Coach Jay Johnson: What happened to just running?

I like this thread because the OP took the time to check out the site and dig a little before saying WTF with the backwards skipping. The OP has a sense of what goes on in a week or a month and a bit of backwards skipping (which looks even weirder in person then on tape) isn't the whole picture, but sure does raise eyebrows. IMHO that is a fair question when someone has taken the time to do the research I think it's reasonable for me to respond. I doubt the Flotrack posters took the time to dig into the site when they made the following comments:

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/play/316943-uphill-strides-backwards-skipping

One irony between the OP and the subsequent posts is that someone - who, by the way, sounds much smarter than I and likely has some letters behind their name - raises the issue of OCD and in distance running. Love the connection and concept and I've been thinking about it in the last few days, even mentioning it to an Olympic triathlete today. Obviously there is a book to be written on this topic.

That said, my first thought was " While I need to read the study yet no doubt the 'digging of the hole' concept will have to do with the nervous system and neurotransmitters, repeating patterns creating a stereotype in the human." The backwards skipping is done to get the human how has spent hours and hours in the sagital plane, moving forward, out of their stereotyped (and inefficient? crappy looking'? ungly?) mechanics. Yes, the backwards skipping is still 90% sagital plane (with a bit of transverse plane, just as in forward running), yet 50% of the skips are done with the shoulder and hip in the Opposite/Wrong/Other orientation when you run. So on every other stance the hip that is "pointed back" is on the same side as the shoulder that's "pointing back" and that is the opposite what we do when we run. I want a runner who runs 100-120 miles a week to spend some of those miles outside of their normal mechanics as a way to prevent injury and as a way to remind the nervous system that we want the person to be athletic (yes, we count this as part of the mileage; if you run up 200m at 32 then and skip backwards 60m, then run 140m we count the circuit as 400m…and yes, I know that Lydiard would only count the 200m uphill). I love the comment that we should play basketball (which Brent asks about weekly) yet we won't because I'm scared of torn knee cartilage, an issue someone else brought up today. And that brings us to the most important point....

only Brent and I know what we do. Renee, Sara, Hatch, even Dr. Richey (@ARTSportsChiro on twitter - good stuff) don't really know what we do because they don't do it themselves and/or they don't see all of it; today Brent was dying doing some new "skipping stuff" at the end of the workout; he had a solid workout prior to the new skipping stuff, yet it was the skipping stuff that had him cursing under his breath.* Plus, Brent is the only one who asks a question every workout day and he's the one I spend the most hours with. He ran a mile clockwise in just 5:20 the other day and said, "That was horrible - it was hard to run such an easy pace" and I said "well, I don't know why, but I bet it has to do with CNS and PNS and I bet it has to do with your ankle injury history - likely harder for you to do something novel at pace than Jorge or Steve Slattery, even if your engine is big.

Again, I hope to come back and make some other comments because this is a great mental exercise in becoming a better coach...and the the spirit of the first post is great IMHO and I want to honor that (and obviously will give Mark Flo some shit about "being above the fray" - you can code the site to try to guilt an Anonymous Coward into logging in, yet you run the risk of people feeling less comfortable talking to you about what they do - i.e. Jerry Rassmussen does a great interview after Bizzari wins NCAA cross, yet the majority of the comments below the video are about how he's done a poor job).

Obviously I'm a JV post-collegiate coach who is trying to be a varsity post-collegiate coach in the coming years. I work with a big talent in Brent, yet The Truth and The Light are Rupp, Jager and Wheating** are tall skinny boys coached by Jerry and Alberto and Vin, coaches who have no reason to use an opportunity like this to grow as a coach. While there is pressure and expectation from you guys (it's like 97% men on the board, right Higgins?) it's less than Brent and I have for ourselves and for that reason I really appreciate the OP and the "why not run more." I will think about it in the coming days and try to put together some video (though wife is overseas on business and I'm in charge of the kid; fun but fatiguing…good thing the child and I both love Chipotle, green Odwalla and avocados - mom doesn't read LR so the child and I can pretend we had a balanced diet in her absence).

Little bit of homework. I'll reference three LR items when I respond: Greg Brock interview from this summer (text, not audio), Gothcher/McMillan podcast and Cook podcast. I reference one of them daily with athletes and if you have the time I highly recommend them.

