nature of their overall preparation (i.e, only having a 12 year old sprinter perform track work and power cleans and nothing else). The lack of variation is akin to a sprinter who has poor upper body strength; in that if a problem arises with the existing minimal routine they are faced with big problems in the search for continued stimulation.
If she hasn’t got one already, get her a beanie, or something else that will cover her head without blowing off when she runs…
Honestly, I am confused and very surprised that throughout the week during ‘practice’ the coaches’ make sure the athletes are properly warmed up before doing any serious running.
But, at competition, when the same athletes will be operating at an even higher level, the athletes are told to go warm themselves up?
Especially when there are 3 coaches to 12 girls, mostly who are sitting in the stands because their events don’t start for over an hour or so.
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Rich, You need to teach your daughter to properly warm up on her own if and when needed. ( she did a good job the other day but there were many things out of your control )
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You need to teach her that when you are not there she knows EXACTLY what to do. Teaching an athlete how to make their own decisions is critical. For whatever reason the coach might not be able to be there.
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Imagine this. Upon meeting Charlie again in 1988 the plan was I was going to join his group and train. Enter Seoul 1988 and I did not begin to train seriously again until ( 1991 ) I went back to university after quitting school in “ 88” as reporters were following me around campus. When I finally began competing again Charlie refused to be anywhere I competed for most of my running career. ( this was meant to protect me from the ongoing media attention ) At the time my university track coach tried having Charlie thrown out of York University Track for one of my first competitions there. We were married already at that point for a few years.
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I used to take my grade school athletes and warm up with them to make sure it got done. I tried as much as possible to be there to teach them. The warm up taught needs to be routine enough that only a few pointers from you / judgements/ adjustments are made according to weather, schedules etc. Over time you will not be allowed to join your daughter anyway.
5.Maybe it is the excitement of the meet, the hectic nature of track season or maybe the coaches just get distracted? Some of the coaches don’t know what is the correct way. Some of the coaches never had their coaches teaching them the proper or effective way of warming up.
6.ASSUME full responsibility for your daughter , she needs to learn this as well for her but also assume full responsibility for your athletes as well . ( this is a note to all coaches).
I don’t get it either Rich but in reality it does not matter. Everyone coaches for different reasons and sometimes those reasons might not be in line with the same reasons you and your daughter are running.
Summary: Remember this : Who suffers most when your daughter gets hurt? Who has to pay for therapy? Perform therapy? Deal with all of the adjustments in training as the result of the injury? Yes… That person is you so it’s in your interest to take as much control as your daughter will allow and or teach her what needs to be done.
Thank you Angela for all the attention to my situation and your words of wisdom.
Also, thanks to everyone else who has added or agreed with suggestions given, as always, this is an ongoing learning experience.
K is better now. She has taken the past few days off completely. She helped with a meet on Wednesday, and today she did a little running and some weights this evening.
She is now hooked to the EMS on the ‘Stretch Relax’ setting… when done, she will get a manual massage.
I just now looked at the video of the 4 x 200m and it looks like K was forcing herself to try to run faster.
At around the last 50m, it appears that she changes stride, slows down or something, her left arm/head drops, then, picks up speed or tries to.
At about the last 10m K slows, as I assume she feels something in her hamstring and as she crosses the finish you can see her grabbing it.
I am posting this in case others might see something that may have contributed to her hamstring strain, other than the horrible weather/warm-up issues.
K is wearing the light blue and white singlet.
(After talking with K again, she said after turning the corner she started to feel something in her hamstring, so that probably explains the above description)
Looking at this quick my thoughts are:
- she actually doesn’t look warmed up that well…as you’ve said
- taking receiving the baton at that speed causes her to accel hard in an upright position which puts strain at unfamiliar positions.
- knee lift looks limited possibly due to tight glute med. on both sides.
It’s hard to know exactly what was the main factor in the strain as that stuff happens to the best of us…sometimes they’re not totally preventable. Staying dry and getting a good warmup can be a challenge.
At least if you’re going to strain a hammy, that’s probably the best place to get one (mid/lower quadrant) as they generally resolve the fastest.
First meet after hamstring strain tonight.
Coach has assigned K with 3 events: to anchor the 4 x 100, directly followed by the 400m and ending with the 4 x 400.
Keep her dry and warm and log her warm up exactly so we can take a look at it. Don’t tell her that as it will make her nervous. Watch her as much as possible. SHe needs you on her side to support her and you don’t need to say this to anyone but no one is going to be on her side like you unless you have an extrodinary coach. I am not saying you don’t . I am only trying to teach you things I know for sure. Everyone means well. NOt so many know what the heck they are doing. THat is okay. YOu just need to understand what is going on.
I don’t like the idea that they are going to anchor her for the 100 meters first race back after a hamstring strain. Who’s bad idea was that? Does not matter. DONT SAY anything to your daughter. Do try and see if you might be able to speak to the coach(s) about starting? I understand that this might be very difficult and disruptive. You need to decide and weigh out the plus vs the minus of this idea before you say something. Maybe you tell your daughter that you want her spending a bit more time during her warm up than normal just to make sure her muscles are very warm and take a few more precautions than you might normally to prepare. Remember Rich, it’s your job to note things, address them if and when you are able BUT not to make a huge deal of some of this. Maybe she is great. and maybe nothing really needs to be done. I hope the weather is good for you.
Good luck and I hope it goes well.
Thank you for your comments Angela.
There will be no worry about staying warm today, as this is a home meet and it is supposed to be in the 90’s (it’s 1:00pm now and already 85)
Yes, I agree about the 4 x 100 and have already told K to start slow and accelerate at a steady, slower rate, not to push anything. Same with the 400.
Districts don’t start until next week and this is a non-league meet.
Good little thread going on here…
didn’t read it all (yet)
See that Warm -ups are mentioned a bit…
Here is CF ref. again…this time…on the importance of Warming up
Joseph Horrigan
http://softtissuecenter.com/the-importance-of-warming-up/
the Warm-up, Training, and cool down are all so important.
For some reason, the Warm-up and the cooling down part is not taken serious enough.
It’s all part of the Work out…disguised or not!
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?8345-Joe-Horrigan-Articles
Thank you for posting this, what a great read!