,jsbx wrote:
Poor technique is what gives the Americans hope of a medal. Americans look at the SC and figure that they have a chance because they can out-technical the rest of the world, especially the Kenyans. In a flat 3000m, no way. Sheer athleticism wins out.
Totally agree with this assessment. Superior technique is what keeps US born runners relevant in the steeple chase.
malmo wrote:
Renato Canova wrote:This is what makes steeple similar cross country : the ability to increase the personal speed every time you are in front of some obstacle (in cross country maybe a hill, or a stream you have to overtake jumping, or simply a turn, wher European decrease the speed, and Kenyans increase).
Of course, if Kenyans could maintain the same approach to the barriers as speed, using a better technique when overtake the hurdle, their times could be still better. But it's a fact that 99% of the performance is connected with the ability to run fast, and the training for steeple is a full training of middle distance, where the most important goal is to improve the ability to run fast.
.
Great minds think alike, Renato. I've been saying this for over 40 years.
The problem with those who preach "technique" is that 90% of them don't know what good steeplechase technique is. Back in the day, I used to hear idiots proudly proclaim that Henry Rono (and Kenyans in general) had poor technique, which was categorically untrue. Henry's hurdling was textbook - led with a bent knee, even keeping bent through clearance. I even posted videos of Henry to debunk the notion, by showing Henry leaving his competition in the dust OVER the barriers. Obviously he was doing something right.
Look at how many steeplechasers, especially women, try to stiff-leg it over the barriers. That's not good hurdling at all. Totally wrong, yet you see it over and over. Hurdling is all about a smooth trajectory. In the steeplechase it involves spatial awareness in front, to the sides, and behind you. There's a lot going on, and the steeplechaser MUST be able to make split second adjustments to his takeoff spot. Since you are clearing an immovable object there is no room for error. A high clearance is necessary. Those who try to skim the barriers will soon become ex-steeplechasers.
Since it is against the rules to mark your ideal takeoff on the track, and there is too much going on in the approach to accurately find the ideal takeoff, a steeplechaser had better have technique that allows room to improvise.
If you take a look at the trajectory of steeplechasers you'll see that the apogee of the trajectory will be about a half meter in front of the barrier. Imagine if you transect with the top of the barrier horizontally and through the trajectory curve where the bottom of the buttocks is during flight, you'll see the area of clearance opportunity each steeplechaser has to work with. If the runners takeoff is just a half meter closer to the barrier, he'll need more veritical force to get over it. Leading with that bent knee becomes even more important here. Stiff-leg it and you won't clearing the barrier smoothly. If the steeplechasers takeoff point is a half meter in front of the ideal, he's now running the risk of ruin - hitting that barrier with the trailing knee.
The objective of hurdling is to get your butt over the barrier smoothly, it is not to lock your knees and point your toes (nothing but trouble).
So why don't 400m hurdlers use that technique if its so efficient?
Renato Canova wrote:
I never had some session with barriers with all my athletes, including the WR holder Stephen Cherono (Shaheen), his elder brother Christopher Koskei (WCh 1999), Wilson Boit Kipketer (WR holder before Barmasai and WCh 1997) and Dorcus Inzikuru (winner of the first edition WCh for women in 2005) when I was in Kenya. The reason is very simple : we didn't have barriers and water jumps for some specific training, at a level to guarantee a safe training.
However, we worked a lot in two different directions :
a) for increasing the ECCENTRIC STRENGTH. This is one of the most important points, since every time the runner lands needs to use a lot of eccentric strength (mainly in the water jump) for contrasting the load of the body, and this in percentage very much higher than during the normal run.
b) for increasing THE SPEED BEFORE THE BARRIER, not depending on the technique used for overtaking the barrier itself.
If you put together an American or European specialist of high level, and a Kenyan of high level, 10 meters BEFORE a barrier, and look where they are 10 meters AFTER the barrier, you can see that the technique of the American or European is very much better, but... the Kenyan is able to earn 3 meters in these 20m, including the barrier.
