“I don’t think I’d make any suggestions till the elasticity problems are sorted out…”
[Charlie Francis]
In Chris’ 100m thread Charlie observed the need for Chris (hope you don’t mind me using you as an example) to increase or improve his elasticity.
I believe I face a similar issue and I am having difficulty getting my head around tackling this issue. How should such an “elasticity gap” be addressed - through emphasis on quality sprinting, plyometrics, OL, med ball work?
If this has been addressed previously please direct me to the relevant thread. Apologies for repeating the same question.
Welcome all suggestions, especially Charlie’s. Thank you in advance.
After talking to several people on the forum I think I have come up with a way to help my elasticity.
My lack of elastic strength is due to a previous injury that has taken over a year to heal (completely torn plantar fascia in my left foot) I haven’t been able to do much if any elastic work at all until about 3 weeks ago. (I started plyos again about a week or so after that race I posted had been run) For three months I had to hop on one foot to the shower in the mornings. I was in agony.
There was a couple of problems in my technique in that vid (one was caused by me: arm action changes I had erroneously made) that I corrected yesterday and the other was my elastic strength.
(Went 2 seconds faster on my 150meter hill intervals yesterday from the arm mechanics change alone) I also looked over old tapes I had of Ben, Carl and Ato.
What I am doing now is including plyos between sets of hills on my long speed day (total of 80 contacts doing pogos)
On short speed/plyo days I am incorporating depth jumps, hurdle hops and squat jumps after my speed work is completed.
tempo days are the same, rest days are the same.
Another thing I am going to try is complex training.
After long speed during the weight portion of the workout I am going to include plyos between sets of squats.
ie: set of squats, wait 60 seconds, set of tuck jumps, wait 2-3 minutes repeat.
On upper body weight days I am also going to incorporate complex training:
set of bench, then set of chest pass with medicine ball etc.
I think this will help me with the elasticity problem. I’ll be sure to post the results of my next meet (100meter on July 26th) I am fairly confident that if the weather is good I’ll hit 11.XX FAT (Hopefully 11.5-11.6FAT)
I know you’ve been doing hills quite a bit recently - and I know you like them - but they may be part of the problem.
I used find excessive hill work slowing me after a period of sustained use and I now use it only for 2 weeks at a time and generally only in the first week of the CF 3 week phase (though I will be reveiwing this with respect to the ebook to see if it is contradiction).
So, bottomline, Chris’ ‘defiency’ in elasticity is remedied through the introduction of more plyometrics excercises into your program.
I have neglected plyometrics, never really introducing them in a systematic way (my bad!) instead choosing to focus on weight training for general strength. Was this a mistake?
Would this be remedied by introducing plyos (as reccomended on the forum) after sprints before weights. 30-40 fc per session. Is it that simple?
I am only doing hills for another week of my GPP and then moving into SPP.
For lactic work in SPP I am probably going to do 2 x 3 x 300 on the track with 5-6 minutes between sets and 2 minutes between reps once a week. (In flats)
Short speed/plyos will be increasing slightly in duration and intensity during this period and will include flying 10-20meter runs with 30-40 meter runups, more block work and 60-80 meter sprints all in spikes.
Dropping triples circuits altogether.
I think the introduction of plyos and complex training will really make a difference for you. Just get into them gradually and dont do too much at once. I am fortunate that I am not trying to peak for any of these outdoor races. They are just for pure fun and to gauge weaknesses. The real test is indoors (where I will likely run 60’s and 200’s)
Originally posted by chris30
What I am doing now is including plyos between sets of hills on my long speed day (total of 80 contacts doing pogos)
Agree with 23. The hill work actually reduces the elastic component of your sprinting because it reduces the force on your leg since you don’t ‘fall’ as far with each step (the ground comes up to meet you) This is a nice advantage if you are trying to reduce the amount of eccentric force on your limbs to protect an injury but it is exactly the opposite of what we want to increase your spring.
On short speed/plyo days I am incorporating depth jumps, hurdle hops and squat jumps after my speed work is completed.
Depth jumps and hurdle hops are good for elastic strength if you keep the heights low enough that you can get off the ground quickly. I’m not sure that squat jumps are of much use sicne they focus more on starting strength. If you really want to do them, then do them as a series of jumps getting off the ground as quick as possible after each landing.
On reflection I have being neglecting ALL elastic elements of sprint training (excepth maybe the sprinting!). NO plyos, NO bounding, NO of the more intensive elastic type drills.
My solution:
Introduce a low volume of skips & bounds into my drills, which are to be done every training day.
(e.g. Down & Offs, Skips for Height, Skips for Distance etc.)
Do some low Intensity bounding on Tempo Day
Introduce Plyometrics every other day to be conducted after sprint work before weights. Low Volume 30-40 per session (including those done in warm-up).
