Osaka Biomechanics report on Gay & Powell

[kitkat1]

@Charlie_Francis

We can guess about some things but we can KNOW about how many races were run and when.

Coach Stephen Francis has said there are weaknesses in his program - as there probably are in all other programs - and the biggest manifestation he acknowledges is Asafa’s historical inability to reproduce his scintillating Day-1 form again on Day-2.

That sounds much more like a preparation issue than a psychological issue, even if there are psychological aspects underlying any flaw in the preparation.

[i][ QUOTING FRANNO: February 21, 2008 12:00am

JAMAICAN track coach Stephen Francis says he’s glad his superstar sprinter Asafa Powell was beaten for the world 100m title last year.

As Powell indicated he was keen to start at the Melbourne Grand Prix tonight, Francis said he believed the shock of losing would pave the way for his world record holder to win at the Beijing Olympics in August.

"At the time I thought if Asafa goes there (Osaka) and wins, he’ll lose at the Olympics because he would believe there are no consequences to the way he prepared (for the world championships)," Francis told The Daily Telegraph.

“Asafa had an air of invincibility about him in his own mind,” Francis said, referring to the lead-up to the 2007 world championships in Osaka where the world’s fastest man finished third behind American Tyson Gay and the Bahamas’ Derrick Atkins.

“You have to understand that in Jamaica most of the poor folk are fundamentalist Christians. I mean, of the most intense kind. They believe the Bible very literally. They bring their children up in the same way,” Francis said. "Hence they believe that if God is going to bless you there is nothing that man or you can do to ‘unbless’ you.

"One of the characteristics of that is that Asafa believed that what he was doing was something that God gave him, some gift which he really didn’t have much to do with. And probably neither did the coach.

“I think what happened in Osaka brought Asafa back to reality and he saw things from a different perspective.” END FRANNO QUOTE ][/i]

---

As for the Triple-Extension issue, many years ago Loren Seagrave screened a video of the men’s 100m final he had personally filmed from the backstraight of the Seoul Olympic track at ground level. On that video - which Charlie has also seen - it was very clear that the entire field, almost as a line in profile, rose and dropped with each stride-contact as CF said “like a pod of dolphins travelling through the water”.

Of course there is some knee-bend in the running action. How else can you achieve the vertical component of your stride.

But the action for some sprinters who take their velocity to the max appears to involve them going closer to full extension at the knee than for other sprinters.

Anyone who saw the Sports Illustrated issue of the Atlanta Olympic 100m final which displayed a two-page photo of Donovan Bailey at around the 60m stage of his then WR 9.84 will have noted the almost lock-out position of his knee - if only for the single instant during which that superb image was captured.

The explosive action in the 100m is obviously a more hurried action than in the 400m. Probably that is a consequence of the sprinters in the 400m being more conservative (except in the opening 60m perhaps) in their action and with a slower stride cadence it seems T/E comes more into play, that is to say the extension is more complete.

(Just my observation, no science to back it up although there may well be somewhere in this Osaka report)

[Charlie_Francis]

Thanks KK. Good observations backed up by facts.

[martn76]

@Charlie_Francis

Something that causes him… or anyone to decelerate drastically? Lack of prep time at the exact race pace required. When you actually hit it and repeat it for the first time in the season, it kicks your ass.
Look at his leanness on the vid of Osaka and then at his leanness in Rieti, after all the races of Osaka… and an appropriate recovery (What I like to call a ‘TAPER’ … oh, I know, I know… he doesn’t need to taper…)
If you can’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it.
For those of you with I.A.D.D. (Information Absorption Deficit Disorder)
If you can’t learn from this forum, you’re doomed to be hit over the head with it by me till you do!!

Charlie at his best… LOL !!!

[Dazed]

One thing I can never understand is how people present physiological/psychological factors as being exclusive entities that only brush each other at the edges. Sports psyches love to sell themselves by telling athletes that they spend all day preparing their bodies but spend no time training the mind. Typically these are people that haven’t lined up for a race since they were 12 and have never performed dedicated systematic training in their lives.

