Re: Re: Technique Training/Vertical Jump

[Guest guest]

" The Olympic lifts do not add anything special to the

sprinter's training since they do not have any

specificity to running. "

Does stretching have any " specificity to running? "

Do you (or your athletes) stretch, or is it " nothing

more than a waste of the athlete's time? "

Just wondering.

Jim Storch

Elmira, NY USA

--- thefattys wrote:

> ***

> Since I wrote that post it would be rather difficult

> for me to have

> missed it!

>

>

> > However, since your thesis " that Olympic lifts do

> not relate well

> to

> > running faster " is inaccurate, I will say this:

> > My experience is that a synergistic combination of

> Olympic lifting

> > and teaching sprint technique is very effective

> methodology for

> > enhancing sprint speed. The increased leg power,

> stride length, leg

> > turnover and reduction of bilateral leg deficit,

> is why the

> athletes

> > I've worked with in football and track became very

> fast.

> > As my friend Mike Burgener is fond of saying,

> " There's 50 ways to

> > skin a cat! " There's also a number of ways to

> improve athletic

> > performance, hence this forum. Perhaps the

> training

> > modalities/methods I've learned and developed over

> the years are

> > different from yours, but that in no way negates

> their

> > effectiveness.

>

> ***

> It's not enough to say that my " thesis " is

> inaccurate based on purely

> anecdotal " proof " , regardless of the number of years

> of experience.

> Anecdotal is always anecdotal.

>

> Increased leg power can come from any number of leg

> exercises,

> including the basic squat which is not an Olympic

> lift. The Olympic

> lifts do not add anything special to the sprinter's

> training since

> they do not have any specificity to running.

>

> Stride length at high speeds is not dependent on

> chemical muscle

> mechanical work (while Olympic lifts are) and high

> speed running is

> not improved by " technique " training.

>

> That's from science, Bill, not anecdotal " evidence " .

>

> There are some differences that make no difference,

> but there are

> some differences that make a lot of difference.

>

> Training running " technique " does not make a runner

> run faster

> regardless of what type of technique training is

> used. It is nothing

> more than a waste of the athlete's time.

>

> If you want to match anecdotal with anecdotal: I

> coached the Olympic

> lift routine for increasing speed for almost 30

> years. I stopped

> doing them when I was introduced to locomotion

> research. My athletes

> are still becoming faster without the lifts and

> without technique

> training.

>

> Regards

> Barry Ross

> Los Angeles, Ca.

[Guest guest]

A previous post mentioned the following:

increased leg power, stride length, leg turnover and reduction of bilateral

leg deficit, is why the athletes I've worked with in football and track

became very fast

Perhaps what Barry Ross is suggesting regarding technique interventions

should be considered relative to a couple of previous posts where I alluded to

insights from Charlie Francis and Dr. Owen . It is not just

'locomotion experts' who are checking in on these issues. Charlie suggested

that form

correction and mechanics interventions are not always advisable, since making

changes to athletes with structural asymmetries we don’t know exist might

do more harm than good. As he noted: " the operation was a success; the

patient died. " Dr. offered that there has been no research based,

corroborative evidence over the past twenty years indicating that such

corrections

actually work to improve an athlete’s speed . Mel Siff also shared his views

on this issue a few years back:

" In all tests which presume to measure bilateral balance, stability and

strength ratios, it is essential to remember that everyone displays

functional asymmetry, so that small to moderate differences in all of these

factors tends to be rather meaningless. Humans are not symmetric machines

and it can often be more damaging to try to alter " natural asymmetry " than

it

is to leave it alone. Far too many tests assume that there is some sort of

norm or ideal against which everyone can be compared. At best, one can only

validly make comparisons against oneself over time or against the mean of

groups who are similar to you in age, bodymass, gender, sport, sporting

level

and injury profile

Judging from the experiences of myself and many other athletes, I would

state

that any serious athlete should stay well clear of anyone who claims to be

able to " fix " alleged deficits or imbalances if there is no significant

impairment of performance and if some thorough medical examination has

confirmed that there really is some pathology or structural deficit. Maybe,

one could experiment during the off-season (if your sport has one) with

readjustments, but it is far too risky to indulge in that sort of

trial-and-error therapy if one is still functioning efficiently and safely,

with medical evidence not revealing any real problems.

Regarding those alleged " deficits " which may turn into injury one day, that

old American saying, " if it ain't broke, don't fix it " , springs to mind. As

I said before, I would be very hesitant to " fix " some apparent deficit or

imbalance in a competent athlete who is producing the results. If something

untoward shows up at some distant time after that athlete has retired, then

so be it. There simply is far too little evidence at the moment that many

these therapeutically determined " deficits " and " imbalances " actually impair

sporting performance and inevitably lead to injury. "

It is also interesting that single leg below the knee amputee sprinters

would clearly appear to have bilateral leg deficits, especially since the weight

of a Cheetah prosthetic (close to that of a tennis racket) is quite different

relative to their regular limb, but does not appear to be a major issue in

swing mechanics. As Ajit Chaudhari, a biomechanical engineer at Stanford

University's Biomotion Laboratory, noted: " The amputee athlete uses the muscles

crossing the hip and knee much more than they are used normally, and it is

possible in theory that they could more than compensate for the lack of muscles

crossing the ankle. "

Of far greater concern is not swing mechanics, but the effect that the

prosthetics have on fatigue rate. Researchers tend to agree with Marlon

Shirley,

the 100 meter paralympic record holder, who pointed out that double below the

knee amputees appear to have a 'biomechical advantage " over a single leg

amputees.

How much of an advantage could a double-amputee like 200 meter paralympic

record holder Pistorius get from two artificial feet? Engineer

Harney of Otto Bock HealthCare, points out that a unilateral amputee is faster

out of the blocks in the acceleration phase of a sprint but starts to fatigue

on his sound side during the stabilization and terminal phases, making it

more and more difficult to keep loading the prosthesis efficiently.

For double amputees, however, the situation is reversed. " Once bilateral

amputees reach their natural frequency response—the optimal balance of stride

length and frequency—all the athlete need to do is ensure that he applies the

necessary forces to maintain that frequency. "

Although nothing angers coaches more than statements like " we don't teach

sprint technique, " the issue really does need to be evaluated from a somewhat

difference perspective. We teach mechanics and form to the slow guys (and I

have a lot of those), but we tend to leave the really fast guys alone, yet

some of these really fast guys (like ) have running techniques

that clearly do not fit our conventional 'template' for speed. We tell

athletes that toeing out puts them at a disadvantage, but many of the really

fast

guys (, Gatlin, and Crawford) do just that.

As Charlie Francis concluded: " If the athlete is running well, you assume

that the physical idiosyncrasy is not a factor. Ben ’s left knee

carries out to the side when he runs. So what? If an idiosyncrasy does not

impact

on performance, don’t tamper with it. "

Ken Jakalski

Lisle HS

Lisle, IL