The link to the following research might aid in understanding one very good reason why the Kalenjin tribe in Kenya which produces many of the world’s great distance runners are able to consistently produce athletes who recover from hard training a lot better than the rest of the world’s elite runners.
Got this off the Athletics Australia website tonight - great to see AA using some commonsense for a change and picking a larger team for the World Champs which can give our young athletes experience in the lead-up to London.
Undoubtedly the highlight of the meet was Sally McLellan’s effort to run 12.74 into a 1.3 m/s headwind for the 100m Hurdles - certainly I would have to say it was the most impressive performance I have ever seen at a National Titles.
Sally has done a lot of work over the years with Ash Mahoney in the foot strength area and Peter Hannan has worked with Anthony Giorgi (who co-authored our strength CDs) in designing her strength work and those efforts combined with some excellent coaching from Sharon Hannnan has helped turn her into an incredibly strong and speedy athlete. Although I think doing the hurdles is not really conducive to running optimal 100m times, it looks as though by next year she’ll probably claim Melinda Gainsford’s Australian record in that event if she can stay fit and healthy.
Recently a book came out written by Len Johnson called ‘the Landy era’ which talked about how John Landy’s efforts and leadership in the 1950s helped spur Victorian athletes to a golden era. There are signs that Sally’s efforts might be sparking somewhat of a revival here in Queensland so let’s hope that other athletes can start drawing on her example of putting in the hard yards to make themselves physically better athletes as well as representing their clubs at the Shield Meets as Sally has continued to do this season.
Measure – Sports Doc Blood Test especially T-Cells and Iron levels
What can I do to improve?
Nutrition
Acupuncture
Carbs during long runs & post-workout
Stress Reduction
Sleep
Hydration
Taking a break when you need it
Adequate recovery during a training week
Measure – VO2 Max, Anaerobic Threshold
What can I do to improve?
Long Runs with Carbs
Threshold Work
Ability to train consistently
What can I do to improve?
Wanting to achieve results for yourself
Not just to keep someone else happy
What can I do to improve?
Attendance at
Shields,
Other Meets, Relays,
Training,
Social Activities
Pride in the Singlet
What can I do to improve?
Track Reps
Races
Measure – Video 0.01 x Speed/Hundred metres
What can I do to improve?
Cones
Foot Strength exercises
Physio Screening
Eg.
Calf range 14 cm
Thomas Test < -5
Glute – 90 degrees
Hamstrings > 70 degrees
Lift-off test > 15 cm
What can I do to improve?
Stretching – Muscle, Joint, Nerve, Fascia
Trigger-Pointing
Self-Massage
Vibragym
Ice Baths
Measure – Movement Dynamics CDs – see Marty
What can I do to improve?
Strength sessions
Measure – Movement Dynamics CDs – see Marty
What can I do to improve?
Drills
Kickbike
Strength sessions
Vibragym
Stable but with some trunk rotation
Measure – Video
What can I do to improve?
Pilates
Physio Ultrasound Scan
Strength
Bungee
Measure – constantly high hips on running
What can I do to improve?
UQ Hill
Water Running
Bungee
Overspeed
Drills
Best time to stretch is before bed, first thing in the morning and after training.
However you should always make sure you have sufficient range available before training – if so you can do some dynamic stretching.
Pecs – grab on to post or stand in doorway
Lats – sideways to a post
Calves (Range = 14 cm)
Hamstrings
Quads
Glutes x 3
Hip Flexors – Thomas Test is the best stretch
Adductors
ITB
Hip Joint (figure 4)
Ankle Joint (using a belt around pole)
Trigger point back with Pink balls or lie backwards over a Swiss Ball
Neural Hamstring (on back with towel, going in and out of stretch)
To achieve your full potential as an athlete, you need to have been training for a period of a total of at least ten years to achieve full adaptation to training.
That means being able to deal with a lot of success and failure along the way. Lots of early success brings expectations from everybody around you creating extra pressure to succeed more and this makes it more difficult for you to be able to stay in the sport long enough to really succeed.
If your physical and mental development don’t keep ahead of your training and racing volumes and intensity then it’s very likely that you will get sick or injured.
Coach Peter Fortune once outlined that when Cathy Freeman won the Gold Medal in Sydney in 2000, she had to overcome and move on from some sort of failure in each of the six years leading up to it.
Normally over the ten year period you are best to develop your performance characteristics in the following order:
Strength is on tomorrow night at The Gap High School from 7.10pm with Marty Lane. Cost is $10.
