Where Is the weak link???

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
1

Ok, Most of you know me cause I started training just about a month before I got on here, and now, i’m looking at my times from my last control training(today) before my first indoor competition which is on friday.

I have a weak link in my running and I’m not sure where it is.
Today I ran:
3.76 30mts
6.14 50mts

where could it be that I’m not putting the parts together properly, I ran next to a guy at the high performance centre today, and for the first 20 metres I was right next to him, but after the 25-30mt mark he started to pull away, it was like he kept going and I got slower???

help.

2

Weak link number 1 is the timing. I assume they are hand times. The times you posted are not credible. 3.75 for the first 30m and 2.40 for the last (flying) 20m is highly improbable. 20m flying in 2.40 is 30m flying in 3.60, which is more or less also your stated 30m time from the blocks. This means that you cannot draw any conclusions whatsoever from the times. Try to get electronic timing. In general hand times over distances under 60m are pretty meaningless in an absolute sense, and are useful only as a training guide when timed consistently by the same person.

3

which is the purpose I’m using them for.
hopefully I can shed a little light on this, I was timed for a 30 meter run, and after that I was timed on a 50 meter run, the 30 was halfway through the training session and the 50 was nearing the end, also I ran a 60 in 7.5, hopefully these times are due to fatigue

4

In that case the comparisons are useless.

30m in 3.75, 50m in 6.14 and 60m in 7.5 are just not comparable times. They might as well have been run by three different athletes. You can’t make any judgement about weaknesses or strengths based on these times.

5

do you think it’s possible that my coach didn’t tell me my real times??? just to get me working harder?? because I videotaped myself running 60 mts the other day and I ran it in 6.87 and 6.94, and about 5 days ago a friend timed me running 5.96 on 50 meters??

6

If the sprinter you was runing against pulled away from you after 30m then you clearly need to improve your length of acceleration and top end speed.
Cone drills/fly-ins, perhaps more core work/ obliques. Even try tech endurance drills such as a “pawing” and skip drill done over 50 meters. Get those hips under your torso as you get to top end speed.

Judging the forward lean in your picture and where you are on the track, you are obviously in a pick up phase. For a pick up phase of a sprint I think that your lower legs are flinging out just a bit to much.
My mind is telling me that some where around your neck or traps there is either excess tension or something else. Could be an illusion though, I may be wrong.

7

thanks for the good input goose, and I agree completely I need to lengthen my accceleration and top end speed, and as for those drills I’d love to do them, but I don’t really know how, since I haven’t bought CFTS yet,(due to a money factor).

As for your analisis of my avatar yes, that’s about 10 metres out of the blocks, and the “tension in my nech or traps” was a forward neck crane I was doing so that my hat wouldn’t hit me in the back :slight_smile: plus the shirt is billowing back a bit.

Hopefully you could explain to me the drills you mentiones so as to put them in practice. Also I’ll try to get a video of me at this fridays indoor by… hopefully saturday

You mention it looks like my limbs are opening up too much, could you expand on that??

8

Ok, new info for snelkracht, on friday I ran the 60 in 7.43 (electronic timing) and I’m running the 60 again this friday hopefully I’ll be a bit better

9

Cone drills/fly-ins, perhaps more core work/ obliques. Even try tech endurance drills such as a “pawing” and skip drill done over 50 meters. Get those hips under your torso as you get to top end speed.

Re; Cone drills.
Here’s how I did them;
0-20m graduall acceleration.
20-40m max acceleration
40m-60m Try to maintain peak velocity. Smooth, relaxed, “step over”.
60+ Slow down, don’t put the breaks on, don’t flop, keep torso stable, just your momentum carries you untill you stop. Don’t drive your arms and legs, you should be jogging over the 100m line.

This is the way I prefered to do max speed drills, a cone set up at each 20m segment by the infield, or anything really, your bag, a t-shirt, hurdle etc…

“Step over” cue. Basically this means raising the ankle of the trail leg higher than knee of the support leg. However, your ankle of the leg you are raising should not kick up behind you so that the sole of your foot is pointing skywards. Rather it should be more under your butt than behind.

