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

Agreed.

Form shouldn't be toyed with or toyed with much. I find that running a lot in hilly environments and doing strain-free strides and warming down barefoot while being cognisant of yourself is about all you need. Look at a crowd of East Africans, they all look slightly different. And some very different with their form.

I had a rant on Twitter about this last year with respect to Salazar’s attempt to “improve” Ritzenhein’s form.

It’s one thing to do drills to refine, smooth out, and improve the coordination and the patterns that are unique to you, but it’s a whole different thing to tell an athlete their only option to be as good as they want to be is to mimic something they’re not.

https://twitter.com/geoffreyburns/status/1194708842262589440

Salazar vs no-Salazar, going college vs going pro, changing form vs not changing form, etc.

In my opinion when Mary Cain matured from a teenager to an adult she no longer had the runner's body with which she could run those fast times. Ultimately none of those other things would have made much difference,

you should only try to change someones form by strength training, not by telling them to move something in a different way

not rocket appliances wrote:

I wouldn't say that it's totally incorrect to try to change someone's form. While one's nervous system adopts the most optimal form, this is based on "current conditions," which aren't necessarily the most optimal for that person. So for example, someone with weak abdominal muscles would run in the way that is most efficient given this weakness, but it is possible that their absolute efficiency would be improved by "unlocking" different form possibilities through a weights/core program. So working on stuff like ROM, neuromuscular activation, power, strength etc. through non-running ancillary training might help improve absolute running economy for an individual.

Yes! But this is work that is really best done by a PT with expertise in running. Very few coaches have the education to properly diagnose the parameters that each runner needs to improve. Of course, you can have a team-wide exercise program that is likely to hit most of the big issues, but the problem with that is that it ends up being a very long program and people just won't do it. If you can figure out precisely what they need to work on, you can give them a tailored routine that's pretty easy to stick to.

It's entirely possible that the coaches were correctly identifying efficient form. It's just that such comparisons between different athletes aren't necessarily all that meaningful because technique is only one aspect of total running economy. Runners with very low ground contact time, for instance, are more efficient. But you can't see low GCT. So the athletes in this study who appeared inefficient might have had more personal room for improvement via technique manipulation than others.

rojo im curious why you say L-Carnitine didnt work? I thought it worked amazingly on magness and I'd assume it had at least some effect on the NOPers.

1) I have an ex phys background and authored several papers. The problem is few read them. ( I get notices when papers are cited by other authors and even then it is not a huge number) and probably few coaches.

2) Alex does a nice job of translating the research into something someone without a PhD can understand. Unfortunately, too few sport scientists are good at translating.

3) Likewise too many coaches are dismissive of what a scientist can bring to the table.

Technically we are talking running economy (RE), efficiency is different, but I am just about going to give up on this argument.

As noted, RE is measured at some given pace and oxygen uptake can vary from pace to pace. If an athlete is used to training in a certain pace range or races at that pace they likely will show more RE at that pace. So a 800m runner likely will be more economical at faster paces than a comparable marathoner at that same pace (and vice versus).

The arrogance in form is that we think we know what the ideal form is. Running is not a sport based on aesthetics like gymnastics or figure skating where there is a standard for each movement (until people invent new combinations).

There may be some things worth looking at; for instance my son runs with a right foot "flare" (it points outward rather than directly straight ahead). A concern is that will lead to problems up the leg so a PT has prescribed some exercises to strengthen some of the lower leg muscles. It is early in his career (he has been running just over a year) and it seems like fixing it now is a good idea. But I suspect most attempts at fixing form are based on impressions as Alex's article notes.

As a side note: a friend at Eastern Michigan had the coach there do the same thing and pretty much got the same results.

qss wrote:

Salazar vs no-Salazar, going college vs going pro, changing form vs not changing form, etc.

In my opinion when Mary Cain matured from a teenager to an adult she no longer had the runner's body with which she could run those fast times. Ultimately none of those other things would have made much difference,

Sad that we will never know.

