[Roswell]

Roswell on March 26, 2012 at 5:02 pm #18256

Hey everybody, my name’s Ross and I’m a 110 hurdler currently training out of Southern California for a spot in the Olympic trials.
Here are some general stats of mine:
Height: 6’4″
Weight: currently 196 lbs
110mH: 14.06 (3/23/12)
100m: 10.82 (4/16/11)
Parallel Box Squat: 435 lbs
Deadlift: 500 lbs
Hang Clean: 265 lbs
SLJ: 3.25
STJ: 8.94
Overhead Backwards: 16.53
Underhand Forwards: 15.75

I’m 23, and this is my first year competing after graduating from the University of Redlands. In my senior year in college, I was able to become the DIII NCAA runner-up in the 110mH, and come in fourth in the 4x100m with my team. In high school, I only ran 15.41 in the 39″ hurdles, and in my first year of college I ran 15.71 over 42″, so I’ve come a fairly long way from that point. I was very nervous about this season, as I’ve done all my lifting and running programming myself, but it has actually gone very well so far, as my 110H PR last year was 14.32, and I’ve only had 2 meets so far this season. I train out of my University, which has a Mondo track, and I have a part time job coaching there, so it leaves me ample time to train and an ideal environment to do so.

I don’t have a coach, so what I do continually is film and time my practices and coach myself from that. The head coach (and also my boss) gives me general training advice when I ask it of him, and is helpful in giving me guidelines as to what I should be doing. What this means is that I’ll basically have a video of every hurdle practice when I put it up, and electronic times to go along with them. All the more to get feedback with! I’ll get a bit more in depth as to what I do to facilitate my training as it comes about, as well as of course answer any questions about it. This season I want to get my 110H time down to about 13.7, as this is my non-educated guess as to what will make it to Trials this year. I’m really looking forward to the coming competitions and sharing my experiences with everyone here!

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 26, 2012 at 5:13 pm #115620

Normally because my schedule generally does not allow training on Saturday (because of the team’s track meets) or Monday (because of work in the morning), I would do a hard hurdling practice today, but because the weather was poor and I’m a wimp I settled for Max Effort (ME) lower body lifting instead.

In general I follow a scheme of 3 days of lifting a week, on sprinting days, comprised of 1 day of ME lower body, 1 day of olympic and functional lifting, and 1 day of dynamic upper and lower body(recovery lifting).

Usually I have a recovery tempo day on tuesday, so I tend to have my hardest workouts on Sunday to allow for lots of recovery time, which is why I did ME lower body today. Here’s how my lift went:

Deadlift max 3’s up to 455
Step Ups with 80 lbs onto a 18″ box 3×8 each leg
One-legged hamstring ball curls 3×8

[t.hartis@yahoo.co.uk]

t.hartis@yahoo.co.uk on March 27, 2012 at 6:44 pm #115683

Congrats on the PR. Looking forward to the log.
How do your 100m time and lifting numbers compare to when you were running mid 15s? Has your 110 time come down from gains in speed/strength, improvement in technique or a bit of both?
And not suggesting you switch, but at 6’4, have you ever tried 7 strides to h1?

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 28, 2012 at 3:06 pm #115693

Tony – Thanks, I’m very surprised to have PR’ed by that much already.

As for my past lifting regime/100m time – my sophomore year in college I mostly ran in the low 15s, even though my seasonal PR was 14.89. That year, I only ran the 100m one time that year, since I did a lot of random things that year which did not include the 100m. I ran it in 11.39. That year my deadlift and squats maxes were both 335. In my opinion, my improvement in the 110s is pretty much solely due to increases in speed and strength, and only slightly due to better technique. In my opinion, my technique is pretty horrendous, so that’s mostly what I’m trying to work on this season.

I’ve tried 7 stepping one time just to see, and while its relatively given the steps that I’m able to take, my block start with the opposite leg forward would take a long time to reach the level that the other leg is currently at. If I were to change that eventually, it would be an offseason thing to do. Additionally, since there is no real consensus that I’ve seen on the viability of the 7 step approach vs the 8 step approach, at this point I’m not sure it is worth changing it at all.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 28, 2012 at 4:06 pm #115695

Today I ran a speed hurdles day up to over 5 hurdles. I run with my hurdles at 39″ for most speed stuff that I do, since 42″ is too strenuous, and I wasn’t overly concerned with my technique today (which happened to be very bad). I ran the hurdles at 8.94m apart, as I gradually elongate the spacings I use between the hurdles for speed workouts throughout the season to encourage shuffling and to account for the extra adrenaline pumping during a race time situation. I began with the spacings at 8.84m, and am moving up in 5cm increments. I used a speed trap and video’ed the practice, as usual. my times over 60m were:
7.79
7.99
7.88
7.77
7.76

I realize that these times are incomparable to those of an FAT race, since the speed trap that I use has a thumb pad, so it doesn’t account for reaction time, and the hurdles are lower and closer together, so mostly I just use the times to compare to my past results, of which I have a lot. My “PR” with the speed trap over 60m is 7.72, which I was pretty close to multiple times, so I felt good about that. When I look at the video afterwards, I realize that there was a whole lot going wrong with my mechanics over the hurdle, and mostly on this mesocycle between now and the Mt. Sac Relays on April 20th (my next meet), I’m trying to fix my arm action, as it’s all over the place, and my position off the hurdle is pretty bad as well.

Later in the day I had my olympic lifting session, where I did:
5×2 rack snatches up to 165 lbs
5×2 rack cleans up to 225 lbs
3×2 push press at 135 lbs
one legged twisting abs on the GHR machine with 25 lbs

Here’s a sample of blocks to 1 hurdle and the full 60m, plus an old shirtless guy who was walking around the track.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 29, 2012 at 3:43 pm #115704

Today, as with most days in-between my hard days, I did some recovery tempo. I rotate around 20x100m and 10x200m, at a maximum of 75% pace, with 1 or 2 minutes rest, respectively. I either do pushups and situps during in-between the runs, or I do two relatively light abs circuits afterwards. These are just kinda for general fitness.I also warm up with med ball throws (and running slowly after it) and hurdle mobility drills while holding a med ball.

I prolly won’t log these days in the future, as there’s not really very much to say about them; light, easy recovery day.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 30, 2012 at 7:42 pm #115801

Today (Thursday since I guess this is past midnight) I tried to do some technique training rather than the typically flat sprinting that I do on my second training day of the week. I did some one step drills and 3×9 hurdles whilst 5 stepping, making it a little bit of a hurdle endurance workout. I wasn’t able to go very fast though since the hurdles were at 11.50m apart, and I had to shuffle a lot. This was ok as I was not overtly concerned with going fast between the hurdles, but rather going fast over the hurdles, hopefully due to good technique. I can definitely say that it looked a lot better than tuesday’s session in terms of form. I was unable to lift as I normally would, because I had work at the hostpial from 5pm-1am, and the gym was closed. It’s ok though, as it was just going to be a light recovery lifting session anyway. Perhaps I’ll do it tomorrow.
Here are some videos of the session:

[Josh Hurlebaus]

Josh Hurlebaus on March 30, 2012 at 11:13 pm #115808

Not that I have any experience hurdling, but I like your journal so far man. Welcome to the boards!

[Matt Gardner]

Matt Gardner on March 31, 2012 at 2:00 am #115811

Have you worked on your lead arm some? Getting it to stab down more over the hurdle and then sweep away. Arm can have some bend, but your lead arm looks like it never even opens up far past 90 (not an effective counter to the rotational torque of the trail leg and also stabbing down helps the opposite side of the pelvis from the lead leg reach to control rotational torques imparted by the lead leg). Watching your faster hurdles the most glaring running/hurdling issue is controlling rotation off the hurdle. Shows up here as well as you can’t be super aggressive finishing and running off the trail as it would rotate you a ton. Your doing a lot of good things, but that is technical area I’d work first.

[Matt Norquist]

Matt Norquist on March 31, 2012 at 6:28 am #115819

I’d say your lead leg shin is casting a little too much and a little too quickly.

[t.hartis@yahoo.co.uk]

t.hartis@yahoo.co.uk on March 31, 2012 at 6:48 am #115821

I like your approach of picking one thing to fix, working on it on technique days but still going flat out on hurdle speed days. As your attention is on the arms at the minute, have you considered dropping the medicine ball when doing the mobility drills and focussing on your arm action?

The one steps look like more like a quick step drill. https://stacktv.stack.com/Track-FieldCross-Country/David-Oliver-Workout/David-Oliver-Quick-Step-Drill.html. Great for keeping things fast and compact but not so good if you are trying to fix those rotations.
Do you ever space them out more (3-3.5m) and execute with a full trail leg action? eg 55s in

You can still focus on the arms if you play over 33 or 36″ and you are forced to pull your trail leg through into a better position to attack the next hurdle.

Or even just work the trail leg (but lose the cap and wear a shirt)

If you spent a bit of time mastering this you’d be flying

[Matt Gardner]

Matt Gardner on March 31, 2012 at 8:52 am #115824

Also 5 step work I like to see a little more of a charge at the hurdle as proper projection angles at takeoff set up the trail (it’s a takeoff leg before it’s a trail leg). You also seem to be a little bit of premature chest leaner which will cause you to get casty and also cutoff takeoff a bit (lose speed at takeoff and disrupts timing of takeoff to trail which causes rotational and speed issues off the hurdle. Lean comes from the ground and the penetrating takeoff and then you get good bend from the hips (stabbing out and down will help with that bend at the hip). Work on driving at hurdles with good posture with the lean coming from the takeoff then stabbing down and sweeping away. Manipulate spacings where you feel like you can attack the takeoffs and finish the trail aggressively to work on the interplay with lead arm and legs.

[Carl Valle]

Carl Valle on March 31, 2012 at 9:05 pm #115830

I would Focus on posture first. The lead arm is the most glaring and that is something you can work on at the same time but Focus on your pelvis getting out of posterior tilt.

The right workouts specifically will clean up a lot of this so drilling down to problems on take off is unnecessary.

CV

[Carl Valle]

Carl Valle on March 31, 2012 at 9:08 pm #115832

Normally because my schedule generally does not allow training on Saturday (because of the team’s track meets) or Monday (because of work in the morning), I would do a hard hurdling practice today, but because the weather was poor and I’m a wimp I settled for Max Effort (ME) lower body lifting instead.

In general I follow a scheme of 3 days of lifting a week, on sprinting days, comprised of 1 day of ME lower body, 1 day of olympic and functional lifting, and 1 day of dynamic upper and lower body(recovery lifting).

Usually I have a recovery tempo day on tuesday, so I tend to have my hardest workouts on Sunday to allow for lots of recovery time, which is why I did ME lower body today. Here’s how my lift went:

Deadlift max 3’s up to 455
Step Ups with 80 lbs onto a 18″ box 3×8 each leg
One-legged hamstring ball curls 3×8

You are strong enough. I would reduce your split to a 2 times a week lifting program on speed days (total body) of one vertical pull, one horizontal pulls, DB bench, and squats and lunges and single leg squats. Sounds conservative but if you want to change your speed and mechanics you are stronger than 20 13.5 guys in the last 30 years.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 1, 2012 at 1:49 pm #115843

Phew! much to reply to.

Josh – thanks! I already kept a log of what I do for myself; I figured it’d be easy to translate it to the boards to get some advice

Have you worked on your lead arm some?  Getting it to stab down more over the hurdle and then sweep away. Arm can have some bend, but your lead arm looks like it never even opens up far past 90 (not an effective counter to the rotational torque of the trail leg and also stabbing down helps the opposite side of the pelvis from the lead leg reach to control rotational torques imparted by the lead leg).  Watching your faster hurdles the most glaring running/hurdling issue is controlling rotation off the hurdle.  Shows up here as well as you can’t be super aggressive finishing and running off the trail as it would rotate you a ton.  Your doing a lot of good things, but that is technical area I’d work first.

I’m currently working on my lead arm actually – the problem is that I used to swing out my lead arm really wide, so it would over-rotate my torso, so keeping it close is the mindset behind keeping it a bit closer and not allowing it to extend out too much. I absolutely agree that rotation is one of my biggest problems and getting my lead arm correct is key to fixing this, I just don’t quite have it down yet in the ideal position.

I’d say your lead leg shin is casting a little too much and a little too quickly.

Yeah one of the problems that I’m discovering is that when I’m working on other technical aspects, such as my arms, it’s difficult to retain lead leg snapping down at the same time. Hopefully it will come in time, but at the moment, it’s tough for me to think about both of them at the same time.

Tony – I could do that thing with the med ball, but since it’s only walk-overs, I feel like the speed of walking with my arms in correct positions won’t translate very well to sprinting speeds. That being said, I’ll try it anyway. I typically don’t do higher speed one-step stuff, but I could try it out to see how I like it.

Also 5 step work I like to see a little more of a charge at the hurdle as proper projection angles at takeoff set up the trail (it’s a takeoff leg before it’s a trail leg).  You also seem to be a little bit of premature chest leaner which will cause you to get casty and also cutoff takeoff a bit (lose speed at takeoff and disrupts timing of takeoff to trail which causes rotational and speed issues off the hurdle.  Lean comes from the ground and the penetrating takeoff and then you get good bend from the hips (stabbing out and down will help with that bend at the hip).  Work on driving at hurdles with good posture with the lean coming from the takeoff then stabbing down and sweeping away.  Manipulate spacings where you feel like you can attack the takeoffs and finish the trail aggressively to work on the interplay with lead arm and legs.

I agree that the spacings were probably not the best and that I could do with widening them out next time, because I was really cramped for space whilst 5-stepping at 11.50m, which is mostly why the TO angles were more vertical than they normally would be.

CV – I agree that my strength phase should be over by this point in the season; I’ve really neglected changing my lifting in a while, thanks for pointing that out. Do you know of any hurdle-specific lifting? I’ve benefited in the past using some Frans Bosch’s functional lifting. What would you recommend doing to keep my pelvis in correct alignment? Does this have to do with premature lean?

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 1, 2012 at 2:03 pm #115844

Today I went with a hurdle endurance workout, the classic zone drill. In today’s iteration, I removed hurdles 4-5-6-7, which left 1-2-3 and 8-9-10. I used competition spacing, as I felt that anything less would result in my run-in step distance being messed up. Last year I really struggled with this drill, partially because I couldn’t get the right step length to go over 8-9-10, and partially because overspeed hurdling is hard. Regrettably, I didn’t look at the thread before going out to practice today, so I didn’t get in any of the requested drills or anything. In fact, I didn’t do much of anything else today, as the zone drill itself is draining enough.

The literal workout was composed of 5 reps of the zone drill.
Unfortunately, I did not film today because I forgot my camera, which is too bad because I felt pretty quick. The first rep, my step was off and I skipped the second flight of hurdles, but other than that mishap I felt pretty smooth (compared to normal during this workout) throughout everything but the 8th hurdle, which is always sloppy for me.

Afterwards I had a fast light lift, just:
8×2 parallel box squats @ 185 lbs
9×3 bench press @ 135 lbs

Tomorrow I have a recovery massage, but I don’t work this Monday, so I’ll be back on the track then barring any jello-like effects on my legs from the massage.

[Derrick Brito]

Derrick Brito on April 1, 2012 at 3:19 pm #115845

Today I went with a hurdle endurance workout, the classic zone drill. In today’s iteration, I removed hurdles 4-5-6-7, which left 1-2-3 and 8-9-10. I used competition spacing, as I felt that anything less would result in my run-in step distance being messed up. Last year I really struggled with this drill, partially because I couldn’t get the right step length to go over 8-9-10, and partially because overspeed hurdling is hard. Regrettably, I didn’t look at the thread before going out to practice today, so I didn’t get in any of the requested drills or anything. In fact, I didn’t do much of anything else today, as the zone drill itself is draining enough.

Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about the zone drill? Do you feel it’s beneficial? And what do you think about just dropping 4,5,6,7 to 30 or 33 so your steps are the same? I don’t personally use the zone drill as a coach, but maybe I will in the future.