Quite frankly I am of the opinion that far from being distinct from one another they are inseparable components of the same system. Every time you go out there and train your body, you cannot help but train your mind. And although some athletes may not sit down and actively visualize races etc, every time they watch a race or start staring off into space they are practising mental rehearsal.

The point i’m trying (not sure if I’m succeeding) to make is that you cannot have one with out the other. If an athlete is in great physical shape, chances are they will bring their mental game and vice versa.

The preparation in the gym, on the track and stretching at home, if properly conducted, will take care of physical and mental training.

[Charlie_Francis]

@Dazed

One thing I can never understand is how people present physiological/psychological factors as being exclusive entities that only brush each other at the edges. Sports psyches love to sell themselves by telling athletes that they spend all day preparing their bodies but spend no time training the mind. Typically these are people that haven’t lined up for a race since they were 12 and have never performed dedicated systematic training in their lives.

Quite frankly I am of the opinion that far from being distinct from one another they are inseparable components of the same system. Every time you go out there and train your body, you cannot help but train your mind. And although some athletes may not sit down and actively visualize races etc, every time they watch a race or start staring off into space they are practising mental rehearsal.

The point i’m trying (not sure if I’m succeeding) to make is that you cannot have one with out the other. If an athlete is in great physical shape, chances are they will bring their mental game and vice versa.

The preparation in the gym, on the track and stretching at home, if properly conducted, will take care of physical and mental training.

Exactly right. When your body is ready, your mind knows it and feels great. When the athlete meets with success in his assigned tasks, he feels positive.

[ferrari]

game day choker will always choke…

ben johnson never choked…ever !!!

ciao

[Sharmer]

@nanny69

are we ready for some more yet?
[b]

1. Introduction[/b]
   Tyson Gay (USA) won the 100-m world title for men in 9.85 s, followed by Derrick Atkins (BAH) who
   won the second rank in 9.91s, with world record holder Asafa Powell (JAM) attaining the third position.
   Powell led the run from the start to a distance of 60 m; however, after 60~70 m, his speed decreased
   suddenly. Taking the same time of 11.01 s, Veronica Campbell (JAM) defeated the defending
   champion Lauryn Williams (USA).
   In 100-m races, the important factors comprise the acceleration from the start to the top speed, the top
   speed, and the decrease in speed just before the goal. Analysing 100-m races of the world
   championship will provide extremely important data for planning the training strategy in a sprint. The
   speed analyses of 100-m races were conducted by using video cameras or measuring instruments with
   the laser beam method. This method could measure the running speed from start to finish with a
   sampling rate of 100 Hz, although we had employed this method for evaluating the speed of the
   sprinters during 100-m races.

2. Method
In this study, the apparatus using the laser beam (LAVEG Sport, JENOPTIK, Germany) was employed
for measuring the running speed. The error of measurement of this device is 7 cm, and the safety of
the laser beam is categorised as class 1 by the safety standard. In this study, we positioned the five
apparatuses at 64~68 m before the start line and 22~24 m above ground level (Figure 1). We
measured the running speeds during sprinting for all races of men and women, from the first to the final
round. In each race, five sprinters were selected based on their best performance in the daily
programme.
The measurement tools were positioned at the top of the stand behind the 100-m lanes such that
different noises remained in the data, affected by the tilting movement of the device, particularly from
the start to a distance of 40 m. These noises were removed by the spine interpolation; other noises
were removed by the 1-Hz low pass Butterworth digital filter. Using filtered data, the elapsed time of
10 m from the start to the goal was calculated using the distances-time curves data. From the
elapsed time, we calculated the running speed at each interval, the top speed and the rate of the
decrease in speed from the top to the last speed, i.e. from 90 m to 100 m. The official results were
used in the goal and reaction times.

