How much does a wet track affect times or is it insignificant?
Probably not something you could quantify exactly but I remember generally having better 150m times on a hot track in summer as opposed to a wet track in summer. Probably several factors involved: temperature of track, friction, mental effect on athletes (you might slow down a bit on the turn in the 200m for example). Also, if it's wet, it might be colder, windy etc. Hard to separate all the variables.
The actual surface of the track doesn't is pretty insignificant... Bolt came onto the scene in 2008 when he set the record ahead of Beijing with a 9.71 in the rain in New York.
I have run fast and slow times on wet and dry tracks - if you have spikes and there are no actual puddles it doesn't make much difference...
Of course if it's raining... It's annoying, imagine being in the blocks and rain falls in your eye...
From a physics standpoint it's really not the surface but the effect on air resistance that weather affects. Ideally you want it extremely hot (faster air molecules means less resistance) and extremely humid (h20 is lighter than nitrogen which is displaces so the air is lighter), extreme altitude at the equator (least gravity helpful for jumps at least) and a nice tailwind...
I would take a hot humid day with a few drops of rain over a cold dry night every single time I do know that... But I'll take indoors over all so who knows...
After today's 100s and 200s I feel like my anerobic endurance is pretty decent cause I was running them with a friend and he was finishing like 3-6secs after me on the 100s and 5-10secs on the 200s. But then we played flag football later and he was one of the best players.
Yeah, really a good example of how endurance is so sport specific. I don't like to even get too scientific about the anaerobic/aerobic breakdown and I like to just call it sport-specific endurance. I train with a couple 400m hurdlers who are by most measures in far better shape than me... However, one of them is trying to play football and after practice we do route drills, one the other was shocked at how out of shape I seem for the track workout but during football the tables are turned. We are basically running hi-intensity 10-40yd routes, outs, hitches, posts, etc, we probably run a route every 2-3 minutes. I am ready to go and fresh for each route but the other guy gets gassed, football specific endurance... The other guy is a 46 second 400m guy and he even mentioned how he tried to play pickup basketball and realized how out of shape he was for basketball... Both basketball and football (especially football) have tons of breaks of up to a minute between every hard play - being in shape here is almost completely about how well you can recover between reps to regain maximum power for a very short burst... Because you described frisbee as more soccer like the 150 workout is more ideal for you because it's low-intensity periods to recover rather than complete rest...
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The workout I did had much longer rests than the one you suggested. That 400m followed by 150s workout seems much more difficult to me cause there's no stopping at all: even during the break you're either doing pushups or jogging to the next 150. That sort of consistent running destroys my back and diaphragm the most usually.
Drop the 400m. Stick to the 150s and pushups. You can be a little bit more liberal with the jog. For the 150's aim for 20-25 seconds and allow yourself 60 seconds to get to the next mark and complete your pushups, it should be 150, jog for about 20 seconds (it's just 25 meters) then rest for 10-20, then pushups, then go.
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Here's my jumps: SVJ current, PR: 31" RL-DLRVJ current: 34", PR: 35.5", LR-DLRVJ: 31"? only measured once L-SLRVJ current, PR: 31" R-SLRVJ current: 24", PR: 30"
Those are not bad numbers, I would argue easiest bang for buck would be getting those L and R single leg jumps higher..
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Any reason why your SLRVJ's are kind of low compared to your DLRVJ? I figured that since you were a power and P-chain oriented athlete your SLRVJ would be closer to your DLRVJ.
The same reason Kingfish can't jump with a runup or off one foot. I don't do it. This is why jumping is a bad measure of power. If I didn't jump at all and relied on simply posterior chain power my max jump would probably be around 35''. But I don't. I rely on power and skill at the movement and it's not an exaggeration to say that skill is worth about 10 inches...
