Also guys, in regards to my start, would what Tellez teaches be something you’d recommend?
Some of these drills can be very helpful if you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and if you are doing them correctly!
I’ve messed around with a few of these by myself in the backyard - exaggerating some of the movements and treating them as plyometrics rather than as “drills.” Felt sore the next day, but I have no idea if they’re effective as plyos.
Crazy?
stylee, I don’t think you are crazy for trying something. It’s not crazy to be sore from something that is different as there is specificity to all training. If you kept repeating any drill, you would adapt and not get sore. Constant changing of drills creates soreness. WE all know this.
My question might be is what performing these drills will offer you? Are they replacing Power Speed? Are these drills performed on top of Power Speed?
I think T Slow’s point about doing a drill correctly is very important because most drills I see online and at the track are done without a coach watching and or somewhat worse, the drill is not corrected.
Where does a person go to learn great drills ? Good questions right?
Search out the best all time results and accomplishments of the top coaches you wish to study from, look for the uniform traits within the training program and then slowly and methodically make changes with intent if needed. ( over time ).
Posted many times on this site have been the drills that Bert Hill video taped while Charlie and I were in Detroit with the Lions. On this tape, you will see the key drills we spent 6 days a week doing as part of an hour long warm up.
Yes, there are countless other drills but which ones work and who is going to weed through them and convince me they are better ( and why are they better?) then the ones used to produced historic results.
One of the things I fooled around with is the drill they’re doing at around 4:30, the leg cock-hammer down thing.
I did it regular speed and like they do it here, one leg at a time. Then I did it at that speed again, but alternating legs.
Finally, I sped it up, so it was a sprint - but with an exaggerated emphasis on that downward PUNCH action with the frontside leg. Focus is on not letting that leg get too far in front. The cue I was working with was PUNCH-BOUNCE, so that I wasn’t staying on the ground and pushhhhhhing off; I made it a POP.
To me, if I like it and can apply it, I’d use it as an occasional alternative to conventional bounds in our plyometric training. Bounds are more of a “push” AFTER ground contact to me, whereas I think these hammer-downs can be used for maximizing the impact at ground contact.
I don’t want my guys to fall back to some of this as cues for sprinting - I don’t like the idea of consciously doing “punch the track!” or “paw back!” when guys are running. Like Charlie said - sprinting is, at its best, hindbrain activity. “Pawback” cues strike me as a recipe for increasing ground contact time.
However, like I said, the idea of emphasizing the front-side movement and the initial ground strike through plyometrics appeals to me.
Angela,
I take it these are the videos you mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuCMxAEjlmQ
I’ve watched that several times in the past. I’m a big fan of the skip bound at around 1:42.
Is there any focus on getting distance in that one, or is just about getting a big push up off the ground?
At 2:10 you do a speed bound. Then the next guy does it and Charlie says “Good position emphasis on forward, not up.”
Is the idea to go as far as you can with each one without letting the foot fall in front of the body? Or is it more just about “Go forward and keep your rhythm” ?
Stylee,
Thank you for providing the link. This is the video Bert Hill taped and I was speaking about.
The skip bound I am doing at 1:11 is not very good. The skip bound I am doing again at 1:42 is not much better.
You want to look for a few things. Is my back straight? No.
Are my shoulders back? No.
What are the position of the hips? I am not able to extend my hips forward or keep them up. ( easier said then done as this is at hand what type of strength you need to maintain top speed).
Much of the sprinting movement happens with the combination of the strength and hip mobility. This is why we did so many exercises such as leg swings, donkey kicks and side leg raises , trail leg forward and backward and hurdle walk overs.
