Coach Jay Johnson: What happened to just running?

Placebo effect. If you believe in it, the belief, alone, "enhances" performances. Drills are mostly dynamic flexibility, which is certainly better than static stretching. I'll agree with you that running is way more specific to running and performance enhancing than "calisthenics". You use the necessary range of just through speed work and strides.

come back in a generation, and you will have your answer.

Have you tried the Lunge Matrix? Looks are VERY deceiving.

This isn't 1950.

www.runningdvds.com

Listen and learn.

Alan

agree wrote:

Placebo effect. If you believe in it, the belief, alone, "enhances" performances. Drills are mostly dynamic flexibility, which is certainly better than static stretching. I'll agree with you that running is way more specific to running and performance enhancing than "calisthenics". You use the necessary range of just through speed work and strides.

This is a great post. I consider Jay to be a friend of mine and think there is something to all of the drills and what not. But it's amazing how all of the drills have become THE thing with Cook, Vig, Jay, etc.

I was wondering myself if a big part of it was so that the athlete was thinking there was something magical in their coach's training. I think that belief is big.

I always worshiped what JK told me about mileage and tempos as the internet didn't exist and you couldn't read it all over back then. But when I tell my kids now, go out and run another 12 with 5 miles uptempo - they are sometimes like "the same crap again?". They want a secret or something special as compared to 4 years of mileage/hard work.

I agree it may look weird, but I wish I had this stuff when I was a collegiate runner, I may have stayed healthier. With so much running we did, this stuff seems like it would have been a nice change of pace to help us stay on our feet and off the training room table.

i'm not saying that i don't like some of his ancillary work but when i looked at some of his workouts that he would post for his athletes. i was dumbfounded to see a boat load of extracurricular calisthenic type stuff on top of running. It seemed like a little too much at times for exercises that are not specific to running.

I don't think jay's guys are running 90-100mpw but they're not high school kids anymore, been w/ jay for a few years and gone through a lot of these same auxilliary work. They definitely have a solid stength base so When do they just get to run?

americans aren't kenyans, i understand that but when u do 2 hours of auxilliary work every day couldn't that time best be seved by actually running.

but.....it seems to be working for him (renee metivier's win at u.s indoors)

I agree with Agree to Disagree. I wish I had this when I was younger.

Rojo,

If you have a top end athlete who has been training hard and training right for upwards of 10+ years I think these ancillary things become MUCH more important. On a related note, didn't Fam have a quite a breakthrough after "just" changing his diet?

High school kids, college kids....get the basics down first. Add in the ancillary things so long as it does not interfere with the main focus.

I think Cook, Vig, Jay, etc, are simply doing what I'm doing...trying to put the focus on something important that 99% of runners brush off. If you're like "oh yeah, we also do plyos" do you think anyone will listen to you? If instead you talk in great detail or type 500 words about the topic people will then begin to listen.

Alan

If you look on his blog, the recent video with renee says their practice was 3.5 hours long, so seems like they are doing quite a bit of both. I highly doubt its all drills and renee has done well so far this year, so it seems to be helping

A runner can only handle so much running a day. The idea with all the goofy drills and exercises is to get more out of the body without causing injury. Do you really believe that ANY elite level athlete can handle an extra hour or two of running a day without getting injured? Instead they do strides, drills, and other exercises to build coordination, help develop better form, protect against injury, develop better range of motion, etc.

One only has to look at where distance running in the US is today vs. 12 years ago to decide whether or not all of the "goofy" stuff has a positive or negative effect. We're not even 1/4 of the way through the year and we already have over 20 guys breaking 4:00 for the first time. We've seen High School and Jr. National records blown away by a few talented individuals. Is that coincidence that people are starting to do all of the extra stuff and at the same time, people are becoming much more competitive?

Also, ever watch a training video from the Ethiopian camps? They do hours of drills too! Fascinating...

I don't think they are go go go for 3.5 hours...

If you think about what entails "practice" we're talking about maybe a long 15-20 minute mobility warmup/stretching, 60-90 minute run, 15-20 minute stretching/refreshing, 30-45 minute resistance/plyo work with long rests, 15-20 minute foam roller/stretching, 15-20 minute ice bath...time adds up....

