SpeedEndurance.com

Interview with Derek Evely, former UKA Center Director

Jimson Lee — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000

This is part 16 of the Freelap Friday Five Series, 2013 Edition. To review the 16 part 2012 edition, click here.

Part 1 was Matt Scherer, Professional Pacer-Rabbit.

Part 2 was Stuart McMillan, Bobsled and former UKA Sprint Coach.

Part 3 was Dean Starkey, PV Coach and former Elite Pole Vaulter.

Part 4 was Mike Hurst, Journalist and Australian 400 meter Coach.

Part 5 was Craig Pickering, UK Sprinter and Bobsledder

Part 6 was April Holmes, Paralympic 100m Olympic Gold Medalist

Part 7 was Chip Jenkins, former 600m AR, and 4x400m 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist

Part 8 was Kevin Tyler, former UKA Head of Coaching

Part 9 was Liam Collins, a 400mH, Bobsledder, and dancer with Faces of Disco

Part 10 was Doug Logan, former CEO of USATF and MLS Commissioner

Part 11 was Adarian Barr, Coach and Innovator

Part 12 was Bill Collins, former WR holder and Masters Sprinter

Part 13 was Jothy Rosenberg, of Who Says I Can’t?

Part 14 was Steve Walters, Paralympian Guide for Visual Impaired

Part 15 was Gary Reed, Canada’s 800m Record Holder

From 2009 to 2012 Derek Evely was UK Athletics’ Center Director for the Loughborough High Performance Centre (the other being in Lee Valley with Dan Pfaff as Center Director)

Derek also coached a young group of throwers in the UK, including Sophie Hitchon, who broke the British Record in the hammer throw at 19 years old, as well as qualifying for the London 2012 Olympic Final at the age of 21!

He always had a knack of finding young talent who eventually move on to the International stage, such as 400m sprinter Shane Niemi, 800m man Gary Reed, and shot putter Dylan Armstrong (I know I am leaving out a few more)

Prior to UKA, he was the Sport Science Manager at the Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre (CACC).

Friday Five is sponsored by Freelap Track and Field, a leader in electronic timing.

Interview with Derek Evely

Q1) First, the obvious question (from Stu’s blog). We know you are a huge fan of Dr. Anatoly Bondarchuk (author of Transfer of Training in Sports and Transfer of Training (Volume 2)) That being said, how do you go about in post-event specific exercise selection? I am referring to weights and plyos, and how that can be transferred to the track (sprinting). If I have to give an example, let’s use a Jr College male with PRs of 11.0, 22.0, and 50.0 for the 100 -200-400? From your experience, could you address what mechanisms and systems such as posture and coordination enable the lifts to transfer to sprinting and jumping? (and yes, people should buy his books!)

Derek Evely: First off, thanks for allowing me to share some thoughts with your readers, Jimson. Your site is a great resource for coaches and a great asset to those looking for quality information.

I am not sure “fan” is the word I would use to describe my reverence towards Dr. Bondarchuk (aka Dr. B) . He was / is an important mentor of mine and I am very fortunate for that. I use his system of training but (and I always start off lectures saying this) I don’t feel comfortable saying that what I am describing is his system because there is much to it I don’t fully understand, and probably never will. I do, however, feel comfortable saying that I run my own system that is strongly based upon his methodology. The important aspects of it are true to his procedures but I monkey around quite a bit with things and implement a lot of different ideas I have learned elsewhere but always stay true to the core concepts and so far it has seemed to work quite well.

You ask a very important question, because this strikes right to the core of the “nuts and bolts” application of his method, and it is a part of it that everyone struggles with conceptually. Having said that, the answer is quite simple: experiment. But experiment with some kind of rational awareness of what should work, based upon research, experience and intuition. And remember, you can’t make accurate cause-and-effect assumptions regarding training transfer if you are wave-loading volume and intensity everywhere in the program. What this means is, the load upon your athlete has to be consistent in order to assess what exercises are transferring or not. If you are changing the workload from week to week then it is difficult to determine what exercises actually had a transfer because any improvement in performance could have come from any number of factors. This is why this system requires that the coach find that “sweet spot” in load for an athlete and stick with it throughout a development cycle (which in itself requires much trial and experimentation). Over the course of numerous development cycles one begins to collect evidence as to what worked and what didn’t. This can take years with some athletes, less with others.

You know, when I did Stu’s interview I left out Charlie Francis’ name when I discussed mentors simply because he wasn’t really a mentor of mine (I didn’t spend enough time with him) but he certainly did influence my ideas about training in a big, big way; in particular the way loads are employed and that appreciation he had for the common-sense implementation of training. I bring this up because it is this type of thinking that is necessary when experimenting with various exercise ideas and arrangements and one has to be very cautious with it, both for the sake of the acute effect it will have on the athlete but also because of the potential for transfer it will have: if the exercise has a big transfer, you don’t want to ignore it or miss it. Record training data and your own observations… and constantly review.

I think we often assume that certain exercises, methods and loading patterns transfer simply because we want them to. This, in my mind, is why we get mentally entrenched in traditional paradigms of training. We assume because everyone else is doing an exercise that we should do it and it will work. But where is the proof? Just because a certain successful coach has always had his or her athletes do a clean doesn’t mean it will work for us in our programs. Same with squatting, hurdle hops… list goes on and on. This is one area where my thinking really changed after studying under Dr. B… all exercises are potentially transferrable (or useful), and all exercises are potentially not. Your job as a coach is to find out which is which for each athlete. You do this by experimenting cautiously with different ones, over time. So when you ask what systems and mechanisms such as posture and coordination lead to transfer it is an open-ended question. Sure, there are obvious starting points and exercises that jump right out at you and regardless of what you choose they need to be done properly, but really it comes down to experimentation for each athlete if you really want to nail it well.

And then, just so we can screw with your mind a bit more, transfer can change over time. What transfers one year may not transfer, or transfer as well, the next… the body adapts over the long term, as we know. So the good coach is always looking for what is working and what doesn’t. It isn’t easy. But if you like to be challenged and you get off on getting your hands dirty in a methodological sense, then this system is for you. If you want recipes, go read the NCCP stuff.

Q2) You often see a lot of athletes with laundry lists of injuries, especially older, post-collegiate athletes. With the throws being so ballistic to the body, how do you keep the spine healthy when pushing large explosive athletes to their limit? Obviously, we want throwers to be healthy post-competitive careers!!