[Matt Gardner]

Matt Gardner on April 2, 2012 at 2:41 am #115853

Posterior tilt and rounding over early up top are a couple(what’s your hamstring flex like? Do you have 110-120ish?). When you start chest and head bending on the ground going into the hurdle your hips will tuck under… same goes vice versa as well as the only way to get tight over a hurdle in posterior tilt is a lot of chest/spinal bending. I mentioned takeoff as having good trunk and head posture and getting angles from the ground there will beget a good pelvis to work from. I agree with CV that the way to fix it is good drills and hurdling with appropriate spacing emphasising posture between, but particularly into the hurdle (you tend to start rounding and collapsing on the ground). In the hurdle action work the lead arm.

You likely had a hard time with lead arm spinning you for one of a few reasons (1. Doubt this one applies as much, but haven’t seen older hurdling so… Lead arm comes across too much (crosses the face imparting a rotation at the beginning of the hurdle action before cutting away which spins you the other way; sometimes it’s swung around/back behind too much or too violently. 2. The more likley issue for the spin is a couple between your premature rounding/posterior tilt posture going into the hurdle blocking the pelvic rotations that should be happening and the lead arm never stabs down and the same side of the pelvis never reaches with it (pelvis over the hurdle will be opened excessively to lead arm side, if you don’t get the lead arm out and extended down and anterior bend from the hip, to go with the extended lead leg. If you just sweep the arm away from a high position without stabbing down and out you haven’t balanced the lead leg and that lead arm isn’t going to balancing the trail that’s coming up and through. It’s just going to be an arm slapping behind you and spinning you more in the direction in which you were likely already too open from never bending from the hip and stabbing with the arm in the first place.

Phew! much to reply to.

CV – I agree that my strength phase should be over by this point in the season; I’ve really neglected changing my lifting in a while, thanks for pointing that out. Do you know of any hurdle-specific lifting? I’ve benefited in the past using some Frans Bosch’s functional lifting. What would you recommend doing to keep my pelvis in correct alignment? Does this have to do with premature lean?

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 4, 2012 at 6:46 pm #115922

Derrick – I really like the zone drill for the last critical zone, but it definitely requires a certain level of competence in order to complete it and do the drill correctly. If your athletes can’t manage their step lengths in the gap then they will likely severely compromise their speed before reaching hurdle 8. Since you’re working with high school athletes, it’s prolly best to stick with things like 7-12 hurdles are reduced height for the underclassmen, and integrate the zone drill with the upperclassmen – more experienced hurdlers. Lower hurdles in between the 1st and 3rd critical zones would have the effect of increasing speed in that portion, but not to the extent that you’re able to during the zone drill.

Matt – hamstring flex – 119 with lead leg, 110 with trail. I tried this when I was warming up today – basically what I boiled it down to in my head (because I can’t have huge paragraphs going through my head while I’m running) is to lean after my trail leg leaves the ground, which I discovered is pretty difficult. As for my lead arm, I also attempted to correct this with it coming lower (“stabbing”), which also proved pretty difficult for me, I assume because my body is used to having to handle a set amount of torsion. In the past, I would say that my lead arm was a combination of factors 1 and 2. It came across my body, about to my opposite cheek, and it didn’t really come down afterwards. Today I had some trouble getting my hand to come low enough and finding the right elbow openness, my trail leg knee and foot hit my hand a lot at higher speeds.I assume that this is just from lack of practice of the technique.

[Matt Gardner]

Matt Gardner on April 5, 2012 at 5:06 am #115926

lean comes from the ground into the hurdle by projecting into it (anterior tilt) the trunk and hip lean continues from that.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 6, 2012 at 7:28 am #115947

lean comes from the ground into the hurdle by projecting into it (anterior tilt) the trunk and hip lean continues from that.

Ok that makes sense.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 6, 2012 at 8:18 am #115950

Alright so I didn’t have time to post about my last workout, which was on Tuesday. At first I began with a speed trap workout in mind, BUT for whatever reason ( I suspect the massage Sunday has much and more to do with it) I was running incredibly slow. This first few 60mH times were:
8.09
8.06
8.10
Comparing these to my previous speed workout, I knew that this would be an unproductive speed day, so I decided to focus more on technique whilst coming out of the blocks. I don’t have any videos of the session, but suffice it to say that I had a lot of trouble trying to get my lead arm in exactly the correct position.

As I mentioned in one my replies a bit earlier, I was having a lot of problems trying to get my lead arm to sweep arm and avoiding my trail leg at the same time. My trail leg would either hit my hand with its knee or its foot. However, since this has never been a problem before, I can only assume that I’m doing something different with my arm and that the kinks still need to be ironed out.

Today, judging from how I felt in the morning (crappy) and my previous workout, I decided to mesh technique and speed endurance, using a 7 hurdle 5 step drill, preceded by a one step drill that was suggested to me by Tony Hartis.

I found that the one step drill allowed me to focus on moving over the hurdle quickly, but since I only used 36″ hurdles, the angle of my trail leg coming through the hurdle was different than in typical circumstances, so I may raise them for next time.

The 5 step workout I used spaced the hurdles out at 12.50m, and were at 39″. I still think that my lead arm is too high when my trail leg is coming through, and that it’s not sweeping effectively enough. Here are some videos:


Additionally, I would like to mention that if anyone would like to see a specific angle or a more slow-motion version of the the videos next time, let me know, because I just kind of haphazardly put them together without much rhyme or reason.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 6, 2012 at 9:07 am #115951

Oh and as an addendum to Tuesday’s training, I also lifted –
5×2 snatches up to 155 lbs
4×3 one legged cleans onto box with 105 lbs
3×8 one legged twisting abs

[Matt Gardner]

Matt Gardner on April 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm #115953

Getting a little better with lead arm at points. Premature lean from the head and chest is causing you to sit low in posterior tilt at takeoff and killing your velocity into and over the hurdle.

This video should start at hurdle 3 takeoff in slow-mo for Drut. He was 6’3″ range notice how hips don’t drop and at takeoff you could draw a line from takefoot to the head. Go back and watch the full speed footage (whole video is hurdle porn). Very good hurdling for the 1970s. You look more like a ? mark at takeoff negating your height and cutting off your ability to maintain as much as speed as you can over the hurdle. Some guys go head down (I generally discourage it), but you’re almost hurdling from your head an doing it before you ever leave even touch down your cut step and it’s checking your speed and takeoffs. Be more patient there and feel those hips stay high into the hurdle.

[Matt Gardner]

Matt Gardner on April 6, 2012 at 12:34 pm #115955

Great video to see a great lead arm at end with head on shot

[Matt Norquist]

Matt Norquist on April 7, 2012 at 6:28 am #115966

Oh and as an addendum to Tuesday’s training, I also lifted –
5×2 snatches up to 155 lbs
4×3 one legged cleans onto box with 105 lbs
3×8 one legged twisting abs

What the hell is a one legged clean onto a box?

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 7, 2012 at 2:52 pm #115972

Thanks for those videos! They are actually very helpful. I’ve never trained with hurdlers better than me, so I don’t have a great concept of what being technically proficient looks like, other than youtube and the occasional high-level meet. I’ve never seen that Guy Drut video before, I like it a lot.

one legged hang cleans onto box:

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 12, 2012 at 6:13 pm #116078

Ok! So it’s been a pretty unproductive several days. This is largely due to the fact that on Sunday I had a speed endurance workout and lifting session that obliterated my legs.

Sunday I ran 5×9 hurdles at 8.94m and 39″, which wasn’t too bad, and I’ll have some videos up in a bit – I just reinstalled windows and now I have to get all my old programs back again.
But I overdid the lifting :
3xSuperset 5x Pullups with +25 lbs, 8x Low Rows 195 lbs, and 5x DB bench with 75 lbs DBs
3xSuperset 5x Squats 225 lbs, 8x step ups each leg +80 lbs, and 5x one legged squats each leg with 105 lbs

Partially this was too much because I haven’t done lots of those exercises in a while, and partially it’s because I superset them instead of chilling and letting it be an easy workout. Luckily it’s far enough out from my meet to the point where I don;t think that it’ll affect me too much.

Today and yesterday I did light tempo because I don’t like hurdling when I’m not at 100% or near enough that I can hurdle maximally. I also managed to lift light today as well:
4×2 rack snatches up to 135 lbs
4×3 one legged hang cleans onto box 105 lbs
4×5 hip abduction 170 lbs

Hopefully I’m able to be back tomorrow running fast!

[Carl Valle]

Carl Valle on April 12, 2012 at 7:51 pm #116080

Thanks for those videos! They are actually very helpful. I’ve never trained with hurdlers better than me, so I don’t have a great concept of what being technically proficient looks like, other than youtube and the occasional high-level meet. I’ve never seen that Guy Drut video before, I like it a lot.

one legged hang cleans onto box:
[youtube]VKgd2JNBkWA[/youtube]

Not a fan. I find no argument for it’s inclusion.

[Matt Gardner]

Matt Gardner on April 13, 2012 at 3:09 am #116087

More hurdling with good posture into the hurdle… great slow more here and I’d like to see the data from this one as well

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 16, 2012 at 9:54 am #115460

CV – it’s a Frans Bosche exercise, which is more a remnant of my collegiate training if anything. As I think about it, it is more specific to flat sprinting, since I had to perform in the 100m at that time. It does seem like it’s time to switch it around some.

Matt – I feel like I’m getting better at it, but I also feel like it’s a slow process that will materialize more next season than this.

So Thursday I had a speed workout, with the typical 8.94m spacing and 39″. It felt a bit better than the prior one, as I was able to go under 8.00 again, but it certainly wasn’t as fast as my times prior to massage. This worries me a bit, as my meet is fast approaching (on April 21st). I am also concerned that I’ve been taking my training a bit too easy this week, so I think that I’m going to try to get in some high intensity short workouts this week so as not to make myself too sore but to get my nervous system used to the stress.

My workout on Thursday’s times were:
8.27 (wasn’t quite warmed up enough for this one)
7.94
7.99
7.99
8.04

I’ll have a video of some up when I get back to my computer.

Friday I did tempo, and I wasn’t super sore or anything, just used it for recovery.

Saturday I had a meet to coach at, and today I have work until 7pm, so I can try to get a workout in if it’s still light out, and if not I’ll prolly lift for some muscle stim.

Also as a side note I use ithlete and have been dieting rigorously, so I’ll start posting those numbers too.
Today my HRV was 80 and my weight was 191

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 16, 2012 at 6:17 pm #115404

I did indeed manage to get in some tempo while it was still light out, and I actually felt really nice and recovered, without soreness or pain or anything, which I think bodes well for the meet. I also lifted, learning from last time:
3×5 lat pulldowns 165 lbs
3×5 low rows 150 lbs
3×5 DB bench 70 lbs per hand
3×5 parallel box squats 185 lbs
3×5 per leg pistol squats without weight
3×5 per leg lunges without weight

As a side note, I just was looking at the heat sheet and the top seed in my heat ran 13.66 the other week, so while I think it’s different for everyone, I love having great competition and running against high level athletes. I think that while I can run by myself (in my 14.06 race I won by over a second), the meets that I break plateaus are usually with good competition. I’m really excited

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 18, 2012 at 5:37 am #100652

It was a little bit hotter today than usual, which is good, since it’s supposed to be 90 at the meet this weekend. I felt pretty good warming up, not necessarily really fast, just light. I ran 4×5 60mH at 8.94 and 39″, a typical speed day. I tried to not think too much about form, and just about going fast, imitating the mindset that I try to have at a meet. the result was that my trail arm was coming out long behind me, and I’m not entirely sure what my lead arm was doing, as I’d have to review the one video I have further. My times were thus:

8.00
7.72
7.74
7.61

At that point I stopped, as I didn’t want to overdo it the week of the meet, plus the unfamiliar heat was making me more fatigued than normal. I was very happy that I was able to run fast again, as I was worrying that I wouldn’t be able to before the time that I needed to. My recent times also indicate to me that I should be warming up more. I definitely would rather when I run the race it be correlated with the 7.61 rather than the 8.00.

I am also feeling a little bit under the weather today, but it’s just a slight cough and runny nose, so I figure that it’s just allergies and a post-nasal drip. Even so, I’m putting extra emphasis on drinking tons of fluids lately and getting lots of sleep (which is really what I should be doing anyway). I’ll have a video up of the 7.74 later today.

EDIT: HRV:62.5
Weight: 191.4

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 18, 2012 at 3:13 pm #100670

This is at 75% speed. My start felt fairly slow when I ran this, and I only really felt like I got going when I got to hurdle 3.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 19, 2012 at 12:48 pm #100634

Weight: 190.8
HRV: 83.9

Did some low volume tempo today, just 12×100. I don’t play on doing much for the rest of the week, just some light stim tomorrow with some starts and perhaps some tempo friday to keep muscle tone up in preparation for the meet the next day.

[Carl Valle]

Carl Valle on April 19, 2012 at 8:24 pm #100664

I would do the McCoy drill to help with your body alignment. You can do 3 x 10 hurdles twice a week without interfering with your training plan by doing them on the turf. I find this a great solution for many athletes working on getting front side dominant and better posture.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 20, 2012 at 4:10 am #100623

I would do the McCoy drill to help with your body alignment. You can do 3 x 10 hurdles twice a week without interfering with your training plan by doing them on the turf. I find this a great solution for many athletes working on getting front side dominant and better posture.

What’s the McCoy Drill? I’m sure I’ve seen it some place or another, but I’ve never heard anything called that. Do you have a video?

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 20, 2012 at 6:35 am #106893

Weight: 192.5 (used 1 cheat meal a week yesterday)
HRV: 75.2

Just did starts from blocks to 3 hurdles several times today, no need to kill it today so close to the meet. I’m kinda sore today as a result of DOMS from 2 days ago. I’m sure it will clear up by Saturday though.

[t.hartis@yahoo.co.uk]

t.hartis@yahoo.co.uk on April 20, 2012 at 6:50 am #106883

McKoy drill is 3 stride on 1/2 spacing

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 22, 2012 at 12:56 pm #113248

Ok, back from my meet today , which certainly didn’t go as planned (unfortunately). I felt great all day, even though I was out at the meet for around 4 hours prior to the race, I had umbrella shade and made sure to hydrate appropriately.

I felt really fresh and light going over hurdles warming up, and a bit inspired, as warming up with the likes of ashton eaton and jason richardson will do.

I got out of the blocks pretty well, despite the false start in my heat, but my speed endurance was lacking after hurdle 5, which caused the guy on my trail leg side to catch up. In doing so, we collided somehow and my trail leg and lead arm caught something of his, causing me to basically lose all control on hurdle 7 and resulting in a 14.33. The winner ran 13.69, and while I definitely don’t think I would’ve won, I think that this race had the potential to be in the 13.8s.

Also now there’s a gigantic hole in my spike. and a smaller hole in my pinky. Here’s a video of the race. I’m in lane 7 so it’s not the greatest view, but it’s ok.

https://www.flotrack.org/coverage/248555-2012-Mt-SAC-Relays/video/630557-M-110-H01-Olympic-Dev

I also notice that I definitely drop off after hurdle 5. In hindsight, this season has been lacking in speed endurance workouts compared to my previous ones. I have my last meet of the season in 2 weeks on may 5th. I’ll be trying to get some in before that time. I’ll try and fit in the McKoy drill as well.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 25, 2012 at 7:37 am #113429

Weight: 195.0
HRV: 59.0

Did some light tempo today with a med ball circuit. I decided that since this is my last meet this season, that I’m going to do a 10 day taper for it, the first day of which is tomorrow. I’m going to be following the Charlie Francis tapering protocol, which will begin with some a hard speed endurance workout for the first day of the taper. Some days will be difficult, as my coaching is going to require us to host the league championship meet this weekend, but it just means getting up a bit earlier than normal.

I also plan on incorporating the McKoy drill on my workout days as a warmup

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 26, 2012 at 4:50 pm #115919

Weight: 194.0
HRV: 72.4

I was really out of my practice mentally today. However, as promised, I did the McKoy drill 3×10 hurdles for warmup, then 3×12 hurdles with 10 mins rest for speed endurance. I have some videos but they’re not the best as I didn’t have the tripod today so my camera was on the ground.

