How did Michael Johnson break the WR at age 32?

Holding my nose in the presence of the Scent of the Vent:

To the extent that your most recent post merits any response, my response is in my post of 4/23 at 10:27 am

You just can't manage a cogent argument, or even a coherent set of posts, can you......VenTard?

I don't see what is so outrageous about what ventolin is suggesting. If MJ was in shape to run 19.32, then 9.7 or even faster does not seem unrealistic at all.

And by the way Sprintgeezer, apart from calling people retards I also remember your pathetic attacks on Solinsky and Radcliffe - athletes that you're not fit to lace the shoes of.

SprintGeezer,

I agree that PEDs offer a psychological component that enables these guys to have more discipline/drive/whatever. And like you said, MJ's wooden personality probably made him better predisposed to working hard to gain mentality and physical advantages from PEDs (assuming for the moment he was "doped").

I don't know enough about the bio-mechanics of sprinting, but how much could one realistically expect to improve at the 100m distance based on form changes alone?

Boubatronic,

I wonder if MJ had the capability to go 9.7 or under as you say. How does one make an accurate assessment of an athlete's top speed? The 200m factors in acceleration and turns... perhaps MJ simply had a better endurance factor, and did not deteriorate at the same rate as some of these other guys with quicker 100ms. And perhaps that "endurance factor" was a result of a combination of training, genetics, form, etc. I won't purport to know these things, but I think it's shaky ground just to say the trend is x, 19.32/2 = 9.66, his 43.18 is an anomaly, so yea, 9.7 in an all out 100m was definitely within his range. Sure, we can base projections on what other athletes have done in similar events, but how many have the performances of MJ in the 400/200/100? And does he defy this type of predictive analysis that Ventolin favors?

moron

your peabrain can't apply logic or appreciate where the logic takes you

he piled on 15 pounds of muscle from low-10/19.79 shape to destroy frankie the intrinsic 100m wr holder on the curve by 0.05s

9.85wr +1.2 Leroy Burrell Lausanne 06.07.1994

- 9.926 basic

9.86 -0.4 Frank Fredericks NAM 02.10.67 1r1 Lausanne 03.07.1996

- 9.859 basic

9.84wr +0.7 Donovan Bailey CAN 16.12.67 1 Atlanta 27.07.1996

- 9.885 basic

if you can't understand this, then f*ck off & don't waste my time

in all seriousness wrote:but I think it's shaky ground just to say the trend is x, 19.32/2 = 9.66

it's not

i'm not saying 9.66, but something like 9.75 - 9.80

this is aking to saying that a "pure" 200m runner can't run

~ 10.09 - 10.14 off his 20.00

( we are not saying it shoud be 10.00, because it's highly unlikely to be as this is a "pure" 200 guy )

is there any 20.00 guy in history who you woudn't back to run 10.10 - 10.14 if they just ran their "best" 100 in their 20.00 shape ?

VenTard--

Your so-called "argument" is STILL absurd.

Didn't you get the hint when I threw it back at you on the other thread?

It is so wrong, there is nothing about it that is right.

Although there are many, and they are all laughable, pointing out but a single flaw will suffice:

You "reason" by extension that because MJ ran the first 100 of a 200 around a curve faster than did FF, that he could run the flat 100 faster than FF. This is unsupportable for many reasons, including but not limited to the many unjustifiable assumptions that are required, some of which are: FF was as good a turn runner as MJ; FF was running the first 100 of the 200 as fast as he could; FF apportioned the first and second 100's of the 200 the same as did MJ; etc.

I will not continue.

You are dense.

What did you find in your Star Wars lunchbox today? Fanta? Or maybe some Tab?

VenTard.

"I don't know enough about the bio-mechanics of sprinting, but how much could one realistically expect to improve at the 100m distance based on form changes alone?"

As you know, the answer to that depends on lots of things, like how optimized your form already is, how well-trained you are within that form, where you are in your development/career, what part/parts of the race the form applies to, etc..