Derek Evely: Whenever I see athletes getting regularly injured or a group of athletes under a single program chronically dealing with unresolved injury issues it is, in my eyes, because the methodology they are working under sucks. If I am to be honest, I should say that I am not a great “rehabber” of athletes, at least not to the degree some of my colleagues, such as Dan Pfaff and Kevin Tyler are. I can’t bring people back from the dead the way they can. What Dan (and Gerry Ramogida, his therapist) did with Rutherford during their time in the UK was nothing short of miraculous when you think about it. But I prefer to get athletes young and bullet-proof them early on so down the road I (or some other coach) am not dealing with constant problems. Sure, injuries happen regardless but in my experience with the ones I have brought up from scratch injuries can really be next to non-existent. So this, to me, begins with balance in programming.

Here is an example of the “monkeying around” I mentioned in Q1…

I use a complex system of training with my athletes during the development cycles. That means we are using exercises from all 4 of Dr. B’s classifications all the time (i.e. we are always throwing, always doing specific / special strength, always lifting and always implementing general strength). Within those classifications though, I try to create as much balance in a musculoskeletal sense as possible. So for instance, with throwers you are correct, the back takes a beating, especially with hammer throwers. So for them, when I select exercises for an ancillary strength routine, I will make sure that the exercises selected reflect each movement plane: sagital, transverse and frontal. This ensures that the back is getting strengthened in every plane rather than always in the same plane (usually transverse or sagital). In addition, we change the exercises completely every development cycle, but still ensure we are hitting all the planes. This guarantees we are always presenting new and balanced stimuli for the trunk musculature. I have always done this and had few preventable back issues with my throwers.

Sophie Hitchon found out 12 days before the Olympic qualifying she had a Pars fracture in her spine that had been there (at least on one side) for possibly quite a few years (genetic weakness you are born with). I think the fact that she was able to break the British Record at the Games with that severe a back injury reflects the core strength we developed in her to enable her to do this. Her new coach, Tore Gustaffsson, has since rehabbed her successfully.

I try to achieve the same balance with the primary lifts, but with those instead of using movement planes as my criteria I use unilateral vs. contralateral vs. bilateral patterns. But this I do from developmental cycle to development cycle rather than within a cycle because the number of primary lifts we do is small. And trust me, planning this takes some thought when you consider that we are also trying to achieve and seek transfer from these lifts.

However you choose to create balance is up to you… there are various ways. For instance, I also like the concept of primal movement patterns I learned from Paul Chek… this is another way to do it. Whatever you use, have a strategy and put some common sense thought into it.

Q3) Injuries are often part of the game but some are avoidable. Without living in paranoia, how did you you challenge your athletes but still keep things safe and sane?

Derek Evely: See 1 and 2 above.

For me, it all comes down to being present as a coach, watching your athletes daily, and monitoring their development. I know that sounds obvious, but it is very true. Create a common sense program that is based upon equilibrium and rational implementation. When you have a solid methodology that is proven and balanced, then you can start to push the boundaries a bit and challenge them, because they are ready for it. Too often coaches try to do crazy shit when there athletes are not ready for it.

One guy I know who is good at this is Don Babbit. While he uses a different system than I do (and BTW, is far, far more successful than I am as a throws coach) I think his program is a great example of a hard- work, common-sense, bases-covered, no -gimmick methodology that works superbly. I know a lot of your readers are sprint guys, but his stuff is well worth a look at if you get the chance.

Q4) You did a lot with data analysis… any suggestions you can share with coaches working in team settings with monitoring a diverse group of athletes with the needs of practice and travel? I recall one of your lectures where you talked about the “sweet spot” in monitoring the number of throws, and over the course of a season, there was a correlation with peak performance (i.e. 65 throws) . Just pen and paper? Microsoft Excel? Do we really have to revisit periodization every time?

Derek Evely: I think to be a successful coach in this day and age you need to collect data from your athletes. How you do it is up to you and your preferences. The system I use is all about looking at and measuring the data, because you need to react quickly to changes in adaptation response and form. It can be done in a team environment but how that would look might be a bit different than for say a sprinter or thrower. I would also caution here those that exclusively use weight room testing or other non-specific measuring protocols for measuring sport form… that is dangerous when used without a sport-specific measure. But great team coaches have always been able to subjectively assess form in their players so I am sure there is a way to achieve an accurate measure across a group or team dynamic.

As for travel against practice… use common sense. Put in recovery where necessary and study and measure the athlete’s response to the effects of travel. For instance, I tracked Sophie and Mark’s throws all the time (i.e. daily) so from that data I was able to determine that day 3 after (international) travel was the absolute worst in terms of hitting a bottom. Day 1 and 2 were great, but by 3 it was all shit. Dylan Armstrong and I compared notes and he was the exact same. So to me that is a piece of the puzzle I would have missed without good data collection. Over time the picture will become clear if you are making and keeping notes.

I use Microsoft Excel to track things because I understand it enough to make it worthwhile. I spent a ton of time early on getting to know it and setting up templates so that all I really had to do daily was input the numbers from training. With Sophie and Mark I had data from 3 years of measuring their throws, and I could tell you all kinds of things about the effects different hammers were having on them. With Sophie it was 34-36 sessions in 2012 and so that is what we used to peak her going into London. We just simply backed it up from the OG QR and started our last development cycle on the appropriate day. With Mark it was 28-32 sessions and so going into Trials that year (his biggest meet) so we did the same: just calculated the simple math and started on the date that corresponded with around 30 sessions prior to the Trials. He hit a lifetime PB there.

Once you have this information it is powerful in terms of your ability to peak. While I am known as a big plan guy, the Bondarchuk system doesn’t lend itself well to the traditional strategy of building a huge detailed plan in the fall that will plan out everything for the rest of the year. This is simply because you have no certainty how an athlete will react to their training through the course of the year. Rather than stuffing an athlete into a plan and its rigid timeframes, this system measures an athlete’s reaction to training and then builds a plan around that. I call it Reverse Periodization.

I still do a formal year plan for the beginning of the year simply because I am anal, but now I also do a ghost plan. The ghost plan is a blank periodization chart on which I put what we actually did, and then at the end of that year I have two plans: what we planned to do initially and what we actually did. Amazing what you can learn from that.

Q5) Bar path or trajectory on the Olympic lifts is a key component in ensuring the right muscle groups are used in order to make athletes more explosive. Can a bar path too far away from the body could be dangerous to the body or reduce the ability to transfer the load? Perhaps a connection between center of pressure through the feet could also explain why great technique has a better transfer to performance? (disclosure, I am a huge fan of the Olympic lifts) Could too many athletes not recruit the leg musculature because they lift with their backs (my number 1 pet peeve)?

Derek Evely: I believe in using global lifts, I believe in using explosive movements where possible and I believe in balance in implementation. Beyond that I have no attachments to any particular exercise, period. I will employ anything and everything I think will get my athletes through the night.