Alan

One of his workouts from his site down below...i like the concept but damn, that's confusing and quite intricate

"10 min jump rope, ending with 5 “doubles”; 2×5xRocket Jumps with 30 sec between sets. Squats at 8×220, 6×240, 4×265 with 3 min between sets. Do 2/1 and make sure you challenge the depth on these – if you can go low and still do the 2/1 then that is ideal. 2×2 min of leg discomfort: 20xWide Outs with 25 lb. plate; 45º run (thigh to parallel) for 20 seconds (go hard); 60 box slalom, 5 rocket jumps, repeat circuit; take 4 min between circuits. Richey Upper body 15 min routine. Jump rope 5 min, then Athena and Sleepytime"

Definitely, my point was, they are still probably getting the 90-100mpw while doing all the drills/exercises because the workouts are 3.5 hrs long, but they are doing it safely by incorporating all those drills for mobility

Pretty strong squat for a bunch of runners...unless he's doing quarter squats.

Alan

I thought he went away from squats because of the load on the spine...recall that from a Sara V video.

three times a year I have to wear a suit and one of those times is tonight (wife's college alumni function) and when I get home several people tell me there is a thread.

Two thoughts, then off to bed.

First. I have no clue if I'll still assign all of this stuff in 10 years.

Second. We do it so we can run more and so we can do a bigger percentage of that running faster.

The irony is that today I said to an athlete, "Remember, you're not walking over the damn hurdles to get faster or improve RE. You're walking over them because it might keep you healthy..and it might not, but my guess it that it helps a little."

This particular athlete had listened to the Rojo/Cook podcast yesterday (and loved it) so I added, "That's one of the things people don't understand about Cook's stuff. Cook is probably doing hurdles for both an ancillary and preventive reason as well as for a power/RE reason, yet he probably forgets to make that distinction because he's been doing it for 15-20 years and so every thinks it's just for power." ...and if I would have finished my thought I would have said that the bounding, the ballistic nature of the drills and the 20m sprints definitely improve RE/Power and Coordination (not "pat your head and rub your belly coordination" but coordination in the sense that we all have more motor units available to do work than we use and we need to get better at asking for help)

Also, prior that conversation I made the point the Gary Winkler's voice is in my head at least once a week regarding "bad foot contacts" yet as a distance coach I firmly believe in a long run each week (though we've de-emphasized it since Houston with Renee and done more long workouts - 15-16 in the morning on Friday and 7 in the PM, though she always tries/does to get in 8). Now, if I'm honest I probably let the hurdle coach's "bad foot contacts" comment lead me astray a bit as a college coach, yet he's still get a point. Sunday in Boulder can reinforce really crappy mechanics if you're not careful and that's how I like use that comment coach Winkler made - get in a couple of hours but make sure the last 1k looks as good as the first. Or, when the long run is finished I'll use a bunch of lunges and see how good or crappy they look.

http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2010/01/why-are-you-up-at-1111-pm/

..and if you read that post you'll know that I'm confounded and uncomfortable with training the PNS, but I'm fairly comfortable going after a CNS stimulus...

Anyway, I hope I didn't take the fun out of this. Yesterd day I took a video of myself skipping backwards on a trail yesterday just to remind people on the blog that I try to do all of the dumb ass stuff myself for a few months before I assign it. I do the LM before every run and I can now run all of Renee's workouts (which helps me coach her and which frees Austin to run with who ever he wants to run with in town), something I couldn't have done with a 15:20 runner two years ago.

LetsClose with this. The Lateral Lunge (LL) WU was basically born 5-6 years ago after seeing Dathan doing some work Pfaff had taught him. Dathan was great in the frontal plane, even though he had a big aerobic history and a longer training age. I took video at 30 fps and in the latteral shuffle his feet are perfect; his feet are perpendicular to the direction he's moving. And for reason's like this Pfaff called him "motor educable" and that's why I'm trying to remind the CNS/PNS of the athletes I work with that they were once good athletes. Vaughn could dunk a basketball his soph year of HS...before he got cut and before Greg Weich was industrious enough and smart enough to stand outside of basketball practice on the day of the cuts and talk to athletic kids.

...anyway, I'm either preaching to choir or adding fuel to the fire, but either way you should all know a coach I respect called me out a couple of weeks ago -

http://www.functionalpathtraining.typepad.com/functional_path_training/page/2/

in reference to this video - and it was good for me...we now do 1,200 med ball high tosses each day to satiate me ego and to prove that we're right ;-)

goomb wrote:

Also, ever watch a training video from the Ethiopian camps? They do hours of drills too! Fascinating...

Yep, top European runners, even marathoners (Rothlin, Baldini), also do this type of work. The Gouchers were doing it in that Nike video series they did a few years ago. Pretty much all top collegiate runners do something of the sort.

Runningart2004 wrote:

I think Cook, Vig, Jay, etc, are simply doing what I'm doing...

Oh yeah that must be why they coach successful people... they probably just listen to Alan.