I liked the McKoy drill, especially on the grass even though it took a long time to set up; I feel like it added something to my previous warmup and allowed me to think about form more than I usually would at that point in the workout. My mental detachment from the workout caused me to not get everything out of it that I’d like – I think during the 12 hurdles I was kinda just going through the motions and my speed wasn’t very high even though I was still tired afterwards

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 27, 2012 at 3:48 pm #116110

Weight: 192.6
HRV: ?? – I took it at first and it read 57 or so, and I thought hm that can’t be right, so I retook it and it said 32, so I have no idea what it is today.

Today I just did tempo in the form of 4×400, so a little less volume than my typical 2000m. I also lifted later in the day:
5×2 hang cleans at 135 lbs
5×3 bench press up to 225 lbs (which is fairly heavy for me but not maxing out)

Tomorrow will be a speed day, gonna try to be more mentally prepped for it.

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 4, 2012 at 4:10 pm #116217

Been a little lax lately! I’ll give a rundown on what I’ve been up to with my taper:

4/27: Speed (low volume)
2×30 stand
2×3 hurdles
1×7 hurdles, submaximal pace (95%)
-This was at around 11pm, and I was pretty tired after hosting the league championships for my college. I still did the workout, but I don’t think I was able to accomplish the correct intensities even though it was submaximal work.

4/28: Lifting
6×2 hang clean and jerk up to 135 lbs
6×3 bench at 135 lbs
-I was gonna do tempo this day, but because we were hosting the league championships I didn’t have time to do it earlier in the day due to setting up and I was exhausted at the end of the day.

4/29: Speed (low volume)
2×3 hurdles
1×9 hurdles, submaximal pace (95%)

4/30: Day off

5/1: Tempo (low volume) + Lifting
10x100m
bench 3s up to 225 lbs

5/2: Speed
2×30 stand
2×3 hurdles from blocks
-This was the first day that I actually felt like the taper was having an effect. I had more energy and felt like I was running more downhill on the hurdles than I had been throughout the taper.

5/3: Rest/recovery
contrast shower, foam rolling, getting good quality sleep. All that good pre-meet stuff.

Upon reflection of the taper up to this point, I think that my fitness was not high enough for me to taper at this point. I think that I will be competing in potentially a couple more meets this season, which is good from the poor planning perspective, but I think I took it a little too easy in the week before my last meet to warrant a full 10 day taper. I will keep this in mind for planning for future meets and seasons.

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 8, 2012 at 5:33 pm #116239

So the meet didn’t go exactly as I had planned it – which was predictable given my workouts prior to the meet. I ran 14.43, which its good compared to last year, but because of this poor showing, I decided to include a couple more meets to this season’s schedule. The first meet is on 5/12, so I don’t expect to do amazingly well at it, but rather to train through it. The final meet will be on 5/27, which is basically the last meet that I could find anywhere nearby, so I’m hoping that that will be enough time to recover from this taper.

Here is a video from the meet, I’m in lane 6:
https://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=679&do=videos&video_id=66534

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 9, 2012 at 9:20 am #116243

Had a great practice today! Not necessarily because of the times (although they were faster than I expected, given my poor meet performance), but because I made a proprioceptive breakthrough, for lack of a better term.

In warming up over hurdles between sets, I tried to keep my calves stiff as possible to keep my hips from dropping and stop the track from absorbing the forces I’m putting into it. I suddenly realized that even though I was going over at a slower speed, that that was the fastest I’ve felt over a hurdle in a long time.

While I have known about this concept beforehand, I’ve never really put it into practice during the hurdles, or at least I have minimally. I do it moderately well in the 100m, but that is much easier to time calf stiffness, given the step progression. As I soon realized while trying to put it into action at full speed, the off timing of hurdle steps and varying forces being put into each step makes this practice much more difficult in the hurdles than in the 100m.

This difference is the first thing that I noticed in the Guy Drut documentary – that his ankle joint is perfectly stiff, keeping his heel from touching the ground, even on a dirt track! I firmly believe that taking this step is key to improving my posture over the hurdle and maintaining my hip height in my takeoff.

I ran 5×5 hurdles at 8.99m and 39″ after doing the mcKoy drill 3×10 hurdles on the grass.
My times were:
7.84
8.24
7.95
Had epiphany at this point
7.75
8.21 – hit hurdle 3 pretty badly

Then my lift was:
5×2 snatch at 155 lbs
5×3 power clean up to 245 lbs
bodyweight pullups 4×8

I’ll have a video up later when I have time

[Christopher Glaeser]

Christopher Glaeser on May 10, 2012 at 1:49 am #116248

My times were thus:

8.00
7.72
7.74
7.61

Are you using video analysis to get these times, or some other method?

Best,
Christopher

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 10, 2012 at 4:59 am #116251

[quote author="Roswell" date="1334707649"]My times were thus:

8.00
7.72
7.74
7.61

Are you using video analysis to get these times, or some other method?

Best,
Christopher[/quote]

I use a brower speed trap. It’s not comparable to actual 60mH times, so it doesn’t account for gun reaction time, plus the hurdles are at different spacings and heights, but I have lots of my own times to compare them to.

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 10, 2012 at 6:03 am #116256

Here is the 7.75 from yesterday:

[Christopher Glaeser]

Christopher Glaeser on May 11, 2012 at 4:15 am #116264

I use a brower speed trap.

Thanks. I was curious to know if you were able to get immediate feedback or had to wait for analysis later in the day.

It’s not comparable to actual 60mH times, so it doesn’t account for gun reaction time, plus the hurdles are at different spacings and heights, but I have lots of my own times to compare them to.

Over the years, I acquired enough speed trap units for five hurdle splits, but at $500 a split, it adds up. A few weeks ago I was assisting Dennis Mitchell and Kellie Wells time hurdle splits using freelap at the NTC in Clermont. There are a couple videos posted at Kellie Wells Hurdle Splits.

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 11, 2012 at 4:54 am #116266

Over the years, I acquired enough speed trap units for five hurdle splits, but at $500 a split, it adds up.  A few weeks ago I was assisting Dennis Mitchell and Kellie Wells time hurdle splits using freelap at the NTC in Clermont.  There are a couple videos posted at Kellie Wells Hurdle Splits.

The reality is that I would probably be using freelap if I had my own timing system, but the browser set that I use is just what the head coach here has, so as of right now I’m just mooching off him. In the future I’ll be moving back home to northern California, so I won’t have access to it next season. At the moment I don’t think any timing system is in my budget but we’ll see how things change around come track season next year.

[Christopher Glaeser]

Christopher Glaeser on May 11, 2012 at 5:42 am #116267

In the future I’ll be moving back home to northern California, so I won’t have access to it next season.

I live in northern California (Pleasanton). Look me up when you move back.

Best,
Christopher

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 11, 2012 at 5:54 am #116269

Oh hey thanks I definitely will! I live in Marin, but the drive isn’t too bad. Will you be attending the PA USATF championships in San Mateo? That’s the only meet up there that I have scheduled for this season.

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 12, 2012 at 7:37 am #116291

Yesterday:
Weight: 194
HRV: 57

I decided to just do some flat sprints this day because I would be getting my weekly regiment of speed endurance from the meet on Saturday. Thus I didn’t film or do any timing. My workout looked like this:
3×30 stand
3×30 blocks
4×60 stand with 10 minutes rest.

These felt pretty good once I got into them, as I was pretty stiff for the first few.

Today:
Weight: 193.6
HRV: 44? I think it got messed up.

Just ran 1300m of tempo today. My body feels pretty beat up from what I assume is a combination of having my first hard week in a while and flat sprinting, which I haven’t done recently either. My legs just feel tight and he arch in my lead leg foot is sore, but nothing too serious. I plan on foam rolling, rolling on a lacrosse ball with my foot, and taking a contrast shower tonight in preparation for tomorrow.

[Christopher Glaeser]

Christopher Glaeser on May 12, 2012 at 2:00 pm #116286

Oh hey thanks I definitely will! I live in Marin, but the drive isn’t too bad. Will you be attending the PA USATF championships in San Mateo? That’s the only meet up there that I have scheduled for this season.

I may have a conflict, but I’ll try and make it.

Best,
Christopher

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 13, 2012 at 3:22 pm #116302

I may have a conflict, but I’ll try and make it.

Best,
Christopher

No worries, I was just curious.

Today was my meet day.

Weight: 193.8
HRV: didn’t measure, was too tired

At the beginning of the meet, my goal was basically just to train through the meet, and to make it as similar to practice as possible. The 110s was around noon, which was good, as that’s when I usually practice. Because it was a last chance meet for NCAAs, they had prelims and finals scheduled, unfortunately, they were something like 20 mins apart from each other for some reason.

I warmed up earlier than I normally do and had something to eat. I added late, so they put me in an outside lane, but there were still some pretty fast people in it. Mostly my goal was just to beat Bryan Clay, but he’s too quick apparently. I got second in the heat with 14.01! I was happy with the PR, although annoyed that I didn’t run under 14. I crushed the first hurdle because I was about a foot closer to the hurdle than I should’ve been on my penultimate step, so that messed up my acceleration and I think lost me at least a few hundredths there.

In the waiting period between the prelims and finals, I just basically walked around a bit and drunk gatorade in an attempt to stay hydrated. I only took one start over one hurdle and a little high knees beforehand to re-warmup. In the finals I ran 13.88, so I’m very excited about that! The wind was slightly illegal, +2.2, but that’s ok I was just worried about breaking that barrier. There were also around 3 pretty bad hurdles in the race, so it was far from perfect. There’s a very good video of it that my friend took, but I have to wait to get it from him, prolly monday or tuesday.

Excited for the future

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 16, 2012 at 3:12 pm #116348

Here’s a video of the meet. As can be seen, still quite far from perfect.

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 25, 2012 at 4:56 pm #116468

update dedicated to joe:

5/21 speed day

I figured that since my meet this week is on a sunday, I can get 2 additional quality workouts in before it, and set it up beginning on monday since I typically have a block start workout 2 days before the meet.
Usual 5x60mH at 8.99m, 39″, speed trapped

1: didn’t get timed, timer malfunctioning
2: 7.74
3: 7.83
4: 7.57
5: 7.58

Pretty pleased with my latter two runs, with both being faster than my previous PR of 7.61. Really felt like I was downhill hurdling this day, although I didn’t really feel amazing warming up, and I had my lead foot arch taped (which felt fine while taped but aches after removing it).

5/22 Tempo

8×200

5/23 Speed Endurance

In retrospect I prolly should’ve made this day emphasize technique, as I’m already getting speed endurance out of the meet on sunday, but what’s done is done.

3×9 hurdles 8.99m 39″

these runs all felt pretty good, much more so than they usually do, which is a good sign. I felt like I was able to maintain my momentum for longer than usual.

5/24 Tempo

10×100

I’m cutting down on the tempo and didn’t lift this week in preparation for the next couple of meets – 5/27 and 5/2. I feel adequately in shape and prepared, all I figure it’s gonna come down to now is not screwing things up and managing all the driving to get to them (about 400 miles for each)

[Roswell]

Roswell on June 1, 2012 at 6:26 am #116573

5/27 Meet Day

Had a fairly horrible meet today for various reasons. For one, I’m sure that the driving for 7 hours the day before didn’t help, because I was too tired to do any kind of loosening up of my legs before I went to sleep that night, although I did do some light tempo the day before.

The meet was around 50F and slightly windy, not at all what I’m used to competing in in southern california. Additionally, the meet was on a rolling schedule where the 110s was the second event. However, before the 110s was all kinds of crazy masters races that no one seemed to know the distances for or the height of the hurdles etc. So I ended up running my race about 1.5 hrs after I was expecting to due to those delays. During the race, I had a pretty good start, but the recurring problem of having trail leg contact occurred again on the second hurdle, which caused me to fall behind significantly. Additionally, the hurdler on my right side was hitting hurdles into my lane about exactly where my trail leg comes down onto the track, so I had to elongate my trail leg step to avoid falling on my face, and ended up running 14.49.

5/28 rest day

5/29

decided to do speed hurdles today, but the insertion point of my hamstring into my gluteus was really hurting me this day so I decided to do flat sprinting instead, which didn’t bother me as much. Just ran
3×30 stand
3×30 blocks
4×60 with 7 minutes rest

Hammy was sore afterwards, but it doesn’t feel like I pulled it – its just really tight, so I’m trying to do a lot of contrast and foam rolling to lessen the tightness.

5/30 tempo

16×100

I have a meet at UCLA this weekend, and then got invited to the UK Olympic Trials, so I’ll probably be going to the trials around the 20th, and thats the whole of my competition schedule this year

[Roswell]

Roswell on June 1, 2012 at 8:53 am #116575

Did some 5 hurdle work today, but only went over 3 times, to keep my hamstring resting. It feels pretty good today, less tight and no pain while hurdling. I tried moving my blocks over in the lane to fix my problem of trail leg drifting into the lane to the right of me, but I notice that I tend to drift over into the middle of the lane anyway.

First hurdle is poor – wasn’t able to keep up momentum over it, but the others look ok in terms of speed. Not incredibly fast, but not that slow either.

[Roswell]

Roswell on June 9, 2012 at 4:46 pm #116679

Alright! Lots to catch up on.

6/2 – Jim Bush Meet at UCLA

Conditions were good at the meet, it was warm and not too windy. Went to get my ankle taped before warming up and the trainer decided to do a full chiropractic treatment and loosened me up a lot, which was helpful since I was a bit stiff before that from the long drive the day before. The race went ok, I ran 14.13. I once again had a bit of an issue with speed endurance where my form just turned to crap around hurdle 6, so I don’t think that my fitness level is where it needs to be to peak. The hope is that I can get it there in the coming few weeks before the UK trials, although I have some doubts as to how possible that may be this close to the meet. Still, I wasn’t upset, as this was much much better than the disaster the week before, and I can go into the trials a little bit more confident.

6/3 – Tempo

Just did an easy 10×100

6/4 – Speed Endurance

Had a session with a coach that I’m trying out for next year, but he didn’t want to interrupt my schedule much, and I know that I speed endurance is my #1 priority right now. We generally have the same philosophy, so it might be a good fit, but I’d have to interview him a bit more at this point. One thing that I liked that we did was 8 hurdle endurance, but transitioning from 39″ to 42″ hurdles. I liked this because my form is marginally better over 39s, and I have trouble making transitions between drills and full speed hurdling. I think we ended up doing something around 4×8 hurdles.

He had me do a 300 at the end, which didn’t make 100% sense to me, since the 110s shouldn’t theoretically be using anything more than the ATP/CP energy system, but also my speed endurance is clearly suffering with what I’m currently doing, so I don’t really have any room to argue. Ran an embarrassing 36.63, for reference’s sake.

Also drove back the ~400 miles to home this day. very exhausting

6/5 – tempo

16×100

6/6 – Speed Hurdles

did 4×5 hurdles over 39s with 8.99 spacing. I was going to add some 42s at the end but ended up not doing it due to being very tired and sore this day.

6/7

took this day off, used it to foam roll and contrast shower

6/8

did some 5 step hurdles today, it went ok, and my body is feeling much more recovered from the day off yesterday. Attempted a 300, but only ran in the 40s, so I did another after 7 minutes, in which I ran in the 37s, which I was moderately ok with. Here is a video of one of the more sub par reps at 5 steps:

[Roswell]

Roswell on June 13, 2012 at 3:14 am #116731

had mixed feelings about my practice monday. I apparently only have 5 hurdles to work with now, somebody took all the rest and locked them in a shipping container, which makes hurdle endurance rather difficult – kinda forced to do 5 step stuff or quick repeats over 5. this day I decided on 5 steps, of which I day 5×5 over 39″ at about 11.50m. Thus hurdling felt pretty rough and unpolished, but started feeling better at the end, perhaps indicating that i just wasnt properly warmed up for the first few sets. Ended with a 300, which my friend clocked me at 34.99, which I’m pretty pleased with. not quite so embarrassing. hopefully this means that my fitness will be able to catch up with my hurdling by the time the trials roll around

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 14, 2012 at 4:58 pm #117916

OK I’M BACK

As you may or may not know, I did pretty mediocre at the UK OLympic Trials, running 14.42 and coming in 16th out of 27. I believe there are many contributing factors to this:

1. I basically didn’t decide to attend this meet until about 3 weeks prior, so it wasn’t really in my training schedule from the start of the season. I’ll definitely try to rectify that this year by planning out ahead more. Because of this,

2. I wasn’t really in the right mindstate or physical state to compete at this meet.

3. I simply did not balance my training correctly. I struggled a lot in the last half of the race due to poor speed endurance. It’s easy to see that the culprit is not having enough practices rigorously dedicated to this. I will admit that this is the most difficult part of having to practice by yourself, is mustering up the motivation to do a speed endurance workout. Hopefully this season will be better.