Whatever exercise you are going to do, do it correctly. There are, in certain very rare instances, excuses for getting hurt on the track, but there is no excuse for getting hurt in the weight room.

I never really considered it, but I suppose that one’s lifting technique could affect the transfer of the exercise. That is an interesting idea and something I will think about, so thanks for that. But, even the most highly transferrable weight room exercises only transfer about half what specific exercises do (and I am being generous here) so we must always remember that.

The whole concept of transferability of exercises is really the million dollar question we are all looking for, but will never find an absolute answer to. What works? What makes us better athletes and leads to improvement? What doesn’t? And of course, not everything in our programs needs to transfer; there are other reasons for doing general exercises.

For some reason, we really like to apply this transfer of training idea to the weight room aspect of training. I rarely hear non-elite throws coaches discuss how various weight implements transfer to the competitive implement, or non-elite sprint coaches discuss how much transfer maximal speed work will give their 400m runners (except on your site Jimson). I hear far more discussion regarding what lifts everyone does.

The truth is, we don’t absolutely know what transfers and what doesn’t. We can only make educated guesses based upon the limited research and even then this is mostly based upon athlete questionnaires and anecdotal evidence rather than hard-core scientific study. So what are we left with? Our own observations, trials and data collection and those of our peers. Bondarchuk’s research is probably the best objective science we have to go from but that itself only gives us a starting point. It doesn’t answer the fundamental question we all need an answer to: What works for our athletes, in our environment, at this point in time.

When we can answer that, we have got something.

Thanks for the opportunity to share.

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video

Doug Logan Speaks: Shin Splints Redux

Jimson Lee — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:00:00 +0000

This new series is guest blogged by Doug Logan.

Doug Logan was the CEO for USATF from 2008 until September 2010. He was also the CEO, President and Commissioner for Major League Soccer from 1995 to 1999. To read more about his background and involvement in Track, Soccer, Rugby and the Music industry, read my Freelap Friday Five Interview.

SHIN SPLINTS REDUX

Let’s Try This Again

Jimson finally talked me into it. I have been contemplating resuming my blog after three years of exile and he finally pushed me to start again. We were sitting on some sunny steps on the Via Veneto in Rome earlier this month after a glorious espresso macchiato and we agreed I would post once a week. So, here we go.

Many of you may remember my prior commentary published over a two year period of time on the USATF website. The subject matter was eclectic and at times provoked hostile reactions. I called the blog Shin Splints because I intended to be mildly annoying but not so hurtful as to be truly painful. I occasionally was influenced by my love for music and literature and was honest to admit my perspective was influenced by my military combat experiences and my bi-lingual, multi-cultural upbringing. This post will be no different.

During the coming weeks I will address current issues in this wonderful business of sports. What will be different for this site, however, is that my point of view will not be that of an athlete, or a trainer, or a coach. My slant will come from one who has worn a suit to work for the past four decades as an administrator, owner, marketer, and commissioner of teams and leagues. However, despite the fact that I have been blessed to make a daily living involving one of my passions, I am first and foremost a fan.

While I plan to consider all sports, my knowledge of track and field and of futbol will probably dominate my musings. I have a lifelong admiration for athletic speed and its interrelationship with almost all sports. I once heard an old baseball scout declare “speed doesn’t slump“and the implications of that statement are fascinating.

I also intend to discuss the topic of aging, particularly in this era. I turned 70 on May 11^th this year and am now a part of a unique class. My peers and I are healthier, fitter and have a clearer mind and more energy than any generation before us. With the miracles of modern medicine, a focus on appropriate nutrition and rest, and a disciplined exercise regimen, we can expect to live another 20 plus years with a decent quality of life. So, now what the hell do we do?

One of my favorite singer/poets, Leonard Cohen, has an opening lyric to one of his songs that goes “I’ve been sentenced to twenty years of boredom”. Employers no longer want us, our children no longer need us, women [or men] no longer flirt with us, and, despite our fitness, we have lost our grace and speed. Speed may not slump, but it sure erodes.

I will attempt to memorialize my quest for relevance as I enter this “fourth quarter” of my life. There is an old saying about professional athletes experiencing two deaths. One takes place at the end of their competing careers when they approach a life without the adrenaline rush they experienced as elite combatants. Those who survive the transition successfully find replacement activities to occupy them and fulfill them. As a new septuagenarian, I feel I should pattern myself after athletes who have discovered utility in the balance of their lives. I will write and let you know how I am handling this.

A final topic that I will spend some time writing about has to do with what I call, tongue in cheek, geriatric fitness. I spent many years running; running so I could eat more, running to compete in road races, running so I could feel better, and running so I would have a daily physical goal. Those years of pounding hard roads in bad shoes have left me with arthritic ankles, periodic sciatica and an order from my doctors to stop running. What I have become is an obsessed walker. I walk a minimum of 5 miles a day. Last year [2012] I missed 9 days and walked in excess of 1,800 miles. My average pace is 15:37 per mile. So much for speed!

I have also radically changed my diet to allow me to lose weight and age leaner. In the past I have been motivated to lose weight by vanity, blood pressure reduction, or other societal influences. This time my weight loss is directly linked to reducing the pain in my aging joints, thereby mitigating the need for drugs or ultimately surgery. And, it has worked. I have kept my weight under 150 lbs. for over 2 years and I have less pain and greater mobility. From time to time I’ll share some tips with you.

When I was regularly posting this blog several years ago I was amazed at the number of people who took the time to read it. I remember being at the World Cross Country Championships in Amman, Jordan in 2009 and eleven people came up to me from eleven different countries and talked to me about what I had written. Amazing! There are some of you who liked what I had to say who may approve of my return to the keyboard. There are others who may have hated my point of view or who may dislike what I will be filing. To those I say…

Blame Jimson!

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video

Dan Pfaff on 100 meter Sprinting and Paralympian Jonnie Peacock

Jimson Lee — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:15:00 +0000

Thanks to Jonas Tawiah Dodoo for sitting down with Dan Pfaff shortly before the huge exodus of coaches at UK Athletics. Jonas was also the Sprints and Jumps Coach at the Lee Valley HPC before UKA centralized it to Loughborough.

This was a casual conversation, and the first question to Dan was the components to a successful 100m and 200m race. [HINT: It starts with the start, no matter what anyone says]

The second half of the video or conversation was dedicated to Paralympic sprinter Jonnie Peacock and his training.