Your question, in the abstract, can only meaningfully be answered in a number of narrow situations--for instance, if someone is always relatively behind by the same amount at 10m, no matter who they are running against in an elite field, it is not unreasonable to expect that they can make up that difference with a form change. Also, if some well-trained, mature, elite athlete like Dix wants to improve from 9.90, it is reasonable to assume that he has what it takes in terms of musculature, attitude, nervous system, and biochemistry to perform superbly in all phases of the race, and if there is an identifiable deficiency in one (for example the first 25m), it is due to form...and the amount of possible improvement is limited by the realistic human performance envelope...excluding 9.58 because it is absurd, we are left with a limit of about 9.7--Gay, Powell, Bolt all there, so one assumes that it is where Dix could get, and no further.

Or look at Powell and his late transition/absolute top end--could be improved, but not much...the guys runs low-mid 9.8x with obvious room for improvement, but only went .10 faster when everything fell into place. Or Gay and his start...he HAS had races where his start was great--and in others where it wasn't so great, he goes about .10 slower.

I would GUESS that a ballpark improvement based on form alone is around .10 - .15 unless the form is horrendous in which case it is easily up to .25--remember, no truly elite athlete will be horrendous in any phase, it is the sub-elite/college level I'm talking about here.

But the kicker is that available form is constrained by ability and...conditioning. Too many sprinters want to race all the time. What they really need to do, unless they are stellar, is TRAIN--work on doing this as well as they can, not initially as fast as they can. The speed will come, what they should want to do is to maximize their speed potential, and then employ conditioning and tapering to actually achieve that potential when a major meet comes around.

However, if some guy comes to you running 10.5, it is VERY difficult for him to spend a year or two (or even half a year) training and running 10.7's, before getting things right and actually having sufficiently good form to even permit the running of a 10.2, especially because athletes are developing biochemically and muscularly at the same time. That is why sprinting is the land of form tweaks--because you want to optimize form, but hopefully not to the detriment of natural short-term speed development.

So in the world of baby steps, where a non-elite athlete is typically given 1 or 2 particular things to work on in terms of form, depending where they are in their trajectory, IMHO--and it's just that, an opinion--improvement should be expected based on each tweak.

I have seen a young, talented sprinter improve .20 IN ONE SINGLE MEET in response to my advice, immediately before the race started, to keep his head down and looking at the track until he thought it was long enough, and then keep it down for a while longer. The little bugger improved to 10.8 and beat me in the race, I went 11.2

His HS coach thought it was a miracle, and asked me what I had told the kid before warmups off. When I told him, he shook his head, and said that he had told him countless times not to look up too early.

I responded that it was both how he told him, and WHEN. This kid had an attention span of nothing. More than 1 minute, and he's forgotten. He needed TRAINING, which is very difficult to get without a dedicated coach and constant feedback, and a respect for that coach, and a deference to his or her expertise.

I ramble, but you get the picture.

The short answer, "it depends", always seems unsatisfactory to me.

moron

you haven't a clue

idiot

you think that drivel was worth reading ?!

moron

ff was superb bend runner - wc in '93 & of course you didn't see the oslo race just before where he led mj off the curve & held on 19.82 v 19.85

you clearly have no clue or saw this race

ff ran the curve about ~0.1s slower than his atlanta 100 best, the other ~0.2s accounted for by the rotational forces need to run the curve

now moron, it is physiological impossible to run 200 flat out from the gun - it is a controlled sprint & therefore mj also had to run somewhar slower than his 100 ability to reserve some energy for the straight

as for apportioned, mj ran a ~ perfect race, according to formula

200m = 2*100m split - 0.95s

he split 10.12 ->19.29

ff split 10.18, which was too fast as ->19.41

he commited suicide by trying to match mj's 100 split, he shouda gone nearer 10.30 to keep up with him in the stretch, but wouda been too far behind after the curve

we have example of bolt who has split 9.95 in his 19.19 - too fast, but difference to his 100 that meet of 9.58 is 0.37s

mj's 10.12 - 0.37 ->9.75

this makes mj's 100 potential ability even more impressive

f*ck off moron

you no nothing about sprinting & complete waste of time

offer me something more than drivel

Hey SG. It might be a rarity on this board but here's a newsflash:

You're not the first person to break 11 seconds for 100m.

