Great video suggestion by Jimson Lee from Speed Endurance. Take a look at the slow motion and see the interaction of the arms and sprinting. I strongly opposed Frans Bosch that the arms have no contribution to sprinting, and when I discussed the stiffness interaction briefly he may or may not have changed his mind regarding to the lats and hamstring issues.
Arm action in Sprinting
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Participant
Carl.
Usually I just read on this forum, but I studied the work from Frans Bosch cover to cover and you are totally misquoting it. That is the easiest way to criticize I guess. Read his book pages 143-151 and you see you are wrong. There is a very detailed explanation how arm-swing works in running.On an other note; amongst the valuable things you post you say some posts ago that slow and focused execution of motion is a good way to learn a basic coordination pattern like arm-swing. I have been studying motor learning for 8 years now. Science say exactly the opposed. Practice like in the video does not bring you much in simple spinal driven movement patterns like arm-swing.
Do not wear shoes that do not fit.
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Participant
Marc,
My discussion with Frans at the Level 3 school in Las Vegas was personal so please take note of that. I was mentioning forces in the in the arms trying to get into the spinal engine theory but his ego was too high to listen and quickly wrote it off. Maybe my words were rough but when I hear the acceleration talk in the athletics canada site his interview said this:
“I am not interested in arm action …..at all.” “Just use big arm actions”
I didn’t mention one page or quote one paragraph in his book but I was talking about his personal discussion.
As for the video I never gave suggestion to use arm swinging in slow motion to learn, but the video was in slow motion and it’s easier to see what is going on in slow motion for people reviewing. I am not sure if I have have said use slow arm action in sprinting to learn, could you share where I said that with the quote button? If the shoe doesn’t fit you must acquit!
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Participant
For the last part of your reply
“One exercise that I think is a great option for those with oblique systems that tend to fail during top speed are oblique fly pulls. This exercise needs a lot of focus as it must be done slow with control. I consider this a hybrid between motor control and strength development”
I do read “slow and focus”. Both slow and especially focus are dismissed by modern motor learning theory.The first part of your reply.
I hope you are not basing all you interpretations on some loose remarks you pick up. The pages I mentioned show in detail how armaction trough spinal torque helps in running. You should study that before quoting, not from words you picked up somewhere. The book is precise and accurate
And the “i do not care to much for armaction” look at the context; there are no strickt rules for arm posture (bent elbow etc.) That is the context, not that it does not contribute.I suggest you spend some more time trying to understand what he is saying
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Participant
Oblique fly pulls are neither for arm action nor do they look anything like arm action. Watch the video. It is a “core” or abdominal exercise to strengthen the obliques.
“I suggest you spend some more time trying to understand what he is saying” rings true here.
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Participant
Then you can’t do anything except sprint. The ground contact time of pretty much every jumping activity and every “plyometric” activity is much longer than sprinting, so nix those. No weightlifting or any form of resistance training either, much too slow for sprinting. No skipping–too long of ground contact times. No abdominal exercises–too slow. No throws, too slow as well. Just sprint. How Greek of you, Marc.
Realize that fly pulls have nothing to do with coaching of the arm action in sprinting and, at the most extreme, are only indirect in that they aim to strength musculature that helps maintain correct posture and pelvic position.
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Participant
See Davan
That is where some understanding of motor learning kicks in. Specific exercises have nothing to do with have fast or how slow you do it, nothing with how much the exact same muscles you target, but with how much the context our better”outcome goal” of what you do is related.
The understanding of this has not penetrated the world of therapists/S&C people at all yet.
That’s why you can find all these dr. Frankenstein like guru’s on (mainly American) training webs.It is what Vern refers to as the broader “functional” scoope one needs. And Bosch understands that also very well.
