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uh this is nuts.

Quote from: Final Phenom on September 21, 2017, 12:58:42 am

Unpopular opinion:

I mean we all have our certain build and strengths and
weaknesses and because of that we are inefficient in most of our mechanics. Optimal mechanics require the ideal physique+athletic level for whatever it is you are doing. So when you try to force optimal mechanics and you don't have the required adaptions for it, you do significantly worse than your normal technique.

But imo if you keep trying to perform with optimal mechanics, you are hitting your limiting factor every time! For example, im not very good at top speed, my top speed running is quad dominant. If I continue running with my quad dominant form, my weaker p-chain +elastic strength is not being stressed enough and continue to lag behind. However when I switch to good cycling technique even though it is much less efficient for me because of my characteristics, I optimize my training to improve what is holding me back. (Simplified example)

Your point about injuries is a good one and I think progression should be extremely careful and gradual for changing mechanics. It could take months or years to get your limiting factor up to scratch and could be risky because you don't know how gradual this progression should be. But if you keep doing whatever with "personalized/suboptimal" form you will never live up to your potential and eventually hit a plateau that will be even more difficult to overcome because you've learned the wrong movement pattern so well.

Granted this doesn't apply to everything but stuff like sprinting, some jumps, change of direction where there's a clear superior form could benefit from optimizing mechanics imo

I definitely agree with you when it comes to weights. In this video this high school strength and conditioning coach emphasies about the importance of learning the correct technique of lifting before progressing with the weights.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2vnFpWCBQg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2vnFpWCBQg</a>

ya weights are a slightly different animal .. I agree more-so for weights too. I disagree when it comes to things like "squat depth" and such, I think that's where this circles back around. So, natural "mechanics" for squatting, would be more related to hitting a comfortable depth without everything breaking down, and other joint angles/musculature being compromised in order to support a depth you shouldn't be hitting under load. So, for most "form related lifting" components, ya, we should definitely have a strong stable posture in every lift, and not compromise that posture in order to lift more weight. So, I think if you look at form from that perspective, the idea of maintaining a strong, stable posture along some range of motion using light weight, and not allowing it to become compromised as weight gets heavier, i think you can address all "form" based on that. As for range of motion, I think it basically boils down to the same thing as stated previously .. ie, I can't barely go below parallel on squat with an empty bar, it's easier for me to do so with a heavy load, because it can force me down .. However, I feel much safer going down to the depth that I hit with the empty bar, when it's loaded. If I try to go deeper with an empty bar, everything falls apart.

So yeah, for lifting form is definitely important BUT, I think it comes down to a few principles and not necessarily a "you need to squat like <insert lifter here>", which is what we see in running/jumping/sprinting etc: No you need to look like <insert sprinter here>, you need to jump like <insert dunker here>. When like you said below, there's a ton of variety and man, when it comes to elite dunkers, their jumps/plants pretty much all look so very different. Dunk-jumpers are such a great example of variations at the elite level, IMHO. They get no instruction usually, just go out and jump/dunk alot. So you end up seeing all kinds of run ups, plants, arm swing, joint angles, etc. These people, without coaching, hit some insane vert and most of them do it differently. Obviously they are elite, but it's just interesting to think of it this way; the lack of coaching.

It can be somewhat similar in the NFL combine tests. The guys that do have track & field experience, look absolutely ridiculous. Beautiful technique. But you also have people without T&F experience, who are just monsters and tear up the turf in their 40 etc, with comparable times. I'd be curious to see how many of these guys did track in H.S., not college, could be more than I think.

I disagree when it comes to running though. I wish T0oday still posted but he made a lot of posts about sprinters with awful techniques that still had incredibly fast times. Speed is power to weight ratio. Top speed is often considered genetic but it can be improved by working on your top speed through drills and building speed endurance. Running is natural. It's best not to overthink it. Keep it simple. By all means use a few ques like keeping your head straight and chin slightly down and arms relaxed but there's no need to over analyse. Effort>technique. If you run 200m tempos your body is naturally going to find the most efficient way for you to run and achieve the times with the least effort. That's building technique. I know my explanation is shit and I can't word it that good but focus on putting in the work, running high intensity, and building up your work capacity and that will make you achieve far greater than a smaller workload with more emphasis placed on technique.

Your explanation definitely wasn't shit, loved it, especially this line: "If you run 200m tempos your body is naturally going to find the most efficient way for you to run and achieve the times with the least effort. That's building technique."

