Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

We have a soph on our HS team who seems to be a natural ten-eventer - big, fast and athletic.  Last year he threw the shot and discus and ran both relays - well.  While we will teach him the rudiments of all the events so he can do a couple decathlons this summer, we're thinking we would like to help him really learn at least one other technical event this year.

I'm thinking the hurdles this year, and then the long and high jumps the next, and leave specific pole vault and javelin work 'til college.

But this is just my thinking.  Is there any kind of established progression for this sort of thing?

Bumping myself because I posted this in the brief period the old boards were up and it’s now buried in the update.

Waddaya think?

If he is the athlete you say, then long jump and high jump won’t take consirably long to be competent. Polevault and Javelin, IMO, are two of the more technical events and the earlier an athlete can be exposed to it, the better.

I pretty much agree with CW. In many cases, I prefer to take a kid from scratch but if they are already proficient PVers / Hurdlers it makes my job much easier.

If i could go back in time i would have learned the pole vault and discus in HS.  I did the hj and 110hh, but pole vault has definitely been the hardest to get used to. so if you want to pick 4 i recommend hj,110hh, disc, and pv.

I agree with the discus too, I could bomb the shot for my size but I would usually struggle with discus. It wasn’t until I was a graduate assistant and hung out with the throws coach 24/7 that I refined my discus technique.

I typically look for pole vaulters, just because of the time required to make a kid a 12-13 footer who’s never touched a pole before.  I think there is a consensus on PV, 110’s, and Jav need to be worked first because they do take the longest to gain competence, but if I have a PV and 110 guy he’s the easiest to teach jav, because he likely has a fair amount of speed and he knows how to run with an implement.  I personally have more trouble coaching shot to athletes than discus, the athlete’s seem to grasp blocking cues better in discus because it’s rotational visually while they are resistant to learning rotational shot and want to glide where using the same visual cue for blocking in the discus just doesn’t and won’t work in the glide.  However, the athlete I always wanted to train is the discus thrower who can sprint or jump.  I really think that’s the way to go.

PV, Jav, and Hurdles can be great equalizers. You can take a lesser athlete (as defined by speed, strength, power) and get them to beat their better counterparts through these events. In the decathlon it’s amazing how little it takes to gain a slight advantage in these events. If you actually get really GOOD at these events then you REALLY have an advantage. Dan O’brien didn’t start beating Dave Johnson (or the rest of the world in fact) until he mastered these events. Dave didn’t have the speed or raw horsepower of Dan but he was very good in those three events (especially the Jav).