This is what makes steeple similar cross country : the ability to increase the personal speed every time you are in front of some obstacle (in cross country maybe a hill, or a stream you have to overtake jumping, or simply a turn, wher European decrease the speed, and Kenyans increase).
Of course, if Kenyans could maintain the same approach to the barriers as speed, using a better technique when overtake the hurdle, their times could be still better. But it's a fact that 99% of the performance is connected with the ability to run fast, and the training for steeple is a full training of middle distance, where the most important goal is to improve the ability to run fast.
In Italy, we had important specialists who used technical training very little : Francesco Panetta, when won WCh in steeple with 8'08" celebrating in the last furlong (could easily run 8'06") in 1987, few days before won silver in 10000m, and had 27'24" and 13'06" of PB. I remember the last 50 meters in European Championships 1990, when he attacked the last barriers 2 meters behind Rowland, who was fastest than him in 1500m (3'34") and had the same level in steeple (8'07"96 in OG 1988), and was able to have the reactive strength for sprinting in the last 50m defeating him (and never Panetta was good in the final sprint, but after the last barrier was fresher because was more prepared in the eccentric contraction).
Also Lambruschini (bronze medal in OG 1996) didn't use to work too much in technique, only running two times in the last month some repetition with barriers but without water jump.
And, before them, Franco Fava was mainly a runner of 10000m going to Marathon in OG 1976, like Giuseppe Gerbi, 6th in steeple in OG 1980 but Italian Champ of Marathon with 2:11. These athletes practically never used technical training for steeple.
Oh what I love about these "great coaches" like you is that you can jsut cherry pick some great runner that can compensate technique with unreal genetics. The ends dont justify the means. All sports have aspects of it that have skills that can be recipricated to improve the performance. To just throw the hurdling technique out the window is assinine.
Bob Schul Country wrote:
Renato Canova wrote:I never had some session with barriers with all my athletes, including the WR holder Stephen Cherono (Shaheen), his elder brother Christopher Koskei (WCh 1999), Wilson Boit Kipketer (WR holder before Barmasai and WCh 1997) and Dorcus Inzikuru (winner of the first edition WCh for women in 2005) when I was in Kenya. The reason is very simple : we didn't have barriers and water jumps for some specific training, at a level to guarantee a safe training.
However, we worked a lot in two different directions :
a) for increasing the ECCENTRIC STRENGTH. This is one of the most important points, since every time the runner lands needs to use a lot of eccentric strength (mainly in the water jump) for contrasting the load of the body, and this in percentage very much higher than during the normal run.
b) for increasing THE SPEED BEFORE THE BARRIER, not depending on the technique used for overtaking the barrier itself.
If you put together an American or European specialist of high level, and a Kenyan of high level, 10 meters BEFORE a barrier, and look where they are 10 meters AFTER the barrier, you can see that the technique of the American or European is very much better, but... the Kenyan is able to earn 3 meters in these 20m, including the barrier.
This is what makes steeple similar cross country : the ability to increase the personal speed every time you are in front of some obstacle (in cross country maybe a hill, or a stream you have to overtake jumping, or simply a turn, wher European decrease the speed, and Kenyans increase).
Of course, if Kenyans could maintain the same approach to the barriers as speed, using a better technique when overtake the hurdle, their times could be still better. But it's a fact that 99% of the performance is connected with the ability to run fast, and the training for steeple is a full training of middle distance, where the most important goal is to improve the ability to run fast.
In Italy, we had important specialists who used technical training very little : Francesco Panetta, when won WCh in steeple with 8'08" celebrating in the last furlong (could easily run 8'06") in 1987, few days before won silver in 10000m, and had 27'24" and 13'06" of PB. I remember the last 50 meters in European Championships 1990, when he attacked the last barriers 2 meters behind Rowland, who was fastest than him in 1500m (3'34") and had the same level in steeple (8'07"96 in OG 1988), and was able to have the reactive strength for sprinting in the last 50m defeating him (and never Panetta was good in the final sprint, but after the last barrier was fresher because was more prepared in the eccentric contraction).
Also Lambruschini (bronze medal in OG 1996) didn't use to work too much in technique, only running two times in the last month some repetition with barriers but without water jump.
