Adarq.org

Bad updating as usual. Nothing major to report anyway. Here's my aths summary:

Rd1: 200m - 25.79sec / Triple - 9.90m / High - 1.50m / Shot - 8.48m

Rd 2: 100m - 12.38 / LJ - 5.08m / 400m - DNR

Rd 3: Rained out, threw the wet shot 8.27m

Rd 4: 100m - 12.15 / LJ - 5.10m / 400m - 61.3

Rd 5: missed due to lab (200m program so nbd)

Rd 6: 100m - 12.38 again into a headwind / LJ - 5.60m (better)

Rd 7: missed again due to lab (200m)

I have to miss the next round as well, which sucks as it's the 100m round. There's also a twilight round on a Thursday which is always a pain to get to. Then there's only one more 200m round on the 14th of Jan but I'm getting my fecking wisdom teeth out under general on the 10th and will be out for a few days at least. So unless I can get to the twilight round I might not do the 200m round again. Not what I envisaged but it's just what happens when the season is so abridged. Luckily the wisdom teeth op is sandwiched by two more 100m programs on the 7th and 21st, then the finals round is also the 100m program this year, so that's a bonus. Three chances to run sub-12 and jump 6m+!

Jumps have been as inconsistent as always, pretty much dictated by court/outdoor fitness availability after 5PM and on weekends. The court has been booked out the last few weekends so some HS students can practice ceremonial Chinese dragon dance. Yep. Had a free gym today for about an hour though so could get all the jumps in:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3x512WxeQE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3x512WxeQE</a>

Minor improvements, definitely hitting about ~35'' on the SLRVJ, ~34'' for DSVJ and ~33'' for SVJ. The DLRVJ I got on film was rubbish, still not much better than the DSVJ obviously. It 'feels' fast when I'm doing it but when watching it back, it's so slow! Haha. Simply need two good sessions a week rather than one to get the reps in.

unrelated: did not get enough sleep last night due to bed company.

How's Pakistani tinder? 

Another comp, it went generally pretty smooth, only a few missed 100m times! Lol. Not mine though. There was a bit of a protest by all the top guys who pre-entered but didn't rock up, so there were three guys in the first heat.

100m - 12.15sec --> overall pretty good. The usual pattern for me, good start but died over the last 20-30m. But pretty happy to be running this in October with average strength levels and not an extensive amount of speed work except as written in the program.

Long jump - 5.10m --> awful again, my runup was off and I was stretching for the board each attempt and decelerating when I should have been accelerating. I don't think I'm jumping over 5.50m anyway atm. Hah.

400m - 61.31 - so bad. I ran with some old fellas so I was miles ahead by the 100m mark and I just went way too slow from 100-250m. Tried to pick it up in the last 150m but it was too late, legs were spent. But this is just for fun, if I crack my PR of ~57sec I'd be stunned and also it's not important anyway.

Jumped and squatted today. Been combining the weighted jumps session and easy squats/RDLs in one day. I did some jumps unweighted to see how I'm going. Pretty flat overall after running a good 100m yesterday. The 1-step and DLRVJ are pretty much the same height , around ~33''. My SLRVJ has gotten a bit better, probably around ~34'' today.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBU-Bksxjbo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBU-Bksxjbo</a>

I really wish I was doing a bit better athletically, but I'm also trying to finish a PhD in six months so training has obviously come second to that. Last few weeks I've only been doing a single combined track session with comps as a proxy session, and running the tempo runs on the oval at my gym with horizontal jumps etc. on another night. Also combining jumps with gym, and doing some more weighted SVJs/DSVJs with the other gym session (or full jumps, but it's almost impossible to get court/outdoor fitness access after 5PM). It also makes it hard to do too much extended weight-vest time as I've mentioned a few times.

I'm half-thinking of taking a few months off once I finish rather than stress too much about having a job lined up. Haven't really taken any extended non-travel break over the last ~4-5 years except for 2x5w trips o/s (US trip this year and Europe start of 2014). They were both incredible obviously, but I never find o/s trips very 'relaxing'. Especially the recent US trip, which was awesome, but included lab visits/conf/talks/T0ddday making me do a 400m at 7AM etc. Would be nice to just have 1-2 months where all I think about is training just once before I hit work hard again. It's a bit self-indulgent and life might not allow that anyway, but it'd be nice.