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Participant
Marc, are you so full of yourself that you think that idea is somehow new or unknown from the majority of people on this site? Do you think most people believe that every exercise has to be 100% specific? Well, maybe you do since you believe in doing the retarded Frans Bosch exercises like 1 legged cleans and the like to make up the majority of weight training. People in most places believe in doing things that will improve the overall outcome, however general or specific. It isn’t a new or brilliant concept and is rather obvious. Some do it in a way that works, most don’t. Back to you for a second,
“Specific exercises have nothing to do with have fast or how slow you do it”
You said this AFTER you said: “I do read “slow and focus”. Both slow and especially focus are dismissed by modern motor learning theory.”
So what is it, Marc? The whole point in fly pulls is to strengthen the obliques and related musculature. The exercise cannot be done quickly. Try it and you will see–doing it controlled is necessary to do the exercise correctly. It really has almost nothing to do with the coaching of arm mechanics and is completely unrelated to the original post on arm action. It goes without saying that you obviously have a misunderstanding of much of the motor learning research, but we can start another thread for that if you wish!
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Davan
Obviously you never read the motor control term “outcome goal” in it’s context. It has nothing to do with the kind of adaptations you are referring to. Absolutely nothing. Please read a motor control textbook on ‘outcome goals” first.
Doing a exercise slow because that is the only way to do it correctly, instantly indicates that is can not be implemented in fast movements.
Focus was the man thing in my remarks. Read about the negative effect of focus on motor learning. Brilliant textbooks out there about that.Bosch single leg cleans retarded. Whatever you want ;I know a world champ. created with just that. Whatever you want.
I can not fight fundamentalist religion.
Anyway on my planet there is no isolated core qualities. They all react to Newton laws like in running and so are linked to armmovement -
Participant
Who is the world champion created with single leg cleans? Name names. How much did they improve upon once they started to include single leg cleans and what was the rest of the program?
I used outcome goals completely in context. The outcome goal in the context of both fly pulls and proper arm action is improved sprint times, jump results, etc. (more broadly, improved sporting results). Fly pulls aim to strengthen musculature associated with maintaining posture during various sporting movements. As a movement itself, it is about as non-isolated a movement as you can get as it relates to “core” training. It goes without saying that it is a small aspect of a complete program–not the be all, end all nor even the majority of a program.
Your criticism was that the movement isn’t fast enough and then you said it doesn’t matter whether or not the movements mimic the speed of the sporting activity, but whether or not they help achieve the outcome goal. Again, do you think this is some new idea? Do things that are not exactly the same to improve the given activity? I think that is the basis for all sports training (at least, all GPP and SPP training).
What fundamentalist religion is here? You have contradicted yourself multiple times. You have not provided any clear basis for any statements except to say that Frans Bosch talks about arm action in his book. That’s it. That has nothing to do with fly pulls, speed of exercises, motor learning, or fundamentalist religion.
And since you’ve read so many books, why not mention the titles of these brilliant textbooks. It seems you haven’t read these textbooks. Filby, Maynard, and Graydon (1999) have even elaborated on a basis for which process goals are more important in how it affects actual day-to-day coaching than outcome goals, but again, that is another matter for another thread.
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ParticipantFrom personal experience i think arm actions does actually make quite a big difference.
however, in South Carolina a few years ago, i watch a guy run 21.low FAT with NO arms, just shoulders. That was pretty amazing.
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Participant
Linas, I can cycle my legs in the air much faster than Bolt does when he sprints at top speed. Ergo, we shouldn’t talk about legs either, by your logic.
Besides the fact that no one can move their arms through the same range of motion at twice the speed, being able to do it faster standing does not address issues that relate to the arms in sprinting. How fast you can swing your arms is obviously not the limiting factor in sprinting and I am unaware of anyone who says it is, anywhere. What poor arm mechanics can do is affect posture at various times during sprinting to a great extent. Poor arm mechanics can manifest itself in various ways–drummer boy issues which may cause over striding, limited ROM around the shoulder which can cause kyphosis that leads to numerous issues all the way down to the feet, and more.