I don't have time to go back and see if I still agree with this series of videos, I'm pretty sure I agree with it since we've not done one thing that most LR posters would consider Plyos, though we do try to run fast and the quick eccentric/concentric coupling that occurs (must occur?) may meet the text book definition of plyometric.

http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2009/03/to-plyo-or-not-to-plyo-part-i/

Final thought. If you ever wanted to post with your name and email I would recommend it. I know that in the last 18 months (since our kid was born) I've read LR's board 3-4 times a week (staring when the kid was a few weeks old and I was up at 10 pm, 4 am and 6 am trying to rocking her to sleep, reading this board was as great mindless activity); I only post with my name and email and while it may not matter to anyone else, it's the reason none of you can accuse me of saying other things on this board. Right now there is a post on CU. I've read it and I think it's stupid - analyzing a program that values XC and Outdoor track on it's indoor track performance - but I'm sure as hell not going to chime in there. Nothing positive I could say will be construed that way. The flip side is backwards skipping many not be something I employ in the future, but I do now and if we distill it down to one reason, it's because I think it will lead to us to running more miles and running those miles harder. If you disagree with me, that's fine - you can post here anonymously, you can introduce yourself at Mt. Sac or email me - but what really matters to me is that for the next few years I'll likely read this board a few times a week (though it's nuts how often I only want to read one or two threads on the first page of the board, but that must just be me getting old and grumpy and simply a no fun adult who thinks) to see what college kid is running fast or to see if some old Oregon runner is talking about Kenny Moore's training or Malmo is explaining his summer plan to a HS kid who's never heard of it. Anyway, obviously I may be taking the fun out of this and to be honest, if I post one or two more times on this tread then I'll have meet my quota until the fall, yet I just want to thank the OP and I want others to consider doing the same.

...or maybe I should start posting as Anonymous Coward when talking about all of the non-running stuff with runners - that's and option too.

*It's hard to quantify this type of work, but it's difficult metabolically, it's getting near the realm of classic ploys and it's got him working in all three planes of motion. If we could easily quantify it as miles or meters run at race pace or asplyometric contacts la way Gary Winkler then it might be easier to understand. Plus, if I value the running over all of this extra stuff then you now know why I like to put it after the running; if you've done the workout must you do the others stuff? Can you skip it? I learned this from my mentor and his implementation/removal of OMNI.

**I wrote this this weekend; please add the UVA kid to the list; haven't seen the race but it sounds likes he's the Truth and the Light too.

Quick thought.

A former New Jersey HS star miler gets an Ivy League education and eventually decides moves to a hippie college town in Colorado to write a book about an enigmatic track coach (also from NJ; as is Vin; as is Vig).

The book the Ivy League graduate writes chronicles the fall, during cross country. If the book was written in the spring, during track, there would have been mention of OMNI and weights and how those two activies fit into the recipe.

Was the post-running stuff mindless work? Maybe. Maybe not.

In the spring of 2009 a girl in a CU uniform ran under 4 minutes for 1,500m.

My guess is she did OMNI a couple of times a week following her workouts for several months prior to her sub 4 min 1,500m. In the video below, her new coach says, "We do a lot of little things like this to become more excellent. I don't know exactly what would happen if we got away from this, but we're not going to find out."

4:00 mark is the good stuff:

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/249-workout-wednesday-season-1/70443-chris-lukezic-workout-ez-day

I respect you as a coach, Mr Johnson, but please lay off of the caffeine.

Hey Jay, I'm the OP of this thread and I just wanted to thank you for replying to this thread. It's great to get your insight into a semi-controversial topic in distance running.

I am more in favor of the traditional running schedule but i think in our ever growing sedentary world, more and more of your GS stuff will need to be implemented into an athlete's schedue in order to make up for a lack of athelticism that exist in many young American athletes. It's actually sort of sad that instead of young kids playing soccer or basketball outside with friends, they're playing Wii bowling for 3 hours (even though Wii bowling can be quite fun at times).

sorry for double post: it's no surprise to me that many of our fastest American distance runners athletes used to be soccer or basketball (even football) players (ex: Galen Rupp, Wheating, Christian Smith, etc..)

I'm only 19 but I would really like to be a coach one day and I will make sure that I try to get as many soccer players that are cut or that quit into my xc/track program. soccer is great x-training for running (plus it's fun!!!)

I'm moderately surprised that nobody's mentioned how silly Lydiard's guys looked doing uphill bounding and springing.

They did this wacky stuff too! Now, if I'm pressed for time, you can bet that drills and core are the first things to go, but if I have time, it's time well spent doing this kind of stuff. Judiciously. Not a TON, but just enough.

I'm a bit miffed by the comment that "this stuff" is what's making all these sub-4 guys. The mileage and aerobic work is what's making the sub-4 guys, just like it was making the 9:00 3200m runners in HS a few years back. We are reaping what we sowed, mileage-wise.