Quote from: acole14 on October 23, 2016, 03:26:00 am

Another debacle of a comp this week. We had some ridiculous weather in Melbourne (50km/h+ winds, heavy rain, 10deg C) and I was thinking they might cancel it. I went along anyway with plans to do TJ, shot, HJ and 200. Had shot put first and was raining pretty heavily, ended up throwing in my wet weather gear. Terrible throwing obviously, wet shot put, freezing cold, windy and restricted range of motion led to a measly 8.27m I think. Got to the 200 and we had a bit of a sunny break. But of course, the organisers had once again failed to test the timing system and it accordingly fucked up right before the first heat. After stuffing around for about 10-20 mins, they sent everyone off for a further 20min break while they restarted the whole thing. The first heat guys were furious as you could imagine, as well as everyone else. It's incredibly annoying to start your warmup for an event on the assumption it'll run roughly to time, but then end up warming up for 1.5hrs+ waiting for your late event. Then, just to top it off, the rain really rolled in hard and they decided that they would shut it down the whole day. So the tiny window they had to at least let the top guys get a time, they botched by not getting the timing working, and no-one ran, lol.

The other element that made this even more farcical is that this round was one of three 'zone vs zone' rounds, where the AthsVic admin thought it'd be a great idea to jam two zones into one venue. Each zone is about 8-10 clubs and the day goes for 2x as long to accommodate all the entries. For instance, I was in heat 12 of 29 for the 200. You can imagine the joy of trying to get out of a tiny carpark onto a main road with literally everyone trying to leave at the same time! Lol. I know I whinge a bit about the amateur comp but it really is shockingly incompetent. There's just no alternatives if you want to do T&F in my state unfortunately.

Weighted jumps today were pretty awful, maybe around 31-32''. I've been getting at least 1x weighted jumps session a week but maybe I'm getting a bit fatigued....haven't really improved vertically in awhile 

That's ridiculous. Even if there wasn't any equipment malfunctions or weather delays it still would've been a very time consuming process, simply due to the sheer number of competitors. Madness.

Yeah it's one of the worst things about the new program that they implemented three seasons ago now. Everyone hates it, you have to drive for 2x the distance if it's not your home round and the day takes twice as long. They bill it as the opportunity to compete against different athletes but 95% of competitiors couldn't give a shit about that, they're mostly like me just there to run against the clock. They've lost a lot of members over the last few years unsurpisingly which is why they've jacked the prices up. In short, don't come to Vic for the track and field! Lol.

Man that is awesome, when you say you won first place, does it mean you were the first person to cross the line or something else.

 

Quote from: acole14 on October 23, 2016, 03:26:00 am

Another debacle of a comp this week. We had some ridiculous weather in Melbourne (50km/h+ winds, heavy rain, 10deg C) and I was thinking they might cancel it. I went along anyway with plans to do TJ, shot, HJ and 200. Had shot put first and was raining pretty heavily, ended up throwing in my wet weather gear. Terrible throwing obviously, wet shot put, freezing cold, windy and restricted range of motion led to a measly 8.27m I think. Got to the 200 and we had a bit of a sunny break. But of course, the organisers had once again failed to test the timing system and it accordingly fucked up right before the first heat. After stuffing around for about 10-20 mins, they sent everyone off for a further 20min break while they restarted the whole thing. The first heat guys were furious as you could imagine, as well as everyone else. It's incredibly annoying to start your warmup for an event on the assumption it'll run roughly to time, but then end up warming up for 1.5hrs+ waiting for your late event. Then, just to top it off, the rain really rolled in hard and they decided that they would shut it down the whole day. So the tiny window they had to at least let the top guys get a time, they botched by not getting the timing working, and no-one ran, lol.

