Scientific researchers: Alberto Salazar may have been wrong in trying to change Mary Cain's form

So even forum posts have clickbait titles now.

she was most likely going to fall well short of expectations know matter who the coach was. salazar is her scapegoat. coaches make a difference, but they are not the difference between world class and regional class.

cain was probably best served to be trained as 800/1500.

salazar thought she was the next mary decker.

most likely, she was not destined for greatness at any distance, with any coaching.

Lots of things change when an 18-year old high schooler becomes a 19-year old professional. Coaching style is just one of them. Hormones change. Emotions changes. There's psychological and motivational changes. And there are numerous changes to the immediate environment: friends, family, daily routine, etc.

It could very well be if she went to some unknown school in some unknown state that the external factors would have aligned perfectly and she'd be a superstar right now.

Everyone likes to blame Salazar but we'll never know what caused her career to flame out. If Salazar really was to blame, then how come Mary Cain hasn't rebounded since then? She split from Salazar years ago.

Someone once said "Life is 20 percent what happens to you and 80 percent how you respond". Mary needs to focus on the 80 percent.

Mary Cain was about 5 1/2% slower than 800m world record at age 17. That would be equal to a 17 year old boy racing 1:46.46 800m. Salazar saw those results and decided to make Cain a 1500m-10000m athlete. Who else would see an 800m runner race 800m so well and then do what Salazar did in regard to Cain's training? If Salazar would have coached Wilson at age 17 and attempted to make Wilson a 1500m-10000m athlete, Salazar would have ruined Wilson too! Coaches and coaching decisions do matter.

She split with Salazar in October of 2016 when she was 20 years old. If bad coaching really was the problem, she had plenty of time to correct it. Track and Field is not Gymnastics, or Figure Skating. The "window" is pretty big.

Bound4Glory wrote:

She split with Salazar in October of 2016 when she was 20 years old. If bad coaching really was the problem, she had plenty of time to correct it. Track and Field is not Gymnastics, or Figure Skating. The "window" is pretty big.

Salazar coached Cain from 2012 to 2016. That is plenty of time to ruin an 800m runner. Eight-hundred metres is more like gymnastics or figure skating than longer events. You thought you were being contrary, you actually helped make my point.

Your point only makes sense if a 800-meter runner's career is over when she's 20 years old. Nobody believes that. The world record, which you brought up, was set by a 32-year old.

600yd/600m man wrote:

Mary Cain was about 5 1/2% slower than 800m world record at age 17. That would be equal to a 17 year old boy racing 1:46.46 800m. Salazar saw those results and decided to make Cain a 1500m-10000m athlete. Who else would see an 800m runner race 800m so well and then do what Salazar did in regard to Cain's training? If Salazar would have coached Wilson at age 17 and attempted to make Wilson a 1500m-10000m athlete, Salazar would have ruined Wilson too! Coaches and coaching decisions do matter.

About 90% of this board thinks everyone should be moving up. Run a 1:45 and they think you should try and be a 3:25 runner:) The unknown factor is what her 400m speed was like. A 1:59min runner with 56s 400m speed might go my future is in the 1500m. A 1:59 with 54s speed might go, I still got a lot of room to improve.

There isn't enough details to know exactly went wrong with Cain and if it could have been prevented.

Bear wrote:

Salazar himself had terrible looking form but was obviously very efficient. Maybe he thinks in hindsight that if he had “fixed” his form he could have been faster?

Some of that. His form also got noticeably worse over time. Go look at early Oregon AlSal and compare that to the guy that showed up in the marathon.

Bound4Glory wrote:

Your point only makes sense if a 800-meter runner's career is over when she's 20 years old. Nobody believes that. The world record, which you brought up, was set by a 32-year old.

The female world record holder trained as a 100m/200m/400m athlete while in her teens and early twenties. You feel like debating me it seems because you seem to feel it is your duty to defend Salazar. Bring up Jarmila Kratochvilova is not helping your argument. Training an 800/1500 Thoroughbred from age 16 to 20 like a 1500-10000 athlete is plenty of time to ruin an athlete. Your arguments are not helping in your attempt to defend Salazar. Are you one of Al Sal's kids? Salazar ruined Cain. It's obvious.

You were the first to bring up Jarmila, not me.

