What Can We Learn from Usain Bolt's Victory

[100m001]

@Malcolm

This has fascinated me for weeks, even months when I started to reduce track workouts after experiencing tendon soreness along with my training partner/brother Joe (Dawkins-Hackensack 10.31; 1995). We started doing all work on the grass and once returning to the track had a major spike in times.

More interestingly I learned that:

David Thompson -fomer world record holder in the vertical leap 44"-played basketball during his entire childhood and early adolescence on dirt courts and swore that it had an adaptive effect on his jumping ability

Michael Jordan and his brother Larry (who can still dunk at 5’ 8" and jumped higher than Michael until late into Michaels teens) played on dirt courts all throughout childhood in NC

Houston McTear ran on dirt all throughout his childhood

I have tried working out on softer surfaces (plyos, running) and mats which has increased my vertical about 2-3 inches (along with squats and step ups of course)

There definitely seems to be something to natural surfaces or “softer” surface in terms of the stabilizers which must adapt. I’m wondering if track work should be minimized almost totally until necessary (comp, pre-comp)

Yes, there is something to this; I currently train on a dirt track at a middle school despite the fact that I have crispy brand new tracks all around my local area.

To me the dirt tracks are more difficult to run on (in a good way) but once you run on a synthetic track you quickly realize that the dirt track paid off!!!

At the end of the day life has it’s way of playing tricks. We create synthetic tracks to increase race times but practicing day to day on the a synthetic track may actually retard or hinder the athlete.