I'm not good at single leg jumping because I don't do it. I've been better but never as good as my peak double leg jumping. I don't like to practice single leg jumping unless my bodyweight is really low, the shock is just too much. I don't like to practice max double leg jumping too much at high body weight either but I find that I can maintain skill by doing drop step jumps and their isn't really a way to keep up single leg jumping that is less shock. The last time I got lean and peaked my vertical I was playing 2 on 2 and jumping incredibly well. Best I ever have in my life. Every time I got past my man, got a rebound, or a back cut I could easily just rise up and dunk it with two hands. In the flow of the game I tried a one footed dunk and I got it down but it wasn't pretty... I did a few to get on video that same day but those are the only single leg dunks I have done in about 3 years... Andrew has motivated me to add penultimate jumps to make practice when I do focus on vertical so my one footed jump isn't so pathetic, but in general unless you practice something a lot it's not good...
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Any reason you think strength SLRVJ jumpers have worse technique? By "strength SLRVJ jumper" I just meant that i do better with a longer ground contact time. I try to get low on my approach that helps a lot. But you can't really do that with 1 step short ROM
Well, in general there are good strength vertical jumpers... There are some ok DLRVJ strength jumpers, but there are no good strength single leg jumpers... I mean think about it.. Each jump has a tradeoff. Vertical jump has the longest ground contact time and allows for the greatest knee bend as you can explode out of a full squat if necessary like Kingfish and LBSS do... When you move to DLRVJ you give that up in favor of more speed. If you are a "slow" "strength" RDLVJ guy that means you basically run up and squat down and jump - if you jump like this you DLRVJ won't be better than your standing jump...
Single leg jumping is the extreme version of this. You only get to jump off of one leg! I mean how much can you one leg squat? Not much... You sacrifice a lot of power BUT it's worth it because you can keep much more speed in the jump than a two-legged jump... If you spend more time on the ground than most in your single leg jump, well you just are not a good single leg jumper... I'm not a great single leg jumper but I have been better and what practicing the single leg jump will do for you is basically teach you how to block your body better so you can travel upward with more speed... The best single leg jumper is the one who takes off with the highest speed... When I was a decent single leg jumper it always felt very effortless... The mechanically difficult part of the single leg jump is all about the last two steps, do you slow down to dip and drive or do you accelerate to block and fly? It's not easy but it is practicable... Penultimate jumps, one-two jumps over low hurdles, and high speed jumps will get you there... I think you could really surprise yourself if you put work into it...
Those times were kinda disappointing but im glad Bolt won .. oh well
Yeah... I didn't expect much more than 19.5 and had he not let up at the end maybe we would have seen it... But I mean the man was injured just two months ago... I really hope he shuts up all the people claiming he is getting old and gets fit and focuses on either the 100 or 200 and sets another world record in his 30s.
The olympics really makes them run too much with too little rest... Come on do we really gotta make bolt run 6 races? I think they should do like the world championships and wildcard in previous winners and medalists... Given that they qualify I think they should at least get a bye into the semi or final.... The people want great times!
maryland is still in the top-5 for gold medals won by country, tied for russia with 12. today's maryland champ is wrestler helen maroulis, who grew up 30-40 minutes from me.
after this weekend we should have at least 15 (durant, melo, and angel mccoughtry). gary russell (boxing), aaron russell (volleyball), and kyle snyder (wrestling) all still have realistic shots at gold, too.
suck it russia. and california.
Hahahaha. Wow you found the only thing Maryland can beat California in. Nice job... Those athletes may be FROM maryland but were they developed in Maryland? Lol. We develop pretty good athletes here at USC:
If USC were a country, its 288 Summer Olympics medals would place it 16th. And in six different Olympics, USC’s medal count would have positioned it among the top 10 competing nations.
Ok, so Maryland is good in these olympics... But... What are they all time? How many spots behind a little school from California?
aw, don't be bitter boo. we're just better than y'all this time around.
Lol. You guys can have this. You need it. I'll take the weather, women, and the weed any day of the week. And I don't even smoke weed.
didn't you say like two days ago that gatlin was "waiting for bolt"?