3. Results
The measuring objects included 75 examples from the first to the final round; we obtained the data of
63 samples for men, with the goal time ranging from 9.85 s to 10.46 s, and the data of 71 samples for
women, with the goal time ranging from 10.99 s to 11.98 s. In our opinion, the data loss occurred
when the runner did not begin and qualify and when the laser light beam was unable to follow the
runners because the device was positioned high on the stand.
Goal time, top speed, the appeared distance of the top speed, the reaction time at the start, the
elapsed time of 10 m, the speed of a 10-m interval, the rate of decrease in speed from the top to the
speed of the last interval of every man and woman were recorded in table 1. These data represented
the data of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th ranked male runners and the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th
ranked female runners and the time of 10.99 s at their semi-final.

The maximum top speed attained by Gay (USA) over a distance of 60–70 m is 11.83 m/s; he was
followed by Powell who ranked 3rd with a speed of 11.79 m/s. Lewis (USA) whose goal time was 9.86
s recorded a top speed of 12.05 m/s in the men’s 100-m final at the third IAAF World Championships in
Tokyo in 1991. Thus, Gay’s top speed was 0.22 m/s slower than that of Lewis. With regard to the
women’s championship, Campbell (JAM) who attained the 1st position in the final was the fastest with a
speed of 10.56 m/s, followed by Williams (US) who ranked 2nd with a speed of 10.45 m/s.
The changes in the speed of the top three male sprinters have been recorded in figure 2. From the
start to a distance of 60 m, the tendency of changes in speed in Gay and Powell almost exhibited an
identical pattern; however, after covering a distance of 60 m, the speed of Powell decreased suddenly.
On the other hand, after this point, Gay maintained his speed at the same level, and decreased it
slightly just before the goal. The percentage of the decrease in speed was 2.2% in Gay and 8.1% in
Powell.

4 discussion

Do you have that on file?

[maris]

I agree that psychology is overplayed often. I really believe that the only psychological issue is confidence, and you gain confidence through training hard and being in good shape.

However, do you think Powell would have decelerated that drastically if Gay wasn’t coming up on his shoulder? I suspect he wouldn’t have. BUT, perhaps had Powell have practised running a race right through to the line earlier that season or throughout the rounds he would have been better equipped to maintain in that race. I really believe there was a psychological issue in that race causing Asafa to drop off like that. However, through superior and more thorough application, the psychological flaw could have been avoided.

And don’t think I’m not learning from this forum!!

[pierrejean]

In 2006, Asafa overcame a poor start (caused by foolish starter) in Bruxelles and came from the back to stay in the Golden League contest (which he eventually won).
Later, at the Grand Prix Final, Leonard Scott took the start of his life and yet Asafa managed to pass him with about 20m to go.

In 2007, after an humiliating defeat at World Champs, he breaks the WR in his very next race.

I don’t think this guy has psychological problem…

[Desideratus15]

@pierrejean

In 2006, Asafa overcame a poor start (caused by foolish starter) in Bruxelles and came from the back to stay in the Golden League contest (which he eventually won).
Later, at the Grand Prix Final, Leonard Scott took the start of his life and yet Asafa managed to pass him with about 20m to go.

In 2007, after an humiliating defeat at World Champs, he breaks the WR in his very next race.

I don’t think this guy has psychological problem…

Very interesting perspective.

[kitkat1]

@Desideratus15

Very interesting perspective.

He messed up in Osaka, no doubt. He admits it again in a very comprehensive feature interview/story by Britain’s Observer magazine posted under in the News section. But his (lack of) application to training is also “the angle” to get into this long article, which is a must-read for those interested in Powell, MVP and mentor-coach “Franno”.

[Sharmer]

But the action for some sprinters who take their velocity to the max appears to involve them going closer to full extension at the knee than for other sprinters

Not according to the data that was measured on Gay and Powell in Osaka. Knee angles didn’t differ from 11s 100m runners.

[kitkat1]

@Sharmer

Not according to the data that was measured on Gay and Powell in Osaka. Knee angles didn’t differ from 11s 100m runners.