“Quick feet drill” run several steps, then burst in to a quick feet drill whereby you just bring your feet up and down as quickly as possible. The strides will be very short and they must be done relaxed, but very quick. Do this over no more than 10 to 15 meters per rep and do 3 reps. Rest about 2 mins between reps. Don’t use a ladder or prop for the quick feet drill, just you and your quickness, and nothing to concentrate on but speed and relaxation. No more than 10-15 meters as you want the strides to be quick and not start to lose speed.

“A skip” drill. this is a good drill that is described in detail elsewhere on this website. It is a commonly used one that has various implications. It can be done fast, but perhaps better to just concentrate on max extension, push of the ground completely with feet pushing downwards. Come of the ball of the foot, like in a calf raise/jump. The drill can be used for power endurance. Put a weight over each shoulder, or weight vest etc…, 5 to 15 pounds or do the drill between 20 AND 50 METERS, depending on what you most need to improve.
If you are doing with weight vest or any added weight then do it after a low volume of sprints. Especially if you are doing the drill for more than 30-40 meters and it becomes a conditioning exercise, not just a technique one.

Core work, obliques. Haven’t got the time to go into a lengthy thing here and I expect that you allready know a fair bit. More than me for all I know.
However, how many people realize that the obliques are atleast as important as the abs for sprinting. Do you do as many oblique exercise sets/reps as what you do for abs?
Does your core program include all the following elements?

A) Obliques and rotation.
B) Obliques and Lateral flexion.
c) Upper abs flexion. (Yes we know u can’t isolate upper abs from lower…)
d) Lower abs flexion (though some exercises work them at differant intensities)
e) Compression, vaccum.
f) Lower back extension. ( I expect you’re alllready doing squats or hypers or oly lifts.)

For some reason the obliques don’t get as much debate, but they are as, some say MORE important as / than abs, lower back etc…

Sorry for the late reply ahgchile, and your response was quite humbling, anyway, hope this helps.

10

>Even try tech endurance drills such as a “pawing” and skip drill done over 50 >meters. Get those hips under your torso as you get to top end speed.

this pawing endurance drill, I understand the concept of pawing at the track, however I have a question, in this drill, the idea is to “paw” or pull back at the track as I run?? or is it a static drill??

>“Step over” cue. Basically this means raising the ankle of the trail leg >higher than knee of the support leg. However, your knee of the leg you are >raising should not kick up behind you so that the sole of your foot is >pointing skywards. Rather it should be more under your butt than behind.

With regards to the stepping over, i’m not sure I’m getting it right, I’ll post a picture which has me from a side view, and I’ll let you guys be the judge if I’m stepping over correctly or not, I think I may not be doing it right.

>“Quick feet drill” run several steps, then burst in to a quick feet drill >whereby you just bring your feet up and down as quickly as possible. The >strides will e very short and they must be done relaxed, but very quick. Do >this over no more than 10 to 15 meters per rep and do 3 reps. Rest about 2 >mins between reps. Don’t use a ladder or prop for the quick feet drill, just >you and your quickness, and nothing to concentrate on but speed and >relaxation. No more than 10-15 meters as you want the strides to be quick >and not start to lose speed.

>“A skip” drill. this is a good drill that is described in detail elsewhere on this >website.
Is there a video or image on the site or somewhere on the web that I can see (I’m afraid I have a more visually activated memory)

>However, how many people realize that the obliques are atleast as >important as the abs for sprinting. Do you do as many oblique exercise >sets/reps as what you do for abs?
Ummmm yes, I’ve realized the importance of the obliques, especially after a control session where I was timed and seen how I had advanced etc… the next day my obliques were sore, I could tel that I’d worked them hard

> Does your core program include all the following elements?
A) Obliques and rotation.
B) Obliques and Lateral flexion.
c) Upper abs flexion. (Yes we know u can’t isolate upper abs from lower…)
d) Lower abs flexion (though some exercises work them at differant intensities)
e) Compression, vaccum.
f) Lower back extension. ( I expect you’re alllready doing squats or hypers or oly lifts.)