Here is the 15 minute video on SpeedEndurance TV:

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video

Top 5 Weight Training Exercises for Sprinters

Jimson Lee — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:00:00 +0000

This article is guest blogged by Mat Herold, a former D-1 soccer player and certified strength and conditioning coach with a Masters of Science degree in Exercise Physiology. Visit his website at www.empoweredathletes.com

Mat also wrote Lionel Messi’s 40 Yard Dash and Olympic Lifts for Soccer Players and From Soccer Player To Jumper: 1 Year, 14 Lessons Later

If you recall my last episode on SpeedEndurance TV titled Top 5 Weight Training Exercises for Sprinters, you’ll notice there were a lot of comments regarding variations.

So here is another list with explanations.

What are YOUR Top 5 exercises?

My Top 5 Exercises In The Weight Room

1. Squats

When I first started learning about how weight training can improve athletic power, squats were always mentioned as the king of lower body training. I got my squat poundage up a bit and low and behold, my acceleration and jumping performances improved. At the high school where I was working as a strength coach, every athlete who had a good vertical jump and a good 40 time had a good back squat relative to their build. (I say “build” because some tall lengthy guys who don’t necessarily have the biggest squats display their strength very well on the field or track). Then I started reading about single leg training and how the bilateral squat was dependent upon back strength and not so much on leg strength. It was also a time when I was lacking a lot of understanding in my own training and I got into the habit of testing too often. Needless to say, I was experiencing some back pain and so, for awhile I abandoned the back squat.

Eventually, when I started getting into jumping as a goal, after a lot of research and training myself and others, two things became apparent to me:

Anyone outside of athletic freaks who never lift (who within a week could probably back squat tons of weight) anyone I saw who achieved massive gains on their vertical jumps off of two legs did so by increasing their back squat.
The ability to back squat deep with good form is a good indicator of injury prevention and structural balance. In addition, with proper mobility in place, while yes a bilateral back squat will always require some back strength and spinal stability, it is still dependent on it’s prime movers; the legs.

2. Walking Lunges/Bulgarian split squats

I love these exercises. They do things the back squat cannot. Having one leg trailing works hip extension in the front leg a bit differently than bilateral exercises…part of this being that you can really cover distance from front to back in the transverse plane with the lead leg. These single leg superstars require a tremendous amount of stability in the frontal plane at the ankle and knee joints as well.

3. Glut-ham raises

For top speed sprinting, for knee health, for preventing hamstring injuries, and for hypertrophy in the hamstrings, I find a lot of value in these. Fast folks have powerful glutes and hamstrings, and this is a great way to train the latter. By lowering with heavier weight than coming back up and/or dropping in and rebounding back up, one can really train the eccentric aspect of the hamstrings.

4. RDL/Back Extensions

I love these for top speed and training overall hip extension. The back extension loads the glutes similarly to a hip thrust in the end range of hip extension or antero-posteriorly. By varying tempos and sometimes working on “bouncing” out of the bottom with lighter loads, these can be a great reactive exercise as well.

5. Hip flexion with a cable

Resisted hip flexion has been proven in one study to get athletes faster. Usain Bolt is supposed to have one of the thickest and strongest hip flexors and his coach Glen Mills believes in the hip flexors being important for speed and posture for speed.

Bonus!

Step ups for strength and and step up jumps (loaded and unloaded) at various heights – these are great but require a range of box or bench heights. Higher boxes work the glutes and hamstrings more while lower boxes work more of the quadriceps.

If they were good enough for Stefan Holm, they are good enough for me.

About the Author

Mat Herold is a former D-1 soccer player and certified strength and conditioning coach with a Masters of Science degree in Exercise Physiology. Visit his website at www.empoweredathletes.com

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video

The Effect of Wind on Curve Running

Jimson Lee — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:35:00 +0000

This article is guest blogged by University lecturer Dr. Vassilios McInnes Spathopoulos, author of An Introduction to the Physics of Sports. You can read my review in Introduction to the Physics of Sports.

He also wrote Windy Records in Track & Field and I wrote Curve Running – The Ultimate Guide so this is a great article on WIND and CURVE.

The Effect of Wind on Curve Running

The effect of wind on the performance in the 100m dash has been discussed in a previous article of mine. From a physics point of view the analysis is quite straightforward, assuming that the athlete experiences an almost constant component of wind when running in a straight line. A tailwind component will have the effect of reducing the air resistance (drag) and therefore making the run slightly easier for the athlete. So at zero altitude a maximum legal wind will approximately shave off 0.1s from the overall time.

When running in a curve, as in the 200m event, things become a little more complicated. Let us see what actually happens. The IAAF rules state that it is only the component of wind along the final straight that is measured (from the moment that the first athlete enters it, for 10s) and this must not exceed a maximum tailwind of 2m/s. Nothing is stated or known about the wind experienced by athletes during the first half of the race. As the angle of their run relative to the wind direction is constantly changing, so will the value of air resistance that they experience during the first 100m.

Furthermore, different wind conditions will register as being the same when measured by the wind gauge positioned on the final straight. So for example, a straight 2m/s tailwind, will register the same as a 4m/s crosswind coming at an angle of 60 degrees. It is pretty obvious, that the resistance experienced by the athlete during the first half of the race will be different for both cases.

Finally, due to the curvature, the effect of the wind will also depend on the lane at which one is running, something not seen for the 100m dash case. It turns out that runners in the outside lane actually have an advantage, as the overall wind resistance is reduced.

Has anyone been able to put numbers to all of this? It turns out that compared to the 100m case, there have been fewer studies performed for the 200m. In one such research effort [1], it has been estimated that for a wind blowing down the straight at the maximum legal limit of 2m/s, the actual overall average tailwind experienced over the 200m is approximately 0.95m/s. Also, as different wind conditions can produce the same readings from the wind gauge in the final straight, athletes running in theory under the same conditions can experience time differences due to wind of up to 0.5s. A good combination would be for a 4m/s wind coming from behind at an angle of 60 degrees. This would give a time advantage of about 0.3s, certainly not at all negligible! Finally, both this study and one described in [2] predict an advantage for those running in the outside lane. In terms of exact time, this will depend on the prevailing conditions, but in any case can be quite considerable.

Overall then, it seems as if a strict rule has been imposed on the conditions of a race, conditions for which in the best case, we only have knowledge of for half the race duration. With all the technology nowadays available, it might be time to reconsider offering athletes a more objective deal.

About the Author

Dr. Vassilios McInnes Spathopoulos graduated from the University of Glasgow (UK), with a joint honours degree in Aerospace and Electronic Engineering, in 1995. The following year he completed a MSc course in Flight Dynamics at Cranfield University (UK). In 2001 he obtained his PhD from the University of Glasgow, conducting research on the validation of a rotorcraft mathematical model by means of flight testing a gyroplane. He teaches undergraduate subjects at the Department of Aircraft Technology, at the Technological Education Institute (TEI) of Chalkis, Greece. His research interests include the aerodynamics of sports balls and improving engineering education.

