wondering if anyone could help me out, im currently in portugal warm weather training and got talking to Pognon coach as i was in the gym and he said i have an underdevloped and inactive VMO and said this would make my GCT longer as my support leg wouldnt handle the force being applied, this was also said to me the day before by the irish national 400 strength and conditio0ning coach, what are your thoghts on this and how to improve it
PJ is a member here and knows what he’s talking about. The VMO acts like a shock absorber in a way and it needs to be active.
That was not me! I hardly look like a coach so i think you get confused and you went to talk to someone else! Don’t know what is VMO by the way…
PJ, it’s the vastus medialis.
Thanks rj24!
I’m not the one to go to people in a gym and tell them such things.
Anyway, if you had such a VMO, you would probably have knee pains.
He had the wrong guy! Funny! Ronald must be looking good to suddenly have more coaches than you!
The VMO might not cause pain but you would just feel heavy on your feet.
Massage and contrast therapy will help but there are a few tricks to help you. If you are unelastic on one foot at a time, start with two! Low hops with your knees straight, concentrating on holding your foot in the correct toe-up ball towards the ground position, should help get things going.
Try a few short sets of 10 to 15 hops with double arm pump action, then try a set of 10 with a 10lb weight or med ball held to the chest, then return to one rep of the original drill after that.
If you are getting a lot more spring, you’re ready to move on to the rest of your normal workout. If there is only marginal improvement, you might rest for a few minutes and repeat the process. If you need to repeat, you’ll need to lower the rest of your planned workout somewhat.
Check back and let us know what happens.
My mistake the guy introduced himself in french to us and said he was here with him. To be honest I watched pognon today train so if he only has one coach guess I seen you too lol thanks anyway for the info but still two different people this trip have said the same thing regarding the vmo
Try what I suggested above and report back
Yeah I will do over the coming weeks to see if there is any improvement. Interesting though because I do have pattela pain in both knees. I also run low as my kegremov stay straight Ithey bend a little so I guess this could be my vmo being inactive. Will keep you posted if the work helps my sprint time
Funny… First hint would have been i would have introduced myself in english!
This reminds me a story in this board with a member saying that he met a guy in UK pretending he was Fasuba’s coach, i can’t find this post on the archives.
You told me the one about the guy from Toronto writing to the Nigerian Fed asking for credentials as the coach of Olu. (No names please)
I am reminded of the time the Can federation held a dinner in Toronto, after arranging for me to be away at a conference in Mont St Marie, congratulating the coaches of the medallists from LA84.
My athletes were shown with the photos of other coaches who had nothing to do with them. They were gracious enough to leave me one!
Even now, Canada’s only medallist is shown with the photo of the former head coach who had nothing to do with her either.
Parasites are everywhere and the idea is to do a good enough job that people want to steal your work rather than blame you alone for it.
Maybe I miss understood how he introduced himself but he definatley said with pognon lol think I seen you last night in bar 42 lol wasn’t you for sure talking to me lol to be fair I foot speak great french.
Well there are other french people here but we are a separate group staying at an other hotel, so whomever he is, he is not with us! I met them all this week by the way.
See you at bar 42 tonight then! Writing from Pop Café, small world lol…
There was an article in New Studies in Athletics ( I can’t remember the authors…Letzelter & Letzelter? ) some years back and one of the conclusions reached was that as velocity increased so did level of VMO activity. This was due to increased need for stiffness in knee at ground contact. Might be worth a read.
Yes, it’s a logical conclusion.
Charlie, would I be incorrect in assuming that this type of work would be done a LI day?
Well I’d start with a few drills as part of the power speed portion of the warm-up before speed initially and, if it works well, move it to an AM session with speed in the afternoon.
It is also possible to do it also on LI days as part of the power speed at the end of the warm up if the numbers involved are VERY LOW. Go to the well too often and you’ll have the opposite effect to what you’re looking for.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense.
Can anyone speak to the execution of these low hops for vastus medialis recruitment(activation i guess)?
Would jump rope skipping(double foot contacts) inching forward progressively achieve the same desired effect as the hop exercise charlie advocated above?
Try it exactly as stated by Charlie, as he prescribed using the arms when doing the hops. The arms will be out of the equation if you use a skipping rope. I recall him stating he was not a fan of skipping ropes.
I have used a similar hops prescription before (as suggested by Ange) on a day when an athlete has looked flat or lethargic. It works!