John's BLOG
Coaching, jumps, sprints & more
Everything about jumping and sprinting and how to improve your performance
I show you how you can construct a triple jump session with the emphasis on hop and step exits and the movement of the contact leg.
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The eight drills in this video will stimulate the neural and physical systems to potentiate heightened power and speed output. We do these in particular in peak season prior to a sprint workout or jumping session from medium to long run-ups. Sprint speed is the product of stride length and leg speed (cadence). How you train to improve these qualities is vital for increasing your speed. So, what’s better? Training for stride length or leg speed when it comes to maximising sprint speed? Oh, and how did a certain Mr Bolt do it? This post was adapted from one I wrote for Antepes - their Muscle Runners are sprint spikes for the road - having a carbon plate and sprint spike design. ANTEPES MUSCLE RUNNERS GET 10% off! https://antepes.com/JOHNSHEPHERD Video here And see below. STRIDE LENGTH The “perfect sprint” stride is neither too long (coaches call this over striding”) nor too short (“under-striding”). The optimum stride length is dependent on your sprint technique, how much power you can put into the ground, and physical qualities – such as the amount of speed producing fast twitch muscle fibre you have and something known as leg stiffness, of which more later. LEG SPEED Most elite sprinters can move their legs 4-5 times every second – that’s to say complete 4-5 strides. If you focus on an elite, you’ll see the blur that this rapid leg cycle creates and the distance covered. Interestingly at sub-elite level turnover is not much different (nor is it with increasing age - here it's stride length which suffers. It’s the force which is put into the ground which is reduced and which thus shortens stride length in master athletes. Work too much on leg speed and there’s potential that stride length will decrease – this can be good if you were previously over striding or had a slower than average cadence. However, it’s not so good if you had an optimum stride length. Consider that you will cover more ground with an optimised stride length compared to one which is too short. This is what made Usain Bolt so great. He had a huge stride length with more or less the same turnover at maximum velocity as his rivals. So, Bolt would be eating up the ground. Research (1) indicates that Bolt took 41 steps to run his 100m world record which was around 4 less than his rivals. Bolt’s longest stride length was 2.872m between 60m-70m in the race. For reference the average of his leg speed was 4.47 stride per second (sports scientists measure this in Hz). For reference leg speed capabilities of men and women hardly vary. Men run faster as they have more power. In the research which looked at Bolt’s world record run there is a very telling reference – it being reported that: “… 90% of a runner’s velocity is attributed to stride length, and anything after that increases through frequency.” So, improving stride length should be your priority. As indicated, this is dependent on many factors. However, the great news is that with the right training you can optimise stride length. In this post l will look further into increasing leg stiffness - one such method. Do look out for other posts and the follow-up to this one which look more into this and will considers other relevant factors such as fast twitch muscle fibre. Stiffness improves stride length Another piece of research (2) looked at how well-trained male athletes improved their sprint speed over 6 months of specific training. Cutting to the chase it was discovered that maximum sprint speed was developed through: “…. longer step length accompanied by increases in vertical and ankle joint stiffness…” In short, the specific training of joint stiffness meant that more power could be extracted from the running surface. If the soft tissue of the legs (muscles, ligaments and tendons and even fascia) can create a "harder" and quicker block and subsequently enhanced return of force on ground contact then sprint speed will be increased. Stride length increasing drills 1: Speed bounds From a standing start leap forward by swinging one thigh away from you. When the thigh is near parallel to the ground, drive its foot back into the ground to strike it on the forefoot of your Muscle Runners. Immediately swing the other thigh forward and strike powerfully down into the ground again. Use a powerful arm drive to support the leg movements. At the start as you accelerate you can incline your body forwards as you would when sprint accelerating. The length of the bounds will increase as you beat inertia. As you move away from the start get your torso more upright. Basically it’s a succession of: “Swing thigh to parallel very fast” “Stamp down (drive) into ground from an elevated thigh position back under hips” The idea is to drive/push your body forwards. Think of speed bounds as "stiff legged sprinting". There is little cyclical inclusion. Do: 3-4 x 20m See video below for more 2: Drop jumps Drop jumps are great for developing leg stiffness. Use a sturdy platform. Its hight can vary between 30cm-90cm. Step off and minimise knee bend when landing on two feet. Contact the ground on the forefoot of your shoes. Focus on this minimal knee bend as you react to the contact as fast as you can as you jump up. Don't focus on height as