Marty won one of the three heats of the State 100m last week along with Matt Davies and Patrick Johnson and finished fifth in the final in a headwind in 10.97. The gradual improvment in performances of most of our athletes who have attended these sessions over the years justifies that they work.
As Michael Dalgleish has outlined for us many times over the years, strength is a great way to ensure that your physical development is able to absorb more training load without getting injured or underperforming compared to inability to maintain one-leg control in the running stride.
If you can’t actually make it to Monday night’s session and you really want to improve then I recommend you organise with Marty to get a specific programme or alternatively find a pilates class.
Brendan is also continuing his Tuesday night classes at Fitnance gym, Manilla St, South Brisbane. These sessions including additional stretching. Cost is $10 for students or $20 for seniors. Numbers are gradually increasing at this session which is a positive.
Brendan will also run a short organised stretching effort on Monday night’s at The Gap High before training seeing as we have slipped back in that department a bit since the demise of the Saturday morning sessions.
These articles have been around for a long time now and I’m not going to vouch that everything in them is fully correct however they do explain a concept as to why some degree of trunk rotation could be beneficial provided you have your transverse abs on at the right level (the ‘inner unit’) and your other stabilisers working.
http://www.coachr.org/innerunit.htm
http://www.enhancedfp.com/training/outer-unit-paul-chek
At present Australia is producing world class athletes in events requiring a lot of abdominal bracing - eg. Steve Hooker in the Pole Vault, Sally McLelland in the Hurdles and Bronwyn Thompson in the Long Jump.
However we haven’t been so successful in events like the sprints and distance where athletes like Usain Bolt and Bekele tend to maintain shoulder stability and core stability around a very stable ‘inner unit’ while still being loose enough for natural trunk rotation to occur in the running stride. The advantages they potentially gain through this are:
There’s no doubt that Craig Mottram fits this model better than any of our other distance runners, we saw a young 17 year old from QE2 at the States on the weekend who certainly looked to fit the bill and ran 1.54 for 800m on Sunday. Andrew Barralet’s running form under the guidance of Eric Brown has really improved to the point where he is moving towards fitting this model reasonably well now, which is reflected in his new club record of 1.50.92 at States on the weekend.
Among our sprinters I think Patrick Johnson fits the rotational trunk model a bit better than Matt Davies at the moment although Matt’s shoulder position seems a lot better than Patrick’s.
I have written off to the AIS now to see if we can get some more concrete data on this from their biomech Department.
Later in the year we’ll get a session going over at UQ where Michael Dalgleish can demonstrate the ultrasound machine used in Clinical Pilates. This machine can allow
athletes to select the right amount of involvement of the various abdominal muscles to be able to implement this sort of technical model.
If anyone can’t fully understand the articles with their technical jargon, just pop down one Monday or Thursday night to The Gap High and I can demonstrate whatI’m talking about.
Here’s a little survey you may like to fill out to try to work out what areas you may be able to improve in as an athlete.
If you want my comments on where you stand with each of these, feel free to email it back to me and I’ll let you know if there are any whereI have a different assessment for you.
I was inspired to put this together after listening to a great speech by Bronwyn Thompson at yesterday’s QA Clubs seminar at which we were verywell represented by Hubertien Wichers, Anita Fisher, Eliza McGowan, Gemma Fairclough and QA pin-up boy Steve Scott.
Monday night strength with Marty Lane returns at The Gap High tomorrow night after regular training from 7.10pm. Cost is $10.
Brendan is running a session along similar lines to the old Saturday morning sessions incorporating a bit of strength plus more heavy duty stretching and posture work on a Tuesday night at 6.30pm at the Fitnance gym, 4/55 Manilla St South Brisbane. Cost is $10 for students or $20 for non-students.
Paul Circosta and I were in attendance last week and it certainly helped undo the effects of sitting at a PC all day for me as I found breathing a lot easier the next day. British researchers have found that you can use up to 6% of your total energy during running just due to the act of breathing so getting loosened up so you can actually breathe better can certainly help.
For the past couple of years now I have been plugging Mal Meninga as the sort of coach we can learn a lot from in athletics. Having confirmed now that he has turned down the National job, his Queensland team will be going for an unprecedented fourth straight series victory this year.
Hopefully through the QA Shield Meets in Track and Cross Country we can keep building up the sort of culture Meninga describes below in the Origin Team among the participating clubs.