And, before them, Franco Fava was mainly a runner of 10000m going to Marathon in OG 1976, like Giuseppe Gerbi, 6th in steeple in OG 1980 but Italian Champ of Marathon with 2:11. These athletes practically never used technical training for steeple.
Oh what I love about these "great coaches" like you is that you can jsut cherry pick some great runner that can compensate technique with unreal genetics. The ends dont justify the means. All sports have aspects of it that have skills that can be recipricated to improve the performance. To just throw the hurdling technique out the window is assinine.
I agree they are winning despite losing time over the hurdles.
Whatever the technique is you need to practice it to improve its a fundamental anything you want to improve at not just sports.
Perhaps hurdle practice does not work on high altitude elites!
of course technique and practice is unimportant in not only track and field but all sports.
training techniques don't matter either, just run baby.
probably practicing hurdling is bad, you might sprain and ankle and then fear the hurdles, or get tired out.
the secret is cod liver oil and amino acids.
believe me i know my science. to quote brojoe, do you know what a ml is? i do, i looked it up!
lets run sum intelligence has the knowledge of a ping ball, the effectiveness of a suitcase full of ping pong balls .
amateur hacks, keep up the good work.
we're off on extended holiday. bonvoyage.
What about an athlete that is 6 feet ? What's more efficient, hurdling like Jager or Kipruto? I wanna pick up the event & plan on increasing my mileage to gain the aerobic strength needed.
lead with your trail leg wrote:
During indoor track practice my freshman year in college, my coach found out I was an aspiring hurdler in junior high and had me run some hurdles. So in the spring my coach put me in the steeplechase. The problem I had was that I was taught how to High Hurdle and although it looked good, my form was too exaggerated and inefficient for the steeple. "Looking under your eyebrows" going over steeple barriers didn't work to well. Eventually (by my junior year) I was able to tame it down and become more relaxed and use less energy. Not that I ever really did that well at the steeple.
Renato Canova's post was terrific as usual but I think this is the most valuable post in the thread so far. People know what good sprint technique is, but how can we really be sure what good steeple technique looks like? The fastest way to get over the barrier isn't necessarily best over 3K.
"Proper" steeple form might also differ based on the height of the hurdle and the weight of the athlete -- from a physics standpoint I think a lighter athlete might be able to get away with worse form.
I also sort of just love it when conventional knowledge is shown to be of limited value :)
Maybe you didn't read, or didn't understand, what I wrote :
"If you put together an American or European specialist of high level, and a Kenyan of high level, 10 meters BEFORE a barrier, and look where they are 10 meters AFTER the barrier, you can see that the technique of the American or European is very much better, but... the Kenyan is able to earn 3 meters in these 20m, including the barrier."
This is a FACT. All what we have to do, is to ask ourselves WHY this can happen, when the hurdles technique of European and American runners is obviously better.
To compare the hurdles technique of specialists of 400 hs with what happens in steeple is not fair, and is a big mistake. The technique totally changes when the speed changes : at the speed of 400m (about 10.2 meters per second) the distance of the attack is between 1.5 and 1.8 meters, and the most important type of training, when athletes have already a good technique, is the knowledge of the right RHYTHM. When an athlete has to change leg because of the fatigue, going, for example (I speak about the best in the world) from 13 steps to 14 steps, the length of every step becomes suddenly shorter of 18-20cm, and the distribution of this loss of length must be studied, because is one of the most important keys of the event. This fact can also explain because THERE IS NO RELATION BETWEEN SOME IMPROVEMENT IN 400m FLAT AND THE RESULT ON HURDLES. When athletes run the flat distance, the progressive loss of length per stride must not be controlled with mathematic parameters, like for hurdles, but can be controlled according to the level of fatigue only, and the feeling of the athlete. The distribution of the effort is more part of a specific temporal skill, than of a rhythmic skill.