The idea about the body "finding the most efficient way for you to <insert activity here>" is basically the meat of this whole convo. That's where I was successful with jumping (DLRVJ for dunking), and that's where I wrecked myself with running & am now trying to forget every ridiculous thing that I put, or someone else put, into my head.

For me personally, I may actually never give anyone technique advice on running/sprinting/jumping ever again .. I RARELY ever do it in the first place .. but what i'm getting at is, if I did give someone advice, the idea that they could be thinking about it all the time when they are jumping/running/sprinting etc, bothers me to death. I'd rather not have that on my conscious.

I'm not sure if it's just me or what?? But I guess I just miss having a completely clear mind... I'm hoping to get it back. Feels like i'm trying to exorcise demons............ lmfao.

peace!!!

Unpopular opinion:

I mean we all have our certain build and strengths and
weaknesses and because of that we are inefficient in most of our mechanics. Optimal mechanics require the ideal physique+athletic level for whatever it is you are doing. So when you try to force optimal mechanics and you don't have the required adaptions for it, you do significantly worse than your normal technique.

But imo if you keep trying to perform with optimal mechanics, you are hitting your limiting factor every time! For example, im not very good at top speed, my top speed running is quad dominant. If I continue running with my quad dominant form, my weaker p-chain +elastic strength is not being stressed enough and continue to lag behind. However when I switch to good cycling technique even though it is much less efficient for me because of my characteristics, I optimize my training to improve what is holding me back. (Simplified example)

Your point about injuries is a good one and I think progression should be extremely careful and gradual for changing mechanics. It could take months or years to get your limiting factor up to scratch and could be risky because you don't know how gradual this progression should be. But if you keep doing whatever with "personalized/suboptimal" form you will never live up to your potential and eventually hit a plateau that will be even more difficult to overcome because you've learned the wrong movement pattern so well.

Granted this doesn't apply to everything but stuff like sprinting, some jumps, change of direction where there's a clear superior form could benefit from optimizing mechanics imo

For sure. I think the big question though is, whether or not someone can truly spot inefficiencies in their mechanics and do the right drills to correct them. This is where I think most of it falls apart. Getting instruction from coaches with incredible amounts of experience, and perhaps having things analyzed in a performance lab, are probably good steps .. actually, more so for coach, less so for performance lab. Performance labs in universities for example, have lots of "brainiacs" but perhaps not the proper levels of actual experience, correcting technique/movements for real athletes. But legitimate coaches with impressive histories, probably are the highest up on my list. Though, you may still get advice which is aimed at "turning you into someone else", turning you into athletes they are more familiar working with.

To my first point, I imagine scoob is telling his girl to get her knees up etc .. I can picture someone forcing their knees up while running, and just wrecking their mechanics. I've seen people do this IRL, it looks absolutely insane. For some reason, they are convinced that forcing their knees up is the right thing to do. I once did something similar with cycling my trail leg, I forced it, stupid idea. The best way to get your trail leg to cycle better, is to go faster. The best way to get your knees up, is to go faster. The best way to get your shoulders/arms pumping, is to go faster. etc.

As for your quad dominant top speed mechanics, does manually focusing on your cycling technique help more than primetime sprints (stiff leg bounds) etc? You've done all kinds of things, so I imagine you know best. But, I think before people resort to form changes, they should try and focus on doing the activity more (in most cases), but also incorporate assistance exercises aimed at strengthening those weaknesses, without having to manually think about them during the actual movement. I mean, that's the route *I prefer*. Sometimes you just have to focus on something to fix it, there's all kinds of specific cases so there's lots of caveats.

Also, as for your quad dominant top speed mechanics, there's also the possible scenario that continuing to use that technique for many years, the hamstrings/glutes would still catch up because of the speed improvements over time. ie, you might hit your ceiling with natural form, but then if you just keep hammering it, you may get more contribution from p-chain since you're hitting higher speeds at your ceiling. You would know better than me though that's for sure.