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Davan
“I used outcome goals completely in context. The outcome goal in the context of both fly pulls and proper arm action is improved sprint times, jump results, etc.” is indeed completely different from what I mean. This refers to broader goal setting and is not what I am pointing at.
I refer to the fact that there is no result information in the fly exercise itself and therefor it’s effect is overrated. See, I do that exercise as well, but do not claim the transfer you apparently see. Stability in the core region is learned in sprinting or patterns that resemble it, not in a exercise like that. Especially when the fly is done slow and focused the transfer to running gets less. (so I nowhere said that the fly should be done fast, just that slow and focused reduces transfer). Very regular motor control theory.
The religion part is the physio’s and posture guru’s who claim these transfers that are not there.
One brilliant text book; Wulf- Attention and motor learning. should be recommended“As a movement itself, it is about as non-isolated a movement as you can get as it relates to “core” training. It goes without saying that it is a small aspect of a complete program-not the be all, end all nor even the majority of a program.” See I totally agree with this, do not overrate it. Just as you should not underrate the core effect of Bosch’s single leg clean and snatch stuff. It has much more transfer, because it has outcome context. Made a decisive different in many top athletes (worldchamp polevault).
I do not know how capable you are of reading carefully what people write. Would help in a discussion. Would help in understanding Bosch’s work.
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Participant
1. What is broader than improving one’s sporting results? How much broader can you get?
2. What transfer have I claimed to see from fly pulls? My claims with fly pulls are limited to my experience with them improving strength in the oblique muscles and some other abdominal musculature. Truth be told, it isn’t even may favorite exercise for the obliques, but it certainly works well.
3. Your application of motor control theory is much misapplied (at best) in regards to fly pulls. It goes without saying that this thread topic IS NOT ABOUT FLY PULLS, however often you wish to bring it up. I have claimed no transfer, but rather, that the exercise strengthens the oblique musculature. It is as simple as that.
4. What outcome context is there from a single leg clean? There is none. The fact that it is single legged does not make it any more or less specific to sprinting. Since you are so fond of the current research on motor learning, I would assume you knew how specific motor learning is and that there is often very little transference directly to technique outside of a few SPP activities (ie hill sprints or sprinting with a sled to sprinting–something extremely similar to the activity) and most of the rest act on a continuum, mostly towards the area of general improvements to different motor characteristics. To argue that a single leg clean has more transference and therefore better than a fly pull is to misunderstand both the discussion at hand and to misunderstand the issues associated with improving sprint (and general athletic) performance.
5. None of what you said in any of these posts have to do with arm action.
6. Is your name Frans? Sure seems like it if it made you so furious that you created and account to defend the guy.
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Member
What about guys like Saladino, who has a weird arm action:
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Participant
Linas, I can cycle my legs in the air much faster than Bolt does when he sprints at top speed. Ergo, we shouldn’t talk about legs either, by your logic.
Besides the fact that no one can move their arms through the same range of motion at twice the speed, being able to do it faster standing does not address issues that relate to the arms in sprinting. How fast you can swing your arms is obviously not the limiting factor in sprinting and I am unaware of anyone who says it is, anywhere. What poor arm mechanics can do is affect posture at various times during sprinting to a great extent. Poor arm mechanics can manifest itself in various ways–drummer boy issues which may cause over striding, limited ROM around the shoulder which can cause kyphosis that leads to numerous issues all the way down to the feet, and more.
Davan,
No doubt that poor arm mechanics won’t help to run faster, there should be some standarts for it like enough flexibility in shoulders, elbows closer to the body, I think nothing too much complicated. But I don’t think that every athletes needs to have an exact arm mechanics and strive for it like elbows flexed 90 degrees, palms flat and ect. If somebody wants to teach “proper” arm mechanics to faster sprinting so watch this video but please try not to laugh
https://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_SprintArms.movBy the way, arms are not legs and it’s true that someone can cycle their legs at same or even faster speed into the air than Bolt. Arms don’t hit anything, difference is that feet hits the ground and palm don’t. Arms just cycle into the air, however legs cycle and hitting the ground with every stride, so this is the main difference.
