Bert took this video a long time ago and I don’t remember if the guys had done the drills but based on the comments from Charlie I don’t think they had.
We were there for 2 weeks and what has always impressed me with the professional football players and basketball players I was around , was how easily each person was able to pick up the drills.
I did drills including A skip, B skips, Running A’s , almost every day for the past 20 plus years. I continue to do drills even if that is as far as my training allows. Drills for me generally are a priority in my training both personally and when I teach and or coach are person.
Everything you say T’Slow is bang on about drills.
Thanks for the video. In regard to T-Slow, most of my contemporaries have been brought up on Seagrave version of drills, what are good sources of drills that Charlie (and you guys) like(d)?
[QUOTE=AJP;245322]Great find, thanks!
Who’s the lady? Angela, is that you?[/QUOTE
Al Vermeil gave me a copy of this upon my request in the past year but I could not post it as I did not have permission to do so.
I was trying to find a way to give it away as it’s an excellent example of Coach Charlie Francis teaching professional football players track and field drills.
The video also has the important comments for everyone to hear and see first hand.
One thing I would like to point out about my own running A’s at the time which was very early on in my serious training for track. I want to say ~ 1991 but I have to check my books and double check the dates. I was not using my arms enough. I was too weak at that point and not able to pump my arms the way I was able to do so later on when my strength improved. This is something you can not rush in program as many of you will know. As a coach you are not able to emphasize all things all the time. This does not mean I stopped doing the drill because doing the drill over time is one way you get better at that drill. In the spring and in the fall we used to do our drills up a small incline ( hill) to encourage better use of the arms.
Yes AJP. The lady in the video is me
this is the camp where I did a push up sit up workout ( 2 sets of 100 meter with 25 sit ups and 10 push ups on either end of the 100 meters) with one of the quarter backs and beat him on every run. Goes to show you how specific certain workouts can be. I was used to doing that workout but he had never done it. ( big ego boost for me at the time as I actually thought it meant something … all it meant was I had done that workout many times before and he had not.
Cf mentioned something to this effect several times in the DVDs that some things will take a season or two to achieve certain goals. It simply takes time to develop the proper qualities.
Andreas Behm (Coach of Aries Merritt):
“It took us two or even three years to get to this point.” re: 8 step to 7 step approach to the 1st hurdle.
“The work on this started two seasons ago when we were still using an 8 step approach. On acceleration days Aries would alternate his front feet on each rep, so as to get used to having his unaccustomed foot forward in the blocks.”
We all have for the most part heard about the horror stories of trying to change things in training at the last minute…including starts/blocks (even at the Olympic games).
Videos like this are really helpful, to see athletes at varying stages in their mastery, along with comments on what’s good and what needs to be worked on. You can only learn so much from watching the elite, and while they might be nice examples of what to aspire to in terms of form, it certainly doesn’t tell you how they developed that form. When the athletes you work with are more akin to those featured in this video, videos like this one and the SA series are really valuable practical tools.
I used this correction for a weaker female today and it improved her times quite a bit. Thanks for sharing this tip! I was trying to get into a position she obviously couldn’t handle. We are working on strength with throws, weights, jumps, hills. It will be interesting to see how she progresses.
Yes, thanks for this. As someone without a formal track background, this is a great way to see what Charlie was looking for in some of these drills and starts. I really appreciate this, and it is easy enough to show my non-track athletes this!
Videos like this are really helpful, to see athletes at varying stages in their mastery, along with comments on what’s good and what needs to be worked on. You can only learn so much from watching the elite, and while they might be nice examples of what to aspire to in terms of form, it certainly doesn’t tell you how they developed that form. When the athletes you work with are more akin to those featured in this video, videos like this one and the SA series are really valuable practical tools.
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I think there is a lot of valuable info watching the coaching of others as you say.
I have been at a few tracks recently watching people do random drills with no one watching or coaching. I do not understand this.
Until you are strong enough and experienced enough it’s important to have a coach watching the training to point out what is going on.
Angela
Great point. I love it (OK, I can’t stand it) when athletes and sport coaches ask me to give them a few drills to do (on their own, of course) that will magically get them faster!
[b][i]i hate drills…i feel like you should do them one or two times in a session, then run right away,incorporate during a sprint rep, then hopefully discard that drill and never do it again… at least as far as teaching …
For warming up i understand using drills, but there aren’t many you need to do that. I don’t see a transfer at all. They get good at the drill, and not the actual run. At least that’s been my experience.
The running drills you are referring to are a specific breakdown of running itself.
What better way to work on running than to have a few simple and repeatable drills to build the muscles needed for running well which in turn should facilitate or allow you to run fast or faster. ( " should" = we all know drills don’t make you fast)
Just because you hate doing something does not render it unimportant and not having value.
WE do them, but I usually use them for a warm up. I like the hurdle step overs better for range of motion. I think that helps a lot. I just don’t like A skips and B skips whereby theres an expectation that they will transfer. Most of my kids cant chew gum n walk, so rather than work on drills we just work on running while running. That in itself takes a lot.
I see drills as an important component of the warm-up for number of reasons. 1) Coordination, it’s hard to imagine that you’ll try to do something fast with good efficiency without doing it correctly at slower motion. 2) Awareness, athletes are not robots therefore awareness of body parts is extremely important most of the youngsters are not aware of what’s going on while running at sub-max/max. You have said that “Most of my kids cant chew gum n walk” and for that reason I believe that you should spend more time to develop those two qualities above. Pfaff, Seagrave, Schexnayder , Ritzdorf etc… all are spending big amount of time on developing those qualities at the elite level doing basic drills/exercises, so to me it’s even a bigger deal to develop those two above at the beginner level! Charlie was stressing importance of coordination as a “The subtleties of max speed work”. I do agree that drills will not always transfer and they won’t transfer for as long as COGNITIVE approach is not applied effectively into the every training session. Basics first also, do it right otherwise don’t do it at all.
