Comments on: When will injuries likely occur?

By: pointzone

pointzone — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:16:54 +0000

Coach Kedge

I would be very interested in taking a look at your general strength variations if you would feel comfortable sharing it. youngp@rcs.k12.tn.us

Good luck this season.

By: You know your blessed when…

You know your blessed when… — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:56:16 +0000

[...] Many, many thoughtful, intelligent people emailed or commented on this post, which is a gift, so thank you to everyone that posted. I want to highlight two comments, fromCoach [...]

By: billzeebub

billzeebub — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:25:54 +0000

I doubt very much that the LM is the root of the problem.

If these kids have just returned to practice, after a summer of 'run when you feel like it', then it wouldn't surprise me if suddenly being hit with the combination of daily training and a brand new lunge routine has been a horrible intro to the xc season.

This routine should have been introduced over several weeks, not just thrown at kids as a daily routine, as it's stressfull at first. I stick to the rule of 'progressive not agressive' when introducing new elements to the program. Even warm up routines should be introduced slowly, until each individual is happy and completing the routine correctly without supervision.

In the coaches defence, i don't think the lack of supervision during the summer helps very much. As a club coach in the UK, i find it odd when i don't see my group for a whole week, let alone a few months during summer break........although i'm sure that a few of them secretly wish that this was the case;)
Is there EVER any structured training during the summer, or are coaches not allowed to train the kids in person during the holidays?

By: KP

KP — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:56:04 +0000

Great comments. Especially from the physio. The exercises are most likely not the problem, it's the form when the kids do the exercises, or their rush to get through all “the boring stuff” so practice can start, or the volume of the LM that they are doing that CoachKedge mentioned. As an athletic trainer at the small college level I see the same thing this time or year with the new kids on the team: great runner, horrible athlete. When I have to instruct them how to properly do a squat or lunge you know there is a problem. The introduction of this type of work, and having it eased into your existing program will pay dividends. But like all dividends you may not see them in the first year or two.

By: CoachKedge

CoachKedge — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:49:20 +0000

Jay,
In addition to the LM routine you taught us we are currently doing two other routines for gereral strength. One is a modified version of what you call mertyl or mertle (sp?) which is a 10 - 12 minute series of planks, side planks, a supine holds, and a prone torso thrust (looks as racey as it sounds). The other is an abb routine that has a series of exersises with a set of push up during the 60 second recovery.

Between the three we hit pretty much every muscle (front, sides, back) from the chest on down to the knee.

We don't worry about when we do each one - hard day, easy day, etc... We just cycle through them - one per day unless we are wiped out from a real hard repeat session.

-Adam

By: bartsessa

bartsessa — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:28:35 +0000

Jay,

I agree on all your points regarding why kids are getting injured!! Your 5th point is so spot on as well that I wish to add to it. Excuse me if I’m longwinded..............

In our information age and with the wealth of info you are providing I fear that a number of coaches are jumping on the Jay Johnson wagon (one that I have been pulling along for years as you know). By that I mean they have laid out a nice summer training schedule that many of the kids have followed and prepared for the season it includes not only the running but the non-running activities that we are trumpeting!!!) Unfortunately my experience shows that even the most enthusiastic group of kids will drop portions of the summer plan and that usually is the ancillary work.
NOW that the kids return in shape and all parties are enthusiastic the addition of the GS work, hurdle mobility drills and LM and LL programs have added too much too quickly and that could be leading to some injury problems.
It is very challenging to balance the ancillary work to the appropriate level for each individual. As you know I am a huge proponent of all the work (not just for the physical benefits, but also because they are great team building activities and we are all trying to build a great cross country team), but at this time of the year more then ever, for all the reasons already state by you we need to be very sensitive to the differences in how kids prepared throughout the summer, not just how they Time Trial or look in the tempo runs!!!
And it is certainly easier to determine if an athlete is overdoing the length or pace of a run, and very difficult to pinpoint what is the right amount or intensity of the ancillary work!!
We are all good a seeing a form flaw or pace that is no longer a threshold run or weather conditions that are not safe and being able to make an adjustment to protect them, but once again the little things sneakers, recovery foods, sleep and ancillary work these are places that can be more difficult to monitor and we are prone to overdo it, and this can lead to injury.
Your videos feature a highly trained profession athlete in Sara who has spent years building a base to be able to do what she does and we as coaches need to be sure we keep that in mind when we have new kids OR have not been hands on throughout the summer to monitor every workout.
With that said, I believe the work is critical to the success and longevity of the modern high school runner who no longer grows up spending every day after school from kindergarten to middle school plating unorganized sports down the block with the neighbors until it is dark!!!! (Ahh I miss those carefree times!!)

Sorry for the long response.... in short some may being doing to much too soon, it’s that simple
Bart

By: Davide

Davide — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:48:53 +0000

Hello Jay,

I gave a look to the schedule of exercises as you were suggesting on RunningTimes and I noticed that you suggest to do more GS exercises on hard days.
What is the reason behind that?
many thanks
Davide

By: CoachJay

CoachJay — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:12:28 +0000

Not a stupid question at all. I will write a separate post about this and we'll update the RunningDVDs.com site later this fall.

In the meantime the progression of general strength exercises I did for Running Times will be helpful as it simply breaks down your running into easy days and hard days and then has a prescribed number or reps that changes every two weeks.

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=...

By: CoachKedge

CoachKedge — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:09:23 +0000

Jay,
We've incoperated the lunge matrix to our early season general strength routine. We've been doing it 2 days a week for about a month now and are very pleased with it. I'm finding that the strenght development is helping with running (and walking) posture as well as gate efficiency. We may change it up in our next cycle of training but will certainly keep a component of the matrix in our plans.

A few pieces of advice I'd give is start with low reps (maybe even as low as 4 on each leg for the 5 different lunges). We're only doing sets of 6 on each leg for the 5 lunges. I found it best to do them 1) after warm up, 2) before the run. With any good plan that adds something new the rules should be 1) ease into them and 2) find the best place for them in your training cycle.

-Coach Kedge, Albuquerque Academy

By: Frank58

Frank58 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:40:05 +0000

I think that that the LM is really helping our team.
Our team is definitely in that 2 week “danger zone,” and in previous years we've had kids drop like flies. This year is different (so far), and I have to think that, as coach Dalby mentioned, its because we do a specific long warm up that contains a 10 minute easy run that includes about 4 x 100m easy backwards running mixed in, a lot of active stretching, ancillary work, form work, some balance, and plyo-sprints. This usually takes at least an 1/2 hour (closer to 45 mins), unless we are on a easy or medium day and then the we do the aerobic warm-up and were done in 20-25 minutes.
We have a couple of our athletes complaining of posterior shin splints (flattest feet ever!), another with some Achilles soreness from a misstep on a rough rocky road. The team is tired and sore though, the head coach that I assist is kind of “old school” and the athletes don't see a lot of recovery days, it seems like the weekly schedule is medium hard, hard, medium hard, hard, medium, and then: “lets have a time trial on Saturday!”, almost all of the kids take Sunday completely off. We do almost all of our work on soft surface, and at least one fast day barefoot, so that is a plus. 2 out of 5 mornings, workout is in the pool, swimming and water running (aqua jogger).
The post workout plan coach Jay suggests (GS and cool downs, big 10) work well for us. The kids have bought into most everything, though losing static stretching was hard for most of the kids (they do love to sit and talk). I'm a firm believer that traditional static stretching should be abandoned.
The LM is a very good tool, it's really important to keep the knee on top of the ankle and not drive over the toes, as the physio said.
Frank D.