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Participant
Linas:
To me the difficulty with the video link you posted is an instructor who does not follow his own advice…if you slow/still when he is doing his first demo as if running (full speed), his opposite arm (right?) remains at almost 90 degrees for most of the backside part of the action (contrary to what he states) and he certainly raises up at the shoulders; the results also show as, at a guess, a third of the class, do various parts of the action the instructor likely does not want [he “caught” some bending at the waist but the taller guy at the back was more or less opening and closing at the elbows with next to no movement at the shoulders…he was trying to duplicate what he saw]
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Participant
Carl, thanks 😛 and Jimson too…so much video out there…
1] is it just my deteriorating eyesight or wishful thinking but does Tyson Gay use somewhat different arm actions from his right side to left side? Early on in the slo-mo part towards the end of the video, his right arm nears being “straight” (see next question as well) but his left appears to remain far closer to 90 degrees throughout the entire range of motion at the shoulder (front to back)
2] and perhaps more importantly, in terms of instruction and coaching, I had always thought the arm was allowed to move at the elbow during its path of movement, but relatively “straight” at the elbow occurred at the most extreme range of the backside part of the action, and, unless I am looking at something completely wrong, both Powell and Gay have their arms the “straightest” as it passes their hip/side pocket and then it moves back towards 90 degrees remaining that way through the forward motion and near half of the backward motion on return
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Participant
I’d like to hear about the world champion.
I don’t really care who it is, I’d just like to hear about the improvements made from applying Bosch principles.
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Participant
Their is higher degree of pelvic rotation, outwards rotation of the femur and the costas come closer to the ilium crest (lateral flexion of the columna). Also the push off is more aggressive. The right arm in relation has has a more aggresive arm action. Slow motion part, looking at Tyson Gay.
Personally i feel that the right arm compensats for the actions of the left leg. Why he is moving like this i have no ideer. Asymmetri in strenght or something else?
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Participant
[quote author="Rune Brix" date="1253478212"]Personally i feel that the right arm compensats for the actions of the left leg. Why he is moving like this i have no ideer. Asymmetri in strenght or something else?
Could be due to his groin injury…[/quote]
If it is due to his groin injury, it brings me to my belief about arm action in sprinting, which is that effectively your arms move in a way that is natural to you, because of something that happens somewhere else in your body. So, Tyson Gay’s arm action is such because of his groin injury. My arm action is quite “swingy” across my body, possibly due to some problems around my lower pelvis which causes this arm action. Basically, I tend to think arm action is due to something, as opposed to causing something. Hope that makes sense!
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KeymasterSeems like an interesting discussion and one that I love to jump in on. Gotta head out now but will be back this evening. Seems like the arm swing is always a topic of heated debate with most people on either extreme (the arms do nothing vs the arms are everything). As is usually the case the middle ground is the most correct.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
I think there’s a lot of give and play between the upper and lower extremities. The motion of one can’t simply (always) be the by-product of the other because of the cyclic nature of the activity. In some upper extremity could cause problems with lower extremity and in other cases you see the opposite is true. For example, a short forward / front side arm stroke in some often accompanies poor posture and lower knee recovery….Asafa not withstanding. On the flip side, you will sometimes see the arms compensate for poor foot placement or midline stability by windmilling excessively.
There’s research out there that indicates that the arms contribute up to 8% of vertical propulsion. That’s not insignificant and I’m not sure why the naysayers overlook it. Having said that, I’m not an arm swing nazi. For the most part I think most of the things people get worked up about on the arm swing (during top end speed sprinting) is either strictly a cosmetic issue or something which shouldn’t be changed in the first place (like the strange obsession to get athletes to run with a static 90 degree elbow flexion and a perfectly fore-aft arm stroke).