So, on the basis of what you’ve read, you’ll continue to advocate athletes “sit”…

The notion of T/E is a coaching device to encourage athletes to run with elevated hips/pelvis. To take T/E to the extreme would be to reproduce a high jump takeoff action or something like it…great for a single stride, but rather too slow to replicate in a 100m sprint with any prospects of winning. The idea of T/E was never conceived as a coaching “tool” to encourage a stiff-knee robotic action…we call those race walkers:p

[Sharmer]

@kitkat1

So, on the basis of what you’ve read, you’ll continue to advocate athletes “sit”…

The notion of T/E is a coaching device to encourage athletes to run with elevated hips/pelvis. To take T/E to the extreme would be to reproduce a high jump takeoff action or something like it…great for a single stride, but rather too slow to replicate in a 100m sprint with any prospects of winning. The idea of T/E was never conceived as a coaching “tool” to encourage a stiff-knee robotic action…we call those race walkers:p

The data has also been reported in other literature. These are the kinematic features that accompany Gay and Powell. This research has shown that the best male sprinters are distinguished from their less -skilled counterparts not by knee angles during support. Factors such as higher stride freq, shorter coupling times are more significant characteristics from the very elite to the less skilled counterparts.

The term sitting is not very specific and is very general. I don’t advocate sitting nor does the research. Hip height is most important during the flight phase. The vertical displacement of the COM from support to flight phase is significant.

[kitkat1]

@Sharmer

The data has also been reported in other literature. These are the kinematic features that accompany Gay and Powell. This research has shown that the best male sprinters are distinguished from their less -skilled counterparts not by knee angles during support. Factors such as higher stride freq, shorter coupling times are more significant characteristics from the very elite to the less skilled counterparts.

The term sitting is not very specific and is very general. I don’t advocate sitting nor does the research. Hip height is most important during the flight phase. The vertical displacement of the COM from support to flight phase is significant.

Comparison of knee angles between sub-11 and 11+ 100m male performers is of some minor interest, the rest has been known by most successful coaches for a very long time, more than 20 years or at least since Charles Uni did their work on Ben.

The real issue always is how to apply information for the benefit of today’s athletes…
bearing in mind always that too much analysis leads to paralysis. It can often do likewise for coaches on the track, too.

[Sharmer]

@kitkat1

Comparison of knee angles between sub-11 and 11+ 100m male performers is of some minor interest, the rest has been known by most successful coaches for a very long time, more than 20 years or at least since Charles Uni did their work on Ben.

The real issue always is how to apply information for the benefit of today’s athletes…
bearing in mind always that too much analysis leads to paralysis. It can often do likewise for coaches on the track, too.

Yes and that is the difference between a coach and scientist.

[pierrejean]

@Sharmer

The data has also been reported in other literature. These are the kinematic features that accompany Gay and Powell. This research has shown that the best male sprinters are distinguished from their less -skilled counterparts not by knee angles during support. Factors such as higher stride freq, shorter coupling times are more significant characteristics from the very elite to the less skilled counterparts.

The term sitting is not very specific and is very general. I don’t advocate sitting nor does the research. Hip height is most important during the flight phase. The vertical displacement of the COM from support to flight phase is significant.

If 11sec group and sub10sec group have similar knee angle during stance, then sub10sec group has to support more around knee joint because they are running 10% faster. In other words, it’s easier to run with extended knee at 11m/sec than 12m/sec.

[kitkat1]

@pierrejean

If 11sec group and sub10sec group have similar knee angle during stance, then sub10sec group has to support more around knee joint because they are running 10% faster. In other words, it’s easier to run with extended knee at 11m/sec than 12m/sec.

[kitkat1]

@kitkat1

[Sharmer]

@pierrejean

If 11sec group and sub10sec group have similar knee angle during stance, then sub10sec group has to support more around knee joint because they are running 10% faster. In other words, it’s easier to run with extended knee at 11m/sec than 12m/sec.

The sub 10 group have to support more forces through out the entire body. It’s good that you made this post because this is the point I am trying to make. Similar knee angles on support suggest that the most important kinematic characteristics of the very elite are not differentiations in joint angles. What distinguishes the very elite from their less skilled counterparts are stride freq and shorter contact times.

What determines faster stride freq shorter contacts times achieved is the rate at which forces are applied on the ground. This is starting to sound like the Harvard model.