The hands/wrist play an important role at the set position. If we are supporting a percentage of our body weight on fingers why are we not trying to strenthen them or at least do drills that similute the set postion and do it that way. Most poor starters along with many other reasons have very poor balance at the set position. Why? Block setting is obviously not always the case even if weight distrubution is perfect. What happens if they just cant support themselves because of weakness in the small joints/tendons such as hands and wrists. Same with ankles and calves. What are the stats on calves they contribute to 13% of acc in sprinting. What do calves contribute in absorbing shock? LOT. These numbers are funny though. I would bet my soul on them that they are wrong. So my point is… Why let them be all be weak. My wrists are very small. Are yours? If we are weak in the fingers and wrist wont it take more effort to keep your body in the set postion? If we have weak calves is that good for spriting. Is a fast car good with bad shocks. I need some new shocks. Anyways it would be funny to perform weight lifting x4 reps on the gripper. And calf raises are for weenies. Doesnt mean we dont need to do them though. And something tells me biceps play more of a role in arm mechanics then people would like to believe. Anyone like to blast me.
I would if I could keep up with the 10 different directions you go in your post! You raise some interesting points. I do believe that the energy a muscle produces is related to how much it can absorb (hence the stretch-loading). On the biceps, what exactly do you mean? The biceps do play a role in arm mechanics, but training the biceps just to train the biceps seems silly. If, I repeat if, I have an athlete perform bicep curls I have them do so with shoulder flexion because your elbow is not meant to work in isolation so we don’t. ???
My post is like the East German textbook of athletics, one minute im talking about relay handoffs the next minute im talking about walking mechancis. I hope you can follow.
If you want to strengthen your fingers in the set position, perhaps you could add a couple sets of finger tip pushups (bridge your fingers as you would in set positon and do pushups) to the end of your weight training. These are deceptively difficult if you’re not used to them or have weak wrists.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would be so weak in the hands as to not be able to support themselves in the set position… unless of course their set position was all over the place. Sometimes we can try and fix the symptom instead of the cause. Not always a good idea!
Im just throwing it out there. My track coach in hs who was a very good coach though not the best had a drill where the athlete would practice repeats of holding themself at the set position for 10-20 seconds where no actual start was performed. Nothing spectacular, nothing ground breaking, but when it came to big meets and athletes were held for a long time it payed off. If nothing else it taught patience.
The problem with drills of this nature is that with regards to the hands and fingers it is mainly the passive structures that support your weight in the set position. Prolonged holding of this position can, therefore, lead to stretched and thus weakened capsules and ligaments in the hands and fingers, especially around the interphalangeal joint of the thumb. After seven years of athletics my thumbs are, for example, now a bit hypermobile in extension, which can cause problems with some of the chiropractic techniques I’m doing. These problems are not too serious at this stage, but when I’m giving massages, for example, my thumbs start aching quite quickly.
If you want to do drills like that I would suggest to do them on flat hands or fists rather than on your fingertips. This way you still work the upper body and arm muscles that actively hold you in the set position (especially tricepts, pectoralis, serratus) while avoiding to put too much strain on the ligaments in you hands and fingers.
Point taken. I would rather just train the hands for strength myself. We performed these very infrequently as it was not needed every practice. I think we used a variety of exercises though I cant remember correctly. Interesting idea on your post. This coach was undefeated for about a thirty year peroid. His techniques were not all orthodox though, I would certainly not say by any means they were. I remember he was very strict on having your legs raised on the wall after runs of different caliber to drain fluid. We also had a masssage therapist work on all the athletes for free, and a very strong boosters program. Not to mention an assistant coach who graduated from harvard who would look at every possibility for every single meet and event and how it would be scored. These guys even knew the jv runners and there times. Thats where the real artistry in their coaching was.
It was amazing to see how they would manipulate the events. Brining 300m runners up to the 1000 and back down again. A 55m runner that never ran anything higher suddenly being moved to the 300m and winning the state meet. A six hundred runner suddenly being moved to the 2 mile and setting a league best. They gambled so often that opposing teams had no idea what they would throw at them. Even in close meets they would win because they they moved people around so often. It was like a chess match and every pond new there role, new what their points meant to the overall picture, and understood that if they didnt get the points a national streak would be lost. Keep in mind it wasnt about the times. It was about the streak. I dont believe there were any coaches in the country with a better understanding of how to win at the hs level.
Kinda off the subject, but I noticed you said something about having your legs raised on the wall after runs of diffreent caliber to drain fluid. I have also heard others mention this. How, exactly does doing this drain fluid?