You've set yourself up as the resident LR sprinting expert. Thankfully there are some more knowledgeable people here than you (ventolin) who can challenge your never ending spew of nonsense.

boubatronic wrote:

Sprintgeezer: Personally, I would take ventolin's contributions on this board over yours any time.

And a man of your age calling someone a 'tard' demonstrates a real lack of class. Grow up or go away.

LOL! And calling everyone who dares disagree with him a "moron", or telling people to f**k off shows real class!?

Lashawndo Merritto

19.9

probably only in 10.2 shape.

VenTard--

You are digging the hole deeper.

You must have some sort of ADD problem--you are unable to concentrate on the content of a post long enough to be able to analyze it and synthesize it into your subsequent comment.

"ff was superb bend runner"

Obviously true, and equally obviously irrelevant to the assumptions I listed.

I'm not going to address the rest of your drivel directly.

To the extent that you have said anything, you have not refuted any of the observations I made earlier concerning MJ and his 100m capability.

I will add this to those observations: the reason he ran with the form he did was to preserve his hams. His form didn't require tremendous knee lift and drive--it was more of a groin-driven action, shooting the foot to the ground rather than driving the knee forward. Using this technique, you can almost, but not quite, make up in turnover what you lose in extension, all other things being equal...what it DOES permit you to do better is to maintain a particular speed.

So, your absolute top speed and your high-speed envelope will suffer, but your speed endurance will rise dramatically. This is because the muscles driving hip extension, and how they are designed biomechanically, are incredibly powerful and advantageous--a tremendous amount of force can be generated very quickly. The hams have a role in this, but they are aided by other muscle groups.

Significantly, the muscle groups don't have to be fired for long--one can fire a quick burst, then relax, which is what gives the speed endurance versus the other sprinting form, which requires either a relatively longer contraction period or a commensurately higher force developed over the same amount of time--both of which lead to injury in the 200m.

Guys who run unlike MJ, and who usually run the 100 and then try the 200, often get injured somewhere between 70-110m, because the form they use cannot be sustained over any longer distance. Instead of trying to "relax through the line" like they do in the flat 100, they keep driving because they know there are 130m remaining in the race, and it is this continued driving that creates injury.

The 100m athletes do this because they know what it takes to reach max velocity, and they know that reaching and holding onto that max velocity, if only for 15-20m, is what is needed to win 100m races. They have to be educated that the 200m is a different race, and that max velocity isn't anywhere near being a dominant factor as it is in the 100m.

In addition to the turn, that is why the first 100m of the 200m is slower than the flat 100m, for runners who are capable of running a max flat 100m.

No kidding, right? The point is that MJ was not an athlete who was capable of a maximal and optimal flat 100m. What you saw in his first 100m of the 200m was very much closer to his max than athletes like Fredericks or Boldon, both of whom COULD produce maximal and optimal flat 100m's.

This was because MJ was a 200/400 athlete, and certain critical elements of the training and ability required to run a maximal and optimal 100m was irrelevant to his goals...that is where his self-discipline, as I mentioned earlier, served him well.

It was MJ himself who CHOSE to do the 200/400, rather than the flat 100. He made his decision because, for whatever reason, he could not produce that maximal and optimal flat 100m. The most broadly-held view is that for some reason his body wouldn't hold up under the training required...either he had some sort of built-in weakness, or he trained slightly differently than everybody else, or some combination of the two.

You exaggerate his flat 100 capabilities vastly beyond even his own estimation. He said that he could go 9.9--and when an athlete says that, they mean 9.9's. I have already given him credit for that. I believe I even said mid-high 9.8x (say 9.88) in an earlier post, which I still believe he may have been able to run once or twice in his career, given flat 100m training.

9.85 or below? No way. Sub-9.80? NEVER, for reasons already mentioned--no start, no absolute top speed, no maintenance of that absolute top speed over 15-20m.

Those are flat 100m requirements, that he sacrificed in favor of 200/400 requirements, and good for him--he was able to hold his body together, and last long enough to produce 2 killer world records, on a par with the achievements of Bolt, and maybe even better.

