Renee had the most impressive workout I’ve seen yesterday as she methodically executed the plan for the workout (workout listed below). While it’s not in the top four or five in terms of cool times/paces/volumes, she simply ran hard enough to get a stimulus, but ran controlled. No guarantees in our sport and that’s the reason I hesitate to post the Wednesday before a Saturday race (and a big race in two weeks) yet she did a great job explaining how she’s evolved as an athlete.

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I don’t always practice what I preach, but I do do the lunge matrix before every run. I should do more mobility and flexibility work before each run but somehow I convince myself that I don’t have enough time and that the extra 4 minutes of running is of greater benefit then properly preparing for the run. As my college track coach liked to say, “Never underestimate the human capacity for self-deception.”

Tonight Renee Metivier Baillie will run 15 laps around a 200m track (elevation 5,300 ft.) at the 2010 USATF Indoor Championships. She may win, she may get dead last – heck, she may even DNF – but regardless of the outcome I am confident that 2010 is going to be a solid year for her. This is simply one race of many and while I sincerely hope she races great and has a “break out race” all I really care about is that she competes. But tonight’s race isn’t just one day in 2010 and if you have a moment I’ll share how I view tonight’s race in the context of Renee’s career.

2010 is just two months old, yet she’s already had a nice year. [Read more →]

Quick story. I read a post on Vern Gambetta’s blog sometime in the last year where her criticized football players for doing core work on the ground, the thought being doing a plank or even a crunch isn’t useful when you play the game on your feet. Makes sense, right?

…and it also made me think, “yikes – I’m assigning the wrong training when we do some of our work on the ground.” With that in mind I give you the following two videos. The first video shows the Athena Routine (exercises listed at the end of the post) though you have to fast forward to the 4:40 mark. I like this routine and I think it’s a great thing for me to plug in after hard GS and before the flexibility stuff we’ll end the session with. But you’re on your butt for some of it and since you don’t run on your butt it begs the question, “Is it a waste of time?”

Let me ask you two things. How much did you run this week? How much GS did you do this week.

The answer for the second question is important. I just spent 5 minutes looking at the amount of GS Renee and Brent did from Jan 1st to Jan 7th, the last big week prior to the Houston Half Marathon. I didn’t count any of the work before the runs/workouts, i.e. the LM, LL, Myrtl Wall Drills (MWD) and the Aerobic Work Warm-Up; in the evening I didn’t count restorative things like Sleepytime. It’s a TON of time…and I was shocked by the number…and now that I’ve calculated it I think I’ll not share it here because if we run well in 4 months or 12 months or 60 months maybe Jan 2010 had something to do with it.  And the first question, “How much did you run this week?” is important because the more you move in the sagittal plane the more you need to work in the transverse and frontal planes…or at least that’s my view of sound running training.

But the point, even without the number, is simply this: Renee and Brent need to be on their butts so they can get off their butts; the trained hard for 5 years and 7 years respectively running hard and training well before working with me (not counting their HS training). That running training built their engine and while they didn’t lose all of their athleticism, they lost some, yet they can’t go back and get it 6 months. But now that I’ve worked with Brent for 5 months and Renee for 14 months they are ready to get off their butts and they’re ready for more single support (i.e. single leg) work. And that’s the point I’m making in the second video – Brent is now ready to get off his butt, but in my view of training he had to be on his butt for a while before he could get off his butt.

Athena Medicine Ball Routine (go to 4:40 mark)

Medicine Ball Work on Magnolia Road

Athena (MB rotational routine). Much if this is similar to Mike Smith’s Atlas Routine from Building a Better Runner Vol.2

1 Big Turns x 20
2 Long Snappers x 10 (aka Around the World)
3 Straight Arm Rotations x 10 (nice and gentle…no need to go fast)
4 Haybales x 10
5 Bent Arm Rotations x 10 (get into a rhythm, engage the core and be quick)
6 180º to 90º Toe touch x 20
7 Seated Swinging x 5 each way
8 Single Leg Scale, LMR x 6 on each leg
9 MB Clock – 9:00 to 3:00, 3:00 to 9:00 on each leg
10 Haybales x 10

James Carney is a good runner. He’s won US road championships at 20k and the half marathon. Here is how he warms up before a long run.

I sincerely enjoyed the opportunity to speak at this clinic. Great energy in the room and a welcoming and warm clinic staff made this clinic a highlight of the year thus far. Below are the slides for each of the talks, in the same order as I gave the talks. Below are links to videos I referred to, as well as three articles that I think all HS coaches should read before the outdoor season begins.

Thanks again to everyone in Milwaukee.

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Welcome to a new series where Dr. Richard Hansen – “Richey” – helps you and I understand what’s going on during running. From muscle activation to biomechanics, from DIY home therapies to preventive exercises, Richey is obsessed with figuring out the how and why as it relates to the human body running. You can follow him on twitter @ARTSportsChiro.

Thanks to everyone in attendance at the clinic; thanks for the great energy in the room. I plan to produce a video of the presentation (I taped it) but I want to make sure I have time to do it right and therefore that will take a couple of weeks. Below are the slides for both presentations. Below are all of the slides for the two presentations. Below those are links to all of the videos shown in the presentations.

Click here to download the notes for this presentation.

Click here to download the notes for this presentation.

Videos

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The video above is simply to show all of the things that can be done before and after the workout. I’ll answer comments for this video here.

Hill Strides (4 min)

Sara Vaughn on being mentally tired at the end of the season (2 min)

Robert Chapman explains why runners should do things besides running (watch the first 2 minutes)