It’s definitely not a physical thing as all indicators (speed, plyos, and weight room) are at peak levels.
I think the problem traces back to what essentially amounts to a slight over-correction…one that I will take some responsibility for. I hammered Nick so hard and made it such an emphasis that we needed to fix the fouling problem that he actually has become an amazing steerer at the cost of being a little ‘too under control.’ This was especially true at the last 2 meets. So as he hinted, he’s been coming to the board with ~94% of the speed that he can run in a flat out sprint. Compare this to last year when it was actually at or above 100% (we did 10m splits on the runway during a comp as well 10m flying sprints in test cycles). So he’s actually taking off with about the same speed as last year but he’s now physically capable of taking off from a higher velocity. I actually MUCH prefer this problem to what we had last year when about 2/3rds of the meets would be foul outs and we watched about a dozen PR jumps get raked away without getting measured because of 1″ fouls. The problem now is MUCH easier to fix…it’s just a matter of attacking the board in the latter half of the run. For the next two meets, I’ve asked Nick to put the steering on ‘auto pilot’ and just attack the board. He’s shown that he now has a high level of competency with run accuracy (averaging approximately 4.5 legal attempts out of 6 in a competition so far this indoor season) so it’s appropriate from a motor learning standpoint to expect that to occur automatically now without much conscious effort.
ELITETRACK Founder