Take a look at him in those WR's, he is running through the line even in the 43.18

Damn, I hit post accidentally.

It is difficult to be a great 100/200 guy because the requirements differ so much. Bolt was able to do it in Beijing because of his absolute top speed. If you look at that race, his second 100m was vastly inferior to MJ's in his 19.32

Fast-forward to Berlin...now, Bolt evened out his race, and his second 100m was now better than MJ's, and he got a massive WR--because his absolute top speed was so much greater than MJ's (or anybody's, for that matter).

There have been several GREAT flat-100m guys who haven't been able to accommodate their styles to suit the requirements of the 200, and thus look like they underperform--guys like Powell, Bailey, Surin, Johnson, and TONS of others, the list is too long to write.

In the one instance where MJ recognized that his form didn't permit him sufficient absolute top speed, that his start didn't permit him sufficient acceleration, that his abbreviated stride didn't permit him to maintain a super-high absolute top speed for 15-20m, he either got injured trying to compensate, or bailed, depending on your opinion--his 150m against Bailey.

I personally believe that the race would in fact have been very close at the finish, and that MJ just might have won, had he stuck strictly to his 200m form.

But he panicked because, rightly or wrongly, he sensed that he was deeply out of his element. Injury or bail was the result of that panic.

Precisely the same thing would have happened in any flat 100 against real competition.

Props to Bailey for extending his performance envelope and actually going for it in that race. He had a serious chance of losing. As it was, MJ denied him a real victory.

VenTard, YOU know exactly SQUAT about the ACTUAL act of SPRINTING the 100m or 200m, and for the extreme degree of specialization required in each.

There are exceptions to everyting. Guys like Dix, in particular, run bizarrely and over-perform in the 200m anyway. That is the spice of life.

VenTard.

moron

it is directly relevant

it means ff had no wastage on the bend & coud utilise his intrinsic 100wr speed on it - he still got whupped on it

that crap !

all your drivel says is that he coudn't go below 9.9 despite all the stats produced

- whupping the 9.85 basic wr holder on the bend

- direct comparison with bolt's 9.96 split -> ~ 9.75

you are too dumb to understand this

crap

he ran with this form all his elite career from '88 onwards

nothing to do with preserving his hams

his major injury in '88 which kept from seoul was a broken leg, not a hams injury

drivel

you have no idea whether the faster turnover more than compensates for reduced stride length

speed = stride * frequency

get it into your numbskull

we are interested only in speed

if the frequency is fast enough, it will compensate for any reduced stride & give speed as good as or faster than anyone

produce some evidence for crap about frequency not being able to completely compensate

drivel

see above

drivel

his short stride/high frequency cadence is a tremendously energy-sapping method

get it into your peabrain

it takes tremendous endurance to adopt such a method NOT that it leads to increased speed endurance

why are you quoting schoolboy biomechanics ???

drivel

you have no clue about basic physics

lesser force applied in lesser time than normal means more power exerted

his cadence may require more power output than long-striding sprinters

drivel

there are numerous 100 guys who run the 200

few get injuries because of running the 200

they can't sustain form ???

moron

balke just ran 19.26 & he is primarily a 100 guy

utter drivel

did blake get injured running 19.26 ???

complete drivel

to win elite 100 races you have to be near perfect from gun-to-tape

that is why tyson with arguably best last 40m ever still didn't beat bolt

idiot

why state the obvious ???

drivel

the turn is slower for every runner be they 100 or 200 guys

moron

how many times do you have to be told he whupped the basic 100m wr holder on the turn by 0.05s ???

moron

this is complete drivel

to run the turn requires speed

the endurance only offers an advantage in last 40 - 50m of a 200

he blasted ff/ato on the turn - speed part

idiot

running a maximal/optimal 100 was not his goal, but the training for '96 allowed him to run a 9.75 - 9.80 as a by-product

get it into your numbskull

moron

he was a career 200/400 guy then

it doesn't mean he coudn't produce a 100wr, as he musta realised after his 19.32

that requires 9.75 - 9.80 ability no matter how good your endurance

idiot

we are not talking season long 100s as he mighta got injured

we are talking the 100 final in his 19.32 shape

don't you dare suggest he wouda got injured in the coupla prelims beforehand - the semi wouda been his 1st hard race

find me the quote moron

i have never read that in years of research

moron

your opinion is drivel

can't you grasp even basic logic ???