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
We accept that the arms can have an effect on stride length and regulate leg movement. I was reading up on the influence of arm action on sprinting and found an interesting article by Bhowmick and Bhattacharya (1988) who wrote something that really made sense. The forward swing of one arm is offset by the backward swing of the opposite arm thereby providing no horizontal contribution to velocity. However in the vertical direction both arms either act upwards or act downwards. This implies that ground forces to be increased (for increased traction for example) or could influence vertical upward velocity.
Self-anecdotal evidence from the sprint on the weekend: I re-introduced active arm action during top speed (as opposed to only reactive balancing type of arm contribution) and rediscovered reasonable top speed running. I’m now seriously considering introducing a strength training component (for arm action) to see if arm action can influence top speed further. I feel that arm action can initiate acceleration which I was using at top speed as I cycled in and out of top speed.
(Excellent debate otherwise in this topic)
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Participant
Another thing to keep in mind related to “goals”, which seems to have been conveniently forgotten, is that there are performance outcome goals and there are performance production goals. They are complimentary and both 100% relevant to training discussion.
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Participant
Another thing to keep in mind related to “goals”, which seems to have been conveniently forgotten, is that there are performance outcome goals and there are performance production goals. They are complimentary and both 100% relevant to training discussion.
Not sure I follow. Can you provide an example of each and how it relates to improvements in sprint performance?
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Participant
Sure, but I’m pretty sure that the process goals davan referred to is the same thing I just missed it or misread it the first time (and I have not read that text so I haven’t heard production goals referred to that way).
Outcome goals are specific to successful number of attempts performed, distance, etc, and examples of production goals are velocity and acceleration, displacement, etc.Essentially performance production is measuring what led to the outcome (specific aspects/technique of the motor control system during skill/action performance).
Obviously we start every attempt/repetition with an outcome in mind and often if a highly competitive outcome is achieved we question the necessity of changing specific production measures (for example lance’s hip assymmetry in cycling). They are complimentary because we can point to a specific relationship between the two and adjust, when necessary, based off of needs and goals.
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Participant
Dmartinez is correct in the meaning of prcocess goals. I hope his previous post wasn’t trying to say I was overlooking those factors.
I used the verbiage because “Marc Zofting” seems to believe it is some radical or unique concept to look to how different factors (direct and indirect, general and specific) leads to an overall goal. You don’t have to read a book on planning/periodization or motor learning or anything else to understand the concept (except to maybe use some phrases that are unfamiliar to people who haven’t read a certain book or publication)–it is incredibly simple. Things you focus on in training are likely significantly different (at least in how they are described or are tangibly seen/understood) from what may be specifically going on during an activity. And if we look at it more generally, it doesn’t even have to simply be another activity leading to improved performance, but in my eyes it could even be something as simple as cuing. For an example related to the thread topic, many will cue to have the arms at 90 degrees. It is safe to say that they are not generally aiming to literally have the arms at 90 degrees the entire time, but doing so keeps the arms tight and any amount of opening or closing of the arm angle will happens due to the forces on the swing versus somebody opening them up in a volitional manner. In a manner more related to the fly pull discussion, fly pulls work on strengthening core musculature that are involved in maintaining posture during sprinting. Improving in this activity should lead to some improvements in the strength of these muscles (not just learning to do the movement better), which can translate in a general sense to improvement in the overall/outcome goal (faster sprinting).
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Participant
Sounds like another way of saying the word workout?
Or maybe 6 x 30 meter fly in 3.00 seconds?
When I hear 90 degrees, I think of an old NSCA speed video where things look a little rigid. Watching the clip posted, looks like Asafa and Tyson’s hands( more right than left ) are pronating.
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Participant
If you’re talking about outcome/production goals then yes, a workout would consist of both. If your goal was for the outcome to be 6 x 30 meters flying in 3 seconds but the mechanics (production) were garbage then you may choose to alter the workload (either in concentration or loading).
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