For the best specialists of steeple, the speed is about 1.6 meters per second and the distance of attach is very much shorter. In steeple, it's not possible to speak about "Rhythm" : on the opposite, the athletes need to be able to adjust their action every time, because are in the middle of a group, can have variations of speed due to tactical changes during the race, and in any case the distance of the attack to the barriers never is longer than 1.20m (sometimes less than 1 meter, when the athlete is in group), and, how Malmo explained, the athletes have to jump higher, because a barrier is not a hurdle, and you can't risk any impact, how in the past happened with some of the BEST technical specialists (for example, Baumgartl in Montreal Olympics 1976, or Jager in Paris in 2015).
It's true that the ability to accelerate before every hurdle has an energetic cost, but the solution isn't NOT TO ACCELERATE, but training for supporting variations of speed during the race. This is what we do with the best Kenyans, and is what we don't do with the best European or American.
About the fact that it's easy to win when we coach strong athletes, we need to understand something very important :
a) Nobody can coach to the top of the World weak athletes. How I said several times, the best coach in the World never can change a donkey in a racing horse.
b) Can be easy with talented African to beat European or American with very less talent. But, when we speak about the best in the World, THE BEST NEED TO BEAT THE OTHER MOST TALENTED RUNNERS, WHO AT THE MOMENT ARE AFRICAN THEMSELVES. And, in this case, when the talent is the same, the difference is in the quality of their training.
So, please, stop writing stupidities like "when one coach working with African is able to take somebody running 18'in 5000m when junior transforming in top class athlete, this is a good coach". This situation simply doesn't exist (look at point A), these are two different things (like to say that a professor in University is good when is able to teach to some boy/girl of primary school making him a nuclear engineer) : one thing is not BETTER than the other, because in every role there are the best operators, the average operators and the bad operators, and in every role the best merit respect for their specific knowledge and ability.
This is the World, in spite of what many of you can think.
I did a mistake in calculation : a good runner of 400m (44") uses a speed of 9.35 meters per second, while the steeple runner running 8' has a speed of
6.25 meters per second.
ukathleticscoach wrote:
malmo wrote:Great minds think alike, Renato. I've been saying this for over 40 years.
The problem with those who preach "technique" is that 90% of them don't know what good steeplechase technique is. Back in the day, I used to hear idiots proudly proclaim that Henry Rono (and Kenyans in general) had poor technique, which was categorically untrue. Henry's hurdling was textbook - led with a bent knee, even keeping bent through clearance. I even posted videos of Henry to debunk the notion, by showing Henry leaving his competition in the dust OVER the barriers. Obviously he was doing something right.
Look at how many steeplechasers, especially women, try to stiff-leg it over the barriers. That's not good hurdling at all. Totally wrong, yet you see it over and over. Hurdling is all about a smooth trajectory. In the steeplechase it involves spatial awareness in front, to the sides, and behind you. There's a lot going on, and the steeplechaser MUST be able to make split second adjustments to his takeoff spot. Since you are clearing an immovable object there is no room for error. A high clearance is necessary. Those who try to skim the barriers will soon become ex-steeplechasers.
Since it is against the rules to mark your ideal takeoff on the track, and there is too much going on in the approach to accurately find the ideal takeoff, a steeplechaser had better have technique that allows room to improvise.
If you take a look at the trajectory of steeplechasers you'll see that the apogee of the trajectory will be about a half meter in front of the barrier. Imagine if you transect with the top of the barrier horizontally and through the trajectory curve where the bottom of the buttocks is during flight, you'll see the area of clearance opportunity each steeplechaser has to work with. If the runners takeoff is just a half meter closer to the barrier, he'll need more veritical force to get over it. Leading with that bent knee becomes even more important here. Stiff-leg it and you won't clearing the barrier smoothly. If the steeplechasers takeoff point is a half meter in front of the ideal, he's now running the risk of ruin - hitting that barrier with the trailing knee.
The objective of hurdling is to get your butt over the barrier smoothly, it is not to lock your knees and point your toes (nothing but trouble).
So why don't 400m hurdlers use that technique if its so efficient?
Simple, you pretty much answered it yourself. It's only 400m and the speed is greater. I don't always agree with Malmo but in this instance he is exactly right.
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