hall and bairu

[oldlegs]

Ron, my comment was not meant to condemn any coach in particular, only to point out that I think all coaches struggle with this issue, and I think if they are honest with themselves realize that they will often fall back on old habits on occassion. This is not an easy thing to master, with athletes varying as often as the programs the run under. I have run under 5 national-level team coaches and have been running and racing for 27 years, observing mistakes made and huge progressions made (for myself and hundreds of other very good athletes). The programs I have run under have been often remarkably different, and (for me) I found that different stressors often got me to the same place, sometimes with much less work being done. For instance one year I PB-ed in the 800m doing mainly up-tempo, longer intervals, with very short sprinting ( 12 x 150m) once every week or two. The next year I cut my mileage by about 20 miles a week, dropped most of the tempo running, instituted a load of box running (2 x 500 times on a box, up and down), circuits, plyos, dead lifts and cleans, 60m speed testing every Sunday, and a lot of short, very hard running while practicing relaxation drills. My 200m and 400m dropped by 2 full seconds each and I again PB-ed in the 800m. The next year I went back to the longer stuff, and I slowed down remarkably in the shorter events and even in the 800m....there is no moral to this story, only that I have long wondered what would have happened if i had maintained the "power program" I was on. Was it a one-year adaptation blip, or was i working my strengths better.

I was just recently speaking to a current national team coach who has placed dozens of athletes on national and olympic teams, and he freely admitted that over time he has seen his program (somewhat inadvertantly) slip into the "same old, same old". When he looked back at his training logs from 22 years ago, he realized that back then (and with a heck of a lot of success) he had his athletes doing remarkably different types of work and adaptation training. He is going back to the old now, and it seems to be working.

To sum up, I think Steller summed up what I was trying to say--that inside of a programs we should not be scared to experiment with athletes.

[ronb]

Jan 20, 2010 20:54:48 GMT -5 oldlegs said:

Ron, my comment was not meant to condemn any coach in particular, only to point out that I think all coaches struggle with this issue, and I think if they are honest with themselves realize that they will often fall back on old habits on occassion. This is not an easy thing to master, with athletes varying as often as the programs the run under. I have run under 5 national-level team coaches and have been running and racing for 27 years, observing mistakes made and huge progressions made (for myself and hundreds of other very good athletes). The programs I have run under have been often remarkably different, and (for me) I found that different stressors often got me to the same place, sometimes with much less work being done. For instance one year I PB-ed in the 800m doing mainly up-tempo, longer intervals, with very short sprinting ( 12 x 150m) once every week or two. The next year I cut my mileage by about 20 miles a week, dropped most of the tempo running, instituted a load of box running (2 x 500 times on a box, up and down), circuits, plyos, dead lifts and cleans, 60m speed testing every Sunday, and a lot of short, very hard running while practicing relaxation drills. My 200m and 400m dropped by 2 full seconds each and I again PB-ed in the 800m. The next year I went back to the longer stuff, and I slowed down remarkably in the shorter events and even in the 800m....there is no moral to this story, only that I have long wondered what would have happened if i had maintained the "power program" I was on. Was it a one-year adaptation blip, or was i working my strengths better.

I was just recently speaking to a current national team coach who has placed dozens of athletes on national and olympic teams, and he freely admitted that over time he has seen his program (somewhat inadvertantly) slip into the "same old, same old". When he looked back at his training logs from 22 years ago, he realized that back then (and with a heck of a lot of success) he had his athletes doing remarkably different types of work and adaptation training. He is going back to the old now, and it seems to be working.

To sum up, I think Steller summed up what I was trying to say--that inside of a programs we should not be scared to experiment with athletes.

Yes, I agree with almost everything you have said, and said well...
I don't think any "real coach" (as I would define the term) is "afraid" of experimentation, they are just trying to do the best they can to help each athlete improve, and achieve their optimal performance level. And I think there are some cases where the athlete/coach dynamic doesn't quite work, and that is without assigning blame to either party. If that is the case, then it's time to move on, and both coach and athlete should be open to that possibility as the best option for all concerned.

[ronb]

Sorry, not to go on and on, but just to add a thought or so to the discussion.
The maturity of the relationship between the athlete and coach plays into this formula. A coach, in addition to laying out a training program, needs to create the trust and thus the motivation of an individual athlete --- if you are willing to do this amount of hard training, then these are the results we can reasonably work towards achieving, within a certain time frame.
Or, are you interested in trying something new? I'm not sure what the results will be, but we can build in these checkmarks along the way, to see if we are moving in the right direction. What do you say? (and then be really ready to listen and communicate).

[journeyman]

Jan 20, 2010 0:50:23 GMT -5 HHH said:

I wonder if perhaps just going from one extreme to another on a day by day basis is enough? So going really hard and long one day to just an easier run the next day.

I once saw a study (can't remember where, maybe hutch can find it) that showed the more daily variation you had in training, the less likely you were to get hurt. So even in a mileage phase, for example, days of 13,5,8,10 miles were better than 9,9,9,9. Maybe it was sdrew that pointed it out to me?

[journeyman]

To follow up on that and on the "experimentation" discussion--maybe what Steller is saying is not experimentation but variety. That may amount to experimentation for some, but as I said before, there are enough things that we know work to allow a coach and athlete to move back and forth between them. I also think the idea of recovery weeks is something that needs to be looked at pretty long and hard. I guess it depends on the athlete and on what the training is. Ron, when you say up to 5 weeks before an "adaptation week" (good name for it!), that worries me, not for your athletes, but I know that few of mine would not get through it without some "watering down" of those 5 weeks. What I'm doing now is actually packing a little more into 3 weeks, and then really pulling back more on the 4th. I may even need to go to a 2-1, though I guess we'll see. It comes back to that variation thing.

[SI]

Pretty good for a guy that is "stalled" or maybe it is more of a reflection on us. 1:27 faster than what has been an untouchable 35 year old Canuck record.