Onto this season: my main goals are to maintain the good first half of the race whilst adding the second half. The two drastic things I want to change are:
1. changing to a 7 step
2. actually having real speed endurance workouts – hopefully I am able to get some splits for Gary Winkler style workouts.

I started running (half-assedly) about a month ago, until I got a back spasm (from being over-zealous with lifting like I always am at the start). After that I began again this past Monday. At the beginning of the season I like to start with basic Charlie Francis acceleration work up hills. This begins with:

Week 1:
MWF
10x10m
10x20m
10x30m
on hills with walking back recovery between reps and 3 minutes between sets.

TTH
12x100m tempo
or
6x200m tempo

Week 2:
MWF
3x(6x40m)
2.5/5 min recovery

TTH
14x100m tempo
or
7x200m tempo

Week 3:
MWF
4x(5x40m)
3.5/7 min recovery

TTH
16×100 tempo
or
8×200 tempo

and this week is week 3 due to the time off. in the gym, I’m just doing strength work, but I think I need to work in more pylometric stuff. I was also thinking that later on in the season I might fit in some 300s to compliment the hurdle endurance workouts.

[Jason Stayanchi]

Jason Stayanchi on September 14, 2012 at 5:17 pm #117917

Isn’t doing 300s kinda useless for 110 guy. If you need speed endurance for the hurdles then I can’t see any reason to do over 150. I just listened to a talk by Dan Pfaff on this very subject and he was talking about time that is wasted on doing the wrong types of conditioning. Anyways just a thought.

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 14, 2012 at 6:18 pm #117918

Jason:
it’s quite possible! its just something that I’m considering, definitely not something that I’ve decided on yet. It’s still within anerobic fitness (unless I run it really really slow), so it’s not completely useless, but yeah it is very likely that I will shorten it down to somewhere around that distance, because ~34 seconds has limited transfer to a 14 second race, despite the increased demands of the hurdles being there.

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 21, 2012 at 10:32 am #117979

Training’s going well I think, moved on to 4x(4x40m) hills this week MWF, and 16/8 x 100/200 for tempo. I’m also trying on my sprint days to work a little block stuff into the warmup because I figure it’ll take a lot to get used to. The trouble I’m having is the first thing that I want to do is fix my first step distance and work from there, but I have no references, so I’m just guesstimating at around 1.27m. Does anyone know of a 7 step approach chart that I can refer to?

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 28, 2012 at 1:18 pm #118039

In case anyone else is interested, I took a loot at Aries Merritt’s 7 step approach, and with my own video analysis (debatable accuracy – used 720p video on Kinovea), I had his steps at:

1.25
2.79
4.48
6.22
8.11
10.07
11.64

I think that it can be safely said that Vince Anderson knows what he’s doing in regards to acceleration charts.

So this is what I’ll be using for a general guideline to learning the 7 step approach.

[Roswell]

Roswell on November 30, 2012 at 9:05 am #118661

Getting in some good training, getting more used to 7 stepping. I learned that there are some local all-comers meets with FAT, so I’m going to attend one of these to check out my progress so far, and how the 7 stepping is affecting me timing-wise (since I don’t have a laser timing system right now). I’m moving down to San Diego in a week and a half, so hopefully better weather and training opportunities there.

Currently just doing 1 day of hurdle technique/speed endurance, 1 day of flat sprinting speed, 1 day of speed endurance a week. In about 5 weeks I plan on working in some hurdle endurance and more heavy hurdle work, but right now since I won’t be running a full 110m until March, I’m focusing on the 60m distance. Here is a video of me working on 7 steps yesterday:

[Carl Valle]

Carl Valle on November 30, 2012 at 1:25 pm #118666

Video from the side and about 30 meters away. It’s easier to see the angles and we can always increase the screen size if the resolution is good. Gopro, tripod, and maybe swivl is a great combination.

[Roswell]

Roswell on November 30, 2012 at 1:39 pm #118669

Yeahhh pretty crappy quality – I just forgot my flip camera – not as high res as gopro, but still 720p – that day, so I had to use my phone, much worse quality. I have a swivl, but the downside of it is that it doesn’t track beyond around 20 feet, and at that range it doesn’t rotate fast enough. I’ll ask for some new filming equipment for christmas or ask around to borrow some. So yeah, subsequent videos will be higher quality, sorry for the temporary lack of it.

[Roswell]

Roswell on December 2, 2012 at 11:08 am #118691

Had an ok flat speed endurance yesterday, but I felt my hamstring twinge a little bit, and since it was raining and I was drenched and cold, I decided to call it about 3/4s through the workout because I was scared of pulling something.

Did
2x30m stand
4x blocks over 1 hurdle
2x(4x60m) – accelerate to 40m and maintain for 20m, 5mins betwen reps, 10mins between sets.

Afterwards, did some olympic lifting:
5×3 power cleans up to 265 lbs
5×3 snatches up to 155 lbs
5×3 push-press at 135 lbs
and did an ab circuit at the end.

Here is a video of a couple of the starts over 1 hurdle at a better angle. On the second rep it was raining and OF COURSE a drop of rain gets on the lens exactly obscuring me in the blocks as I’m starting, but I guess you can still see the rest of it beyond that 1st step.

[sprint42.com]

sprint42.com on December 3, 2012 at 12:00 pm #118697

Jason:
it’s quite possible! its just something that I’m considering, definitely not something that I’ve decided on yet. It’s still within anerobic fitness (unless I run it really really slow), so it’s not completely useless, but yeah it is very likely that I will shorten it down to somewhere around that distance, because ~34 seconds has limited transfer to a 14 second race, despite the increased demands of the hurdles being there.

I don’t know if I agree. I think 300m workouts are excellent for the 110H guy. I wouldn’t go over 300m, but doing high intensity (95%), full recovery is perfect for training anaerobic fatigue.

Anecdotally, I’ve heard the Jamacian train the 300m a lot. And Tyson Gay said his 300m training this year was pivotal in his success. And Skeets could run in the 44s for the 440y.

Dan Pfaff definitely talks about training the right systems. And I think he would cringe if you were doing 8x300m at 70% or something. But 2-3×300 (95%) [15′] is likely a workout he would not argue with (as part of a rounded system — he’s definitely short-to-long in philosophy, but there are many roads to Rome).

Overall, Roswell, I think you need to start thinking more about bringing your 100m down. I don’t know if you’re PR is still at 10.82, but that needs to be in the 10.60 region to hurdle 13.70. Seems this thread is centered around your hurdle technique and drills…and needs a little more raw speed. Just my two cents.

[Roswell]

Roswell on December 3, 2012 at 12:45 pm #118699

sprint42 – my 10.82 was in the 2011 season, so I’m not entirely sure where I’m at right now, since I only ran one open 100m at the beginning of last year at 10.95. Hopefully I’ll be able to do the 60m in my first few indoor meets to get a good gauge of where I’m at, since I don’t have a timing system any more.

I absolutely agree that I need to be in the 10.6s at least. Right now, just about all the high intensity running that I’m doing is on the flat. My one speed day a week (soon to be 2) is flat 60s, my speed endurance is flat 60s, and I just focus my 30s in warmup around hurdle technique, because I desperately need to get used to 7 stepping before competition (if only to not look like a fool).

I’d also like to note that my training may begin differing drastically in the coming few weeks, because I’m hoping to start working with Craig Poole in San Diego. So I’m not really sure what’s coming in concordance with that. I’m going to have a meeting with the people over there at the OTC soon.

[David Woods]

David Woods on December 4, 2012 at 5:10 pm #118715

Welcome to San Diego. The rainy season has recently started as I think I felt a couple tiny rain drops while doing hills this evening. Did I mention we have a lot of hills here? Did I mention that the OTC is ON a big hill? 🙂

[Roswell]

Roswell on December 4, 2012 at 11:57 pm #118718

Thanks David! It can’t possibly be raining as much as here though, so I’ll take any improvements. I prefer hilly places to non-hilly places, at least there’s plenty of places to do hill accels. Although then again, if it’s really hilly like san francisco then it’s annoying to drive my manual car in haha.

[Roswell]

Roswell on December 5, 2012 at 12:24 am #118719

Today was speed endurance day with some hurdles block starts for warm up. Not so rainy today though so I was happy about that. I did however feel a little sluggish for whatever reason, I should prolly give myself a little bit more time after I wake up to practice, been going out there around an hour after I wake up.

Warmed up with 4×30 sand and 2x 1 hurdle. I’ve realized that 7 stepping takes a lot more out of me, so I have to take longer breaks or do less of them in a single session.
3x(2×60) with accel 40m then maintain, 5 mins between reps, 10 between sets.
finished with 6×30 high knees for strength endurance

Lifting:
parallel box squat up to 500×1
5×5 box jumps (not sure height of box, somewhere around 28 inches I think)
3×5 explosive single leg leg press
then I just did an ab circuit

Here’s the couple of starts:

[David Woods]

David Woods on December 5, 2012 at 10:45 am #118730

Sorry to say, yes it is hilly like SF. Here’s a picture from the Thorpe Cup at the OTC in 2011.

[Roswell]

Roswell on December 5, 2012 at 11:23 am #118731

Oh no! haha that’s ok though I’ll manage. I’ll take hilliness over inclement weather any day

[Roswell]

Roswell on December 7, 2012 at 4:29 pm #118745

So yesterday I had DOMS from the hard workout on Monday, so I just took another tempo day to recover, which makes it so that I get a block start practice day the day before the meet, which I like to do.

Today I wanted to practice more over 42s just to make sure I could still do it. I was also a little worried about 7 stepping over a 42 for the first hurdle. So I basically did a couple of runs over 1, and a couple over 3 before the actual workout. the whole workout looked like this:

Running
2x blocks over 1 (42″)
2x blocks over 3 (all 42″; 8.84m apart)
4x 60m – slow build up to 40m, sprint last 20m
4x 60m – sprint 50m and maintain for the last 10m

Lifting
5×5 bench up to 185
3×8 DB rows with 120
3x(5x left leg box jumps; 5x right leg box jumps; 5x normal box jumps)
>box again 28 inches or so
ab circuit

Because I know everyone loves watching me hurdle over and over again haha:

Through looking at splits and frame by frame in eagle eye, it doesnt seem like I’m effectively transitioning from the 7 step tempo to interhurdle shuffling. I know from last season, at the beginning of getting into hurdling again, I do tend to have trouble shuffling until I’m well into hurdle practices, and start out with more of a striding motion than a shuffling one (despite the reduced distance). I’m also not very quick coming down off the hurdle as compared to last season, so I’ll be thinking about that in subsequent practices as well. There are plenty of specific things as ell, like being off-balance on the first hurdle whilst going over 3, but those were the big general things that I could think of. Should be able to have video of the meet, though can’t guarantee it’s quality.

[Roswell]

Roswell on December 9, 2012 at 2:13 pm #118762

Pre meet practice today! Getting more used to the 42s, so I did a couple starts over 1 39″, then a couple over 3 with the first hurdle being 39″ and the next two 42″, and then lastly, over 3 42″s.

Got a new camera today, so it’s a bit higher quality, but it’a a gopro, so they have no viewfinder, and I wasn’t aware until I got home that the lens was so wide. So it looks a bit far away.

My arm started to come out a bit today like last season, so I’ll have to keep in mind to re-correct it.

I’ll prolly just post results of the meet tomorrow (and the video if I have time), and then be incommunicado for a few days as I figure training schedules and things out in San Diego.

[David Woods]

David Woods on December 9, 2012 at 3:59 pm #118763

Let me know if you need any help with the video. I’ve got a decent Kodak digital camera with video capture, zoom and a tripod. Weekends are best for m…you know 42 and full time job and all. There’s also a couple of other multi-eventer friends of mine who train at SDSU who are putting together a video training series for high school athletes I can put you in touch with.

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 4, 2013 at 2:04 pm #118905

Everything’s going really well! I only ran 8.19 at that meet, but that’s ok, new and bigger plans are in the works. The short or is basically that I started training at the OTC Dec 10th, came back home for the holidays the 21st, and got back into San Diego a couple days ago.

The biggest differences between what I’d been doing and what I’m doing now are
A. Coach Poole can obviously critique my technique in real-time much better than I could myself.
B. Lower rests: we haven’t been going over about 30m, but the rests are much shorter than what I’m used to, which translated into being pretty sore that first week, but now (I think) I’m over it.
C. Being around elite athletes all the time puts me into a much more competitive mindstate than training by myself. Especially now, in the beginning, I want to impress everyone and also prove to myself that I deserve to train there.

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 4, 2013 at 2:21 pm #118906

Today we had quadrathlon testing with a bunch of high speed cameras and a little crew of biomechanists (all of which was just focused on the 20m fly). I didn’t get to see the visual results of that stuff, and I only overheard my 20m fly time accidently, but here’s what my best marks looked like:

30m rolling start:
EDIT: 3.62

20m fly:
1.88

SLJ:
3.24m

3 bunny hops:
10.27m

OHB shot throw:
16.04m

So compared to my previous bests, these are unanimously better, so I’m pretty pleased, especially since my 20m fly was the fastest of the day. I still haven’t talked about the meet scheduling, but people are talking about mid-February for the first one. Tomorrow is balance and some kind of power output testing.

Also as an unrelated side note, Coach Poole moved me back to 8 stepping because I was in a horrendous position upon takeoff for the first hurdle. I agree, 8 step looks much better.

[Zack Trapp]

Zack Trapp on January 4, 2013 at 4:27 pm #118908

Thats totally cool that your training at the OTC!

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 4, 2013 at 4:44 pm #118910

Thats totally cool that your training at the OTC!

Yeah man it’s so awesome they have all kinds of cool gadgets: Elliptigo’s (basically an elliptical mounted on a bike that you ride around), force/velocity/momentum plates, a squat machine that induces resistance based on degrees per second of the bar and measures power over time of the lift, 8.5, 9.0, and 9.5 pH water, and I’m sure all kinds of other things that I haven’t discovered yet!

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 9, 2013 at 1:16 pm #118932

So there was some kind of misunderstanding with what needed approval for me to be able to train at the OTC, so I wasn’t able to train Thursday, Friday, or Monday. Started up again today though, which was unfortunate, since it was a recovery day (or at least as light as the days get here).

The workout was as follows:
5x mini hurdle runs with a stick overhead – I’m not sure of the spacing, I’ll check tomorrow. Composed of 2 sticks without height, about 8×6″ hurdles, 8×8″ hurdles, and 4×12″ hurdles.
High knees drill with stick overhead – 5×14″ hurdles, 5×6″ hurdles
*I learned from this that my foot is not in a neutral enough position (too plantar flexed) when I strike the ground during this drill, which jams my metatarsals and sometimes causes pain on the top of my foot
8x ladder drills, just for rhythmic exercise

Tempo, composed of 18x100m, with about 30 secs between reps

Used an air resistance based hip ab/adductor machine:
held weight above thigh with thigh at parallel to the ground, increased the weight until I couldn’t hold my leg like that anymore (6-10 secs) – 3x each leg
held weight behind knee and held leg straight down and increased weight until I couldn’t hold my leg like that anymore (6-10 secs) – 3x each leg

jump squats at 177lbs on a squat machine:
performed jump squats until I couldn’t generate 90% of my peak power (which was around 2000 Watts). Ended up being around 8 reps. 3 sets

Lifting:
power cleans 5×2: 80kg, 90kg, 100kg, 100kg, 100kg
lateral and front skips: 95lbs bar (basically the leg action of jumping jacks with a bar on my back, and then the equivalent forwards and back) 5×10
walking twists: 20kg 5×20 (walking whilst twisting with a held weight like russian twists)

Man this is gonna take a lot of time out of my days typing this out and explaining everything haha

[ex400]

ex400 on January 10, 2013 at 2:23 am #118933

Can you explain about the “sticks?”