Good call out. "Waiting" is track slang though - I don't mean Justin Gatlin was thinking "let me slow down for Usain". I mean that after 70m in the race Gatlin's splits were worse than expected given Bolt's presence. Certainly it's what happened and he admitted in the 2015 final, I guess I can't be sure until I get a hold of the official split times - but I'm somewhat confident in my claim. It's something of a misconception that I hear a lot - "The guy who wins the race at the end isn't running faster than the other guy, he is just slowing down less".
Obviously on it's face that's nonsense because you can't overtake someone unless you run faster - but even the intended purpose of the claim which is "At the end of the race the athletes slow down and the one who slows down the least will win and thus maintains a higher speed" is false. A look at the split times shows that while athletes don't necessarily hit their peak 10m split at 90-100m they don't actually slow down either. Here are some examples:
Ben Johnson 1988: 1.71 1.02 0.94 0.87 0.86 0.85 0.85 0.87 0.86 0.87 Carl Lewis 1991: 1.74 1.08 0.92 0.89 0.84 0.85 0.84 0.83 0.87 0.86 Mo Green 1999 1.72 1.03 0.92 0.88 0.86 0.84 0.85 0.85 0.85 0.86 Usain Bolt 2009: 1.73 0.99 0.90 0.86 0.83 0.82 0.81 0.82 0.83 0.83
One one hundreth is kinda a joke for 10m splits because you aren't always between the same number of strides within 10 meters and the lean at the line can mess things up as well. However, you can see that while nobody speeds up after 60m (although actually the fastest split recorded is Bolt's 60-70m 0.81) they aren't exactly slowing down either. They are maintaining almost constant speed with a little noise... This really isn't that hard - when I was in shape my splits looked exactly the same with one exception, I'm slower. However, I would run somewhere around 0.90 on my fastest split and then run 0.9 to 0.93 for the rest of my splits past 50m. Being just 0.08 slower from 40-100m from a sub 10 guy ends up being a half second disadvantage...
These are all splits from race winners however.. Sometimes athletes do slow down considerably past 60m but it's not because of fatigue so much as it is because of competition. If you watch Asafa Powell in 2007 when he loses to Tyson Gay you can see a great example of this... It's happened to me to, and it's not a conscious thing but sometimes a faster running approaching causes us to run much worse than we would if he wasn't there... When this happens you coach says "you waited for him". Obviously in one race we can't be sure, maybe Justin Gatlin simply misstepped or was fatigued from the short break, obviously I don't know, but it sure looked to me like he waited for bolt. That's not to say he would have won had he not, but it is to say he would have lost by less...
There are some weird things that go on at high speeds when you are nearby people... It's hard to explain if you don't run the 100m.. I would even argue that had Gatlin ran faster Bolt would have too... There is some maybe unconscious thing that makes us stride match nearby people, maybe its drag, maybe it's psychological I don't know... But it can make you either PR or drastically underperform depending on the day... It is one reason I think it isn't just an old adage that "iron sharpens iron" or "speed makes speed" but there is some actual truth that if you sprint with fast training partners you will get faster better than if you train alone... It's why seifullaah absolutely needs to find a way to train with someone else if he is serious about improving...
maryland is still in the top-5 for gold medals won by country, tied for russia with 12. today's maryland champ is wrestler helen maroulis, who grew up 30-40 minutes from me.
after this weekend we should have at least 15 (durant, melo, and angel mccoughtry). gary russell (boxing), aaron russell (volleyball), and kyle snyder (wrestling) all still have realistic shots at gold, too.
suck it russia. and california.
Hahahaha. Wow you found the only thing Maryland can beat California in. Nice job... Those athletes may be FROM maryland but were they developed in Maryland? Lol. We develop pretty good athletes here at USC:
If USC were a country, its 288 Summer Olympics medals would place it 16th. And in six different Olympics, USC’s medal count would have positioned it among the top 10 competing nations.