An Introduction to the Physics of Sports (Kindle ebook) is also available in paperback.

References

[1] Quinn, Mike D., “The Effects of Wind and Altitude in the 200-m Sprint”, Journal of Applied Biomechanics, 2003, Vol. 19 Issue 1, p49

[2] Mureika, JR, “Modeling wind and altitude effects in the 200-m sprint”, Canadian Journal of Physics, 2003, 81, 895-910

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video

Interview with Gary Reed, Canada’s 800m Record Holder

Jimson Lee — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:00:00 +0000

This is part 15 of the Freelap Friday Five Series, 2013 Edition. To review the 16 part 2012 edition, click here.

Part 1 was Matt Scherer, Professional Pacer-Rabbit.

Part 2 was Stuart McMillan, Bobsled and former UKA Sprint Coach.

Part 3 was Dean Starkey, PV Coach and former Elite Pole Vaulter.

Part 4 was Mike Hurst, Journalist and Australian 400 meter Coach.

Part 5 was Craig Pickering, UK Sprinter and Bobsledder

Part 6 was April Holmes, Paralympic 100m Olympic Gold Medalist

Part 7 was Chip Jenkins, former 600m AR, and 4x400m 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist

Part 8 was Kevin Tyler, former UKA Head of Coaching

Part 9 was Liam Collins, a 400mH, Bobsledder, and dancer with Faces of Disco

Part 10 was Doug Logan, former CEO of USATF and MLS Commissioner

Part 11 was Adarian Barr, Coach and Innovator

Part 12 was Bill Collins, former WR holder and Masters Sprinter

Part 13 was Jothy Rosenberg, of Who Says I Can’t?

Part 14 was Steve Walters, Paralympian Guide for Visual Impaired

Gary Reed currently holds the Canadian record in the 800m with a time of 1:43.68 in Rieti.

He won the 800 meter national title 6 times, competed in 2 Olympics and 5 World Championships.

His best performances include a silver medal at the 2007 World Championships and a 4th place finish at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

After his retirement, Gary founded the Reed Athletics Fund. Please support his good cause (and we’re going to focus on this for the FFF interview). You can read the press release here.

I caught up with Gary Reed whilst in Vancouver for the Meeting of the Minds conference. I’ll be here for a while, so perhaps there will be a Part 2, and we can talk more about training and racing…

Friday Five is sponsored by Freelap Track and Field, a leader in electronic timing.

Interview with Gary Reed

Q1: What was the first idea you had to get your Reed Athletics Fund foundation, going? What or who inspired you?

How big do you want grow this? Is it just British Columbia now, will it include Canada, or will cover the World? Is school a major prerequisite or can they just finish high school or would you like to see them go the University or Junior College?

What time frame do you give your athletes to get carded, assuming they are not funded by you? And when they get carded, do you pull their funding or give it to somebody else who has needs it more? (I am not joking here!)

Lastly, do you go looking for athletes or athletes’ come to your foundation and apply?

Gary Reed: I spoke about this at my launch party, and I think the idea came many years ago. I know it was buried in my head somewhere years ago, back when I was being ranked Number 1 in a country as a Junior athlete and having to hitchhike home from your National Championships… just struggling that hard when you are potentially an Olympic Gold medalist for your country.

There’s something that I just saw as a very big problem then, and didn’t really have a lot of time to address the issue, because obviously I was very focused on my athletics and didn’t have a lot of time to address the issue until I retired.

When I retired, that’s when the wheels started really turning.

There’s always going to be a lot of people and a lot of athletes who say that your career is defined by what you do at the Olympics or what you do at the World Championships, and that started to get me thinking. I truly believe that what I do off the track will define my career. Always have and always will. You know I’ve always been one of guys whose stayed humble through it all, same core group of friends, or when I’m around my family, or to the people around me. Track never changed me at all.

And so I think the big part of my running legacy will be my ability to stay close to what made me and give back as much as I can, and for me, looking for in the future, that’s what I want my kids to see and that’s what I want to really be known for.

In terms of size and growth, we’re definitely going to focus… obviously you start provincially based. We are a national organization looking at athletes across the country and we’re looking at the talent all over Canada. We are not looking to go outside of Canada in terms of support and definitely want to support Canadian athletes… that’s a big thing for us. We understand that there are a zillion athletes around the world who need help, but we’re really concerned about our athletes, and trying to support the Canadian sport scene and improve the Canadian legacy and sort of change that culture. I think to do that starts with Canadian athletes, so our end game take is very very National. We are provincially now, but we want to be more well known.

That whole model of “carding” is broken right now.. the whole model of developing somebody until they have success and then reducing them is broken, it’s been broken from the beginning, and it’s exactly why I started this.. it’s the same saying you’re going to invest heavily into a company, you know you’re going to buy shares in a company until the company becomes successful and then you’re going to dump all your shares! It’s a broken model it doesn’t work that way, we have a pro long term vision and for our athletes we want to not only support them as they progress and develop, but if they do become carded in a four year or a 8 year window… whatever… our 4 year/8 year commitment is depending on their age and event, and we want to make sure that we are there for them with them at their back pushing them harder and helping them more as they’re more successful, because that’s when it gets tough tough tough you know developing years are super tough, to develop top tier is very very hard to feel, and we’re very sensitive to that, we don’t want our athletes to think they’ll have really good year and do really well, and then the next year lose $10,000 off the funding from us.

It’s quite the opposite and we want them to know that there’s a certain financial threshold that will come into play. If some guys you know really do well in the sport and go on and not require funding, then it becomes into the athletic personal character. We put a lot of thoughts into that and we want our athletes to eventually give back to younger athletes and I think that the character of the individual will be able to tell us if they won’t be needing funding anymore, and that’s a huge thing for us right now. We want people who are astute, smart, articulate, good on the track and great off the track and understand to contributing back to the society and contributing back to the fund as they develop their talents.

In terms of University, it’s not really a priority for us as the commitment is a lifestyle in Track & Field, and we’re not concerned about their post-secondary. If they chose to put that on hold just like a lot of pro-athletes do or a lot of top athletes do, then that’s their own business. For us, we’re concerned about their lifestyle commitment to track and field, track and field is a full time sport, it’s a full time gig, you need to be more than a 100% life committed to do well at the top. We are looking for athletes who want to live it, guys who want it, breathe it, eat it, sleep it, and you know who are hungry, to become successful, and so on.