this will slow your reaction. Try to triple extend through the ankles, knees and hips. To reiterate get off the ground as fast as you can. Swing your arms to assist you. Do: 3-4 x 6 from varied heights Consider the speed of your reaction against the height of the drop, if you feel it is too slow then use a lower drop. Another way to consider this is to monitor how much you bend your knees on ground contact, if it is more than a few degrees and you are lowering (yielding too much to the force) then this indicates the drop is too great. In part 2 of this post, we will look more into how you can improve stride length and leg speed as well as considering leg stiffness some more and fast twitch muscle fibre. References 1: Multicomponent Velocity Measurement for Linear Sprinting: Usain Bolt’s 100 m World-Record Analysis Bioengineering (Basel). 2023 Nov; 10(11): 1254. Published online 2023 Oct 26. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering10111254 2: Development of maximal speed sprinting performance with changes in vertical, leg and joint stiffness J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2017 Dec;57(12):1572-1578.doi: 10.23736/S0022-4707.16.06622-6. Epub 2016 Jul 13. How do you coach the triple jump hop? How do you plan training in-season? And how do you periodise double foot drop jumps? These are the topics covered in this video. You'll see clips from my Coach-Athlete Member videos. These videos deep-dive into subject matter such as these but many more. There are over 40 Coach-Athlete member videos at the time of this post and they cover other topics such as: How to plan training Undulating periodisation and block methods Block potentiation How to coach the long jump take-off and hitch-kick And how to specifically plan training phases... And much more. If you want to take your coaching knowledge to the next level then become a Coach-Athlete Channel Member. Understanding why you do a specific activity/drill/exercise/workout in your training is crucal whether you are a coach or athlete. You need to really understand why you are doing something and what the expected (and sometimes unintended outcomes) are going to be. Hence, I started this new series on my YouTube channel. We kick-off with drop jumps - a key plyometric exercise. Look out for more "Why do we do's" over the next few months. VIDEO TIME-LINE Intro: Why do we do drops jumps 0.39min: What is a drop jump History of - shock method devised by Soviet sports scientist Yuri Verkhoshansky 1.26min: The Why’s RFD (Rate of Force Development) 2.26min Neural adaptations 2.50min: Role of Tendons 4.04min: Stretch-Reflex 4.28min: Why do I include drop jumps in my training? They underpin our technical work and our sprinting 5.02min: Summing up and Euro u18s (I had a Hungarian athlete competing in the recent championships - so I link to how she did). There were over 35 responses to the video uploaded last week at time of writing this post. See previous post for the video.
There was a huge amount of support more or less for the limited transfer of weights to jumping and sprinting. And recall it's direct transfer that I am talking about. In the video I argued that there were far better ways to achieve this transfer. And again to reiterate I do argue that weights are important in less direct transfer ways (and also that some jumpers may respond better to them than others). Particularly with young jumpers 16-20 years I believe that you will get far more benefits from developing speed and power (via drills and plyos) and by technical mastery. Most argue that in any case to really gain the benefits of weights for improving let's say base power you need to lift heavy weights fast for fast twitch muscle fibre motor unit recruitment Most argue that in any case to really gain the benefits of weights for improving let's say base power you need to lift heavy weights fast for fast twitch muscle fibre motor unit recruitment. This is something that perhaps is not advisable with young athletes maturing. It could of course be argued that too much intense work is equally bad. That's why you need to make sure you have a balanced training programme and one that incorporates lots of pre-conditioning - injury beating drills and other work of which weight training is a part. The main reason why I made the video was because of a well argued criticism of two exercises I use - the power step up and the step back lunge. Of course the transfer of these is limited but I would argue they have more merits than some other weights exercises. If you put anything under the microscope when it comes to jumping transfer you can find fault. The only 100% transfer achieved "drill" for the long jump would be competitive full approach jumps... as I say the "first generational" activity. Then we lose that direct connection as we move through short approaches, plyos and drills to weights. Coaches need to stay close to what the event they coach requires and implement training ingredients (the generational activities) in a well reasoned training programme which will produce results. Often less will be more and very specific work will get very specific results. There will always be people who have different opinions to yours - that’s fine. What perhaps is not so when they fail to understand the context or don’t back up their thoughts with their opinions. Their opinions should ideally be based on their successes (in this case of what this channel is all about) and/or sports science (as it relates to jumping