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 10, 2013 at 11:11 am #118940

Can you explain about the “sticks?”

We take something like a pvc pipe but a little lighter, and hold it above our head with arms fully extended, like a snatch catch but at about shoulder width. From there its just runs over mini hurdles of increasing height with an emphasis on frontside mechanics. The amount of hurdles that we put down makes the length of the run somewhere around 50m. looked today at the track to see that the spacings between the mini hurdles are 2.10m apart. I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking, but I hope I answered it.

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 11, 2013 at 4:23 pm #118942

Oops! Forgot to update for yesterday:

Weight: 197.0
HRV: 67.6

I had to make up for some of the testing that I missed, so this was a pretty tiring day. I skipped some of the things that I would normally do this day because the testing was stressful.

The first test was a balance test on a pad that tracks and charts pressure on a X and Y axis scale over time. So I did 20 seconds of balance on two feet, left foot, and right foot, and then all three with my eyes closed. That wasn’t so bad

The second test was much harder, and also difficult to explain. Basically what it was was a machine that loads both the eccentric and concentric sides of a seated leg extension via rate-limiting of degrees per second. So for example, there will be resistance in the form of a maximum rate of 80 degrees per second when I extend my leg, and also when I pull it back down (like a hamstring curl). So I did 3 sets of 10 leg extensions and hamstring curls for each leg, and each rep was max effort at different rates.

Then I did some core brief core work – some planks, side planks, hip bridges, and stuff like that in a light circuit.

Next we did some ACES (https://www.arielnet.com/main/images/ces6000.gif we just use the squat machine part) which also offers resistance based on limited degrees per second. I did:

Squat Jumps
80 degrees/sec 5 reps
80 degrees/sec 5 reps
60 degrees/sec 5 reps
– generated around 250 lbs of force per rep on the 80’s and a little over 400 lbs on the 60

Hip Drive (start in lunge position with all the weight on the front leg, and then drive the back leg forward and up with triple extension)
80 d/s x5 per leg
80 d/s x5 per leg
60 d/s x5 per leg
– 200 lbs/350 lbs

Split Jumps (lunge position, jump and switch legs)
80 d/s x 10
80 d/s x 10
60 d/s x 10
– 200 lbs/350 lbs

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 11, 2013 at 4:58 pm #118943

Weight: 196.4
HRV: 69.7

Today was going to be a hurdle day, but it was too windy, which was unfortunate, because Gary Winkler stopped by for our practice. We still did some hurdle drills, but it was just flat running for the actual workout.

We started with the hurdle drills that we do before every hurdle workout, which are pretty much like those executed here from 1:00-3:20 :

Except that for the lead leg drills, we hook the lead leg over the hurdle before pulling down. The lead leg emphasis is on dorsi flexion, and the trail leg emphasis is on keeping it tight to the body and using the lead leg pulldown to bring it through the hurdle. We did these over 36″ hurdles with 3″ detachable foam things on top to make it 39″ total. Each drill (walking lead and trail legs, skipping lead and trail legs) were performed on both sides.

The workout that we ended up doing was called 120m in and outs:
30m acceleration
30m maintain with quick steps
30m float (slight decceleration, maintain form)
30m reacceleration
With a focus on frontside mechanics, done at about 75% max speed

The lifting afterwards was as follows:
Jerks 5×2
70kg, 75kg, 80kg, 85kg, 90kg
Landmines 5×4
20kg, 20kg, 20kg, 20kg, 20kg

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 13, 2013 at 9:33 am #118955

1/11:

Weight: 194.0
HRV: 66.9

Ran some hurdles yesterday to make up for Thursday. Cues I was given were to drive my heel over the hurdle to cause dorsi flexion, which would then pull my trail leg through. He also said that I plantar flex too early upon hurdle touchdown with my lead leg, but I was mostly just working on dorsi flexion over the hurdle.

4×1 hurdle
6×2 hurdles

I was apparently able to maintain dorsi flexion over both hurdles for the last couple of reps over 2 hurdles. It felt like I was hyperextending my lead leg over the hurdle, but apparently Coach Poole said it looked really fast. I’m trying to keep in mind that the first few times doing something correctly feels very wrong, and I’m trusting his judgement.

6x30m of randomly-heighted mini hurdles (0.90m apart) holding a stick overhead
-focus on frontside mechanics and striking the ground with a neutral foot.

6x50m mini hurdles (2.00m apart) increasing in height with stick overhead
-focus on the same as before, but during acceleration.

2x(3x150m) at 18 second pace, 3 mins between reps, 10 mins between sets
-focuse on maintaining foot cadence in the last 20m or so when it slows down, and general frontside mechanics while fatigued

Lifting:
5×3 Pause back squats: pausing for 2 seconds at the bottom of the squat
90kg, 100kg, 105kg, 110kg, 115kg

5×10 lateral and front skips: with a 50kg barbell on the back, do little jumps laterally (like jumping motion minus the arms) and front and back (R foot forward, L back, then together, then L forward, R back, etc)

1/12:

Weight: 195.8
HRV: 70.0

hurdle over/unders 10Hx6
Tempo: 2+2+2 x4 (run 200, walk 100 x3)
sand walks: about 400m of jogging, 400m of skipping.
In the past sand walks have helped with shin splints, so I’m glad they were prescribed, since I’m not used to doing tempo on the track.

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 16, 2013 at 11:53 am #118996

1/14:

Weight: 198.0
HRV: 72.5

Hurdle day yay! The emphasis of today was supposed to be speed, but since I haven’t been down here very long and I’m just getting used to the cues being given to me and all the stuff that I need to work on, it became more of a technical day for me (although obviously I still tried to go as fast as I could).

My blocks got adjusted to be a little further back so that I’m more elongated before coming into set position. This is because I’m more powerful from practicing the 7 step approach, and so needed to scoot my feet back in the blocks whilst still having my shoulders over my hands. It feels pretty good this way, I feel as though my momentum out of the blocks is more horizontal.

4×1 hurdle @42″
Just getting used to the height, as I’m supposed to go to NM pretty soon for an indoor meet. Again my cues to begin with were to drive my heel over the hurdle to create dorsiflexion, and using that stretch reflex to pull my trail leg through. It feels weird and hyperextended, but apparently my clearances look faster so I’m not one to judge. Coach was timing the splits today, and I was mostly in the 2.20-2.30 range for hand times to hurdle 1, so I’m pleased with that.

4×2 hurdles – kept the first hurdle at 42″ throughout the workout, but the subsequent ones were at 39″
We were mostly concerned with the clearances for this practice, even though the splits were being timed. I was told to dive more into the hurdle to raise my hip level over the hurdle without jumping over the hurdle. Another thing that I was cued for was to tuck my chin over the hurdle and to look out of the top of my eyes ahead. I’m not really used to these things so I was off balance for a couple of these reps, but I’m getting more used to it through the increased reps.

2×3 hurdles
More of the same.

1×4 hurdles
”

1×5 hurdles
Was getting pretty tired by the point, so my splits were all over the place, but throughout it I had some around 1.00, which I’m not able to do normally.

4x20m downhill runs
Focus on frontside mechanics

3x20m fly with 10m buildup
Focus on frontside mechanics, transfer from downhill runs

Lifting:
3×3 Hip snatch: 50kg, 50kg, 55kg
4×2 Snatch: 60kg, 70kg, 70kg, 70kg
5×3 Trap Bar Deadlift: 170kg
5×3 3 Board Bench: 145 lbs, 225 lbs, 225 lbs ,225 lbs, 225 lbs

1/15:

Weight: 198.0
HRV: Dunno

Mini hurdle runs x5 6″-12″, about 50m, 2.00m spacing
Held stick above head for 3 reps, without for the last two.

High knees x6 randomly 18″ or 6″, about 15m, 1.00m spacing
Held stick above head for all reps.

2x40m runs
Submaximal speed, focus on frontside mechanics

6x150m @19 second pace, 3 mins rest
Kind of intensive tempo type workout although I wore spikes to make it a little easier, wasn’t that tired afterwards.

Lifting:
4×3 Pause front squats: 75kg, 80kg, 80kg, 80kg
5×10 Lateral and front skips: 40kg
5×4 Landmines: 20kg

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 17, 2013 at 2:53 pm #119005

Weight: 197.8
HRV: 71.0

Full recovery day, didn’t run at all. Just basically did a bunch of core circuits with physioballs and a bunch of planking. Was supposed to do the ACES machine again but they had it temporarily removed in order to drill holes in the floor to bolt it down because we’re too powerful.

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 18, 2013 at 7:36 pm #119013

1/17:

Weight: 197.0
HRV: 72.0

4×1 hurdle
Focus on dorsi flexion, which I feel that I’m pretty good with over hurdle 1.

3×2 hurdles
Again just thinking about dorsi flexion and driving my heel over the hurdle, I have other things to work on, but I was just focusing on this today. I’m less good at maintaining heel drive over the second hurdle, but I’m getting better at it.

Splits were pretty good, averaging 2.30 to the first hurdle, and 1.0x to the second.

Practice got cut short due to some bureaucratic thing, but I was still able to lift.

Lifting:
4×2 Jerks: 80kg, 85kg, 90kg, 90kg
4×3 Clean Shrugs: 100kg, 110kg, 110kg, 110kg
5x20m Walking Twists: 20kg

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 23, 2013 at 6:52 am #119034

1/18:

7x Mini Hurdle Runs with a stick overhead 1.80m apart. Composed of 2 sticks on the ground, about 8×6″ hurdles, 8×8″ hurdles, and 4×12″ hurdles.

High Knees Drill with stick overhead – 5×14″ hurdles, 5×6″ hurdles

2x40m with frontside mechanics emphasis (not max speed)

6x120m in and outs – 30m accel, 30m maintain, 30m float, 30m reaccel. Again frontside mechanics. 3 min rest between reps. This was pretty tiring, and the same with last time, the reacceleration at the end is pretty difficult to do with proper mechanics.

Lifting:
5×2 Full Back Squat: 100kg, 120kg, 140kg, 150kg, 160kg
4×3 Pause Back Squat: 120kg
5×10 Reverse Hyper: 110 lbs

1/19:

I didn’t practice this day as I normally would, because I went in to learn from Ralph Mann. Unfortunately due to USATF restrictions, I wasn’t able to be analyzed by him, so that’s unfortunate, but I still learned a lot. Here’s the gist of it:

One of the poorer cues to teach is to snap the leg down right as the leg goes over the hurdle, which is inaccurate. If this happens, then the stretch reflex happens too early, and the velocity of the lead leg slows down halfway through the snapdown, and adds about 2 ft onto the touchdown in the example we saw. The correct cue is to actually hit the peak of parabolic travel (defined by the max height of the lead leg toe) about a foot past the hurdle. This delay in snapdown causes the touchdown to come via the stumble reflex rather than floating for the latter half of the snapdown (which also brings through the trail leg). Another different cue than what I’m used to is rather than diving down into the hurdle to bring up the hips over the hurdle- this makes it difficult to bring down the lead leg effectively when the hips are higher than the lead leg, it just kinda falls- the way that the hips should elevate is just through the force of bringing down the lead leg, like a see-saw.

1/21:

*All hurdles were moved in by one of my steps, which is 29 cm according to the label.

4×1 Hurdle (42″): Focused on bringing up my center of gravity on my last 3 steps to the hurdle, and driving my heel through the hurdle. The analogy was to “Imagine the hurdle is a door. You wouldn’t kick open a door with your toe first, you’d break your toe. You’d kick it open with your heel.” I also learned that I need to increase my flexibility a bit to be able to execute this properly.

4×2 Hurdles (42″, 39″): Touchdown to hurdle 1 was timed at around 2.30 (Fastest 2.28, slowest 2.35), and I was able to split about 1.05 to hurdle 2, hand time. My goal this season is to get down to 2.20 to the first hurdle, which will be pretty difficult with 8 steps, but I think I can do it.

2×3 Hurdles (42″, 39″, 39″): Was getting pretty tired at this point, but managed to split 1.03 from hurdles 2 to 3 on the last rep

1×4 Hurdles: Was too tired and had more stuff to do, so just called it quits after I went off-balance over hurdle 1.

4x20m Downhill Runs: Lowering ground contact time, getting my knees up

4x20m Flys: Same mechanics as downhill runs

Lifting:
3×3 Hip Snatch: 60kg, 60kg, 60kg
4×2 Full Snatch: 60kg, 70kg, 70kg, 70kg
5×3 Trap Bar Deadlift: 170kg
5×3 Lockout Bench: 225 lbs

[David Woods]

David Woods on January 24, 2013 at 1:59 pm #119045

What exactly are these USATF restrictions you’re referring to?

[Roswell]

Roswell on January 24, 2013 at 3:23 pm #119046

1/22:

Weight: 198.6
HRV: 98.4

5x Mini Hurdle Runs @ 1.90m
5x High Knees over mini hurdles
(I do both of these starting with a stick overhead for a couple of reps and do the rest with free hands to emulate the torso tension)
2x40m Runs with frontside mechanics

2x(3x150m) at 18 second pace with 3 mins between reps and 10 mins between sets
I only did 5/6 of this workout cuz I was pretty pooped

Lifting:
4×3 Pause Front Squat: 60kg
3×10 Lateral and Front skips: 40kg
3×4 Landmines: 40kg
Took lifting light RE: tiredness

1/23:

Weight: 197.0
HRV: 85.6

Was very thankful for recovery day today. The lateral region of my trail leg knee was pretty painful today, and I’m not entirely sure why. As a side note, it could possibly be my lower IT band or my upper lateral gastrox, I can’t really tell. It didn’t hurt yesterday during the workout, but it hurts a bit now when I straighten my leg, such that I was unable to complete my warmup lap today. Luckily I didn’t have any running prescribed today, and I was able to complete all of my plank and physioball circuits without any pain.

What I did in college and will continue to do regarding injuries, is to induce increased inflammation the day of the injury to promote blood flow to the area and help my own body help itself. I do this mostly through my diet: high glycemic index foods all for the rest of today (which is a nice break from the diet but also often doesn’t agree so well with my stomach). Tomorrow I’ll be chugging fish oil and trying to reduce inflammation to be able to practice on it. We’ll see how it goes, it doesn’t hurt right now so I think it’ll be ok.

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 4, 2013 at 12:52 pm #119136

1/28:

Got new workouts today, focused on “Skill emphasis, readiness for indoor competition, power base, emphasis on ACES.”

32 Vertical Jumps, max of 84cm, average of about 79cm

6-8x30m runs, emphasis on frontside mechanics.

Walking and skipping hurdle drills for hurdle warmup

4×1 hurdle 42″
4×2 hurdles 42″, 39″
2×3 hurdles 42″, 39″, 39″
1×4 hurdles 42″, 39″, 39″, 39″

-felt pretty stiff and sore this day, wasn’t able to get my trail leg up effectively, so wasn’t a very good day for hurdles.

4x20m downhill runs frontside mechanics

4x20m flys with 10m buildup.

Lifting:
5×2 Power Cleans: 90kg, 100kg, 110kg, 110kg, 110kg
3×4 Full Back Squats: 120kg
4×3 Pause Back Squats (2-5 secs): 100kg
5×8 Reverse Hypers: 135 lbs

1/29:

30m Sprint Drills holding stick overhead:
Side skips
Karaoke
A walks
B walks
Straight leg bounds
Fast leg drill
Speed bounds

Frontside running (at around 80%):
6x20m
4x60m

2x(3x150m) – 3 mins between reps, 10 between sets
17.9
18.5
18.5
18.9
19.0
18.1

1/30:

Recovery day (very thankful for it)

hip and core circuits, flexibility

ACES:
3×5 Jump Squats
3×5 per leg alternating split jumps
3×5 hip drive

1/31:

6-8x30m frontside action runs

hurdle warmups walks and skips

Rhythm work:

Set-up: 6 hurdles, 3 step, 3 step, 5 step, 3 step, 3 step (from blocks)
Distances: Normal starting hurdle, 8.84m, 8.84m, 13m, 8.84m, 8.84m

4 runs, withe the first hurdle being at 42″ and the rest at 39″, then for the second rep the first 2 hurdles being at 42″, and increasing like that for each rep.