As for applicants, when we are in a position to take on another athlete we’ll do call for applicants, we don’t typically. Of course, we’re going to know who the talent is out there. We have a pretty even playing field when it comes to applicants, and what we’ll do is have a call for applicants when we’re ready, and those who apply will be considered and those who don’t, we’re not going to, you know we’re going to make sure that all athletes do meet that criteria are well aware of the application process but there’s myself and the four other directors and we all collectively come to an agreement on who our next athlete will be, and all of us have different ideas and I think some guys are very good at understanding what the athlete can give in terms of PR in terms of when there’s some sort of momentum in the community, and guys like me are very good at seeing their ability to develop the sport.

Q2: Let’s talk about “challenges”. Surely we’re not just looking solely at Mercier tables, right? Their character, his family, financial, etc. must take in account?

In terms of weather, while you trained in Victoria, how do you deal with all this crappy weather? What challenges do we have for Vancouver based athletes? Lots of Training camps?

What are the challenges do you have to face to get money from corporations, individuals, and from other bloggers like myself? I see you have a two way model of individual payments or a monthly subscription, which must be a hard sell?

After the Olympics, there is always a drop in funding for 3 years, so hard is it to attract funds in a post-Olympics where nobody is trying to raise awareness?

Gary Reed: That’s right.. there’s a lot of different things that go into it because if you strictly go off the Mercier Tables, you’re going to miss the good ones, you’ll be staring at the chart forever. There’s a lot going on and there’s a lot that takes to become a world class athletes and we collectively as a board understand all those different thoughts to become a world class athlete and to do very well, so we’re not looking for somebody who busted one good performance if they are not interested in contributing to the society, and not interested in helping the next generation. If they’re not interested in committing to a firm, stable coaching environment, if they’re not interested in having any financial needs then they’re not our candidate, so there’s a lot that goes into it. There’s a lot of integrity in what we’re doing and we’re not interested in punk asses who can run fast if you know what I mean

Our athlete we have right now is not Vancouver based, he’s from Winnipeg, he trains in Victoria and he spends some time in Scottsdale, AZ, and people know who he is in BC, for sure, and he was third in the country two years ago. We’re a national organization, for us, our only concern is that we have our interns, we have Canadian citizens training in a stable environment but obviously this is the part of the problem if they need to be in a warm weather training. Who can afford that? Yes, that costs money, that’s where we come in and hopefully you can divide it amongst the system so that they can get to the warm weather training. We understand this isn’t optimal. We just want to give them training at their best whatever it may be, we don’t care if it is on planet Mars.

I think you will have to fully understand when you get into something like this, not everybody cares but what we are interested in are people who do care. So if there’s a hundred people that come through and there’s 15 that care, and they are passionate like we are, and they share our vision and share our belief then we’d love to sit down talk to them, so for us as board, we’re not out there trying to change people’s culture or beliefs about sport and it’s impact on human beings. We’re out there dealing with people who understand that sport is a character building thing, and creates a somewhat better human being to walk through that door in life, for your job, 20 years from now, 15 years from now, and so that’s who we operate with is people who share our faith, share our belief. It’s like anything… we can’t concern ourselves nor take into account any type of negative activity or comments that come our way because we’re too busy focusing for the good..

I think you have to remember something is… we’re very clear messengers, we’re developing athletes, we’re not in the business of somebody whose swoops in 4 months before the Olympic Games, gives an athlete $5000, and fund them when they are already almost qualified, sends him or her to the Olympic Games and cut him off next year… that’s completely 180 from us! That’s not how we operate. We operate on the premise of young developing athletes, who have an Olympic games in 2016, in 2020. And if they do make it this year, great, that’s one more year experience, we’re not really banking on that right, quite frank, we’re not really baking on any short term success, it’s very long term and maybe that’s why for an 4 or 8 year commitment, it’s development because it takes years to develop an athlete. It’s not a six month play, it’s years, and it’s years and years of consistent support, consistently developing your athletes year and year out, support, support.. It takes time, takes patience, and if you don’t have those two then you shouldn’t be in the business of open athletes.

The athletes have to believe in themselves. And maybe they need to be more committed than we could ever be, right? We can’t be more committed than we have to be, they have to warm up more than us, they have to commit more than us, you know and that’s what we’re looking for, we’re looking for that type of athletes, that type of character.

Q3: So when you were on that BC Ferry moving to Victoria BC for the first time, no job, an empty apartment, what was on your mind? At that time, did you believe you were are going to the Olympics or World Championships? Were you already carded? How did you fund yourself?

Finally, looking into the sunset, after the 2007 World’s silver medal, I‘m sure it was a nice payday at the end of the day.. it must have been rewarding goal after several years of hard work?

Gary Reed: Absolutely, now that I have that vision, looking back before the move, I’ve done 1:48 something, and at that point once I had broken 1:50 one time and I was all of my races were around 1:50, but you know what, I was young, I was committed, I had vision, I had nothing, and I was just as the frickin’ happy with what I was doing then as I was when I was at the top of the food chain, because for me, it was what I wanted to do, what I believed. I have to understand that I wasn’t some type of miserable developing athletes who was roaming around, getting pissed for not getting this or that. [JIMSON'S NOTE: I think Gary is referring to athletes who get burnt by the system and switch coaches, countries or sponsors!]

I was just very positive, as everyday working very very extremely hard, and you know I really believed that it was going to work out for me and I luckily had some people who believed as much as I did. And that helped me bridge that gap and help me aneuver those wins, and that’s what it takes. The premise of “less support equals better” is ridiculous, that is a ridiculous premise! That’s not true… any guy, I tell you, anybody, could have never had done it without the key support, very key people in my life, at certain key times.

Coaching and family, friends… all these things… supporting you at the right time, people moving with you and sending you letters saying “they believe in you” and “you’re not there yet” but you just keep going. And I can tell you, I know it may seem like I just moved in Victoria woke up 5 years later and was winning medals, but it was almost the year before that was key, and that’s where we are trying to come in. My first Nike contact felt like “10 million bucks” to me, do you know what I mean? It was like “10 million bucks” to me, it really was. It was two training camps here, extra flight, extra good food, an extra massage, it was just everything.

How much did I get in funding? I got 500 bucks a month from the Centre! And I wasn’t even carded. And then I started down there [in Victoria] working. I started at a shoe store, a Call Centre, etc. I worked all over the place, whatever I had to do to make a few extra bucks so it was train train train train train.. I broke through to fight the odds a little bit, and as soon as I broke through, the world was a better place then, and I was lucky and fortunate to get that Nike contract, it helped to just take that pressure off. I had been carded the next year and suddenly I had more money the year after and you know it just kept going and going and going. And you know just in all those things, it would have been literally impossible, if not impossible, or it would have been tough. We are talking about T&F here, it’s a niche sport in this country is that anybody who knows it, gets it, right? It’s truly one of those tough things.