Yeah we've known for years that gait retraining is not effective but thanks for bringing back good memories of 2014

800 dude wrote:

It's entirely possible that the coaches were correctly identifying efficient form. It's just that such comparisons between different athletes aren't necessarily all that meaningful because technique is only one aspect of total running economy..

An example is Hutchinson's article on the guy with the highest VO2max ever.

He was a cyclist and his baseline VO2max with minimal training was pretty high

and he was competing well. On increased training his VO2max went through the

roof to record levels but his actual race performance didn't improve near as much.

The reason was evident in the VO2max data as he was, of course, on the

bike and they had the power data. Power output didn't increase near as much

as VO2max did. With training he was able to burn more oxygen, but he was burning

that extra oxygen in an inefficient manor.

So really the only way to tell whether someone''s form is inefficient is to change

that form and compare--really tough and a risk because if the new form is less

efficient you might not be able to go back. Otherwise you could just be measuring,

for example, the inherent efficiency in how that runner's muscles use oxygen.

dznuts wrote:o

rojo im curious why you say L-Carnitine didnt work? I thought it worked amazingly on magness and I'd assume it had at least some effect on the NOPers.

He ran 15 miles at 5.10 pace. Everyone got over excited.

Nobody had worse form than Ireland's John Treacy.

However, few men ever born were as tough or fast as he was.

(2x World XC Champ, Silver Medal Olympic Marathon.)

800 dude wrote:

It's entirely possible that the coaches were correctly identifying efficient form. It's just that such comparisons between different athletes aren't necessarily all that meaningful because technique is only one aspect of total running economy. Runners with very low ground contact time, for instance, are more efficient. But you can't see low GCT. So the athletes in this study who appeared inefficient might have had more personal room for improvement via technique manipulation than others.

Agree with your points. Relative comparison isn't useful, and a lot of what is happening biomechanically is too fast for us to see/discern or for an athlete to control consciously even if it could be identified, which is why such evaluations aren't much use.

There is good evidence that certain types of strength/ancillary training do improve RE (eg. plyometrics, basic/functional weights, above race pace strides, power hills). The specific cause/effect of these interventions is complicated and individual, but I think it would be fair to say that improving a runner's strength, power, neuromuscular coordination, active ROM is of benefit to most. There are of course diminishing/negative returns at some point (time spent in gym takes away from running, being too jacked or too flexible becomes detrimental at some point), and specific issues are best addressed by a physiotherapist.

Luv2Run wrote:

1) I have an ex phys background and authored several papers. The problem is few read them. ( I get notices when papers are cited by other authors and even then it is not a huge number) and probably few coaches.

2) Alex does a nice job of translating the research into something someone without a PhD can understand. Unfortunately, too few sport scientists are good at translating.

3) Likewise too many coaches are dismissive of what a scientist can bring to the table.

Agree, problem is that nuance is often lost. Hutch does a great job of translating sport science research for people outside of academia, and usually does a pretty good job of capturing the nuance. I think sometimes however the "take-away" that readers themselves (or other people editorializing his work) choose to take from his articles loses this aspect, which is unfortunate. People want science/research to be a one liner... which it can be, but to be so reductive often misses the point. I think if your take-away is "form doesn't matter at all, no point in doing ANY type of intervention that might improve it," that is reductionist and not entirely true.

This is a bit off topic, but I think it is a problem in science communication to try to reduce to one-liners. To be clear again, this isn't referring to Hutch, I think he does a good job capturing nuance for the general public. More editorializations from others. It gives the impression that absolute truths/certainty exist where they do not, and when people inevitably find that these truth aren't absolute in certain cases (nuance!), they toss the whole thing out as lies. That's part of the reason why we have anti-vaxxers, people who think Covid is fake, and climate change is a hoax etc. No science will convince them they're wrong because they've been alienated by it and think it's all BS due to failures in science comm to admit nuance/unknowns.

And remember, people used to laugh at John Cleese's walking form!

Al Sal ran with the ugliest form I've ever seen, but it worked for him.

Has anyone told Stephanie Garcia about this?