Also, by your world record comparison argument, at the same time Mary ran 1:59, she also ran 4:04 in the 1500. That's only 6 percent off the world record. So, unlike with Ajee, the 1500 made sense.

The only thing that's clear is Salazar's abusive coaching style was bad for Mary. I can agree with that. But he didn't ruin her. She suffered no permanent injury. There was still plenty of time, and there is still plenty of time for her to resume her career.

I have always said this...it is ridiculous in almost every case, to try to change a runner's form. There is not perfect form. World class runners have different form from each other. How we run naturally is almost always the most efficient, and I'm saying "almost always" because there might be some rare cases out there where someone has some weird idea about what they should be doing. Go for a run. How you run is how you should run.

Jared Ward was part of a statistical study at BYU a couple years ago that basically said people run how they run, leave them alone.

going to back Al Sal on this one.

not that he's right, he's studied this more than the "scientists".

which is not to condone his use of grey area PEDs

Al Sal theories resulted from his bad form, which was developed through training the right way and the wrong way.

meaning that he got real efficient at running like 440 miles.

which is not the best idea for track. and in fact, not that marathon is going close to 2 hours,

that technique does not work there either.

at the end of the day,

you want to emulate sprinters technique and convert to middle distance.

bekele is the bomb here. he never maxed out, and had the ultimate style.

which cannot be done by but a few.

it is an intriguing topic.

in general, non-african runners, develop a bad style, through atrophy of muscles,

runners adapt their style to their volume of training, which often differs from their actual event.

this is the mistake.

got to go with Al Sal on this one.

Quite Contrary wrote:

Salazar didn't fail with Mary Cain, Mary Cain failed Mary Cain. She's weak and jumped onto the poor me I was abused bandwagon instead of addressing her responsibility in her failures. She will fail again because her problem is looking her in the mirror and has nothing to do with Alberto or anyone else..

Got to back Al Sal ahole that he is, on this one , a bit.

Mary Cain, lovely girl loves to run, and be free, and have fun.

In the Spartan world which is ultimate sports competition, you don't get your feelings hurt.

You kick ass.

However, Al Sal is a kind of moron, not seeing the athlete, and communicating.

So both are wrong here.

Al Sal didn't read the athlete.

Cain was weak in not confronting the issue.

Face it, she's not a champ mentally

Very few have spartan fiber. nor should they.

It's kind of an insanity.

Don't Judge a Runner's Efficiency by Their Stride

just read this.

ultimate BS

with that said, the best stride depending on your bone structure, varies.

quite a bit.

so, you don't try to fit a square peg in a round hole.

for example bolt has what? a 9 ft. stride.

and Michael Johnson had a 7.5 foot stride?

and ran the same times in the 200m

Johnson remember tripped up a bit in his 19.32, and ran basically the same time as bolt's best.

maybe what they mean, is that one kind of stride does not fit all.

which is the case.

but you want to look at your stride none the less.

while your best stride is somewhat unique,

come on.

you do have your best stride, and things to do to achieve it.

Salazar tested as very efficient in spite of his horrible LOOKING form. It was how his body was put together, including muscle fiber type (he had to work hard to get to 4 mM lactate). Salazar's VO2max was not particularly high either for an elite runner, same for Frank Shorter.

800m runners get relatively more efficient at faster speeds, but long distance runners become relatively less efficient at higher speeds.

Purposefully changing natural running form is a mistake, but strengthening muscle weaknesses that may impact form -> running economy or speed, is not. Season after season, until injured or chronically injury prone, too many runners neglect strength/core/flexibility/ROM/mobility/agility. That stresses the major muscles doing the bulk of the running work and over-stresses weaker ancillary muscles.

Bekele runs like a 400m guy, naturally, and gets more benefit from achilles stored energy. Salazar could never run like that - successfully.

Messing around with Cain's form was a mistake, particularly while her body was probably still growing/maturing. Not all women can look as good as Houlihan does sprinting, because not all of them are put together like she is. The Bolt/Johnson form analogy is a good one. Women can train to get their own bodies to sprint better by doing that type of work in their training, plus, including strength/core, etc. prior to starting it to reduce their chance of getting injured in the process.

It's no surprise when runners who do long periods of 'base' work and 'build-up' then switch to speed work get injured - they just spent months detraining those speed systems/mechanisms and neglecting strength/core/drills.