three times a year I have to wear a suit and one of those times is tonight (wife's college alumni function) and when I get home several people tell me there is a thread.
Two thoughts, then off to bed.
First. I have no clue if I'll still assign all of this stuff in 10 years.
Second. We do it so we can run more and so we can do a bigger percentage of that running faster.
The irony is that today I said to an athlete, "Remember, you're not walking over the damn hurdles to get faster or improve RE. You're walking over them because it might keep you healthy..and it might not, but my guess it that it helps a little."
This particular athlete had listened to the Rojo/Cook podcast yesterday (and loved it) so I added, "That's one of the things people don't understand about Cook's stuff. Cook is probably doing hurdles for both an ancillary and preventive reason as well as for a power/RE reason, yet he probably forgets to make that distinction because he's been doing it for 15-20 years and so every thinks it's just for power." ...and if I would have finished my thought I would have said that the bounding, the ballistic nature of the drills and the 20m sprints definitely improve RE/Power and Coordination (not "pat your head and rub your belly coordination" but coordination in the sense that we all have more motor units available to do work than we use and we need to get better at asking for help)
Also, prior that conversation I made the point the Gary Winkler's voice is in my head at least once a week regarding "bad foot contacts" yet as a distance coach I firmly believe in a long run each week (though we've de-emphasized it since Houston with Renee and done more long workouts - 15-16 in the morning on Friday and 7 in the PM, though she always tries/does to get in 8). Now, if I'm honest I probably let the hurdle coach's "bad foot contacts" comment lead me astray a bit as a college coach, yet he's still get a point. Sunday in Boulder can reinforce really crappy mechanics if you're not careful and that's how I like use that comment coach Winkler made - get in a couple of hours but make sure the last 1k looks as good as the first. Or, when the long run is finished I'll use a bunch of lunges and see how good or crappy they look.
http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2010/01/why-are-you-up-at-1111-pm/
..and if you read that post you'll know that I'm confounded and uncomfortable with training the PNS, but I'm fairly comfortable going after a CNS stimulus...
Anyway, I hope I didn't take the fun out of this. Yesterd day I took a video of myself skipping backwards on a trail yesterday just to remind people on the blog that I try to do all of the dumb ass stuff myself for a few months before I assign it. I do the LM before every run and I can now run all of Renee's workouts (which helps me coach her and which frees Austin to run with who ever he wants to run with in town), something I couldn't have done with a 15:20 runner two years ago.
LetsClose with this. The Lateral Lunge (LL) WU was basically born 5-6 years ago after seeing Dathan doing some work Pfaff had taught him. Dathan was great in the frontal plane, even though he had a big aerobic history and a longer training age. I took video at 30 fps and in the latteral shuffle his feet are perfect; his feet are perpendicular to the direction he's moving. And for reason's like this Pfaff called him "motor educable" and that's why I'm trying to remind the CNS/PNS of the athletes I work with that they were once good athletes. Vaughn could dunk a basketball his soph year of HS...before he got cut and before Greg Weich was industrious enough and smart enough to stand outside of basketball practice on the day of the cuts and talk to athletic kids.
...anyway, I'm either preaching to choir or adding fuel to the fire, but either way you should all know a coach I respect called me out a couple of weeks ago -
http://www.functionalpathtraining.typepad.com/functional_path_training/page/2/
in reference to this video - and it was good for me...we now do 1,200 med ball high tosses each day to satiate me ego and to prove that we're right ;-)