New sprinter needing help (History Provided)

[ollie]

@kelly_clinevell

My 16yo daughter is trying indoor track for the first time and had her first meet two days ago. She is a multisport athlete and decided to run track this season instead of basketball because she wanted to improve her speed for her primary sport - softball. She has been involved in performance enhancement training outside of whatever seasonal sport she might be playing since she was about 8. We started this early because she had everted ankles and valgus knees to the point where it was almost painful to watch her run. The early focus was entirely ACL injury reduction. Since then we have strength trained with continued focus on injury production but have also been able to focus on force production.
For the past few years she has been the best sprinter and jumper on whatever basketball, volleyball, soccer, or softball team that she has played on. Not the best in all athletic qualities but the best in those. She expected to do well in track because of this and was interested in competing on a more individual basis for a change.
She has had exercise induced asthma that was diagnosed as vocal chord dysfunction. She has changed her diet within the past 6 weeks to a low glycemic index one that eliminated gluten. Her exercise induced asthma has apparently vanished and her dermatitis on her back has also disappeared. Subsequent reseach appears to indicate that these are symptoms of gluten intolerance/allergy.
She restrained her rectus femoris in her last fall softball tournament so went to her first track practice that consisted of a lot of jumping, hopping, and bounding and aggravated it worse. She was on the shelf for the first week and a half of practice. We took her to an ART/chiropractor who worked wonders and the the RF seems resolved.
Her events are going to be 55m, 300m, relay, long jump, and probably high jump and triple jump. She has had 5 practices before this meet. Her track team has consistently been last in the district. She has run a 55 twice in practice and hasn’t run the 300 yet. She hasn’t practiced any of the other events. She has done primarily med ball work, quick feet, and fartlek type conditioning. They practice primarily in the school halls and she had not put her spikes on prior to her first meet. The discussion about the thought process in the 300 took place on the way to the meet and (according to her) consisted of “start hard, don’t go as hard in the turns but still go hard, and go hard at the end.” The fastest girls were taken to a 2 day meet on a friday with the understanding that they weren’t coming back saturday regardless. The rest of the team went to a lesser meet on saturday.

Needless to say she did not do as well as her 16 year old ego thought she would. She only ran the 55 and 300 with the 300 coming first. The track was a 200m track with no bank at all. She drew the inside lane and it was obvious from the start that she was pressing and even appeared to be limping. She finished in 50.46. On the 55 she stumbled halfway through and then put the brakes on at what she thought was the finish line about 10 yards in front of the actual finish line. In that race she was on the outside lane of the 8 lane race and said that she was trying to avoid the people leaning on the rail. We didn’t get a time but she appeared to finish in the middle of the pack.

The 16yo ego took a big blow and I’ve spent some time trying to build her up. I’ve told her that this was a good thing because of all that she can learn from her mistakes and how much room she has to improve. We are continuing to train briefly after practice but I’m looking for some direction as to how to proceed to help her. Her training in the past has been for general speed for use in ball sports - not track specific. I’ve just purchased the master series of ebooks by Charlie but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Having lots of jumping, hopping, and bounding the first day of practice is dumb. Be on guard for bad coaches.

-Having an athlete that’s never participated in track compete in the 55, 300, relay, long jump, high jump, and triple jump also doesn’t make sense, particularly if you don’t practice for them. That’s an injury waiting to happen.

-Not sure why all those events would be considered if your daughter isn’t in the fast group of girls.

-It takes time to learn to compete in a track race such as the 55 meters. It’s different than conditioning races for softball.

-If it were my daughter and she played softball, I would have her compete in just the 55 and long jump. I think training for and competing in those events would have the most transfer to softball.

-I would also make sure she’s spending some quality time in the weightroom. That will help with the short track events and softball.