Coach Jay. This stuff is amazing. I watched some of your videos on youtube & started doing these lung matrix. I am already seeing a huge difference in just a week. I dont get tired easily anymore. Either i had a weak butt & hammies or maybe even core. The Q i have for you is should we do them on race day as well? Or let me just ask you what would you make your runner do before the race the complete warmup? Thanks for helping out an Ethiopian.

777 wrote:

I'm a bit miffed by the comment that "this stuff" is what's making all these sub-4 guys. The mileage and aerobic work is what's making the sub-4 guys, just like it was making the 9:00 3200m runners in HS a few years back.

Nope. It IS "this stuff" that is making the difference. By doing a lot of it you use also the muscles which are used when running sub-4 mile pace. These drills ARE the aerobic work particularly for FT type X muscle fibers. Personally I prefer to do this by running though.

Drills + Resistance Training + Mobility Work = An increased capacity to train and resistance to fatigue and the onset of injury = the ability to race faster, more consistently, over a longer range of time.

Part of the reason you don't see loads of Kenyans/Ethiopians doing much beyond running is that their daily lives are 1000 times more physical than the average American kid.

That being said, I do remember reading an article probably 10 years ago about Geb doing gym work (circuit training), then of course there's El Guerrouj's weight training:

http://www.tfcoach.com/viewtopic.php?t=9

The work is still too endurance dominated (20 rep squats, but he did include some basic plyos (jumps over hurdles). That high rep low load type of circuit training is just far too physically demanding for the result you're looking for.

Dude was doing a 90 minute gym session:

Half-squat 6 x 20 reps with 25 kg bar

Half-squat 4 x 16 reps with 30 kg bar

Squat 4 x 16 reps with 20 kg bar

In machines/apparatus:

Hamstrings 4 x 16 reps

Quadriceps 4 x 16 reps

Abductors 4 x 16 reps

Lunges 4 x 20 reps with 25 kg bar

Step-up 1 x 20 reps with 30 kg bar with each leg

Abdominal 300-400 reps

Back 300-400 reps

Power.

Once a week he does up-hills 10 x 300m

Also, horizontal jumps and vertical jumps over hurdles.

Anyway, this stuff is old news, or should be. Again I keep coming back to the issue of IF this stuff is common or accepted in elite communities WHY is it shunned by 99% of everyone else? If studies have proven its effectiveness WHY hasn't it become more commonplace?

Alan

Art, I don't doubt that you know your stuff when it comes to strength training with a regular gym goer. But do you advise any athletes who run competitively?

You've never talked about any athletes you've coached or advised other than yourself, so I get the sense that the answer is no...and if that's the case, you're just preaching theory. You don't actually know how well your recommendations fit with a full running and racing training load.

You should probably get some athletes so you can do some trial and error before publishing anything. Just a suggestion...

Jay - can you explain the difference between the PNS and CNS and how you tell them apart?

As I understand it (from who knows where - letsrun.com?), CNS stimulation comes from high effort activities like hard workouts, fast strides, plyos, and weight training, and it improves neuromuscular coordination (and of course other systems are trained during these types of work too - like the cardiovascular system). And if I understand neuromuscular coordination, it's that during a particular movement more muscle fibers are activated in the agonist muscle groups and fewer fibers are activated in the antagonist muscle groups? So when raising the knee, for example, the action of the quads and hip flexors will be more powerful and fluid, while the opposing action of the hamstring (which is normal and acts as a natural defense against hyperextension) is reduced?

Can you tell me (1) if I understand the CNS aspect of training correctly (2) if so, what is the PNS and how it is different (3) how can you tell if one is fatigued and not the other (4) how you target one and not the other?

Thanks.

there are a lot of crappy threads on the message boards these days, about 98% crappy, but threads like THIS are why I still check the boards...

Very informative! THREAD OF THE WEEK!!!

I run hills and lift weights. Just because El G did something, it doesn´t mean that everyone should do exactly the same. And by the way Alan, Lasse Viren didn´t take the blood.

I might have just missed this, but what is OMNI?

realist here wrote:

Art, I don't doubt that you know your stuff when it comes to strength training with a regular gym goer. But do you advise any athletes who run competitively?

You've never talked about any athletes you've coached or advised other than yourself, so I get the sense that the answer is no...and if that's the case, you're just preaching theory. You don't actually know how well your recommendations fit with a full running and racing training load.

You should probably get some athletes so you can do some trial and error before publishing anything. Just a suggestion...

I've designed the strength training programs for a medalist at the recent Masters Indoor Championships in Canada. She reads Letsrun. I'm not going to post her name out of privacy, but if she sees this maybe she'll chime in.

I've coached a handful of sub 3:00 marathoners. ALL have had great things to say about the effects of the strength training on their running.