Ok, so Maryland is good in these olympics... But... What are they all time? How many spots behind a little school from California?
Degrasse also is a contender in this, he managed to relaxingly get 19.80. Justin gatlin got over confident and didn't qualify for the 200m finals. Usain did make it very easy and I think he is possible capable of getting a new olympic record if he is in shape and goes 100% but I dont think he can get under 19sec. I think the medals would be Usain bolt with gold, degrasse with silver and fight between merit and lemaitre or edwards but it will be close for third.
The womens 200m final, elaine thompson got her revenge on dafne and won the double gold.
Let's not read into too much what is going on in an athletes mind especially if we don't know them. Justin Gatlin is physically but moreso mentally exhausted. Personally, I do have very different and very alternative views when it comes to drugs ( I maintain that steroids make little difference for male sprinters ) but whatever your views are you have to feel sorry for the guy. He did his four year suspension, since then he has passed far more tests then Bolt or anyone else... Bolt and all the other athletes respect and support him... But he is just abused by the media, the fans, and non track athletes... Enough already... I mean getting constantly booed is horrible and he admitted how much it's worn on him... And that 19 year old American swimmer saying he shouldn't be in Rio... She can go to hell. So can people who agree with her for "speaking her mind". Most don't know this but every american athlete in Rio has to take etiquette classes - they are specifically taught NOT to say things like this in any circumstance about any athlete. They are taught to respect people. Nobody knows Justin Gatlins story or exactly what he did - the rule he broke he was punished for and it was an extensive punishement - if you have issue with the rule fine, but don't have issue with the person. I really feel for him, in this 2015 interview you can see how emotional he is about just wanting to be forgiven and given a chance to run, humbled truly:
Anaerobic conditioning: 1/10 only a single session where I went too hard in the 400 and ended after 3 150's cause i set unrealistic time goals, then I ran another slightly submax 400m in 1:05. Other 2 times I went to the school track it was being used by the school. Just not good at motivating myself to do these.
Throws: 9/10 Throwing and taking notes on throws every day, only missed a single day of throwing since my last post.
Cutting: 6/10 I'm sitting at 181.8 lbs right now. I was 186 a few days ago but inconsistent water weight. I will need a couple of days to carb bulk before the tourney, but I think 178 is doable by then. If i can convinvce myself to go hard on these intervals, 175 might even be achievable.
Jumps/Layouts: 3/10 Did a session on SLRVJ's off both legs: RSLRVJ needs a couple sessions of work at least. SVJ at 30.5"! I'm a little worried about training high layouts with or without a slip N slide. I injured my rotator cuff on one of these in game like a month ago so I've been hesitant about doing it. Definitely need to do at least 2 jump sessions and 2 layout sessions.
Will I get better results if I peak my bounciness or my anaerobic endurance?
yo. better results for what specifically?
I guess i asked a complicated question that really only me and LBSS would be able to gauge since we are the only ones that played competitively on this board. I would say that as a D-line cutter anaerobic endurance is slightly more important than being bouncy but it really depends on how the other team is playing. Some points I might have to do multiple quick SLRVJs with only having a couple seconds of reaction time a lot: the less time I have to set up my jump, the weaker it's going to be since I'm a "strength SLRVJ jumper".
What I was really asking, is it more effective to peak with interval training or plyos? How much gains can I expect to see? I don't do a whole lot of power work (aside from jumping) so I think I would get considerable benefit from doing plyos. However if I can significantly increase my anaerobic endurance that would probably help me quite a bit more.
I remember reading one of the "blog posts" where you were talking about using depth jumps to peak DLRVJ, so any thoughts on that?
The problem with your question is it really depends where you are. For example I worked with a college football player here in LA for about two hours with a vertec (he was going to be testing his standing/running vertical for spring practice in a few weeks). He was a powerful beast (I put up videos of him tossing a 12 pound medicine ball 20 yards with ease). I added 2-3 inches to his vertical in a few hours. However, when I asked him if he planted LR or RL he didn't even know. He planted left right when he dunked basketballs but it turned out when I taught him to plant LR and actually twist into his drop step plant and get some practice at it he jumped much higher. It was one of the more rewarding moments I have had training athletes...