it doesn't matter if he was training for 200/400

piling on 15 pounds of muscle made him a monsta in atlanta & the by-product was 19.32, whupping the 100-intrinsic wr holder on the turn

it means as a result his 100 had to be down to 9.75 - 9.80 without even training for it

what part of 19.32 doesn't your numbskull get ???

complete drivel

ff had no great start/no top-end but ran 9.85 basic wr

explain how the hell did ff run 9.85-basic wr when also primarily a 200 guy ???

mj was a 9.85-basic version of ff but immensely better that meet

moron

this is not about a coaching text

we are talking end-result

mj had tremendous top-end in that 200

he split a 0.86 on the curve in the 60 - 70m part

use your numbskull

0.86 on a curve !!!

that is 0.83/0.84 on a straight & still not flat out

so ??

moron

there are numerous 100/200 champs

you are posting drivel

idiot

he just ran a wild race that day just desperate to beat 19.32

he didn't pace it right

f*cking moron

you know nothing

19.32 = 10.12 / 9.20

19.19 = 9.95 / 9.24

bolt's last 100 was still slower than mj's

moron

it wouda been not more than 0.01 - 0.02s at 60 - 70m mark

moron

drivel

not mj

idiot

what about all the guys who coud run great 200s ???

you have no clue about sprinting

100/200 quality ability is the expected norm NOT the exception

moron

0.86 on a curve is blazing speed

moron

you don't get in a position to run a 0.86 split without superb acceleration

moron

he ran 3 consecutive 0.86s on the curve from 70 - 100m, worth 0.83/0.84 on the straight

that is most incredible speed -maintenance imagineable

idiot

he ran 19.32 & didn't dnf

different year different circumstances

in his 19.32 shape he wouda destroyed bailey

he was worth ~ 0.1s quicker over 100 & wouda won going away by 0.2s+

drivel

injury can't be predicted

he woud never have wanted to get injured in '00 200 at trials when if he'd got top 3 wouda won the 200 gold in sydney at a canter

drivel

he didn't get injured blasting 10.12 on the curve whupping ff/ato

f"cking moron

you have shown you have no clue whatsoever about elite sprinting

you spout drivel & show no capacity to think

moron

again you show you know nothing about sprinting

dix was marked out as an elite 200 guy from junior days when he ran the

world junior indoor record

VenTard--

Your entire post is crap.

You are amazing, but in a bad way--and a complete waste of time.

* wrote:

I think the answer is that he could have run faster earlier if he had the right race.

In the '95 WC's and '96 Olympics he doubled back to run the 200 and ran a little conservative in the 400.

In '97 he had hamstring issues.

He may have peaked at age 28 or 29 and just didn't give the 400 WR a good attempt at that time.

Note that he ran his 42.9 relay split in 1993 when he was almost 26.

(Also note that he was actually 31, not quite yet 32 when he broke the 400m record)

This.

He was like Bubka. Moving the time down when he felt like it.

The 400 record should have been in the 42s. Unfortunately when he ran and hurt himself in the 200, it was all downhill from the there. Get hurt when you are older and stay hurt.

I thought Bolt's splits in his 19.19 were 9.92/9.27

That put him .07 slower than MJ in the second 100, but a whopping .20 faster in the first 200.

Why? Because his absolute top speed is just so much higher than MJ's.

If Bolt had eased up sufficiently in the first 100 to run a 9.20 second 100, he still would have smoked MJ by around .15 in that first 100, all other things being equal.

But they aren't, which is why MJ ran a 9.20 second half, and Bolt ran a 9.92 first half--because they are entirely different runners.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

VenTard--

Your entire post is crap.

You are amazing, but in a bad way--and a complete waste of time.

moron

all you offer is drivel

f*ck off & don't waste my time