I am not sure I understand what you are asking about the focus of the skip bound? Think about skipping while simultaneously using power to execute skip? I guess the later is how I understood it. You are not looking for distance but you are trying have a sharpness of contact when you touch the ground . Does this make sense? ( I like to listen for what kind of sound happens from the contact. You can tell a great deal from the sounds you hear with a foot hitting the ground. )
The Speed Bound is different than the skip bound. I liked the speed bound more but apparently I was not ever great at this type of bound either. @ 2:35 I am doing okay. If I had been stronger it would have been the best. You can see the guys have far more strength but they lack the mobility. I am not sure it’s all about going as far as you can. Rhythm is very important you can see but it’s a balance of what needs to come together to get the most of a bound as a drill.
I think you are talking about the LS video at 4:30?
I was trying to make some sense of what is going on there but it’s not clear to me.
We do a drill that we called a " Straight leg drill" and it was performed over 10 or 20 or 30 meters depending on the time of year and well it was performed.
You move forward with your legs straight and pull back. I am not sure why you would ever practice this movement standing still.
Thanks for the explanations. Very helpful.
Seagrave talks a little about it at 4:05. He says “like the butt kick-thigh pop [drill]” - where you butkick/recover leg to front - but now starting from after that positive thigh acceleration has ended and the leg is starting to accelerate downward into the track. I call it a “hammer.” I’ve focused on bringing the knee high and then extending the leg down and POPping right back up. Like I said, I progress from doing this on one leg at a time (as shown on the video) to bouncing between legs. When you do it fast, it feels like something on the continuum between a speed bound and a full sprint.
Sytlee,
I am glad you have gained something from my explanation.
I find it somewhat difficult to explain some of the things I know.
Charlie was not making himself very clear in that video which adds to some people’s confusion in my opinion. I know this because I knew the man.
He was on fire in certain , hands on situations while he was coaching. This video was voiced over after the fact. I remember when we were there and he was explaining to the players in various situations, not just with the Lions. He was fully engaged and was able to demonstrate and 110 percent motivated to transfer his knowledge to whom ever was was willing to listen. This is why I feel the live footage he allowed some to take of him while coaching is extremely helpful in combination with the posts and other forms of his dialogue.
I encourage you not to take my word but take what I say from the context of who I am and what I have done and go see for yourself what makes sense.
I have said this before that the football players assets often had to do with their overall athletic abilities and sheer strength and on field play. Imagine these principles taught here more routinely applied to any team sport?
Dick Vermeil had told CMF once that the theory is fantastic and he can apply it to the players up to a point but the reality of the NFL players is there is only so much time they are able to spend outside of the very demanding plays they must remember and walk/ practice routinely. This fact leaves little or less time to perfect things like drills that sprinters do.
I played and coached football…this is unquestionably true.
Trying to make some adjustments…
(sub max effort striding)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Kh1hsc7wU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvchL67N3Vk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG9FAwYEfwc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djkiw69QhPc
I still am having a habit of staying too plantarflexed, or at least early plantarflexing, I think.
Here are some max effort stuff from today. These are even uglier, and they were slow. I tried to monkey around with trying to let the heels drop more. Like I said, it’s pretty ugly. I’m just lost. I will be meeting with coach Luck soon, as you suggested to reach out to him T-slow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX8-gtMz3d4
Looked ugly, felt ugly. Really had to force myself not to run tippy toed. Like I said, I’m lost. I know what I need to look like, I know I need to stop cycling back and kicking myself in the butt and stop going on my tippy toes. I see how Powell and Jeter and some great athletes run, I just don’t know how to get to the positions I need to be in. I see where they are, but just don’t know how to get to the right positions.
I think there is too much emphasis on horizontal movement. You have lowered your centre of gravity to bring your heels closer to the ground and are pushing and pulling too much, almost like a bounding action. Focus on the knees going up and down (emphasis on down) while staying tall (as if someone was pulling you up by the head). The rest should take care of itself.