The runs felt ok, but I was kinda all over the place, and not very controlled. Arms not tight at all, so just another thing that I need to work on.

4x20m downhill frontside runs

4x20m frontside flys with 10m buildup

Lifting:
5×1 Snatch: 60kg, 70kg, 70kg, 70kg, 70kg
4×1 Jerks: 70kg, 70kg, 70kg, 70kg

2/1:

I decided that I wanted to go to a little HS all-comers the next day, and I was pretty sore, so I just decided to take it easy this day and have a short Elliptigo workout, which just involved me riding around the campus a few times.

2/2:

Felt ok, but didn’t have an amazing race. I was just running with one masters guy in my heat, so it was basically just me by myself.

Ended up running 7.55 in the 55mH and 6.59 in the 55m dash, which is pretty much what I run every time at indoor distances, so I’m not that surprised.

[David Woods]

David Woods on February 4, 2013 at 3:51 pm #119137

Didn’t realize you were going to the meet or I would have come over and said hello.

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 4, 2013 at 4:10 pm #119138

Ah that’s too bad, yeah I wasn’t really sure if I was going to go or not until Friday. As for future plans, I think my next meet will either be at Concordia on the 16th or Fresno State on the 17th.

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 9, 2013 at 1:49 pm #119173

Monday I rode the bike for a little bit, but I wasn’t feeling well, and got full-on sick for Tuesday and Wednesday, but I hurdled Thursday

2/7:

Weight: 198.8

Set up hurdles for rhythm work – 3 hurdles at 3 step, 13m for 5 step, then 3 more at 3 step. I originally wasn’t having a very good day because I was having trouble getting my trail leg up to the right angle. Then my coach suggested I try hurdling with a more European style – having my shoulders and hips more open and diagonal to the hurdle rather than them facing straight on, and I feel like this helped tremendously. It helped with my wandering lead leg that tend to drift from left to right when I pull it down, and I feel like everything is much more linearly directed. I’m also able to do it without much trouble, and it feels far more natural.

So for this next week I’ll prolly be practicing this to be ready to debut it in competition at Concordia in Irvine on Saturday the 16th. I’ll try to get some video of what I mean by this tomorrow, even though I’m not doing a hurdle workout, I’d like to go over the hurdles like this as much as I can, even if it’s slow. Very excited for the future!

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 10, 2013 at 2:35 pm #119176

Yesterday I had a job interview that prevented me from practicing.

Just had an easy tempo practice today with just 20x100m, 1:00 break. I also just lightly went over a 39″ hurdle a few times. Here is the video, which I paused at a few points to make it easier to see my positions at those points.

It’s interesting for me to watch this, because how it feels is way different from how it looks. I think that I still need to work on straightening my lead leg moreso over the hurdle now. It’s interesting the position that my trail leg is in before it raises up to go over the hurdle. I’m not sure that at this point that it’s a problem, but it could be at higher speeds or over a 42″. As can be seen by some of the paused images in the video, I definitely feel like my trail leg is in a much better position than before upon touchdown. I’m also pretty inconsistent in the reps in my positions, which of course is to be expected from trying something new.

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 12, 2013 at 6:34 pm #119192

Felt pretty good today, but turned out to be just an ok day for hurdles. I had some trouble using the new technique over the initial 42″ hurdle – and floated a lot of the hurdles.

6x30m runs – frontside mechanics
4×1 hurdle 42″
4×2 hurdles 42″, 39″ @8.84m
2×3 hurdles 42″, 39″, 39″ @8.84m
1×4 hurdles 42″, 39″, 39″, 39″ @8.84m

4x20m downhill runs

4x20m runs – frontside mechanics 10m buildup

Lifting:
5×2 Power Cleans: 100kg, 110kg, 110kg, 110kg, 110kg
3×4 Full Back Squats: 120kg, 130kg, 130kg,
4×3 Pause Back Squats: 100kg

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 13, 2013 at 2:59 pm #119232

Today I was pretty sore, so I didn’t go 100% on the 150s.

6x20m
2x60m

2x(3x150m): 18.07, 18.09, 17.98, 18.49, 18.15, 17.49

No lifting.

I also talked to one of the biomechanists today that told me that I have one of the highest disparities between one and two legged balance tests, so I think I’m going to try and squeeze in some disc pillow work when I can (especially tomorrow, since it’s a rest day).

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 15, 2013 at 5:13 pm #119251

2/13:

Rest day, just did some circuits, and did the typical jump squats, split jumps, and hip drive on the ACES machine.

2/14:

Hurdle Rhythm work:
4×6 hurdles, 3step, 3step, 5step, 3step, 3step.
– Started with hurdle 1 @ 42″, raised the subsequent hurdles on each rep.

Lifting:
5×1 Snatch: 60kg
4×1 Jerk: 75kg

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 17, 2013 at 6:28 pm #22875

Ok so first off, not a great meet hurdles-wise. I have no idea what I ran in the hurdles, other than it probably being over 8.00. Ran 7.08 in the 60m with a reaction time of at least 0.3.

Second off, poorly run meet: I’m guessing the starter wasn’t certified or something, because he wasn’t very good. My 60m heat we were put into set while 5 of the 7 people were still moving, and the gun went off so soon afterwards, no one had a chance to object. Also, We ran the first heat of the hurdles, then someone in the heat was displeased and asked if we could run in the second heat. So I decided to do that for a workout, but what happened is that my time from the second heat got transposed over the time from the first heat, so the posted results say 8.19. So I dunno. I still have a lot of work to do until I am able to implement the things that I’m working on in practice in a meet. At least my flat speed is good for this point in the season. Here’s a video of the first race:

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 19, 2013 at 12:54 pm #119287

Speed hurdle work today. I didn’t feel that great going into the workout, joints achy and such, but I took some caffeine, and it turned into a pretty good workout.

At about 8.89m apart:
4×1 hurdle 42″
4×2 hurdles 42″, 39″
2×3 hurdles 42″, 39″, 39″
1×4 hurdles 42″, 39″, 39″, 39″

Touchdowns were hand timed, and while I was able to hit 2.20 to the first hurdle once, mostly they were at around 2.30. My realistic goal is to hit 2.25 consistently.
*For reference, the fastest hand time that I’ve heard of anyone hitting is 2.18, which was Mark Crear (although admittedly I don’t know a whole lot of elite level hurdle coaches).
In between the hurdles I was around 1.10, which should be faster – around 1.05, especially going over 39″.

Was kinda out of energy at this point, so I skipped the downhill runs, and just did
4x20m frontside mechanics

Lifting:
5×2 Power Cleans: 100kg
3×4 Back Squats: 100kg
4×3 Pause Back Squats: 100kg

Finished with some balance exercises

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 20, 2013 at 4:05 pm #119304

It was raining/hailing today, so I just did a bike workout. As a general rule, if we’re to do a bike workout, it’s basically 3x the workout that we’d normally do on the track. So today I was supposed to do:
6x150m at 18 second pace with 3 mins rest,

so instead I did
3x(6×18 seconds hard) with 42 seconds between reps and 3 mins between sets.

We just use spin bikes, and increase the resistance and pedal harder on the reps, and ease the resistance off a bit during the rests. It been a while since I’ve been on a bike that measured speed, but I think it looks similar to 30 mph on, and 16 mph for rest.

Did some balance work afterwards

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 24, 2013 at 8:16 am #119342

2/20:

Recovery day. Didn’t do ACES this day as I would normally since the machine was being calibrated to take advantage of our maximum velocity through the range of motion. So I just did some ab/physioball circuits, then lifted.

Lifting:
5×10 Front/Side skips with barbell: 50kg
5×7 Dumbbell snap thrusts: 30lb dumbbells

2/21:

7x30m frontside runs

lead leg/trail leg walks and skips, focusing on dorsiflexion on lead leg over the hurdle, short punch with lead leg side arm to get leg down quick.

Hurdle Rhythm work:
4×6 hurdles: 3 step, 3step, 5 step, 3 step, 3step
first hurdle at 42″, then each subsequent hurdle raised to 42″ on each rep.
hurdles at 8.89m/13m

4x20m downhill runs

4x20m frontside runs on flat

Loading hip flexor/extension until unable to keep my thigh at parallel/straight down
3x each leg

2/22:

2x30m Sprint Drills with stick above head:
Side slide
Karaoke
A walk
B walk
Straight leg bound
Fast leg

7x Mini hurdle runs @2.00m
4x high knees over mini hurdles
2x40m frontside runs

6x120m in and outs with 3mins rest
30m acceleration, 30m maintenance, 30m easy running (slight deceleration), 30m re-acceleration

Lifting:
3×3 Hip Snatch: 50kg
4×2 Narrow Grip Snatch: 60kg
5×2 Jerks: 90kg

Balance work

2/23:

I’m tired. I don’t wanna do anything

[Roswell]

Roswell on February 27, 2013 at 5:08 pm #119417

2/25

I had a really good day on Monday! I even brought my camera and forgot to charge it yay, so that’s unfortunate. I felt like I was doing well to keep my lead arm forward, which brought it through quicker, and resulted in my lead leg coming down fast. This was also a rare day that I actually had energy, so I tried to dissipate it at practice.

I just did the typical 4 hurdle practice, but in retrospect I should’ve added a 5th since I was feeling good.

Still working at 8.89m
4×1 hurdle 42″
4×2 hurdles 42″ 39″
2×3 hurdles 42″ 39″ 39″
1×4 hurdles 42″ 39″ 39″ 39″

4x20m

Lifting:
5×2 Power Clean: 110kg
3×4 Squat: 120kg
4×3 Pause Squat: 90kg

2/26

Wow pretty sore today, but not so bad that I couldn’t train.

30m Sprint Drills with Stick above head:
Karaoke
A walk
A skip
B walk
B skip
Sraight leg bound
Fast leg

6x20m
4x60m

3x(2x150m) 3min/10min rest
18.75
18.85
17.49
17.85
17.90
17.80
-Was kinda lazy on the first couple, but then realized I wasn’t trying hard enough to get anything from it, so I stepped it up a little bit. It’s supposed to be 17-18 seconds so mostly ok times.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 5, 2013 at 6:09 pm #119474

First day of outdoor training, because everyone else is finished with US Indoors now. The good news is that I’m excited to have something fresh to do, the bad thing is that this week is gonna be really brutal, especially because I worked pretty hard last week. Luckily (maybe) I’m going to 2 meets next week, so I’m going to take next week really easy.

6x30m frontside runs
typical hurdle warmups
4×1 hurdle 39″
2×2 hurdles 42″ 39″ 8.89m
2×3 hurdles 42″ 39″ 39″ 8.89m
2×4 hurdles 42″ 39″ 39″ 39″ 8.89m

4x40m downhill runs (1% grade)

4×12 hurdles 36″
3step 3step 5step 3step 3step 5step etc..

Lifting:
5×4 Back Squats: 120kg
5×4 Bench: 185 lbs

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 7, 2013 at 12:56 pm #119492

3/5

Short day today.

Started with a new hurdle drill to emphasize dorsi flexion over the hurdle:
Drew a line at 42″ on one of the walls of a storage container,
Drew lines on the ground at 5′, 6′, 7′ from the wall,
Drove lead leg into the wall and leaned into it, x12 each distance
*Note: if anyone is going to try this, use a sturdy wall. You can put a lot of force into your lead leg especially on the 7′ mark where you actually have to take off to make it to the wall.

6x150m 3 mins rest:
18.58
17.48
19.53
At the end of the third rep my foot was hurting pretty bad, so I did the rest of the workout on the bike. (18 secs hard, 42 seconds easy x9)

The pain feels like it’s between the 2nd and 3rd metatarsals on the top part of my foot. I think I’m going to try to get an Xray ASAP just to make sure it’s not a stress fracture, because that would suck. I don’t think it is because I don’t have any pain walking around outside of practice, but I’m not a doctor so we’ll see.

Contrast shower to combat soreness

3/6

ACES technician was busy with the Paralympians today, so we didn’t do that (which I’m fine with, pretty sure of overtraining right now.

Skipped mini hurdle work due to foot pain, but still did ab and physioball circuits.

Lifting:
4×4 Snatches: 60kg
4×4 Jerks: 90kg, 80kg, 80kg, 80kg

Visited an Urgent Care today for a quick X-ray. Showed negative for any kind of fracture, which is a good and bad thing. Good because my bones are fine, bad because it could be something more serious like Motrton’s neuroma. So next week I’m going to have a CT or MRI to confirm or deny soft tissue or nerve damage. Hopefully it’s nothing and I’m just being overly sensitive. Right now my plan is to take it easy and bike the flat sprinting days, but keep on the hurdle days, so I can keep up some semblance of fitness.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 10, 2013 at 11:42 am #119529

3/7

Foot was in pain, but I hurdled anyway. Managed to do most of the workout.

6x30m frontside runs

1×4 hurdles – first hurdle at 42″, rest at 39″, 8.89m
*workout called for 4x

9 hurdle rhythm work at 39″ – 3step 3step 5step and repeat
*did 3 out of the 4 reps called for

1x40m 1% grade downhill run
*4 reps called for

hip flexion/extension machine 3 reps per leg

3/8

Bike workout to stay off of my foot (was raining anyway) in place of 6x120m in and outs.

3x(6x(15 seconds hard; 45 seconds easy)) 2:45 between sets

Lifting:
4×4 Cleans: 90kg, 100kg, 100kg, 110kg
4×4 Trap Bar Deadlift: 170kg

3/9

Light ab circuits, balance work. Trying to rest foot while I can. Easy week coming up before big opening meet weekend next weekend that I’m still determined to attend.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 13, 2013 at 2:20 pm #119554

3/11

Since I have 2 meets this weekend, I’m taking half days on both Monday and Tuesday (Wednesday is recovery anyway).

2×4 hurdles @ 39″ 8.89m
2×12 hurdles @ 36″, (8.89m, 8.89m, 12.5m)x4

Lifting:
3×4 Back Squat: 100kg
3×4 Pad Bench: 185 lbs
*Corrected squat form to prevent much hypertrophy, thus now going to be working with reduced weights. Also prolly the same with many of the olympic lifts.

Foot felt pretty good

3/12

3x150m:
17.80
18.00
18.29

sand walks
hip flexion/extension
balance work

Foot hurt 5/10 this day, forgot that I was supposed to bike instead of run. Seeing sports ortho tomorrow, may not practice because of it.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 20, 2013 at 12:57 pm #119626

3/12

Wall Hurdle Drill
12×5′
12×6′
12×7′
Worked on moving my lead leg up and into position quickly.

3x150m, 3 mins rest
17.80
18.09
18.65

3/13

Did nothing – Dr.s appt. MRI scheduled for 3/18

3/14

No practice

3/15

Ran 14.48/10.97. Pretty disappointed, especially since I opened with 14.2x last year. Granted, there are a lot of confounding factors. I still should’ve run better. I felt like I ran an ok 5 or 6 hurdles, then started floating and losing control over the latter half of the race. There is video, but the guy who took it only makes them into DVDs. He sent me a phone video of him watching it on his TV, but it’s not worth posting. Might get it later.

3/16

Ran 14.96, the worst time I’ve run in 3 years I think. Same thing as the day before, but exacerbated. Not sure why I thought this was a good idea, will note for later.

3/18

3×1 hurdle @ 42″
1×2 hurdles @ 39″, 8.89m
1×4 hurdles @ 39″, 8.89m

2×12 hurdles 3step x2, 5step, etc.. @8.89m, 12.5m
Had the first 9 at 39″ and the last 3 at 36″
Ran painfully slow, starting to think I’m not gaining much by continuing workouts on my foot if I can’t do them to my fullest.