After Worlds 2007, there’s no question about it, I was doing fairly well, you have to run through to get there, that’s right, over the pseudo force field you have to make yourself feel that you have grown up. But people don’t see the past, they don’t see the bags of groceries from the in-laws, and they don’t see the 500 bucks in the mail that I got from the relatives, they don’t believe it when I was 21, nobody sees that, that’s the bad side of it all, they only see the successful player, they don’t see and understand that it didn’t just happen overnight. It doesn’t just happen, it’s not just our training, it’s a combination of all these things, it’s holistic, it’s a million different things, trying to fill on the holes.

Q4: Comment on the life and skills that you have learned from Track &Field to your current job in Real Estate. You don’t get nervous anymore, after competing in front of 85,000 people, no?

Gary Reed: What I am today, it is no question, my character, it’s who I am. There’s not a single challenge that I think I’ll ever see in my life again that will strike off fear from me to the point of immobility. I’d laid in bed and try to win the Olympic medal.. it’s one of the most monumental tasks in the world, and when you are life-committed to that, you know everything else seems attainable, getting as close as I did certainly transfers over to this bridge. It can be a vision… the belief to know there’s a lot of things that are attainable. Anything is almost as attainable as putting your head down, work hard, do your time and get the support where you can.

I don’t get nervous, but sometimes I do if it’s the right situation. I guess you can say the internal is so strong, you have to be excited about what you do try and not get nervous from it. I don’t get nervous, I get excited. It’s the right way to put the things like competing in the National relays and individuals that displays and builds your character. I guess anybody who knows Track knows what the odds are winning a medal, like in a major championship, or even make an Olympic final. The odds are against you, they really are, coming from a country of 30 million people with the relative low level support I feel our amateur athletes get. The odds are very against you and we’re trying to just change those odds up again and really make an impact.

And I think that’s one message that we are trying to get across, anybody supporting this now has to understand that we’re not just swooping in along with 28 year olds in the peak of their careers and give them $5000 and to go with their kits [uniforms] and put our name on the … that’s not our thing. We’re trying to develop athletes, human beings, and I don’t care if nobody else is doing it, we’re doing it.

Q5: Here’s a quick training question. On the Blog, there was the mileage debate… how much do you believe in them? Can you give us an idea, some specific example there, i.e. 50 miles a week? 80? I’m big believer of multiphase training, training at different paces (400m, 800m, and 1500/3000m)

Gary Reed: A lot of it depends on where you are coming from. If you are a 1500m guy, you are dropping down in mileage.

You are challenging yourself to do more mileage if you’re an 800 or 4x400m guy moving up to be an 800 guy, then it takes years to be able to develop that ability to even to run the 800 just be able to do it. It takes a long time so, I think the real answer is, for me, I was sort of a medium to low mileage athlete for a couple of different reasons:

I didn’t respond very well when I got too high in mileage, and
I didn’t like going up in mileage, so for me it was two different things, then I didn’t feel great when I did a lot of mileage

Did I do my mileage? Yes. Recovery runs every night, for sure, it was lot of my mileage, hard and pounding, doing tempo runs, some of it are hard, but I will say when I probably ran, we’d go with INTENSITY-VOLUME-RECOVERY WEEK, maybe 50 miles, 70, week then 45 miles a week, you know the numbers Jimson! In the fall, 85 and some weeks were in the peak so summer was 20, so it depends where you are in the season and what you got going on, and where is the competition and whether your base training is when you do the most mileage of all year, and then when you get into season. But I don’t know, you think people always say “the secret is more mileage or less mileage”.. I say it depends on the athletes.

I believe in multiphase training and that’s important because at the end of the day what people have to understand is when you want to win a medal you need to be diverse and you can’t have one gear. You have to get comfortable in all those of gears. Get comfortable at 1500/3000 speed, you know it was a slow 55.9 on that first lap then I went on to win the silver in 2007 WC!

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video

Using the EMS for Training [SpeedEndurance TV]

Jimson Lee — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Here is a quick video on how training can be used with the EMS.

As a full disclosure, you can never replace speed or strength training with your actual event-specific discipline (i.e sprinting fast to run fast), thus the EMS is used to “top up” on your training.

However, when you have to miss a workout due to bad weather or travel delays, at least you can get a training session in.

For training, EMS can provide greater contraction as compared to a normal voluntary contraction, up to 30% higher. (i.e. more muscle fiber recruitment)

In addition, EMS can be used in training to alter the order of muscle recruitment.

Normally, your body would use red fiber (slow twitch) first to do a specified movement, followed by white fiber (fast twitch) when needed.

However, with EMS, all fibers in proximity of the electrode pad regardless of their type are recruited. Therefore a greater number of fast-twitch fibers are activated earlier than they would be with traditional training. This is beneficial for speed, power and strength athletes.

This article is a great summary on the many uses of electric muscle stimulation.

Here is the video on SpeedEndurance TV. Be sure to subscribe for daily video tips.

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video

Curve Running – The Ultimate Guide

Jimson Lee — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Here are 5 good articles and papers regarding running the curve in Track & Field.

I am referring to Lane 1 or Lane 8, 200m indoor tracks vs outdoor tracks, flat tracks vs banked tracks.

If you think that is bad, check out a track that has 19 laps to a mile! (an 84 meter track… don’t forget the extra 13 meters)

Curve Running & How to Race the Indoor Sprints

Curve running is an important aspect to sprinting as half your races over 200 meters on the oval track are on the curve.

if you take 50 strides in a 100 meters, then the curve is simply a series of 50 straight lines!

Should you treat curves the same as straightaways?

I’ll break this section of this article down into several parts:

indoor curves: banked vs non-banked
outdoor curves
starting on the curve
approaching the curve
running the curve
exiting the curve

Click here to read Curve Running & How to Race the Indoor 200m 300m 400m

The Effect of Banked Curves on Running Mechanics (2008)

The article was originally presented by the Canadian Society of Biomechanics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Aug 16-19 2006.

The intent of this study was to investigate the mechanics of curved running with and without banked surfaces on an indoor track.

In summary, despite clear evidence of whole body lean, minimal gross differences in running mechanics were observed in the lower limb. Possibly, this may in part be explained by prior adaptations of the subjects due to their habitual running within the same indoor track.

Click here to read The Effect of Banked Curves on Running Mechanics

Curve Running and 200 Meters in Lane 8? No problem!

I HATE it when people bitch about Lane 8, and I LOVE IT when people set a personal best or even World Record out of Lane 8.

Simply put, the curvature is less in Lane 8 than in Lane 1.

But you are running scared, as you have no idea where you are at, until Usain Bolt blows you away at 70 meters.

Click here to read Curve Running and 200 Meters in Lane 8? No problem!