Could I do the same with Andrew? Or LBSS? No way. Those guys have greased their jumping groove for years.
Similarly if I was going to play frisbee, what would I work on? I would try to get a couple of two or three hours throwing sessions in with someone like you or LBSS. Reason being, I can't throw at all. I can toss a disc ok by flicking it with my wrist but I can't wind up and do the backhand toss, the hammer toss, etc. I bet I could go from being a 2/10 on throws to a 4/10 very quickly which would make the biggest difference for me... For you this probably wouldn't help much at all...
Yes, Andrew has talked about depth jumps and I have used them as well... But they are not easy on the body and I wouldn't recommend them in season and still for your goals they wouldn't be super effective because the carryover to single leg jumping isn't that great...
As far as your goals; like you say there is variance because it depends on competition so no matter what you might be wrong when it comes to game time... But basically, it depends on your stats. Did you try one of the anaerobic workouts I mentioned? Repeat 150s, repeat 200m, or 60m with walkback? If you try that - tell us how you did. If your pretty terrible relative to your base speed you can make a lot of gains quick... You can also know from game experience... Do you have a reputation on your team as being that guy who just runs out of gas in the 4th quarter? Or are you just looking to be the guy who isn't fatigued when everyone else is? Again if it's the first one it's gonna be a lot more effective for you...
As far as plyos and single leg jumps... Since you call yourself a strength single leg jumper that tells me you aren't mechanically great at single leg jumping... Plyos may help but rather than plyos - just a lot of focused single leg jump work could improve your mechanics so that you can get up a lot higher... Additionally, you probably have a lot of gains waiting on your bad leg. My peak SL vertical on my left is around 36'' - my right is probably around 26'-30''... I bet I could get my right leg up to consistent 32'' quite quickly with focus... If I was a frisbee player and i needed that then I would... What is your vertical jump standing, DL running, and single leg running?
Do remember that if your in season and you have frequent games anything but mechanical practice might be out the window. If you have games on W and Saturday and start serious anaerobic conditioning don't be surprised if you have dead legs for a few games... Same with plyos - you could be fried or even worse get injured... That's what most serious gains made by athletes who are mid to high level are done in the offseason...
If bolt goes sub 19 then he is doing the best job pretending he isn't fit ever... If he goes sub 19 he needs to jump in a 400m!
I don't think he will this year. I think he will cruise in sub 19.5 and win but I just don't see it... Next year I think he may... I hope I'm wrong though!
^^^ As far as side effects from my biggest concussion I don't think I had any long term ones... I'm the same as you in so far as my brain power and focus doesn't seem quite where it was in my early twenties... I don't think it's from concussions (but this might be wishful thinking) or aging but rather a lack of motivation. In my early twenties I was doing my phd in a competitive environment and making 25k a year... Now I'm done w school and I have a real career and a 401k... It's hard to motivate myself as hard to learn more math when it's not even essential to continuing my career... I wish I had some motivation to write though...
As far as acute side effects I had tons. It was really scary. After the concussion I was taken to the hospital because I didn't know my phone number or who I was. It was really a trip... I remember ride back from the game and looking at a teammate and thinking "I wonder who this guy is." So weird... I knew I was a guy and it was America and everything but I didn't really know much else and my concussed brain didn't think this was weird - it just wanted to figure things out...
One of the weirdest things ever was I remember I had a roommate but I didn't remember who it was. They told me when they took my home and I still didn't remember... Then I got home and saw him and it clicked - a rush of information and memories about who he was flew into my brain... Nuts.
