I think this is what America's distance running problem is: the most talented athletes are always injured. Why is that?

Wow...you seem to be in serious denial and have a chip on your shoulder. Not sure if it is productive to continue, but let me say this:

You seem to dismiss that the three ladies he coached, yes talented, but at an ACC and NCAA level, he helped get them all to an Olympic level. The numbers don't lie, look at their times before and after and it's significant improvement and they stayed healthy during this time.

Two were injured when he got them (one was though a potential career ender) and the third no one else would coach.

If this is luck then please give me a double helping.

You can't argue with results, unless its on letsrun...

OK.. I have to agree that is the best book I have read in the past few years (it's in paperback too, which for some reason Black Swan isn't still). Brilliant and enjoyable.

But after 30+ years of dealing with injuries in this sport, I am not as fatalistic about this. I think there are things that can be done to make athletes stronger and healthier and minimize (not eliminate) injuries.

I suggested that some of the core strengthening exercises that many coaches deploy (including Cook) may be be one of those things and also avoiding Monte Carlo coaching (throw a bunch of runners at the same training program and get 1-2 survivors each year that do well). You took this as an opportunity to rant about Cook, which was not the point I was making...

Stating the obvious wrote:

OK.. I have to agree that is the best book I have read in the past few years (it's in paperback too, which for some reason Black Swan isn't still). Brilliant and enjoyable.

But after 30+ years of dealing with injuries in this sport, I am not as fatalistic about this. I think there are things that can be done to make athletes stronger and healthier and minimize (not eliminate) injuries.

I suggested that some of the core strengthening exercises that many coaches deploy (including Cook) may be be one of those things and also avoiding Monte Carlo coaching (throw a bunch of runners at the same training program and get 1-2 survivors each year that do well). You took this as an opportunity to rant about Cook, which was not the point I was making...

I have no doubt some activities might mitigate the onset of some injuries, yet I'm also open to the idea that jumping jacks and dipthongs, especially as promoted by a dogmatic taskmaster, would cause injuries that would never normally occur, and that more time with low-impact aerobic training is better for distance runners than Rockettes tryout maneuvers.

A few things:

W/o a doubt, are top athletes are injured a lot and I say that by comparing it to the top NCAA and pro athletes in other sports. In NCAA football, I can only think of 2 ‘major’ star athletes who were injured to the point were it kelp them our of games. Consider the fact that football is a violent contact sport and athletes play a game every week. In the NBA, Shaq, Yao Ming and Tony Parker are the only athletes that I can think of whose season in being compromised by injuries. There are 28 NBA teams and they play at least 2 games a week for almost half a year. I respect the fact that there are unique things to being an endurance athlete and injuries are part of the equation, but world class, cyclists and triathletes rarely miss major competitions.

Contrast that with Colorado and Michigan, for an NCAA example, every year, half of their top distance runners are hurt or on the pro level, at least half of the U.S. top distance runner are injured or rumored to be injured. Now, I know we all get sick and injured, even as a weekend warrior runner, it happens to me from time to time. But, as of right now, the situation has gotten particularly bad...our top athletes rarely compete. Except for Lagat, almost no one ran any Europe indoor races, we did not field a competitive World Cross team and over half of the athletes did show up to the U.S. indoor national championship - You can't have a sport where the fans and supporters rarely see it's top athletes.

In the late 70s to early 80s, which was my competitive era, most athletes did their long runs on all concrete, wearing shoes most of today’s athletes wouldn’t yard work in, drank mostly water for hydration, thought peanut butter and honey was best complex carb, competed on 160m flat indoor tracks, ran on XC courses that had roots and ruts (most of same courses used today, but w/o the fixes), competed more frequently, there was very little attitude training, very few massages, no alterGs, most athletes had never heard of ploy metrics and across the board we had better middle distance performances and a lot less injuries. If you talk to some of the Athletes at Villanova, Arkansas and Georgetown during that time, most of them 4 straight years w/o a major injury that kelp them out competition.

With all that said, I am not picking on any particular athlete, program or U.S. distance running in general, I am just agreeing with the thread starter; the fact is, our top athletes are injured a lot. When I was in H.S., I had a poster of Juantorena and Wohlhuter coming off the final turn in the Montreal Olympics; I also had a poster Marty Liquori and John Walker. Between meets like the Sunkist Invitational, Philadelphia Classic, the Baltimore Armory, NJ Armory, Miami Invitational and AU/TAC meets; you could see your heroes on TV about every other weekend. Plain and simple, if you want to grow the sport, you have see the athletes compete.

I'm with TrackCoach on this one. Our best and brightest distance runners seemed to be injured a lot more than they were in the past. Even though this is anecdotal it still is a big problem for the promotion of the sport.

My sense is that it is more a function of physiology. In the past we could fit our American sized distance runners into a sub 13:30 5k without a lot of downtime but trying to cram them into a sub 13:00 5k results in more injuries. The times have gotten so fast that to compete today it takes an EA build and very few natural born Americans have it.

I do think that American distance runners can overcome these physiology based injuries with changes in lifestyle; diet (our biggest liability), strength building (I like Cook’s focus on regular sprinting sessions), recruitment (Manzano should be a 5k guy), etc. But it may take generations to do it.