I would like to know how you worked on top speed mechanics in the cold, especially with no hamstring injuries. Is it because very high-level athletes with superior conditioning have better vascularity and circulation to keep themselves warm even in the cold? Would high level conditioning enable athletes to train at max velocity without increasing risk of hamstring injuries? I’ve read your journal, and apparently you were able to drop your hurdler’s 60 time a lot from doing hills for fall GPP then accelerations during the winter. If your athlete did the accelerations in the hallways like he did for hurdle techniques, then he has to worry about shin splints and slipperiness of the surface.
For basement tempo, did you tend to see a lot of improvement in fitness? or was it rather for maintenance of fitness? I sometimes do pool tempos with bad weather at 120 steps per 45 seconds, but I only found it enough to maintain, not increase my fitness even though my general fitness wan’t ever great.
Coach Francis always talks about importance being quality rather than quantity. I have no doubt that you have excellent eyes in observing and correcting techniques, and ability to program daily training sessions, but I’m really amazed that you achieved so much with very little tools on hand, even though you are a great technician.
I think I understand sort of where you’re coming from. I have a lot of experience training various disciplines, and had decent general strength. However, I’m starting to think nowdays that I’m missing some major puzzle pieces. I’m thinking there are fine errors that I have developed as I spent most of my time training alone. I can squat with flat back and hips back, but probably twist. I can lunge with my front leg perpendicular, but have use too much hamstrings to get up from that. I can swing my arms from eye to hips when I run, but with poor rhythm and too much tension. I can jump out at 45 degree angle out of pushup position, but have bad transition with each step. I’ve worked on and improved a lot of things I could from my own proprioception and observation through mirror, but there are things that would require more help. I think I have a lot of compensations going on that are bad. I think I have bad left hip flexor, leading to hamstring, TFL, and IT band, and feet issues and such.
I must have some bad habits that is difficult to notice on my own. I probably have muscular imbalance and bad tone. On top of that, my overall endurance, other than abdominal muscles, had never been good. There are probably more to it than these self-assessments, so clearly there are a lot of things I need to work on…
I know that I’ll likely do better than before one day if I get proper guidance. I still don’t understand how a great technician (competent coach) with just a metal wire (poor environment, as opposed to good environment equivalent to having a full tool box) can achieve so much.
I really think indoor facility with either track, grass, or rollout runway is required unless the place is always sunny and warm (I heard California and Jamaica are like that sort of) Of course, highly successful or rich athletes can travel to southern hemisphere during winter and all…which is a rare luxury.
Coach Francis always says quality over quantity. Quality may not be all that important for relatively inexperienced athletes with great genetics…but highly experienced athletes or less gifted athletes need that high quality training. Also, bad training environment can cause a lot of injuries too.
-if one is running on the highway concrete asphalt(whatever particular strain of pavement what have you)paved shoulder and its the right side you’re sprinting on, most likely the road is sloping slightly from the center to the shoulder, such that the left leg is going to feel slightly faster striking the ground maybe since the tilt. If I stop pumping my arms and legs and relax up too much from running in a straight line on this slight tilt along the painted solid straight shoulder line, I’ll veer off to the very edge of the road or even off the road. Is this the same as running the curve when you stop trying to stay in your lane and you veer off out of the curved lane and end up running straight.
-If you switch to the left side of highway so the tilt causes the right leg to strike faster and thus once you relax up slightly from staying on the highway you veer off to the left and off to the edge is this like sprinting mechanics while running the bend clockwise. This past winter i matched my fastest training 50m practice reps while doing the 50m lane 8 clockwise style on rubber track in nike pegasus(2002 50m straight asphalt track 5.3x-5.4x video run timed 28contacts; 2014 50m bend rubber track clockwise 5.4x-5.6x video run timed 27 contacts). I had done left side of highway slight incline hill sprints, max velocity style to 70m for 2 sessions prior to this.