The best way to describe the side effects was the I was just basically stupid for a week. Like couldn't think well... No migraines really but I'm kinda weird in so far as I recently realized I've never really had a headache... I have had a brain freeze and I kinda imagined that's what people were talking about but when someone broke it down for me I realized I've probably never really had a headache or serious migraine...
Yeah concussions suck. Boxing is such a beautiful sport but it needs to change or die - it's just not right to do that to people. I think the same about football- in the long run I hope they make it safer...
I think it's more likely AI could take hits well considering he was tiny in the NBA and he got bodied up and banged up all the time but yet his resilience allowed him to play through numerous injuries.
regarding boxing: ya but direct shots to the jaw is a completely different animal.. ;f no way to know until someone actually gets in a ring and takes shots. you could be one of the toughest SOB's on the planet but have a glass jaw, it's a weird thing. There's been elite professional boxers who suffer from this; a current example is Amir Khan. Insane skills .. but if you catch him on the chin, good night.
Thank you. This misconception that boxers who can take hits are tough or that their is any evidence that AI could take a punch is really frustrating... I've boxed enough to know that their isn't much like getting your bell rung in the ring - and certainly not anything in basketball. The brain accelerating in the skull and causing you to go to sleep is just completely different. If you can take anything other than boxing as evidence that someone can take a punch it would be something like how some guys just pop right up after helmet to helmet hits or something completely unrelated like how some people can be black out drunk and still functioning...
I've had one major concussion in my life and it was when an interception was thrown underneath and I was away from the play (I had run a deep go route) and jogging back toward the play when a linebacker blindsided me - I remember being lifted off my feet and the crazy feeling of my head just snapping - what I don't remember was my head hitting the ground when I landed. I got up, walked to the sideline said something unintelligible and thouht I could still play ( I remember none of this ). It was only when I couldn't answer basic questions that people realized something was wrong... It wasn't for a few days that I really had my memory back and started puking a ton that night - I'm really glad I didn't go back in the game... Does this mean I can take a punch? Maybe.. That's the scary thing about taking a punch - your brain IS concussed when you take a massive shot. Some people like Amir Khan go to sleep when this happens. Other people get into a semi-lucid state where they are able to box or play football until they get their wits back. To some extent the ability to take a punch is really the ability to subject yourself to trauma when your already in a dangerous state... The safest constitution for a fighter is to be the guy who is out cold after a big blow and then back up in 10 seconds feeling totally fine and angry that the fight is over... Not a good trait for winning boxing fights - but a very good display of your brain protecting itself...
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On a side note, I wonder if there's any research as to why Mexican boxer's have such good chins.
This is a long discussed topic. It get's pretty racist pretty quickly inside of the boxing gyms I know of... Despite the fact the best chin of all time belong to Marvin Hagler you hear coaches say things like "blacks have skill but no chin". There are weak and strong chins of every race. I think the Mexican strong chin stereotype is just that - a stereotype that is reinforced by confirmation bias and socio-cultural reasons...
I think that people with truly iron jaws are a very small minority of people. The average guy probably has a glass jaw. Since being born with a strong chin seems to be completely luck we see the weakest chins on people like Amir Khan - boxing prodigies who started early. No way to know if a kid has a strong chin and odds are - he doesn't He won't be exposed because of his skill level until he gets pretty far up but then you will find out whether he has an iron chin and odds are that he doesn't.
The difference with a lot of mexican boxers is that you don't have necessarily the hand picked prodigies (floyd, amir khan, etc) that develop amazing skill from a young age (other than Hector Camacho jr most of them came from pretty rough backgrounds). That and the fact that their culture has a sense of machismo and a traditional boxing style where you are supposed to stand and take a punch like a man means that out of the thousands of poverty stricken unskilled mexicans that try to box to get out of poverty - the only ones that do are the ones that can take a punch... Those who can are developed into boxer which makes it seem like they have naturally stronger chins. That and confirmation bias does the rest.