Do Curves Matter? Indoor vs. Outdoor World Records

How much do the tight indoor curves affect your performance?

Even with the banked curves to counteract the centripetal forces, it does affect your stride length and stride frequency, and therefore your time will be slower.

Also, with banked curves, you have a slight uphill grade going into the curve, then a favorable downhill grade coming off the turn. Lane 6 for the 200m or 300m starts halfway on the curve, so you literally start the race downhill.

Click here for Do Curves Matter? Indoor vs. Outdoor World Records

The Effects of Track Turns on Lower Extremity Function (1987)

In this 1987 paper from the International Journal of Sport Biomechanics, they basically stated that injuries to the right and left leg extremity differ, with the right foot injuries being of the impact type and the left leg injuries being the over-pronation type.

Click here to read The_Effects_of_Track_Turns_on_Lower_Extremity_Function (PDF document, 3.9 Mb)

Pads, Pad Placement and Electric Muscle Stimulators [SpeedEndurance TV]

Jimson Lee — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Here is a quick video on the different type of pads used in Electrical Muscle Stimulation.

This should remove some of the mysteries if you are not familiar with EMS.

I also discuss briefly on why you should not buy a cheap 2 channel EMS device and spend the extra money on getting a proper 4 channel device (regardless of brand)

This video is vendor non-specific, so it applies to any Electrical Muscle Stimulation unit.

By the way, I forgot to mention in the video that EMS replacement pads are universal, so you can always buy then at your shopping convenience. (i.e. Amazon, or any local health practitioner store or even a medical supply store)

Same goes with the gel.

Here is the video on SpeedEndurance TV. Be sure to subscribe for daily video tips.

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video

Windy Records in Track & Field

Jimson Lee — Sun, 12 May 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Windy Records

It is a well known fact that according to the rules of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), in certain sprinting and jumping events, for a record to be deemed valid, the assisting wind (if it exists) must not exceed a speed of 2m/s. More specifically, this rule refers to the 100m, 200m, 100m and 110m hurdles, the long jump and the triple jump. One can see the logic as several studies have shown that wind assistance can have an effect on performances both in sprinting and in jumping. But how significant is this effect and more importantly, should it be taken into account for other track field events?

Several researchers have looked into the advantage gained by tailwind. The majority of studies concern the most popular event in track athletics, the 100m dash. It has been estimated that an assisting wind of 2m/s improves a performance by approximately 0.1s compared to that achieved in still conditions. In [1], it is calculated that if Usain Bolt had been assisted by the maximum legal wind of 2m/s rather that the 0.9m/s registered on the day, he would have clocked a world record of 9.53s, 0.05s under his actual time. We can use this information to quantify the effect of wind on the 100m event. A maximum legal wind of 2m/s will improve performances by roughly 0.1/10 = 1%.

Similar studies (see for example [2]), have shown that the increase in the range of a long jump for a maximum allowable wind, is of the order of 0.12m to 0.16m. Assuming a jump of 8m, we can estimate the percentage increase in range as approximately 0.14/8 = 1.6%. In fact other studies show that the actual increase may be three times less, in which case we would obtain an increase of just 0.5%.

So for the 100m sprint and for the long jump, probably the two most talked about events when discussing wind assistance, the actual improvement is not more than 1-1.6%. Let us now have a look at two of the most popular throwing events, the javelin and the discus throw. A freely available tool for analyzing a javelin trajectory has been developed by Les Hatton, former Chair in Forensic Software Engineering at Kingston University, UK, (now retired) and is available at [3]. With this easy to use software, based on a complex mathematical model, one can simulate the trajectory of a javelin for various conditions, including the presence of a tailwind. I used the tool to obtain the range under still wind and with a tailwind of 2m/s. In both cases I set the same initial conditions (such as the release speed and angles) typical for a javelin throw. In reality of course the athlete would adjust those conditions for the change in wind but nevertheless, this simplified method can provide us with a rough idea of the wind effect. For the case of no wind, I obtained a range of 80.58m and for the tailwind case, 89.8m. The distance gained is therefore 89.8-80.58 = 9.22m, which as a percentage gain will be 9.22/80.58 = 11.4%! Yet, this acquired increase is deemed 100% legal by the IAAF.

For the discus throw, an interesting phenomenon is observed. One would think that throwing into a headwind would degrade the overall performance. In fact, if thrown correctly, the discus will fly a few meters longer. The reason for this is that although the air resistance (more scientifically known as drag) will oppose the motion, another force perpendicular to the motion will also increase in the presence of a headwind. This force is lift, which by constantly having an upward direction actually makes flight possible; a higher value of lift produced by the headwind, means that the discus will spend more time in the air thus travelling further. Experienced athletes will take advantage of this in order to increase the range of their throws. One study [4] has shown that for a headwind of 17m/s the range will increase from 74.08 to 84.29m, i.e an advantage of 10.21m. As a percentage this will be 10.21/74.08 = 13.8%. Admittedly, 17m/s is a pretty strong headwind, but even a headwind of 2m/s will offer an advantage of 1-2m, i.e at least of the same order of magnitude to that offered to sprinters and long jump athletes.

So, the next time you are watching track and field events, just think about it. A 2.1m/s wind on his side offering an advantage of approximately 1% could deprive Usain Bolt of his next world record. Nearby a javelin that is thrown in the same direction is carried forward by an additional 10% of distance and a world record is broken! Who said that life is fair?

Note: For a more detailed analysis of the effect of external conditions on sports, see Chapter 7 of my book, An Introduction to the Physics of Sports [5].

References

[1] Barrow, J. D., “How Usain Bolt Can Run Faster – Effortlessly”, Significance Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 2, (April 2012).

[2] http://vixra.org/pdf/1209.0042v1.pdf

[3] http://www.leshatton.org/2012/03/the-javelin-flight-analyser/

[4] Ching-Hua, Chiu, “Estimating the Optimal Release Conditions for World Record Holders in Discus”, International Journal of Sport and Exercise Science, Volume 1, No. 1 Jan 2009, pages 9-14.

[5] www.physicsandsport.com/en

About the Author

Most Popular articles for 2011:

400 meter Training and Racing:

800 meter Training: Training 800 meter runners

Sprint Starts: Usain Bolt training regimen video: The Start

Football 40 Yard Dash: 40 yard dash times for Usain Bolt & Ben Johnson

Baseball 60 Yard Dash: Baseball 60 yard dash: What’s a good time?

Recovery: Ice Baths for Workout Recovery

Supplements: Nutrition for recovery: The Post-workout drink controversy

Analysis: Usain Bolt’s 100m 10-meter splits and speed endurance

Strength Endurance: Matt’s 60-second pull up World Record Video