I would do a lot of A and B skips to practice this downward motion with the big toe cocked up and the hips tall. This video has very detailed explanations as to what you want to see and feel with these drills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZH8NTDwF1Y
Thank you Robin. I actually watched that video with Dodoo last week and he definitely has some valuable information there. I have been working on those drills and also some from Seagrave. I just guess I really need a coach to look at and correct me when I do these drills. I can post videos of them if you like, just tell me which ones you would like to see. And yes Robin, I can definitely feel my hips dropping when I force my heels to relax, and it does feel more like bounding. I guess I just have developed a strong connection between flexing the ankle joint along with the hip, and I am trying to get out of that habit. But like I said, I feel like I can get into the positions I need to, as there are some improvements from the submax vids I just posted, but when I try to put more force into it, I can’t maintain the same poise. I just feel like I’m not able to apply force.
So, when he talks about the differences in those two athletes (the female more ‘dynamic’ I guess, and the male long jumper being more forceful) he basically tells them to work on their opposite tendencies - tells the girl who has good rotation to apply force and tells the jumper who applies a lot of force to get a more dynamic rotation - should then I be kind of following the cues he gives her, since at least what I feel is that lack of force?
I’m watching it again. I’ll try to emphasize that vertical push on the skips and also work on big dribbles. And not worry about lifting like he said, just focus on the push.
So, to be straight to the point, I have have been training with this summer. Things have been going quite well, I haven’t had a chance to get any film on me in the past month or so, but I plan on getting that done fairly soon. Anyone who knows me well on here knows that since April/May I’ve basically started to rebuild myself in my technique, and special thanks to T-Slow’s many suggestions, as well as everyone else on here, I have made a lot of progress (or at least getting back closer to where I was!). T recommended Ralph Mann’s book on sprint mechanics and hurdling, and it was an eye opener. I am so glad and fortunate to also have so many of you willing to provide generous advice and critiques. I have learned so much, and I want to keep it going, as I know that process should never end.
Another main point for me was how I used to hardly pay attention to some important details in my drilling, and it used to just be me going through the motions but now I really feel a difference. I am off my tippy-toes for good, I feel myself stepping down and the heel will make some contact with the ground and I’ve been able to take advantage of the stretch reflex that I wasn’t able to just a few short months ago. I have shifted my mechanics to be more emphasized in the front-side and can feel the swing leg coming through a lot sooner than before. Anyways, I can talk all I want but I know I need to get some film for you to look at. But I do know I can feel a difference and definite improvements have been made.
More evidence is also the fact that, out of our training group (even though I wasn’t able to make any races this summer, partly because I felt I wasn’t quite prepared yet in the middle of June, as some of my fellow Ohio 18-30y/o’s might also understand) I was still the fastest out of us. One athlete runs 11.4fat and I have outran him consistently, so it seems like I may have shaved off a good half second or so off what I was doing. Which makes sense, because when you watch some of the previous footage on me, you’ll see a ton of potential time to be shaved off, and it’s quite possible I’ve been able to manage almost .01 per stride or so. Take home point is I should easily be able to break 11.5 like I used to, and now I’m sure I am. And also now that technique has improved, I know I can gain more benefits out of my training.
And at least one of my training partners from summer will be able to keep training with me for indoors (the others are probably going to be doing too much with football). And our focus will be just 60m. Right now, in GPP til some time in September, so in planning out an SPP, I was wondering if it’s really necessary to have a large emphasis (we are talking S-L here) on SE early on in SPP1, as the focus is only 60m? On the 3 day HI sample, early on Monday and Friday are SE and of course speed change on Wednesday. If I do decide to go 3 HI, would it work better to have a speed change / max V day, an accel day, and just one special endurance session per week, since I’ll only be running 60s indoors? If it were just 2 days HI, would it be better off just going accel one day and speed change/ max v the other? Or for 2 days HI is it a better idea to still have the other session SE?
Hi Brett,
I would counsel against attempting three high intensity days per week. The three day per week HI graph is an example given for a high level athlete with a MASSIVE training background. Two high intensity days per week is the upper limit for most mortals.
Are you going to be training with a coach? Because you’re trying to make technical changes, I think a completely different approach than traditional periodization is warranted.