Salazar, Ritz, and the Perfect Stride

Great article. I would take Alberto as a coach any day.

“From the start, Alberto told me that he’s going to screw up sometimes,” Ritzenhein said as he stood on the sidelines of a fastidiously trimmed field. “But he also said that he’s going to know he screwed up, and fix it."

good article

excuse my lack of knowledge on form but could someone explain the following quotes from Salazar:

"The fastest finishers had a higher thigh drive, for one thing; at its apex, their femur bone was almost parallel to the ground, like the front legs of a bounding deer. They also slapped the ground so quickly with their forefoot that the contact seemed almost incidental"

"Salazar wanted him to run more on his forefoot and also to strike the pavement more sharply—like you’re clawing at the ground"

"Comparing the video to one of Bekele, Salazar explained, had revealed several flaws in Ritzenhein’s form, including a problem with his elbow drive: the amount of thrust produced by the rearward pump of his upper arms. While Ritzenhein typically throws his elbows back at around a sixty-degree angle when he’s running hard, Bekele throws his back at almost seventy degrees—generating a correspondingly more powerful push. The comparison also identified a problematic gap between Ritzenhein’s knees at the moment when his front foot struck the ground. Freezing the frame, Salazar targeted a wedge-shaped space between Ritzenhein’s thighs. That gap reflected both Ritzenhein’s tendency to heel-strike and the sluggish recovery of his trailing leg"

hmm - if you watch the video on the new yorker web site it explains most of what you are asking.

yep....http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/11/video-alberto-salazar-dathan-ritzenhein.html

Cool video, his form looks really good in the final sprint.

go green wrote:

hmm - if you watch the video on the new yorker web site it explains most of what you are asking.

thanks,

how do you extend hip separation?

in regards to toe off position - is the toe on the ground or off the ground, this could lead to different angle results

He'll have Ritz checking his watch every 30m before too long.... And Alberto will never admit he's made a mistake on this OCD stride phase.

Bekele races 10000m at 63-64/lap; marathon pace for Ritz is 72-73/400m.

Don't you think the researcher (Walker) probably knows how to compare apples to apples?

skip wrote:

in regards to toe off position - is the toe on the ground or off the ground, this could lead to different angle results

a nice jabe gennings insight i see

This article rocked. Gracias.

Good (though long) article. I hope nothing but the best for Salazar and Ritz. That said, my one negative comment is that it seems Alberto skipped Coaching 101 as he jumped to the upper level classes and missed an important lesson: when changing form, do so GRADUALLY. It seems obvious that an injury-prone runner would become injured when you're changing 3-4 elements at the same time.

Pick one, fix it, then move to the next. For example, work on striking mid-foot and then work on bringing the trail leg up to the butt, then work on driving the lead thigh higher, not all at once. Anyway, just my two cents.

Are you teaching 101? Because I'm hoping to become a professional coach, and though I already have an appointment set up to speak with Salazar, it seems you might know better than him. Perhaps we can schedule a time to talk about what it takes to coach world class athletes...

Although these seem like ground breaking thoughts - not one is. if Alberto had understood runniung mechanics (IE 101) years ago he would have started this process with other athletes. Now "you don't break done the fence until you understand why it was built". So to give him credit he has taken the time to understand the building now. But this article and this idea is so long overdue it is ridiculous. Too view us as race cars - tires-shoes---suspension-muscles and skeleton---engine-cv system and strength -- driver - your brain. Distance running USA has spent almost all of its timing wringing out the engine issues and forgetting the suspension which as most drivers know in the end it is the driver and suspension/tires that win the races. I have talked about this issue of running mechanics to distance coaches since 1982. Recent evidence is the female winner of marathon in 2004. It is simple if you teach someone how to run(preferably when they are 10-12) and they learn how to place their foot properly and with the appropriate force(beyond just gravity)they will access the elastic abilities of their system. This alone will mean they will save precious energy with each step and that CV system we have spent so much time developing will take advantage of that. Faster running by using non metabolic tissue to enhance efficiency of metabolic system. The idea about taking your time is spot on as in the beginning new mechanics mean less efficiency until your body adapts - about 3-6 months.

Interesting, and seems to go a good job being fair to Salazar's personality, attitude and application to training athletes and himself.

The fact seems very well laid out that Salazar is relentlessly obsessing to find what he needs to meet his endgame. Seems his insatiable need and this relentlessness is matched by tireless searching through trial and error and occasionally reckless experimentation on self and others.

Prolific in his work, his path is littered with athletes wrecked from, in my opinion, simplistic interpretation of ideas born from his bias to find an edge.

His years of experience and focus ironically may have developed in him his acquired and keen wisdom and insight. Seemingly this has allowed for his later successes and contribution to the athletes named in the Article and that we all know.

what is this "thumbs down" business? I think Al Sal is wrong about that one. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/sports/olympics/23strides.html?_r=1

naia champ wrote:

what is this "thumbs down" business? I think Al Sal is wrong about that one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/sports/olympics/23strides.html?_r=1

Swing your arms like you're running and hold your hands like you're giving a "thumbs up" to someone.

Now swing your arms like you're running and hold your hands with your thumb curled lightly over the top of the fist.

You should be able to feel the difference in tenseness in your forearm. The picture you linked shows everyone with their thumbs down, so you probably just didn't understand what he meant.

In the video, the speaker talks about arm swing and says Salazar tells his athletes to go ? hip to nipple ?

Was I hearing that right? Couldn't quite make it out. I've been told that you should run with your arms bent so that you could keep a pebble in the crook of your elbow. You could imagine the athletes in the picture above doing that. Basically it's the anti ryan hall. That makes sense, I'm just trying to figure out what the ideal range of motion would be for the hand.