Lifting:
5×3 70% Front Squat: 65kg
5×3 95% Cleans: 105kg

3/19

Bike workout today – 3x(18s hard, 42s easy x6) 3 mins between sets

Balance Work
Forgot to do wall hurdling

[David Woods]

David Woods on March 21, 2013 at 8:00 am #119629

I skipped the Aztec meet (would have done the open Dec). This time of year I can’t focus on mental preparation for a meet, let alone trying to physically peak, even though that facility is a five minute drive from the office. Work has to take precedence.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 21, 2013 at 9:46 am #119632

I skipped the Aztec meet (would have done the open Dec). This time of year I can’t focus on mental preparation for a meet, let alone trying to physically peak, even though that facility is a five minute drive from the office. Work has to take precedence.

My friend was doing the hep so I was out there on the thursday when there was no one there too. Are you gonna do the Mt. Sac dec then?

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 21, 2013 at 12:41 pm #119635

Pool workout today because of my foot. It involved a lot of running in the water, which basically expends a lot of energy and moves you forward very slowly. I was VERY tired afterwards, so we’ll see how hurdles go tomorrow.

MRI results came back negative for anything serious. I’m seeing a podiatrist on monday for an orthodics consultation, so hopefully that will help (although I’m not sure of how one would redirect impact when that’s basically the only part of my foot hitting the ground, but we’ll see)

[David Woods]

David Woods on March 22, 2013 at 11:16 am #119640

My friend was doing the hep so I was out there on the thursday when there was no one there too. Are you gonna do the Mt. Sac dec then?

Wasn’t even on my radar screen, but I just might. The only other somewhat local decs that I know of is Pt. Loma next week and Santa Barbara the week after but I have the same issue for those as I did last week: work. Taking two days off that aren’t on a weekend during tax season isn’t conducive to keeping that job.

Last year in June the people at OTC they put on a dec as a last chance OT qualifier as part of the San Diego association meet (which I was asked not to compete so as to make it easier for the guys who had a shot at qualifying). I don’t know that they will again, as they only had 5 guys show and of the 2 local competitors, I know for a fact at least 1 is not competing this year. The association doesn’t normally have a dec in its meet, nor does USATF Western Regional.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 23, 2013 at 2:53 pm #119647

3/21

My muscles weren’t that sore on Thursday, but my HRV was down 25 points and my CNS tap test was down this day. In accordance, my warmup lap was way too difficult to be a warmup, so I made it a recovery day. Ab/physioball circuits, lifting (the lifting is just standard on my typical wednesday recovery days, but it was pretty difficult and not the best idea).

Lifting:
3×2 90% Jerks: 85kg
3×10 front/side skips: 40kg

3/22

Today was the first day that I felt confident and ran fast, which was good, because I made it a hurdle day to make up for yesterday.

3×1 hurdle at 42″
3×4 hurdles – 42″ for the first hurdle then 39″. I felt too fast for 8.89m, so I decided to make the move to 8.94m

3step 3step 5step, 3×9 hurdles – 8.89m, 12.5m
The first two reps were at 39″, then for the third rep I had the first 3 hurdles at 42″

Lifting:
5×3 70% Back Squat: 90kg
3×2 Jerks: 80kg
Hooked a band onto my trail leg foot and went through my trail leg motions with the added resistance. It was mentioned to me that instead of my trail leg going from a high attack to a parallel attack, mine goes from a parallel attack to a low attack, so I need to strengthen that muscle complex.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 29, 2013 at 1:27 pm #119674

3/25

Saw the Doctor today, diagnosed with a marrow edema in my second metatarsal due to it being longer and set slightly lower than the two adjacent to it, causing it to bear weight for a longer period of time. Solution is custom orthodics, but unfortunately that’s kind of a long process.

Emphasized short hurdle work

4×1 hurdle 42″
2×2 hurdles 42, 39″ @8.94m
2×3 hurdles 42″, 39″ @ 8.94m
2×4 hurdles 42″, 39″ @8.94m

2×12 hurdles at 36″, 8.89m/12.5m

3/26

Bike Workout

3x(6x 18 hard/42 easy) w/ 3 mins between sets

Lead leg wall drill
12×5′
12×6′
12×7′

Progessive load hip flexion/extension machine
Flexion @ ~35 lbs for 25 secs x3 each leg
Extension @ ~80 lbs for 25 secs x3 each leg

3/27

ab/physioball circuits

Lifting:
3×2 90% Jerks: 85kg, 85kg, 80kg (low energy)
3×10 front/side skips: 40kg

3/28

First full workout day in a long time! Yay. Using orthodic foot pad until I can get foot mold and stuff made. Apparently it’s helping.

4x30m frontside runs

4×1 hurdle 42″
2×4 hurdles 42″, 39″ @ 8.94m

4×9 hurdles 39″ @12.5m/8.94m

4x20m flys

Progessive load hip flexion/extension machine
Flexion @ ~35 lbs for 25 secs x3 each leg
Extension @ ~80 lbs for 25 secs x3 each leg

Also I hired a nutritionist, so he’s helping me along with my weak will, and it’s working out really well so far. Hoping to get to Mt. Sac at a spry 185, with my nice new othodic-ed shoes and almost a month of recovered practices under my belt. I do however still need to be mindful of going overboard, and easing myself back into full workouts every day.

[Roswell]

Roswell on March 31, 2013 at 5:38 pm #119683

I took a look today at some of my video and made a list of things to work on on monday:

My form over 39″ is absolutely horrendous. I almost think right now that there’s very little point in them other than fatigue unless I fix it. No lean at all, no dorsiflexion, late trail leg, no flattening over the hurdle, mismatched arm timing. If I’m going to make them beneficial I need to either A. just stop doing them or B. do them much much better

I was pretty distraught over what I saw on 39″s, but 42″s were better. However, I still need to start my trail arm prior to what I’m doing right now and start folding my trail leg up faster. I also need to lead more with my knee – right now my foot accelerates forward too fast, which is leaving me in a stagnant position with my lead leg straightened until it clears the hurdle, which is much too long. I lead leg straightening should be snapping it down as a reflex, and I’m basically not utilizing it at all by having that delay there. Additionally, my trail leg takes a roundabout path to get to hurdle clearance. When I start running faster, it’s going to start causing problems from not getting into position quick enough, which goes back into folding faster off the ground. Also still need to be more flexible to flatten out over the hurdle correctly. Working on that presently.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 2, 2013 at 1:51 pm #119690

Crappy practice today, but at least my foot felt good. Was just low energy, had very little speed/flexibility. Not really sure why. Today I really tried to not cast out my lead leg and to whip it out over the hurdle, but it was really hard. I’m unsure whether this was due to me not having a lot of energy, or whether this is actually going to take a long time to master technically. I’ll try to emphasize this during the wall hurdling drill tomorrow.

3x30m frontside runs

4×3 hurdles @42″, 8.91m

3×8 hurdles @39″, 8.91m/12.5m
– Hurdles in 2 groups of 4 rather than the previous groups of 3

3x40m 1% downhill frontside runs

Lifting:
5×3 70% front squat: 70kg, 70kg, 70kg, 75kg, 75kg
4×2 95% cleans: 110kg

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 3, 2013 at 10:07 am #119702

Had an ok practice today, still getting back into the swing of things, so I did 4/6 150s, then biked the rest of the workout.

4x150m 3 mins rest
– Unsure of the times as my stopwatch broke

6x(18 seconds hard 42 seconds easy) on bike

Wall hurdling drill
– changed my mechanics on this drill. In an attempt to stop casting out my leg, I was cued to shoot my lead leg out like I’m kicking open a very heavy door. I don’t kick doors open very often, but I imagine that if I did, I would try not to do it with my toe. The other thing that I did differently was to pick up my trail leg after takeoff like I would if I were going over a hurdle instead of just letting it hang there. These changes made the drill much more tiring, so I cut out the reps at 7 feet.
12×5′
12×6′

Progressive load hip extension/flexion machine
3xeach leg

Band resistance trail leg pullthroughs

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 4, 2013 at 10:02 am #119713

Recovery day today.

med ball throw warmup

ab/physioball circuits

rode on the bike for ~10 mins just to get some blood flow down there

Lifting:
3×2 90% Jerks: 90kg
3×10 front/side skips: 50kg

lifting felt pretty good today. Foot in slight pain but certainly less than normal. I considered doing some extra hurdle-specific work with bands, but I decided I would rather be fresh for tomorrow.

[David Woods]

David Woods on April 6, 2013 at 1:48 pm #119728

Had an ok practice today, still getting back into the swing of things, so I did 4/6 150s, then biked the rest of the workout.

4x150m 3 mins rest
– Unsure of the times as my stopwatch broke

I have an extra Timex tapwatch, great for timing yourself on sprint intervals. Let me know if you want it.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 10, 2013 at 12:05 pm #119769

I have an extra Timex tapwatch, great for timing yourself on sprint intervals.  Let me know if you want it.

Ah no it’s fine I already bought a new one, thanks though.

4/4

This day was good – I was finally really able to ramp up the hurdle endurance volume to almost what it would normally be.

5x30m frontside runs

4x4H 1st at 42″, then 39″. 8.94m

3x9H 39″ groups of 3 3steps – 8.89m/12.5m

4x8H 39″ groups of 4 3steps – 8.89m/12.5m

4x40m 1% downhill frontside runs

Progressive load hip flexor/extension
3x flexion each leg 25secs
3x extension each leg 25secs

4/5

Holy crap was I sore from Thursday. Could barely move. Took an easy day

Wall hurdle drill
10×5′
10×6′
10×7′
Here’s a video to show that I can’t take off at the right mark:

Only did 10 due to tiredness

Bike workout:
2x(6x 18 secs hard, 42 secs easy)

Lifting:
5×3 70% back squat: 100kg

4/6

Just did some AM cardio – jumping rope, ab circuits and whatnot

4/8

Meet week: SD Mesa on Saturday

Inclement weather; practice cancelled, but still lifted – felt strong

Lifting:
5×3 75% Front Squat: 80kg
3×2 90% Cleans: 100kg
3×1 95% Cleans: 110kg

4/9

Felt pretty good today, it was a good day for form I think (though likely not so much during hurdle endurance)

3x1H 42″
2x2H 42″ 8.91m
2x3H 42″ then 39″ 8.91m
1x4H 42″ then 39″ 8.91m

1x12H groups of 4 3steps 8.91m/12.5m
2x11H 1st 3step group was of 3, then the next 2 were of 4, removed the first one because my takeoff mark was on concrete. 8.91m/12.5m
– hit some low splits, I think 1.03 was the fastest, but shortened distance and 39″. Still a good sign though.

Going to take Wed as a recovery day, stim Thurs, warm-up Fri, then meet Saturday. Here’s a video of me to 1H (skip to 0:30):

[Zack Trapp]

Zack Trapp on April 10, 2013 at 12:08 pm #119770

What meet are you competing at?

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 10, 2013 at 12:13 pm #119771

What meet are you competing at?

San Diego Mesa

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 12, 2013 at 12:31 pm #119791

4/10

Was very sore this day from Tuesday.

ab/physioball circuits

Lifting:
3×2 Hip Snatch: 50kg
3×2 90% Jerks: 90kg
Band trail leg pullthroughs

4/11

Light stim day due to meet Saturday. Still sore from Tuesday, but less so than yesterday. Taking care to take all the fish oil.

4x1H
3x3H

Foot was sore after today, but not horribly so.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 18, 2013 at 9:45 am #119818

4/12

Did some light lifting
5×3 70% Back Squat: 100kg

4/13

Had lots of energy, but still unable to run an entire race. 14.68. The weather conditions weren’t ideal (cold, so stiff mondo, no competition), but it really shouldn’t make up for me running so slow. I only cleared one hurdle “correctly,” which was 6 or 7, but pretty much ran out of steam for 8 9 and 10. Realistically, I have only been doing full hurdle practices for about the last 2 weeks because of my foot, but this is making me consider a drastic change for next year.

4/15

Mt. Sac this weekend. I got put in the Olympic Development heat on Saturday, which is what I was in last year, so good competition for once. Going to try to just really have one high stimulus practice this week to prepare.

Raining. Bike workout – 6x(3×18 hard 42 easy). Didn’t lift to be fresh for the next day. Also I was still sore from the meet, which was weird since I only ran the hurdles.

4/16

Felt very inflexible and stiff, which got better as practice progressed, but not to an ideal point.

4x1H @42″
3x4H @39″ 8.91m
3x12H groups of 4 12.5m/8.89m @39″

Learned that when I fatigue I tend to lean to the side opposite my trail leg to allow it more room to go over the hurdle. Corrected it pretty easily on the last rep, but it’s something that I need to keep in mind.

4/17

Got my orthotics today, so hopefully that helps for the future and cures all my foot woes.

Decided to rehab instead of ab circuits today, so used the vertex freemotion vibrating machine, foam rolled a bunch, and lifted.

Lifting:
3×2 Hip Snatch: 50kg
3×2 90% Jerks: 85kg

[Matt Norquist]

Matt Norquist on April 20, 2013 at 11:31 am #119822

Good luck man. Kill it.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 20, 2013 at 11:56 am #119826

Good luck man.  Kill it.

Thanks! I’ll try haha

4/18

4x1H 42″
2x2H 42″ 8.91m
2x3H 42″ 8.91m

Felt good despite being rather inflexible that day

4/19

Rest day, recovery – foam rolling, contrast shower, fish oil.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 21, 2013 at 5:39 pm #119832

So I ran 14.16, which is ok. It’s not exactly what I wanted, but it’s a sign that I’m actually able to run a whole race. My muscles weren’t fatiguing at the later stages of the race, my form just wasn’t really there, lots to improve upon in that category. I pretty much floated over every hurdle, I just had the fitness and hurdle endurance to complete the race, so I’m pleased that that component’s finally there.

I have another 2 or 3 meets with good competition in the next 2 or 3 weeks, so I have ample opportunity to improve upon those wrongs. Next week I’ll be training through the Triton Invite at UCSD and then I’ll cut down a little bit for the Oxy Invite the week after that. I might possibly run the CSLA last chance after that, it depends on how I’m running and feeling after so much competition in a row.

I also learned that I should bring a foam roller or massage stick to a meet that involves me driving 2 hrs to get to.

Here’s a video, I’m in lane 3 in white.
https://www.flotrack.org/coverage/250619-2013-Mt-Sac-Relays/video/706688-M-110m-Hurdles-H01-Oly-Dev

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 23, 2013 at 3:41 pm #119840

Had an ok day today. I was still pretty sore from the meet on Saturday, which is kind of odd considering I only ran the hurdles, and I don’t really do anything Sundays. I decided to hurdle today anyway (bad call, but not horribly so).

2x1H 42″
2x2H 42″, 39″ 8.91m
2x3H 42″, 39″ 8.91m

3x12H 39″ 12.5m/8.91m
-would’ve done 4, but foot was kinda hurting today

4x40m 1% downhill grade

Lifting:
5×3 70% Front Squat: 80kg
skipped jerks because I was too tired

For future reference, because I had a similar in reaction to the meet last week, I think I’ll just be moving hurdle days to Tuesdays. It depends on how I feel, but I felt good about having hurdles on Tuesday last week, so it seems like a good idea post-meet. Also I have meets on the several coming weekends, so I think that it might be best.

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 24, 2013 at 4:56 pm #119842

Took it easy today, low energy, low HRV, sore from yesterday.

Bike 6x(15 hard 45 easy)

Wall hurdling:
12×5′
12×6′

Extensive tempo 10x100m

[Matt Norquist]

Matt Norquist on April 25, 2013 at 1:52 am #119844

Re: driving and competing – so true – I once had a flight (5 hours), drive (2 hours) and then attempted to compete, and it was a disaster. Hips would not open up at all!

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 25, 2013 at 3:54 pm #119852

Re: driving and competing – so true – I once had a flight (5 hours), drive (2 hours) and then attempted to compete, and it was a disaster. Hips would not open up at all!

Phew rough! Most of my meets are in LA, which is a 2-3 hour drive. Sometimes I can stay with some of my friends that live there, but I can’t impose on them that often. The best was one time I got to a meet at UCLA and one of the trainers there did a chiropractic demonstration on me to some students, and I felt great after that! Unfortunately it has never happened again..

[Roswell]

Roswell on April 25, 2013 at 3:56 pm #119853

Felt much better today (easy recovery day anyway).