By any chance, what are your max speed numbers over some distance, between the two forms?

peace!!

also just came back on to say ..

my two dogs have pretty impressive running & jumping form, they def aren't thinking about it. They run hard every day though, and just love it. At times, I really wish I could be them. They are just 100% focused on the moment, not overthinking anything, not thinking about some responsibility they have, they are just in it, pure happiness & effort.

also as far as clearing the mind goes, racing definitely seems to help with that. Very easy to go "blank", other than maybe "quit thoughts", when trying to keep up with faster people. Then if you can't, you're toast and still trying to gut it out. Not much to think about.. lmao.

finally, when I see people running, I occasionally see really "bad" runners overthinking form. Not sure where they learn this stuff but, you see them overly pumping their arms, and you'll see guys tip toeing their runs - which really looks insane. They are doing all kinds of weird things, in addition to not being in the best shape, and it makes for a really bad combo. IMHO, they just need to relax, zone out, and get the miles in, also occasionally (once they are in shape for a few months) start incorporating some submax speed intervals or just faster intervals in general.

overthinking & overanalysis can be crippling, from what i've seen & experienced.

gn!

by messing with her form, you're probably going to do more harm than good. if you're going to try and help her form, focus on only one small thing at a time.

this goes back to our recent convo... do you think you are helping or hurting by making her think of all of these things when she runs? and, how do you know they are correct?

the best cue in there that I see is to not look upward. telling her to swing her arms back and forth hard could cause her to rotate and go crazy etc.

i'd start with the "where to look cue" and then just have her run hard. not sure what kind of shape she is in, so no idea about the actual intervals she should do.

but, to clarify, are you preparing her for 800 or 100/200 ?

if i could unlearn anything when running, it would be thinking about my form when running. it's literally the worst thing that's ever gone into my head. it's torture. I don't want to think about any of that. it's a waste of brain power. Having a clear mind is much more powerful than thinking about what my footstrike is doing, how my hands are positioned, my stride length, how i'm breathing etc. If I could empty my mind completely, I would. I don't want to think about ANYTHING. So, from a runner who has thought about form and still does, I made more progress when I stopped (try to stop) thinking about form and just ran hard.

personally, i say stop focusing on it. just run or jump often, run and jump hard, and have fun. If you really want her to get better form instruction from the onset, find a professional track & field coach, someone with lots of experience. They'll probably do drills which try and correct some of the things you are seeing, but then they will also just let them run hard and let the drills slowly take effect.

the more we run, the stronger & more efficient we get. these improvements end up correcting all kinds of things that we shouldn't be trying to correct manually.

my 2 cents!

btw as for jumping: I never thought about form. People told me to do all kinds of stuff but I ignored them. I just jumped HARD, aggressive, gave everything.. My jump form improved over time, as I got stronger & put more reps in. Wish I had taken this approach with running. When I ran during boxing, I didn't think about form. Sometimes the "smarter" you get, the more detrimental it is.

pc!

mean vert.

TODO: run/food(egg sandwich)



09/20/2017

bw = 148
- 
soreness = none
aches/injuries = spot on left side of left foot acting weird (hurt more upon walking/waking up, then disappeared so far)
morning quad flexibility = stiff
morning hamstring flexibility = stiff
feel = good

wakeup = 8 AM
- 

diet:
- 8 AM: chocolate protein coffee drink (pretty damn good, from WF), some coconut water
- 8:30 AM: workout: bw
- 9:30 AM: workout: jumps
- 9:30 - 11:30 AM: sipping protein+gatorade drink
- 11 AM: protein + water, green tea w/ some sugar
- 11:30 AM: water melon + tart cherry juice at the grocery store
- 1 PM: grilled chicken, jalapeno, lemon, avocado, in olive oil/salt, water w/ lemon
-- same dish as yesterday, got some ok photos, really good
- 3 PM: 1 hour nap
- 5 PM: workout: bw
- 5:30 PM: water w/ lemon
- 7 PM: workout: moderate speed
- 8:30 PM: protein + water
- 10 PM: 2 eggs sunny side up in between two slices of san francisco sour dough bread, 2 x banana, water w/ lemon





stretch:
- everything before bed


bw:
- 8:30 AM
- 3-sec dead hang ng pullups: BW x 9
- full dips: BW x 10



jumps:
- 9:30 AM
- ~2 hours of submax jumps
- legs beat up from yesterday, so didn't really push it. just lots of relaxed 10'3"s off left leg from a variety of run ups.
- felt good though.
- no vid, not worth taking
- also, tons of CSPD/Swat dudes took over the bball gym .. they had some basketball team building thing, was probably the safest place to be on earth for a few hours.. 



bw:
- 5 PM
- dead hang wide grip pullups: BW x 5
- full dips with knees up: BW x 6



run:
- sidewalk moderate/relaxed speed, walk back recovery: 3 x 420m (1:23, 1:23, 1:23), 500m (140.9), 560m (1:58), 420m (1:19)

body dead so, didn't push it.

everything with slow acceleration, so the overall pace was a bit better per interval, ie most of the avg moving paces were ~5:12-5:20's.

so, decent session.

cut it at the end, hamstrings/calves were toast.

