Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

beau_zo_brehm - 20 September 2008 08:10 PM

You can tell if they’re running with their quads if they’re “bouncing” up and down as they run. They use their quads to try and actively “push” off the ground as opposed to “pulling” themselves down the track with their posterior chain. Push runners usually have longer ground contact times also. I learned this all from reading Chris Korfist article and, having played high school football last year, I would say he’s just about dead on with most of his stuff. This quad overuse happens with a lot of football players because their coaches completely neglect the posterior chain and have their kids squatting almost exclusively. Personally, I have found ISO HF Squats (bulgarian split-squats, I think) to be the best lower body strength builder. I know Chris himself likes to use ISO Single-legged deadlifts for glute work.

I’m gonna stay away from this one…at least for the time being.

Mike Young - 20 September 2008 09:06 PM

beau_zo_brehm - 20 September 2008 08:10 PM

You can tell if they’re running with their quads if they’re “bouncing” up and down as they run. They use their quads to try and actively “push” off the ground as opposed to “pulling” themselves down the track with their posterior chain. Push runners usually have longer ground contact times also. I learned this all from reading Chris Korfist article and, having played high school football last year, I would say he’s just about dead on with most of his stuff. This quad overuse happens with a lot of football players because their coaches completely neglect the posterior chain and have their kids squatting almost exclusively. Personally, I have found ISO HF Squats (bulgarian split-squats, I think) to be the best lower body strength builder. I know Chris himself likes to use ISO Single-legged deadlifts for glute work.

I’m gonna stay away from this one…at least for the time being.

Why?  I would love to hear your thoughts.

I would also like to know what you think…

I am not huge Korfist fan.  He did do some things at the high school with the largest enrollment in the state of Illinois, but it wasn’t something special and he received way too much credit.  I think he’s a bit off on his science and biomechanics analysis.

By implying Quad overuse one can reason excessive backside mechanics are going to be prevalent and not front side.  It’s excessive pushing that causes the symptom of excessive backside mechanics.  Excessive pushing results in a longer gct and it hinders the ability to reposition the limbs for maximal velocity mechanics.  However with football players, I would tend to think of lower center of gravity, shorter front side recovery, and long gct’s that allow for change of direction and straight line acceleration which are important to football players.  Which I believe results in the following quote from Mike earlier in this thread.

Mike Young - 18 December 2006 07:49 PM

Yeah. Most fb guys tend to run really squatty with low knee recovery and excessive backside mechanics.

As for helping the footballers, stay away from pushing cues and concentrate on transition cues and use sprint-float-sprint(ins and outs) almost exclusively with them.  I am pretty sure Mike and many others on this board would be able to identify muscular imbalances that might present problems and if there are no imbalances then it’s a motor learning problem.  Something that is not easy to overcome with athletes at the age of 22.  Their problem ends up being a track and field training age of 2 years compared to 6-10 years that is typical of collegiate track athletes. 

Personally I would hate having to do what I just wrote, but going whole-part-whole with the footballers maybe a problem and seeing if they grasp the concept of maintaining velocity works better.

Mike Young - 20 September 2008 09:06 PM

beau_zo_brehm - 20 September 2008 08:10 PM

You can tell if they’re running with their quads if they’re “bouncing” up and down as they run. They use their quads to try and actively “push” off the ground as opposed to “pulling” themselves down the track with their posterior chain. Push runners usually have longer ground contact times also. I learned this all from reading Chris Korfist article and, having played high school football last year, I would say he’s just about dead on with most of his stuff. This quad overuse happens with a lot of football players because their coaches completely neglect the posterior chain and have their kids squatting almost exclusively. Personally, I have found ISO HF Squats (bulgarian split-squats, I think) to be the best lower body strength builder. I know Chris himself likes to use ISO Single-legged deadlifts for glute work.

I’m gonna stay away from this one…at least for the time being.

Ive also seen people that run do the bouncing because their foot to ground contact happens out in front of their hips creating a breaking motion and causing them to almost bounce up and down as they run.  Similar concept to the high jump where you plant that foot out in in front and create a vertical movement instead of horizontal. 

As far as football players go my own experience is just that they just need to re learn track form.  I agree with that working on the transition and basically all phases of the race.