and sprinting). One recent comment on weights and specific exercise transfer did this - but perhaps did not look into the overall context. As the comments were referencing a 15sec short it makes the comments a little removed from what I actually believe i.e. my philosophy on training and weights transfer. The odd thing was that when I entered into dialogue with the person critiquing and making their argument my perspective was actually very close to theirs! No bad feelings to the commenter but maybe looking at a longer form video on the channel on how I see weight training's relationship to sprinting and jumping may have presented a different consideration. Below you will find my video response: HERE'S A QUESTION I GOT ASKED VIA MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL - REFERENCING DROP JUMPS AND THE VIDEO LINKED IN THIS POST. I have a question. If an athlete has a vertical of say 80cm what is the purpose of doing drop jump from a height substantially lower than its max since i can easily match those height by just jumping? But can the athlete with a counter-movement and very quickly with little knee bend? Drop jumps are primarily designed to improve rate of force development. Although the athlete may be able to jump 80m vertically quickly ... it's unlikely to be as quick as the time taken to take-off for the long jump 1100ms or from a lower height drop jump... drop jumps were designed to optimally develop that capacity by the former Soviets and they came up with designated jump heights for speed v strength (if I recall it was 70cm for speed and 1.10m for strength). Also, even with a good vertical jump a person might have trouble running from a 10 step approach and doing two hops and a jump, for example. The rate of force development and the single leg nature of the activity would likely be the issue. I hope my answer helps explain the rationale. Having a good vertical would provide a useful foundation for more specific long jump plyometric work, for example. You may be wondering what all the fuss about forefoot striking is and why Muscle Runners can make you a faster more powerful athlete. Let me explain why. Some of the fastest runners in the world are Kenyan – and in particular those from the Kalenjin tribe. These guys and girls can shift - whether at the Olympic Games or when running miles daily as their young people do to get to school. What all these Kalenjins tend to have in common is a forefoot running action – and of course a great CV engine! Research shows that at speeds of 4.32min/mile pace that only 9% of Kalenjins use a rear-foot strike. And to further showcase how these guys like to be on the forefoot these Kenyans preferred a forefoot strike even at slower speeds. When analysed their forefoot running speed ranged from 4.28min to 11.11min mile pace. Forefoot running should be a must for us all Forefoot striking is natural for these very talented runners, it makes them faster, and it will do this for all of us. Forefoot running turns our legs into natural springs The foot and in particular the arch are better able to return impact forces from foot-strike and turn these into propulsive forces. You’ll get what the sports scientist call: better triple extension and develop greater leg stiffness. And regarding the latter it’s not the stiffness you might feel after a tough weights workout but the stiffness that creates greater reactivity. Your legs will produce and develop over time more “ping”. You will additionally improve your performance economy. And this is where Muscle Runners come in. With their negative heel drop (8mm-10mm dependent on size) they will guide your foot naturally into making forefoot strike after forefoot strike. The dual density carbon plate will increase energy return and energise toe-off. We really are all forefoot strikers Really, yes really! We are human engineered to prefer a forefoot strike. It’s just that for the last couple of hundred years modern shoe designs by protecting our feet have literally put us on the back-foot and unprotected our feet in many ways. Heels are built up and the sole is thin – the reverse of the Muscle Runners. Most contemporary running shoes are well-cushioned and for many years their stacked heel cushioning encouraged not unnaturally (well, actually unnaturally!) a heel-led foot strike. Runners felt protected and could drop back onto their heels. The jog would be a plod and often backs and knees would begin to complain. Greater impact forces would need to be dealt with. A Simple test Take your shoes off - and as long as the underfoot conditions are safe to do so – run 20-30m. You should find that you run on your forefeet and don’t want to let your heels touch the ground. Now, and I don’t suggest you try it - but if you did let your heels strike first – you’d not like it! You’d get a shock wave running through your legs radiating into your spine. Forefoot running help to keep more momentum going forwards. It also helps convert the inevitable vertical impact running forces into horizontal ones with a much more controlled conversion. And this is where Muscle Runners add that extra push. They’ll keep you moving forwards from forefoot toe-off to forefoot toe-off and those carbon plates will give you that extra energy. In future posts I’ll show you among others topics; how to develop greater power, improved running form, and become a sprinter with your trusted Muscle Runner. SEE MY REVIEW BELOW: |
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