I am running with my kids at 6 yrs old. Training for various event. From 500m, 1km, 1.5km, 2 to 3km etc.
We can jog for 30 min non stop no problem. But for shorter distance, she is unable to adjust or increase her speed.
Now obviously jogging is for longer distance is different than shorter distance. To increase speed, many coach online had asked me to make my girl run short distance burst.
So we did like 100m x 10 for one day, 200m x 8 on the other day, and 400m x 5 recently.
Now my question is running form. I personally is no coach and never took any running course.
The last thing i Wanted to do is to mess up my girl running form. (Some coach had suggested me to send her to track school to avoid getting into bad form which is much harder to fix at older age) However, I do not want to take this away from our family Activity Time.
nice!!
So I googled and research online.
anddd... not nice! :/
Many if not all of the Youtube stuff I see is for long distance. About running efficient, no excessive arm swing, no vertical movement. and take 180 steps (ground contact ) per min. instead of over stride.
As for short distance, they talk about big strong arm swing, and minimize vertical movement also.
However when i run with my girl, I try to tell her to do bigger steps, instead of running like a ninja who have fast mini steps (which she got use to during long jog).
I tell her to push off from the rear leg, to get more distance per step. yet not to extend the front foot too far. I keep telling her to have this sort of bouncy running long step style.
Because i recall seeing 10km runner in the front pack all running like reindeer with a bouncy feeling. I saw it with my own eyes.
This sort of contradict what i read on line about minimize vertical movement. So I don't know... and here I am.. asking this.
I remember mentioning this in a post months ago, what you are doing is actually bad for her running. How can you teach her these things if you really have no idea what you are doing, and aren't confident in what you are teaching? To me, that's what is baffling. I completely see your good intentions, that's not a question at all. She wants to run faster, and you want to help her do so, but you aren't qualified in teaching her the intricacies of running or sprinting. These seem like simple things, but they are extremely complex, just like jumping.
Unless you are an actual running or sprinting coach, you should really try and refrain from teaching mechanics. What you should be doing is just going out and running with her, doing intervals and such like you're doing - but not telling her to push harder off her rear leg (which she's already doing) or worry about vertical lift or longer steps. Occasionally you should be running slightly faster than her, giving her a stimulus to catch up etc. Or have her run with other kids who are also enjoying running, have them push each other in "training".
Btw... my girl has been stuck at her speed/time now...
when i Hold her hands to run, she can easily run much faster (with out me really PULLING her fwd, is more like.. leading her fwd). But without holding hands... she is struggling to keep up with me (with me being a pacer).
I don think there is much Dad in here... but i do hope to get some feed back on where i should go from here.
You are taking your overanalysis mindset and teaching it to her from a young age. To me that's a problem. Simply thinking about these various technique changes while running, makes someone slower. IMHO, change your approach ASAP.
If you want her to improve technically, "track camp" sounds like the way to go. I can't remember ever learning anything from a parent, or rec coach for basketball - literally nothing. But I did learn an insane amount of things by going to basketball camps with legitimate coaches - just a few camps once in a while of ~1 week duration, as a young kid, and I picked up so many shooting drills, dribbling drills, incredibly important concepts related to discipline/work ethic etc.. Again, never learned one thing from a parent, a friend's parent, rec coaches, or even some of the weak high school coaches I had to deal with - everything I learned as at camps & using that base of knowledge to then study the game myself.
When a former professional basketball player tells you to simply stand under the rim and shoot hundreds of one handed shots working on extension/flick/alignment etc, ~2-3x/wk and during warmups for games etc, you take note, and then you realize it works. Someone who saw similar info on the internet might be able to relay such information, but they may be forgetting key details such as alignment of hips/feet/shoulders, where exactly to stand, how exactly to hold the ball etc.
she's six. six year olds still don't have all their gross motor skills developed. relax. you should probably not "coach" her AT ALL. let her play, clamber on things, make up obstacle courses, play catch, play around with a basketball, play soccer, do whatever. worry about form muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch later.
I'm with LBSS for the most part here; the keyword being "coach". How far you take coaching, is the issue. To coach her by going out and running with her, and running intervals etc, to me that's fine. She enjoys it and wants to win, that's great. But to dive into the technical aspects of running/sprinting with no experience & no knowledge of it, that's the coaching side of it that should be completely avoided.
I remember some parent coach during some youth rec ball practice, who wanted me to shoot off the backboard even from the middle of the key, I refused. He went into this whole story about how x y z would do it etc, but even at 12 I knew this guy had no clue what he was talking about, especially since absolutely no one in a basketball camp ever told me about that. They taught me how to use the glass on a short/midrange angle, never straight on, especially at freethrow to 3pt distance. That's what comes to mind when I think about parents trying to "overcoach" when they don't have the proper background.
I know what u mean LBSS..
but we are running together 2 to 3 times a week
in a competitive manner.. give or take.. if we are going to run seriously...i want to do it correctly.
So if you want to do it correctly, don't do it incorrectly, which you are doing by teaching her things you aren't even confident with yourself.. hehe!
there is also this other kid that is on and off competing with us. (like we meet them regularly during event.) She have a semi professional Coach who have many award (found out by google)
Now, i know it will sound like i am a fucking dad who try to Push the kid to extreme... (not to mention i am not even a runner myself)
but i asked this question to her a few times... this training shit is tough... why dont we just get back to leisure jogging... 30 min done deal sort of thing, no timer no sprinting in circle junk...fuxk the race/match , and just have fun with dad..
she said.... she want to race.. she want to win...
i said... ok I am here with u.
I completely get the vibe that she loves running & loves you coaching her, that's what I see when you post photos and such. She is going to improve for many years with running & sprinting most likely, because it seems she really does love it. That's why you need to make extra sure not to screw her up by teaching her the wrong things, or getting her to overthink while running.
It's really simple.. You need professionals to teach her about the technical things. Professionals may give you some feedback which they want you to remind her of etc, that's fine.
If some basketball coach told my dad to tell remind me to "look up" when i'm dribbling, my dad would be much more confident in relaying the information to me, if i was dribbling with my head down & i'd probably be more receptive at understanding it. That's also something someone could learn off the internet, but i'm sure they could screw it up in incredible ways.
Finally, you have to be careful thinking she's not improving. Sure, she may not be getting faster right now, but running & sprinting are tricky things. You don't just get faster every workout. In fact you can get slower in training and run faster in races, all kinds of stuff related to fatigue & overall training volume factor in. If she's running 3x/wk, that's really great. There's no way she's not actually improving if she's doing that, you just might not see it workout to workout but, the body is transforming & adapting.
peace