I haven’t been doing weights for the last month, because I’ve been moving, into my new house and fixing up the house at the beach, unfortunately I didn’t even get to the sand from all the construction that we were doing.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a core program, I probably should but I haven’t gotten that organized yet. can you suggest one and a time-frame as in hoe often I should do it??

>For some reason the obliques don’t get as much debate, but they are as, >some say MORE important as / than abs, lower back etc…

> Sorry for the late reply ahgchile, and your response was quite humbling, >anyway, hope this helps.[/QUOTE]

That’s ok about the lateness, I heard you could only log on at the library?? that must be fairly annoying. Thanks for the help and the definitions, ans for my response being humbling?? why would you say that?

cheers, hope to hear from you, and the picture wil be up as soon as I install photoshop back on my pc

Alex

11

7.43 is roughly 11.60 ET for 100m. You probably came through 30m in around 4.28 ET and 50m in 6.36 ET. This means you need to add around 0.4 - 0.5 to your hand times to get corresponding ET.

So your training times were: 30m in 4.2 and (later) 50m in 6.4 and a 60m in 7.4. This is not terribly unbalanced and fits in with the race you ran. Like most recreational male sprinters your start is (comparatively) good and top-end speed (and probably speed endurance) is not so great.

What to do? Well, at this point in time (and I do not say this demeaningly) probably everything can be improved: your start, acceleration, speed maintenance. There’s plenty of room for improvement.

12

Thanks Snel, and I agree with you I am a “new” sprinter having only taken this up in september last year, and having started seriously training about two weeks ago, I jus ran today the 60 again, and although I won comfortably (without pushing myself too hard) I did it in a slower time, I ran 7.66 FAT.

I agree with you, that everything I do can be improved, my starts are alright, however on wednesday when I was practicing my start, just for play sake I decided to “jump start” like ben used to do, and I have to admit that It felt REEEAAALLYYY good, It felt smooth, my 1st stride fell behind my COM and I could really put power into the start, I could also stay lower than my regular unconscious start. Charlie would probably ask me why would I change what came naturally and how did I do it consciously (make the change in start) to be honest, I don’t know If i did change the start as I was training alone, all I can say is that my body was in a different position after pushing off the blocks. While setting up my blocks for the race, I practiced one start, and it came out like this “jumping” start, but whin the gun went off, I was slow to react, and just “stepped” off the blocks >:P I still won even though I didn’t qualify for the final, but I got the taste for winning, and I LIKED IT.

I unfortunately didn’t get to tape the race, my coach taped it I’ll see if I can get it from him, so you guys can see it. In the move I don’t know where my digital camera is.

Well enough rambling for now, I’ve got visitors and I should get back to them.

Cheers all

Alex

13

the question is now am I stepping over, or am I letting my rear leg go too vertical?

If you ask me, I think my pelvis is slightly angled forward, and as a result I’m not straight up I’m not giving my legs complete freedom of movement

14

As i see it, your legs have actually too much freddom of movement. I say that because of the passive back leg. That is obvious on pictures 4 and 6, the distance between your knees should be much smaller. At touch down on pic 4, the leg is still back instead to pass under the pelvis, that gives too much weight and pressure on the support leg. An advice could be keeping your hands at a lower height (not higher than eyes). Reducing arm amplitude will prevent your back leg to be passive in the transition between back and front movement, -> reducing flight time -> increasing stride frequency.

15

Your ankle joint is lowered during ground contact as a result knee and hip angles are decreased. This deviation of the COM on ground contact will reduce power output on toe off . More often then not this is result of insufficent eccentric strength in the lower limb.