My good friend Kevin McGill
got me thinking about this over the past several weeks. He is trying to find
out how the “soft step” concept has become embedded in the belief system of
American javelin coaches. This is one of many examples of myths that are adopted
as beliefs without anyone really taking the time to research the facts. Has anyone
thought to challenge this concept of “toe up” and dorsiflexion of the foot in
sprints? If not you should, there is nothing in the sprint biomechanics research
to substantiate this. How about pawing
in sprinting? Check it out does not happen, yet it is taught as fact. How about
wrist snap when hitting volleyball? How about the wrist action throwing a curve
ball? How about anaerobic threshold? Are these facts or beliefs? After forty
years of coaching I am more interested than ever in cutting out the bullshit.
Lets coach what happens, not what we think happens. We have the technology and
science support to separate fact from fiction – Why do we keep ignoring it? I
think because it requires all of us to get out of our comfort zone and work at
what we do. Change is not comfortable. Seek knowledge not information. I spent
all day yesterday researching, reading journals. One of the interesting things
I read was in the latest IAAF Technical Journal "New Studies in Athletics" there was a very good interview
with Glenn Mills, Usain Bolts coach. He is a learner. It was obvious from the
interview that he is always trying to improve himself by upgrading his knowledge.
As sergeant Joe Friday used to say on my favorite police show, Dragnet – Just the
facts!
3 Comments
Mark
Vern-
Is the toe up more of a teaching tool to prevent plantar flexion more than create dorsiflexion? For instance when I coach arm swing I try to get my athletes to exaggerate it, then when they do it for real its where it should be. If we practice with where it should be when they do it for real a lot of times it turns into a short arm swing.
Will Kirousis
In medicine, good medicine, it should be about the patient not the provider.
In coaching… It should be about the athlete not the coach.
Love your willingness to try and blow the doors off things that dont really have much footing! (no pun intended)
Jay
Here is a different track example, but same spirit – “Don’t mix energy systems.” Really? Then how do you explain the research from the Australian Institute of Sport that shows the aerobic contribution to the 400m event. If we assume the phospho-creatine system fuels the first 20-30m of a 40m race then we have a acknowledge three energy systems fueling the event. To think that at 400m athlete can’t train at least two of those metabolisms in the same workout session makes no sense to me.
To take this a step further, feel free to critique this workout Vern. For 800m/1,500m athletes I often ask them to run 6k at half marathon pace, but then do a 120m or 150m segment at goal 1,500m pace every 800m or 1,200m. To me it’s simply a fartlek, yet to most of my peers they first say, “you’re not only mixing energy systems but your running the majority of the workout too slow – you should run anaerobic threshold pace” (i.e 8k or 10k pace for most the athletes I’ve worked with). To me the workout is specific – have an athlete run a pace they could run for a long distance, then “squirt in” some lactate via the 120m or 150m at goal 1,500m, teaching them to deal with that level of lactate. Plus, assuming their posture is good on the 1,500m pace segment, the aerobic running becomes a great teaching opportunity to get them to run athletically at paces slower than race pace.
The irony is that the workout does have a major flaw in the “thou shall not combine” vain: it’s not an easy neuromuscular task to change from 6:00 pace to 4:30 pace. I don’t know why, but it’s hard for most athletes, yet again, not a bad thing to learn in practice – executing a dramatic pace change, even if the initial pace is super slow.
sorry to ramble and I will stop asking for “toe up” and will look forward to learning more about the “whip from the hip” that Frans Bosch suggests.