it helped him reduce his down time by increasing muscle stiffness. the foot stike would depend on the % of overspeed, it’s thought that 103% is a controlable speed which does’nt affect sprinting mechanics.
The track was a 200m bank.
I know this method for overspeed as i often some collegue using it, but i don’t use any overspeed for the reasons already mentioned.
That’s not (I assume) starting on the bank but rather coming out of the full turn and down the banking. Also this would require a “pro-west” banked track such as you find at Arkansas.
12.14 m/s is marginally overspeed for Linford, but the 12.07 m/s for Nikolay is prob more so.
BTW, the Arkansas track came from Toronto. Built for the 1993 WICs, no-one could set it up so it was sold out of storage for a song!
with that particular athlete i used a mechanical towing divice bt with my other athletes i use the cord and down hills. we trained overspeed first thing in the morning and did the rest of the work in the afternoon in the pcp. all my athletes use overspeed after they have been strengthened 2 handle the muscular stresses of overspeed. there is an average of .2 improvement of thier natural times.
for someone who know little about his own sport u sure have a lot 2 say about something u know absolutly nothing about. and quik was right it was “not so fast” ,it was within the 103% zone which does’nt affect sprint mechanics.
Exactly, full turn and the 50-100m section is out of the turn whci is downhill. However, the 12.14m/s is average speed for 50m section, not top speed. Linford’s fastest 50m section during his 9.97 100m ER in Seoul’88 was 11.68m/s, which is about 4% slower.
You have a lot to say as well. 103% is not a lot and doesn’t affect sprint mechanics???
So a 9.77 guy is towed at 9.50 speed???
Towing, by definition, affects the mechanics. That much is certain. The only question remaining is: How much?
(Remember, top speed is the max danger zone)
Everything depends on the speed of the athlete you’re working with.
Would be more helpful if we could compare actual max speeds as that difference might be less than 4%, or, as I suspect, slightly greater. The other question I’d have is: Which alters mechanics more, towing or downhill?
Is your reason for avoiding this method because of the relatively greater risk to the highest level runners? That was certainly my reason.
PS Linford ran 9.87 in 1993, so segment time would prob be better.
It is a negative effect, in terms of flat speed, as the foot strike occurs farther ahead of BDC. The ultimate objective is to raise the hips, which will cause foot to strike ever closer to BDC. It might be argued that the additional pre-stretch ahead of BDC has some function in increasing tolerance to ground strike (that which doesn’t kill you make you strong type thing) though I’d prefer to rely on some sort of moderate vertical plyo exercises for that.
I think it’s worth thinking about the amt of “overspeed” you might get via wind assistance. I suspect it might be on the order of 1 to 2% for top guys and more for slower performers, and, as WA simply reduces the workload cutting through the air, the adverse effect on mechanics is close to nil. It can still be risky if the weather is cold or the athlete has been in a very heavy training phase.
i know my system works and i stick 2 what works. as far as the wind is concerned, when i used 2 run back in the day i did overspeed with the wind bt did’nt really find any noticeable improvements.
I think that if it works it works! Don’t dismiss something because as yet there is debate amongst sport scientists/coaches over the validity of the training method. However, it is always nice to get some evidence to support the use of a method.
Yes. Exactly right. It is critical to stick with what’s working until such time as it stops working for you. It is interesting to share experiences and try to provide reasons why or why not. Those reasons might be the right ones or they might not be the real explanation for success, but, in the end, it must always be: Results first, explanations later!
I know that Linford’s problem with sports scientists is that a lot of them don’t accept the use of a method unless there is a scientific rationale for it’s use. His approach is quite rightly, if it works, then do it!
Sorry, i’ve never seen max speed recordings during indoor 200m races, however, in the same indoor champ where Linford averaged 12.14m/sec for 50m section during 200m race, his fastest 10m section during the 60m race was 0.86 (11.63m/s).
The problem is that the litterature gives details for downhill running on treadmill which is irrelevant. Towing is well documented with force plates on track. Si difficult to say which one alters the most.
As for the reasons i don’t do over speed : alters mechanics, over fatigue risk and injury risks.
Mechanics with towing, according to Mero : over speed leads to:
longer air time (because you are towed?)
shorter contact time, but :
longer breaking phase during contact
shorter propulsion phase during contact
I suppose the highest the level of sprinters, the highest the risk. Anyway they are running fast enough. A 10.5sec sprinter may top 12m/sec speed with over speed device, but top sprinters do it at max speed. The high intensity stimulus they get through max sprint training is high enough (actually at human beeing’s highest level). Why bypass human speed limits and propulse elites to 13m/s? After 100m competitions, the better the performance, the highest the tireness and muscles pains. A significative example i remember : At Berlin Golden League, after the 100m race we all had to walk many stairs in the giant Olympic stadium to go out of mixed zone. The top finishers looked miserable while the last finishers would walk the stairs with more ease, this was 15 to 20 minutes after the end of the race.
Also, at over speed, there’s no way to escape and this is dangerous.
This may all be valid but since we are all not elite and the majority of us do not train elite athletes I think this could be a good method for an advanced athlete who needs some sort of stimulus to break through a plateau. Reguardless of what the reasoning behind it is…(increasing muscle stiffness; additional pre-stretch ahead of BDC having some function in increasing tolerance to ground strike (that which doesn’t kill you make you strong type thing) it could work well. Again the real reason it make work… who knows? There are too many factors, but used sparingly to get an athlete through a plateau it is a change of stimulus and neurological despite the exact mechanism.