175m up a 30% grade? What does this accomplish? Why use such a steep grade for such long hills? I have never heard of a sprint coach recommending hills longer than 8-10 seconds, and if there are recommendations for this, they would certainly not be at 30% grade. Even with long recoveries, you would either tie up badly or have the lactate start pooling in your feet, making you feel a bit "flat" by the last few repetitions.
Racer 1, on Topozone.com I linked to the part of my course where I do hill sprints.
Once you find the quad sector for the road and hill you are looking for you need to update the view scale to a 1:10,000 ratio. This zooms the map in as far as it goes. Then you just count the contour lines.
If my link comes up correct you should see an orange cross in the middle of the road. You then can count down over 5 contour lines at 3 meters per contour,(3*5=15) you can see that the road rises 15 meters over the course of about 100 meters distance.
That orange cross I mentioned will appear wherever you click on the map and reorient the map.
Using this you can actually follow your favorite road race course for example, clicking along and checking every dip and rise in the road.
Have fun.
Thanks for the link.
I tried it out. Is there a part of the site that tells you that each contour line is 3 meters elevation gain? Also, did you take the 100m distance from the map scale or as a guess?
You need to poke around this site a while to get familiar with it. Some maps are layed out in metric contours some in feet.
There is a scale at the bottom of the map that will show distances in kilometers and miles.
My original sprint distance was a tenth of a mile measured with my car (160 meters). When this got to be too much as I was tying up at the end I paced off 60 meters by footsteps to shorten it to 100 meters. When I checked this on the map it appeared to be about right.
On the front page the other day, a poster said that Bekele is so much better than Americans because his form is "flawless." I disagree. His high back kick is good in the sense that he wastes less energy by almost "falling" forward, letting gravity bring him along. Nicholas Romanov, inventor of Pose, observed that the fastest sprinters can move at 12 meters per second but gravity lets a person fall much faster, and terminal velocity is around 125 miles per hour I believe. So this is good. But if you watch the video on Michael Bautista's site of Bekele in the 2003 World Championship 5,000 meters or the NBC coverage of the 10,000 meters in Athens 2004, you will see that his arm swing is inefficient; he swings them from side to side almost as if muscling himself forward and the side to side motion is inefficient. the runner's movement should be solely concentrated forward, and while his form is very good, it is not flawless.
My question regarding all this for some coach that can answer; is the development of form and efficiency a measurable physiological characteristic? In other words, if I spend 2 months doing plyometrics and drilling my form through exercises, will my subsequent race improvements mean an increased VO2 max or lactate threshold, or will these variables remain the same and the results be empirical? To use Mr. Canova's term, is form an "enzymatic" problem or a "strength" problem?
Thomas Yount wrote:
My question regarding all this for some coach that can answer; is the development of form and efficiency a measurable physiological characteristic? In other words, if I spend 2 months doing plyometrics and drilling my form through exercises, will my subsequent race improvements mean an increased VO2 max or lactate threshold, or will these variables remain the same and the results be empirical? To use Mr. Canova's term, is form an "enzymatic" problem or a "strength" problem?
What you are talking about is called running economy, generally measured by the energy cost of running at a particular (usually submaximum) pace. If you can reduce the energy cost of running at race pace, you will be able to run faster at that pace. The time your feet spend contacting the ground while running is a very significant part of the energy cost of running, and drills, explosive strength training, plyometrics, and short sprints can improve this. Probably the best example of the success of doing this can be found here:
http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/86/5/1527Some of the sprint-derived training methods mentioned aboove in this thread can also improve VO2max and LT. But you can run faster without improving these, simply by doing exercises to improve running economy. People who are injury-prone should be cautious about some of the more stressful plyometric methods, such as depth jumps.
RENATO CANOVA WROTE:
But, after 5th of October, I am again in Italy for one month (may be that I go to Kenya and Ethiopia one week, but in any case not after 16th), and I can e-mail to people interested the full season of Shaheen and someother athlete.
I am interested.
The most amazing runner I've seen recently is Xing Huina of China, who won the Olympic 10000 in 30:24.36.
She floated along behind the others like an apparition, then glided past Dibaba on the stretch.
There was no stopping this woman.
Playing the tape of her running has greatly helped my form and style.
classic runner wrote:
The most amazing runner I've seen recently is Xing Huina of China, who won the Olympic 10000 in 30:24.36.
She floated along behind the others like an apparition, then glided past Dibaba on the stretch.
There was no stopping this woman.
Playing the tape of her running has greatly helped my form and style.
Really? Her arms were carried in the strangest way I've ever seen.
Renato, what sort of advice did you give to Brad Hudson?
He named you as his biggest influence in training athletes.
It seems you are indirectly responsible for Ritzenhein's big win in Belfast.
Speed Killls what you don't understand is that there is a cost effectiveness doing exercises. The closer to running specific the better but there is also a time cost vs. injury. Just because something has a different energy system doesen't mean you should be doing these exercises all day. Plyometrics do great things but if an athlete already has great elasticity and coordination then they might help a little but the injury cost after lots of endurance training they are dangerous. You are certainly a sprint coach. Runners should have just one coach because everything affects the body and the mind.
What Hudson told me is that Renato Canova is the best Coach in the world.
BONO wrote:
Speed Killls what you don't understand is that there is a cost effectiveness doing exercises. The closer to running specific the better but there is also a time cost vs. injury. Just because something has a different energy system doesen't mean you should be doing these exercises all day. Plyometrics do great things but if an athlete already has great elasticity and coordination then they might help a little but the injury cost after lots of endurance training they are dangerous. You are certainly a sprint coach. Runners should have just one coach because everything affects the body and the mind.
Even if you are explosive you have to keep working on this.
If you do not use it, you lose it. There is no such thing as "natural" talent in maintaining 46 second 400 speed. You must always work on it, even if only in maintanence mode.
FRIEND wrote:
What Hudson told me is that Renato Canova is the best Coach in the world.
Do you know Hudson?
Yes explosiveness needs to be in there but you need to not forget Distance runners gain economy from actually running and too much explosiveness will lead to injury as we have seen in so many. Short-hills are the safest most effective to induce strength and coordination.Training is not just what you do but what you don't do. Speed and strength are related and to have better biomechanical support you need to strengthen not just the fibers but to strengthen them at max. intensity. There is no one way but many and more cost effective. Do you want to spend a few hours or 20min. Training is everything that affects the mind and the body. LSU?
Leave CANOVA alone. it is bad enough you attack Hudson but now you want to bring Canova with you.
You need to understand how little lactate is produced in 8-10 sec. of a uphill sprint. You need to worry less about form and more about fiber strength.
How exactly does explosiveness lead to injury?
Question:
How many world class sprinters can run a 26:20 for 10000 meters.
Answer: None
BONO wrote:
Yes explosiveness needs to be in there but you need to not forget Distance runners gain economy from actually running and too much explosiveness will lead to injury as we have seen in so many. Short-hills are the safest most effective to induce strength and coordination.Training is not just what you do but what you don't do. Speed and strength are related and to have better biomechanical support you need to strengthen not just the fibers but to strengthen them at max. intensity. There is no one way but many and more cost effective. Do you want to spend a few hours or 20min. Training is everything that affects the mind and the body. LSU?
Bono -
How long should these hill reps last?