I don't come on here and brag about my athletes or clients because I have a relatively small sample size of top class athletes. Also, you'll find this true for most sports....a coach looks great with great talent. An idiot can give someone like Bekele a workout and he'd still be successful.

The sky is still blue, I don't need to have 1000 controlled studies to show me that the sky is blue.

Alan

Glad to hear it Art. I didn't mean to suggest you needed a controlled study or even super fast runners to validate your methods.

I more meant that athletes only have so much energy, so a strength training routine that works for a regular gym goer or even a hobby jogger might not be balanced or planned in the right way for higher level runners unless you've tested it on higher level runners. You've preaching before about not overloading the CNS by doing too many days of running workouts and strength training back to back. I just wanted to make sure you've TESTED this out to make sure everything coordinates how it should.

3:00 marathoners it's hard to tell - some people will need to be quite serious to reach that, some may be able to do it on 3-5 days per week of running, which I would not consider quite as serious. But you've got the medalist in there, so she sounds serious enough to back up what you preach.

Good job with that. Keep at it.

Very true, that is why any strength training program would have to be balanced with the main training focus.

A marathoner putting in 100-150 miles a week is going to have less training energy to do anything else vs high school or college runner putting in 70-80 miles a week. In addition to that nutritional needs would need to be assessed.

Still, I think even someone putting in 100-150 miles a week could find the time and energy and added nutritional need and recovery to put in 30 minutes of gym work once a week. Of course that becomes even more difficult if you also have a family and work on top of that mileage.

I've never met anyone who could do a 3:00 marathon on 3-5 days per of week of running...UNLESS they were a 2:20-2:30 guy before hand. The vast majority of guys and gals running 3:00 marathons are training, relatively, just as hard as anyone else. Maybe not 100+ miles a week...but at least 7 days a week 70 miles a week, 20+ mile long runs, etc. They are training up to their current ability.

Alan

Runningart2004 wrote:

I've never met anyone who could do a 3:00 marathon on 3-5 days per of week of running...UNLESS they were a 2:20-2:30 guy before hand.

I can believe that you've never met anyone who fits the description, but I've met many. A generally athletic guy in the mid-20s to mid-30s range is easily capable of sub-3 on 3 days/week training, or even less, as has been exhaustively discussed on this board. I myself have never been anywhere close to 2:30 (and never ran cross or track anywhere), but have gone 2:55-3:00 three times now on one longer run (8-12 miles) a week. I play basketball one night a week, hockey one night a week, and lift twice a week, and all that probably adds up as training, but I've never done a 20+, and certainly don't do 70 miles or 7 days a week. A buddy of mine plays hockey twice a week and little else and ran 3:05 in november.

That's probably moot however, as the question of whether your guys are training hard for 3:00 is more relevant, and speaks to the issue of whether you've been getting practical results. And I applaud your results, and I too firmly believe in the benefit of strength work. Just think it's important to remember that for many, 3:00 hardly requires training.

realist here wrote:

Art, I don't doubt that you know your stuff when it comes to strength training with a regular gym goer. But do you advise any athletes who run competitively?

.....

You don't actually know how well your recommendations fit with a full running and racing training load.

I feel the need to rant.

I am kind of surprised there is so much doubt on this forum about the cost/benefit ratio of conditioning.

Every track & field coach I have ever known has tried to get athletes doing strength work, conditioning and flexibility work. Jumpers and sprinters up to 400m take this stuff deadly seriously. Most elite 800/1500 runners do extensive conditioning. Toby Tanser describes numerous Kenyan groups doing half an hour of exercises after running.

I think the example most likely to sway people here is how Paula Radcliffe undertook a massive non-running program to break through in the marathon - read this and weep...

I know tons of average distance runners who say "I know ought to do more of X but...", or "I could have avoided that injury if I had done more X...". Some even say "I used to get injury X, but now I've learned an exercise routine Y to prevent it". But I honestly can't think of one real life athlete - and I know hundreds - who genuinely believes they'd be better spending every minute running.

75% of the older, non-professional distance guys just never get around to it, that's all. In my experience women runners are much more disciplined. We should be glad Alan is here to nag gently.

It's great that Jay is getting some attention, because conditioning is one of the few things you CAN explain well in a short video, and he's produced them very well. Who's going to watch clips of someone doing 6x1000? Or getting 8+ hours solid sleep per night? (No, wait, they do that on Big Brother...seems to sell pretty well..)

And how many of you have actually downloaded and tried the routines? I had a go this week as they looked a bit more structured than my usual half-assed pretence at core work. Doing the 'pedestal' and 'myrtl' routines. We're talking just ten minutes total for BOTH. Heck, I could have done another set in the time I spent writing this...