Aghh, I wish she hadn't fallen and won it running through....she might have got it anyway but I've seen it happen where a dive at the finish probably makes the difference.
ya after watching the replay, it looked like she didn't need to dive. when I saw it live, it looked like the dive won it for her. When Felix was coming back to (almost?) take the lead, it was nuts - i was freaking out.
Yeah... Hard to say about the dive... Personally not a fan of diving... It can win a race in hurdles or slower races - women's 400m is certainly borderline... I mean Felix is running a probably around 13 sec hundred pace at the end of the race... Between 7-8 meters a second, does diving really make a difference then? I dunno if it actually does BUT it is probably better than a mistimed lean!
Funny that Felix is brought up in a thread where the side conversation is athletic potential...
I'm sorry but her race strategy and training is terrible. Felix jogged 48.x in the semi. She is a 21.x 200m runner. With the right training she could easily go 47.9. Her coach Bobby Kersee really isn't getting the most out of her IMO. I've done a ton of training with the members of the group and his basic strategy to making athletes is to get fast athletes and make them run around and around and around the track. It's speed endurance to death. Then he gives them the same failed race strategy lashawn Merrit used - just wait and rely on the fact that you have more endurance and will be fresh in the end... Well it doesn't work in the 200 and it doesn't always work anymore in the 400m... Merritt's case is excusable cause he lost to a WR - but Felix lost to a 49.5 which is nothing for her... She waited, sized her up and looked far better finishing... But that didn't win her the race... I'm not surprised because she did hardly any speed work leading up to the olympics. What is sad is I know her coach convinced her not to double 200/400 and focus on the 400 for a guarenteed medal... How ironic that had she kept the 200 she probably wouldn't have neglected the speed work she needed to win the 400...
crazy.
would like to see the difference between Felix & Niekerk's training.
Sorry, correction. Just talked to the training group today... Last year was when her coach had her drop the 200m for the 400m for world championships. She did basically all speed endurance... This year she had an ankle injury in the weight room and basically missed out on what was going to be an abbreviated amount of speed work for the 200m (still a mistake imo). She did try to qualify for the 200m and 400m at USA trials...
Here is the most tragic thing about it. Felix missed out on the 200m spot and got 4th by 100th of a second. The girl who got third and "beat" her... SHE DOVE across the line...
Wow... In the opinion of many including myself Prandini didn't even get her torso in front of the line before Felix... Basically she was robbed by a dive that wasn't even legit...
Truly a gracious loser by how she doesn't mention how frustrating it must be...
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would like to see the difference between Felix & Niekerk's training.
I don't know much about WVN training but I know exactly what Felix does and it's a ridiculous amount of speed endurance work. The attitude is that "she already has speed - let's make her strong" and I think it's a poor strategy...
I think WVN might cause another revolution in 400m training. I'm not sure if your aware of the history of the event but the race has evolved a lot. In the 1920's the 400m was run in around 50 seconds by men. Sure the 1920's were slow for all events, but the guys ran the hundred in about 10.5 so relatively the 400m was very slow...
This is because in the 1920s the 400m was thought to be a "long race" - similar to the mile or the 800m. Ideal race strategy was thought to be slow gamesmanship for the first 250m while holding back and allowing a sprint finish. Athletes routinely negative split the race (second half faster). Then in 1924 an athlete threw caution to the wind and sprinted the first 200m and set the new WR at 47.x. Athletes then realized the 400m was a sprint of sorts and everyone's times got faster...
IMO there is still a hangover to this old thinking in the 400m. If you watch Merrit and James run the 400m behind WVN you notice some troubling things... He runs 10.7, 9.8 for the first 200m and 10.5, 12.0 to finish. I don't have their exact splits but they are pretty consistent at running about 21 low, so I would imagine they are running about 10.7, 10.2 or so and are about 5 meters behind him (0.4 seconds)....
However, if you watch the race they come off the turn EVEN with him. This means that they ran pretty close SUB 10 for the back curve. This is unheard of and it makes no sense to waste that much energy on a turn... Then in the last hundred WVN is dead but they are completely unable to keep up and run probably the slowest last 100m even for a sub 44 race (has to be around 12.7). Why do they do this?
