tellem wrote:
coacht27 wrote:your point of view explains why distance runners have such poor ability to sprint. being able to sprint the last 50m of a race is often a handy thing. hells bells I even teach basic speed techniques to my shot putters. being able to sprint is about as basic as shooting a free throw in basketball.
Stop being so cryptic then, fill us in on what it means to have good sprint technique. When I hear that I think of starts and the drive phase, neither of which apply to distance runners. So what would you be teaching?
I have developed a series of six drills that break down the sprinting movement into components. We do each drill four times and we do the workout once a week. We start out doing the drills over 40 yards and each week we add five yards so that after about three months we are at 100 yards. These drills are basically plyometrics done on grass. At the end of the workout we do a few 40 yard sprints for time and we see slight improvements in this from week to week. It is typical to see improvements in the time of between 5% to 10% by the end of the three month program in the first year. Typically we begin this work in October and finish before track season starts so they are well prepared to run fast when we begin track preseason preparation. It takes a couple of sessions for them to learn the drills and after four or five sessions they begin to see improvement. They get pretty sore muscles in places they did not know they had muscles. A new muscle memory seems to take place so that their running form stays strong and fluid even when they are tired. Some of the drills are horizontal in nature and some are vertical and most are
done on a tempo of about 180 footballs per minute. We always do the drills under supervision so that as they tire they stay correct in the form. The entire workout takes over an hour to do and makes them very tired.
Although I have taught this program to a few other coaches who have had similar success as I have had I have not tied to put it on a web site or tried to sell it in any fashion. I am a retired old guy who coaches for the pure pleasure it brings me. Back in the day I was a reasonably competitive middle distance runner. That was when track was yards and cinders not meters and rubber.
It is not my intention to be cryptic. It's just that learning my system has to be a hands on thing. There are a lot of drills in use. Some are ineffective and some are actually counterproductive. I try to not ask muscles to fire in a manner not actually done in the sprinting or running motion that we are trying to achieve. The six drills I use are surely not the only ones that will work it's just the ones I have developed. I do not use sleds or parachutes or any other hardware. I like to work on grass with long spikes as it forces the athlete to pick up their feet. Sometimes we work on a rubber track with appropriate spikes.
I have been doing this program for several years and all of the athletes with whom I have worked have seen improvements in their pure speed and their overall running form.