The other element that made this even more farcical is that this round was one of three 'zone vs zone' rounds, where the AthsVic admin thought it'd be a great idea to jam two zones into one venue. Each zone is about 8-10 clubs and the day goes for 2x as long to accommodate all the entries. For instance, I was in heat 12 of 29 for the 200. You can imagine the joy of trying to get out of a tiny carpark onto a main road with literally everyone trying to leave at the same time! Lol. I know I whinge a bit about the amateur comp but it really is shockingly incompetent. There's just no alternatives if you want to do T&F in my state unfortunately.

damn sounds like an awful day. like, literally nothing good happened. eek :/

Pretty much. It was an extreme outlier in terms of weather, can't remember ever having a comp cancelled due to rain.

Quote from: acole14 on October 23, 2016, 03:26:00 am

Weighted jumps today were pretty awful, maybe around 31-32''. I've been getting at least 1x weighted jumps session a week but maybe I'm getting a bit fatigued....haven't really improved vertically in awhile 

that would be a result of (positive) overreaching, if i'm not mistaken. i bet once you give your body a little time to rest, you can get the supercompensation to dovetail nicely with increasing jump practice and therefore technique.

Yeah the rational part of my brain knows that, these 'blah' sessions are annoying though, especially because court time at either gym I go to now is rare on a weekend. Feel like I wasted it. But yes, agreed.

Quote from: acole14 on October 19, 2016, 10:32:49 pm

Quote from: jumperer on October 19, 2016, 12:08:35 am

Quote from: acole14 on October 18, 2016, 11:16:40 pm

Quote from: jumperer on October 18, 2016, 09:18:01 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIlh4JWXKaA

goal now is to make this consistent. i think my max vert is now sitting in between the mid 30s and high 30s. don't think i have the best genetics, but i'm confident that i can get to 40. just have a very slight ache in my left knee still, think im just gonna keep foam rolling and stretching it i guess. may try cross friction massage on it and maybe even acupuncture.

Where in the knee? Don't go sticking needles into tendons and ligaments haphazardly.

probably the quadricep tendon, very very close to the kneecap though. and yea, of course i'm not gonna go about doing it by myself at home, i'm gonna get a professional to do it. or do you think getting a professional to do it is haphazard too?

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not. I'll assume not. For a start I don't know whether you mean acupuncture or dry needling. Acupuncture really doesn't have any scientific justification. From my understanding, dry needling is slightly different in that it's more targeted to specific trigger point areas and I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence from people in the business. But you have to ensure it's done right and there's always a small risk of tendon/ligament rupture given you're creating small (temporary) weak point in the tissue. We had a guy who had dry needling constantly on his achilles tendon, and while it would help him get through the next day's training he'd invariably pull or tear it a few days/weeks later. My old coach was very against injections in tendons/ligaments whether it was a cortisone shot or acupuncture needles because of the risk of subsequent tendon rupture under heavy load, which he's seen a few times. Again, all anecdotal; YMMV and it could potentially help for pain relief, but it probably doesn't fix the issue.

IMO, a far better and less risky approach to solving your quad tendinopathy is to get a PT/myotherapist etc. to look at your hip and ankle mobility/stability using SL squats and other functional movements. Then get the dysfunctional muscles worked on and start doing the relevant corrective strengthening exercises. Every dynamic knee fault that isn't some sort of congenital defect is most likely caused by upstream (hip) or downstream (ankle) joints and the associated muscles, more often than not around the hip.

nope, i wasn't being sarcastic lol, just very uninformed on that stuff. my mom just suggested it, and i didn't really know how it was gonna be done lol. yea that seems like a huge risk cause there's very little pain right now, just very minor aching when i jump.

yea that sounds like when i'm gonna do again. the last physical therapist i saw bascially did some cross friction massage for a few sessions. after that, i just followed what she told me to do, and that was to stretch/foam roll quads hard and strengthen glutes/hamstrings with deadlifts.

All good, hard to tell sometimes online. Sounds like you're on the right track, these things just become a management/maintenance issue. I see you're doing weighted pistols, which is also good. Keep it up, good jumping progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIlh4JWXKaA

goal now is to make this consistent. i think my max vert is now sitting in between the mid 30s and high 30s. don't think i have the best genetics, but i'm confident that i can get to 40. just have a very slight ache in my left knee still, think im just gonna keep foam rolling and stretching it i guess. may try cross friction massage on it and maybe even acupuncture.

Where in the knee? Don't go sticking needles into tendons and ligaments haphazardly.