Because they follow the classic coaching (that Allyson Felix also follows). That is push hard at the start, relax off the curve, float down the back straight, push into the turn and make your move on the last 150m - catch whoever you need to catch by the straight and rely on your superior strength to carry you through...
WVN on the other hand doesn't float down the back straight - he flys down the back straight. He runs the first 200m in only 0.5 worse than his 200m PR and then the "easiest' part of race is the back curve where he dials back ever so slightly so he can finish the last hundred without being completely out of gas...
Not surprising that WVN started running these times when he actually started running 100m and 200m seriously. Speed is the dominant force in even the 400m - athletes are fit enough to run much faster initial 200m splits than they realize. I think this is something that needs to be looked at... IMO more proof of this comes from the fact that athletes occasionally run out of their mind 400m splits in the 4x400. Sure you don't have to start but a walking handoff doesn't explain how a 48 second guy splits 46. What does explain it is that he runs faster than usual in the first 200m to get in front of the guy he has to catch - then surprisingly he is able to hold on far more than he thought...
Wow. Ok I was wrong and it only makes me love the race more. Got his splits - 10.7 9.8 10.5 12.1.
Wow. So he ran just slower than my best 200m.... After he had just run a 20.5. Funny how when you watch the race you swear his last 100m looks so fast. It's not. Michael Johnson ran 11.5 for the last 100m routinely. But nobody ever comes through in 20.5 for the first 200m! And he basically pulled James and Merrit into a a faster 250 that they were comfortable with...
Obviously I don't think they could have beat him no matter what but when you watch the race you see that it's not that his last 100m was fast but they made the fatal error of trying to catch him on th third turn and come off the straight even with him... I don't know the split for their last turn but it must have been ridiculous... After this they had nothing.
i do MB tosses with a 12lb ball on a squash or racquetball court. high ceilings mean it's easy to "measure" improvement: the harder (louder) it hits the ceiling, the more powerful the throw.
Yeah forgot to mention this but meant to. Watch LBSS videos from his first to his last ball (most recent ball tosses) the improvement is pretty striking... The change in his ability to activate his hips and send the ball vs throw it is what you get out of this and I don't think KB swings provide the same benefit... This is why I like exercises with constant weight but a goal of improving distance/height... I mean that is what vertical jumping and dunking are...
fair points. i still don't think that the spirit behind the "AI could have been great at lots of sports" hypothetical implies laziness -- at least not in my head; i certainly would never claim that iverson didn't bust his ass for his whole life to become as great as he was -- but i concede that it exists in a context where black athletes are stereotyped as talented and white ones as scrappy. and that i got it from a demonstrably racist writer. the bullshit about him and practice DEFINITELY implied laziness and was racist, but picturing him nutmegging central defenders on his way to goal after goal or crushing returns off the rise like agassi implies, to me, just different lifetimes of hard work. don't know shit about boxing so i'll take your word for it about taking a punch. but you can't divorce the specific from the general and in general we live in a racist country, so point taken.
anyway fuck bill simmons.
Yeah, the soccer imagery is pretty awesome. I really think the intelligence one needs for soccer and basketball as far as navigation while dribbling AND awareness of teammates and secondary defenders is the most transferable thing and it's hard to not imagine him being pretty excellent at soccer...
Totally agree with your last point!
Also, since we are gonna go full out cursing at something, can we all agree "Fuck South Africa for not fielding a 400m relay team." God the more I think about it the more frustrating I get. Watching that 43.03 over and over again and it's just mindblowing. He didn't negative split like Michael Johnson suggested - I have Kirani in 20.x and he was ahead of him... BUT I do think he was sub 12 for his last 100m which I have only seen Butch Reynold and MJ do... And nobody do after such a blistering start (obviously) Not getting to see him again in the olympics is so cruel.
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