---

Going to try a new style of progress tracker: monthly, embedded into my journal posts. Obviously this should be something fancy/amazing by now but, will make do with this. Also, going to go "across" rather than down, so it all fits into one small block.

TBH, I really like this so far.. even though I only have a few data points thus far.

September (09) 2017

Bodyweight: [(1,155), (2,156), (3,155), (4,154), (5,153), (6,153), (7,152), (8,152), (9,153), (11,153), (12,152), (13,151), (14,149), (15,149),(16,150),(17,151),(18,149),(19,150),(20,148)]

Total Jumps per leg: [(2,90),(15,50),(20,50)]
- per leg total: 190

Max SLRVJ Touch: [(2,10'4"),(15,10'5"),(20,10'3")]
- L-SLRVJ: 10'5"
- R-SLRVJ: ?

Total miles walked: [(3,14.06),(5,9.2),(6,6.3),(6,9.5),(7,6.3),(12,6.3),(13,3)]
- total: 75.9 (eek lmfao)
- TODO: 9/7
- TODO: 9/15
- TODO: 9/16

Total walk time: [(3,4:01:29),(5,2:20:00),(6,1:30:00),(6,2:21:00),(12,2:06:00]
- total: 15h:39m:xxs
- TODO: 9/7
- TODO: 9/15
- TODO: 9/16

Total speed interval distance: [(2,2500m),(9,1432m),(11,1609m),(17, 3150m),(17,2607m),(19,4400m),(20,]
- total: 20691m
- TODO: 9/7
- TODO: 9/12
- TODO: 9/16

Max run speed (mph)/pace (min/mi): [(2,16.6,3:31),(7,14.1,4:15),(9,13.4,4:28),(11,13.7,4:23),(12,16.3,?),(13,14.5,4:09),(15,14.5,4:09),(17,15.8,3:47),(19,15.3,3:55),(20,12.4,4:50)]

Total jump rope time: [(4,60m)]
- total: 60m

Total jump rope messups: [(4,12)]
- total: 13

Resting HR: [(3,32,45,40),(18,22,46,39)]
- (day,minutes,avg,low)

PR's: []

Races: []

Soreness: [(3,"very sore","hamstrings,adductors,shoulders,upper back,quads"), (4,"very sore", "hamstrings,adductors,shoulders,upper back"),(5,"extremely sore", "hamstrings,calves,shoulders,tibs/peroneals,feet"),(6,"very sore","shoulders,hamstrings,adductors,calves,tibs,peroneals,feet"),(7,"slightly sore","shoulders,hamstrings,calves,feet,quads"),(8,"slightly sore","hamstrings,feet,quads"),(9,"slightly sore","hamstrings,quads,calves,feet"),(11,"none","none"),(12,"none","none"),(13,"none","none"),(14,"moderately sore","quads moderate, hamstrings slightly"),(16,"moderate","quads slightly, hamstrings moderate, chest slightly, tib ants slightly, shoulders slightly"),(17,"moderate","quads slightly, hamstrings moderate, tibs/peroneals moderate"),(18,"moderate","hamstrings,calves"),(19,"slightly","hamstrings"),(30,"none","none")]

Morning Quad Flexibility: [(14,"stiff"),(15,"loose"),(16,"very stiff"),(17,"loose"),(18,"stiff"),(19,"loose"),(20,"stiff")]

Morning Hamstring Flexibility:[ [(14,"stiff"),(15,"loose"),(16,"very stiff"),(17,"stiff"),(18,"stiff"),(19,"stiff"),(20,"stiff")]

Wakeup: [(4,11:00 AM, 9),(5,6:00 AM, 5),(6,5:45 AM, 7.5),(7, 8:30 AM, 9,(8, 7:30 AM, 7),(9, 8:00 AM, 7),(11, 8:30 AM, ,(12, 8:30 AM, 9),(13, 7:30 AM, 9),(14 9 AM,9),(15, 6:30 AM, 7),(16, 7:30 AM, ,(17, 9 AM, 8.5),(18, 9 AM, 9),(19, 7:30 AM, ,(20, 8 AM, ]
- (day, wakeup time, hours slept)

Aches/Injuries: [(6,"right achilles area slightly"),(7,"left heel barely"),(8,"feet slightly"),(9,"shins slightly"),(11,"none"),(12,"none"),(13,"shins slightly"),(14,"none"),(15,"left achilles slightly - briefly"),(16,"none"),(17,"none"),(18,"none"),(19,"old left hamstring pull area"),(20,"left foot bone hurting in the morning")]

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