Physioball/ab circuits

Lifting:
3×2 90% Jerks: 90kg
3×10 Barbell skips: 50kg
-superset with 3×20 Glute Ham Raise: bodyweight

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 2, 2013 at 5:10 am #119864

Lots to update upon! (new job, pretty busy lately)

4/25

4x1H 42″
2x2H 42″ @8.91m
2x3H 42″ @8.91m

4/26

Did nothing, recovery

4/27

Felt ok, but ran crappy. 14.67 I think. Important: I had a really good first hurdle, but afterwards my lead leg was coming up way too high to be able to snap down efficiently. I believe this is because I’m used to going over hurdles subsequent to the first at 39″, so I compensate by trying to go extra high. There were other problems with the race, but this is what I’m focusing on. Henceforth I’ll be doing short hurdle work at 42″, and hurdle endurance only at 39″, to keep the feeling consistent.

4/29

Due to fuelling myself with orange chicken prior to this workout, I was unable to complete it unfortunately. So I only ended up doing 2 150s:

2x(3×150) (unfinished):
16.42 – running this fast prolly didn’t help the orange chicken throwing up factor
17.46

4/30

I took it easy this day because my trail leg wasn’t at 100%, and I want to be rested for Oxy on Saturday, so I only went to 5 hurdles. As stated earlier, I’ll only be using 42″ for this short work.

4x1H 42″
4x2H 42″ @8.91m
3x3H 42″ @8.91m
2x4H 42″ @8.91m
1x5H 42″ @8.91m

Despite not really feeling great, I was actually running pretty well. There were a couple of other hurdlers doing starts nearby, so I’m sure that helped a bit. I was pretty consistently at 2.29 to the first hurdle, and all the splits that I remember were below 1.20, going as low as 1.06. Granted the splits inbetween hurdles is slightly off from race splits because of the shorter interhurdle distance, but those times are comparable to mine when I’m going over 39″, so that’s good. For reference, in my race that I ran 13.88, I averaged around 1.12 between hurdles, going as low as 1.09 and as high as 1.16.

5/1

Just gonna do some abs and recovery today.

[David Woods]

David Woods on May 11, 2013 at 11:26 am #119900

Re: the 14.67 – That track is a slow track, so take that into consideration.

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 13, 2013 at 1:17 pm #119912

5/3

Did nothing

5/4

Meh 14.21. Arms flailing all over the place. Again had a good start, but the rest of the race was rather languid. Had a dip in COM around hurdles 5-6-7. Lack of consistency throughout the race.

5/6-5/10

I’m fairly sure that I strained my illiopsoas in my trail leg, so I just biked all week with some light lifting. Not quite ready to give up on the season yet. I still have Jim Bush on June 1 and the SDUSATF meet at the OTC whenever that is.

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 15, 2013 at 3:55 am #119923

5/13

Decided to actually practice today because I felt good and I figured there’s no real point in rehabbing this late in the season. Had a good practice nonetheless.

3x150m 3:00 rest:
17.69
17.47
17.41

10:00
2x150m 3:00 rest:
16.59
17.00

Lifting:
3×3 70% Front Squat: 100kg (went a little too heavy on this, got overzealous)
3×2 90% Power Cleans: 110kg
3×1 95% Power Cleans: 120kg (which is actually a PR for me by 20kg, which I did not realize when putting on the weight)

Still nervous about hurdling again

[Roswell]

Roswell on May 20, 2013 at 5:43 pm #119938

5/14

Began with a normal hurdle day, but almost immediately after doing hurdle specific warmups, my trail leg started aching, so I just turned it into a tempo day, as it doesn’t seem to affect me during normal running as much.

10x100m tempo

5/15

Standard recovery day of ab circuits, didn’t lift today because of laze.

5/16

Tried to hurdle again this day, it went a bit better. The workout called for blocks to 5, but it only got to 4 before I decided not to risk it. Then I got frustrated and ran a 150 instead.

4x1H 42″
3x2H 42″ 8.91m
2x3H 42″ 8.91m
1x4H 42″ 8.91m

1x150m: 16.15

Lifting: attempting to strengthen my trail leg hip complex
3×3 Hip Snatch: 65kg
3×2 Jerks: 90kg
3×20 back extensions: bodyweight
3×10 hip adduction: 100 lbs
3×10 banded trail leg pullthroughs

5/17

off

5/18

off

This week hopefully going to finalize my coaching arrangements for next year. Some infrastructural changes are in the works for how training is done for T&F athletes at the OTC, so hopefully those work out in my favor, but if they don’t I don’t think it’ll impact me that much.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 3, 2013 at 11:10 am #120166

Alright after a short summer break, I’m alive again.

First, a season review:
Last season was definitely a step backwards for me (13.88->14.1x). There were a lot of convoluting factors though, so I can’t really narrow it down to one in particular. Certainly some of the bigger ones were that I moved down to San Diego and expected to have a training group and coach, which only lasted for a few months before the season. Although I may have the capactiy to coach myself, I was more than a little dejected by the loss of these training factors, and wasn’t really prepared for the situation that I found myself in. Near the end of the season, I had some injury complications, and mentally I was pretty done with the season, and lacked overall fitness, exemplified by only really being able to run 50m of any race.

I’m very confident about the upcoming season. I’ll be working with Tonie Campbell, and will be starting on Monday in order to actually be in shape for some indoor races, instead of just using it as a training tool. Over my time off, I’ve basically been exclusively focusing on explosivity and low impact stuff. Mostly for cardio I just do elliptical/treadmill. My explosive workouts typically contain some or all of the following:
power cleans
jerks
snatches
box jumps
explosive leg press
med ball throws
Tonie has expressed the want to get me to properly execute a 7 step approach, which I think will be pretty easy if implemented properly this early in the year.

Training will be pretty different this year I think, but Tonie has expressed the need to incorporate a good amount of the 60m intensive training that I was successful on before, which makes me happy. His workouts that I’ve taken part inlast year were pretty intense, so I’m not at all worried about my conditioning, which has been my problem in the latter part of the season in the past.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 6, 2013 at 10:15 am #120178

8/5

2x(7×200)

Not actually a hard workout on paper, since it was just at a sustainable pace (~32 seconds) focusing on technique, but I did learn two things:
Holy crap I’m not used to running turns – upper IT band and my groin a bit on my left leg got pretty stiff near the end, as did my left foot
I suck at pacing myself.

As far as things to go wrong, I think it could be much worse, they’ll get better as I get more in shape and as the season progresses.

Core circuit

Lifting:
3×8 explosive deadlifts: 225 lbs
3×8 hang cleans: 135
3×8 explosive half squats: 185 lbs

Pretty light day in the weightroom because it was an introductory session for some people. Gonna try to roll out and actually get to bed on time tonight, as I’m sure I’ll be pretty sore tomorrow regardless of how hard the workout was

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 7, 2013 at 8:11 am #120181

8/6

30 min recovery jog (very slow, ~10 min miles)

Ab circuit

Hip flexors -particularly my leg one – still sore from actually having to get my knees up for the first time in a while, but they feel much better than yesterday, so I figure it’s just soreness and not some latent injury. Contrast shower and rolling out today.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 8, 2013 at 10:12 am #120188

8/7

7x400m (grass)

Emphasis on drive phase for 50m and the last 50m. Since I never accelerate or end on a turn, I started at halfway down the straightaway. Today was far easier than Monday because I didn’t pace myself off the 400 guys and did it more like the tempo workout that it is (whaddya know).

Ab circuit

Lifting
3×8 explosive power cleans: 135 lbs
3×8 clean and jerks: 135 lbs
3×4 snatches: 135 lbs

Lifting will be pretty light for a little bit, we’re just working on bar speed. I went a little heavier on snatches because I didn’t wanna change the weight and I felt pretty comfortable with it.

Hip flexors and everything that was in pain before still hurts, but its much duller now, Getting used to turning left

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 9, 2013 at 10:12 am #120202

8/8

Same as Tuesday, except that I did my 30 min jog on the elliptical instead because I got a big blister on the arch of my foot yesterday, so just lessening the friction against it. Should be fine for the hill workout tomorrow. I added some stretching at the end because I’m currently not able to fully lay out over the hurdle, which I may or may not end up incorporating into my technique, but I would like to be able to should the need arise.

30 min slow recovery jog (ellitpcial)

Ab/med ball circuit

Hurdle stretching

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 10, 2013 at 10:41 am #120223

8/9

6x200m(ish) hills @ ~10% grade

Ab circuit – one exercise inbetween reps

Pretty grueling today. I appreciated not having to turn, but 200m is a long way up a hill. Predictably, my form/energy/everything suffered on the latter half of every rep except the first one; as proven by the last couple seasons, my late race -hurdle 6 onwards – is the weakest link, and these are the types of practices that I’m loathe to do by myself. Legs were pretty close to buckling on the walk down from rep 2 onwards. Just more late-half-of-the-race conditioning.

On a seperate note, I’m training with about 7 other people, and I feel like it really helps to be in that kind of competitive environment again. There aren’t any other 110 guys, but we’re not doing any hurdle stuff for a while anyway so it doesn’t really matter. Tough first week, but I could feel myself adapting to it throughout the week already, so that’s a good sign. The initial specific aches and pains are slowly fading away into general soreness.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 13, 2013 at 9:38 am #120258

Weekend

Normally we have some kind of prehab or technical day (this weekend was a technical beach workout) or something like that on Sunday, but it got switched to Saturday, which I couldn’t make on this particular weekend, so I just did a 30 min jog on both days and some abs.

8/12

3x500m grass
6:00 rest

*focus on drive phase mechanics and last 120m; middle ~340m was just extensive tempo

I felt really good today and was pretty thankful for the decreased volume. The 500s certainly weren’t easy, but the last one was appropriately hard, I think. Focused on max speed mechanics in the last 120 without necessarily increasing speed.

Ab circuit

Lifting
3×10 explosive deadlifts: 275 lbs
3×10 hang cleans: 185, 135, 135 lbs
3×10 quarter squats: 185 lbs

* focus of lifting is still light and explosive, but slighly heavier than last week.

[Christopher Glaeser]

Christopher Glaeser on August 13, 2013 at 3:36 pm #120259

Pretty grueling today. I appreciated not having to turn, but 200m is a long way up a hill. Predictably, my form/energy/everything suffered on the latter half of every rep except the first one …

Any chance you can borrow someone’s timing sticks in your area and experience the difference of timing the last 30 meters of 200 meter repeats? Over the past several years I’ve discussed electronic timing with hundreds of coaches and athletes and the number one benefit mentioned by the majority of these coaches for all age groups is the increased arousal in the athlete. Coach Brooks Johnson (who had an exceptionally good day today) often mentions the culture of the ballistic athlete and compelling need for and the affect of immediate feedback. I posted a short video Tips on Timing Tempo Runs[/url] but the video does not do the subject justice until you experience the difference yourself.

Best,
Christopher

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 13, 2013 at 4:59 pm #120261

[quote author="Roswell" date="1376111495"]Pretty grueling today. I appreciated not having to turn, but 200m is a long way up a hill. Predictably, my form/energy/everything suffered on the latter half of every rep except the first one …

Any chance you can borrow someone’s timing sticks in your area and experience the difference of timing the last 30 meters of 200 meter repeats? Over the past several years I’ve discussed electronic timing with hundreds of coaches and athletes and the number one benefit mentioned by the majority of these coaches for all age groups is the increased arousal in the athlete. Coach Brooks Johnson (who had an exceptionally good day today) often mentions the culture of the ballistic athlete and compelling need for and the affect of immediate feedback. I posted a short video Tips on Timing Tempo Runs[/url] but the video does not do the subject justice until you experience the difference yourself.

Best,
Christopher[/quote]

As I understand it from my coach, the tempo runs will be timed at some point in the future, but not just yet, and I’m not sure how exactly (a certain portion as you suggest or the whole thing) he plans on doing it. I’ve seen him use timing gates in the past when working with other athletes, but I’m not sure to whom they belong.

That particular workout that you’re quoting was just basically a sprint to the point where my legs basically lost all muscular function so I’m not sure that I could’ve gone any faster whether I was timed or not.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 14, 2013 at 9:35 am #120264

8/13

30 mins elliptical
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches
Ab circuit

Did elliptical today just to reduce impact. Left IT band/hip flexor area consistently sore from turns, being sure to foam roll and use a lacrosse ball on the area. Some 300s tomorrow, excited to do something that will actually be before the lactic acid wall, but I will try not to kill myself, because I know Friday will be tough.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 15, 2013 at 9:40 am #120267

8/14

6×300
Walk 300 recovery
Ab circuit

I’m not sure if I’m adapting to the training, or just getting more used to feeling horrible, but it feels like everything’s coming together pretty quickly. I accidentally took the 5th rep out really hard because I thought it was the last one, so my actual last rep suffered from that, but it was pretty good overall. Focus was on drive phase and finishing (last 50m) again.

Talked to Tonie a bit about future plans – hurdling starts in October, gonna be starting some hurdle-specific stuff either next week or the following, but I’m not altogether sure what that entails. For indoors, thinking of doing 2-3 outdoor meets at indoor distances, and then maybe go to Fresno and/or NAU and Washington for actual indoor meets.

Lifting
3×10 Power Cleans: 135 lbs
3×10 Hang Clean and Jerk: 135 lbs
3×10 Snatch: 135 lbs

Took lifting a little bit lighter today to be more explosive and so that I don’t overdo it. I’ve been meaning to start up HRV monitoring again, but I haven’t quite gotten around to it yet.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 17, 2013 at 9:55 am #120276

color=green]8/15[/color]

Standard down day.

30 min elliptical
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches
Ab circuit

8/16

As many 50s as possible in 15:00
*sprint 50m, fast walk 50m (grass), turn around, sprint 50m, etc. All done straight, no turns. I was focusing on elongating my first step in preparation for 7 step training, but it was a bit hard since the grass was kinda wet and I was in flats.
Ab circuit

Lifting:
Sprinting arms holding dumbbells for 60s: feet together, then each foot forward
Lifting circuit (45s on, 15s between exercises): hamstring curl, quad extension, tricep extension, one hand cable resistance running arms, curnches, back extensions, lat pulldowns, seated rows, suspended leg cycles, calf raises.
1×12 decline and incline bench: 115 lbs for each

I in particular need to be careful about upper body lifting, because my upper body puts on weight very readily, although I realize we’re not actually doing that much overall. I also personally think many of those exercises in the lifting circuit are pointless, but I still need to lose a bit of weight, so there’s benefit in that regard.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 20, 2013 at 12:46 am #120405

8/17

Recovery Day

30 mins elliptical
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches
Ab circuit

8/18

Kind of a weird drills/mobility type day. Not very strenuous

5×100 jump rope running
5×10 hurdle walkovers

30m:
bunny hops for distance, height
skips for distance, height
bounding for distance, height
single leg bounds
bear crawl/crab walk

60 seconds high knees in place

8/19

400m breakdown (50m intervals)
Ab circuit

Good lord this was difficult. Time goals of 60s for 400m, -7 seconds for each subsequent rep. Felt like my legs were going to implode during the 300/250/200 reps, but I was usually +1 second off the time goal. 150 and down was easy though, since it’s anaerobic (mostly). Since I was pretty much collapsing after those reps, Tonie told me to take tomorrow completely off.

Lifting:
3×12 split jump squats: 105 lbs
3×12 explosive deadlifts: 135 lbs
3×12 jerks: 105 lbs

Went real light on the lifting because of splitting headache, and for my sanity.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 22, 2013 at 12:27 am #120416

8/20

Rest day, predictably very sore

8/21

2x(6x120m) 50m walk between reps, 7:30 between sets

Emphasis on first 60m, drive phase mechanics, high COM after drive phase, maintenance 60m-120m

Ab circuit
3×60 seconds jump rope

Lifting:
5×4 power cleans: 4×225 lbs, 1×245 lbs
5×4 power clean and jerks: 185 lbs
5×4 snatches: 135 lbs

A bit heavier lifting day today.

This is the first day that I thought practice was pretty easy. I’ve noticed that there has certainly been a bit of a mental shift for me having done all these practices basically to leg failure, which is mostly manifest in the way I think about the full 110 race. Even though I’m not into any hurdle stuff yet, nor any specific preparation at all, I feel far more confident at this point than I have in the past 2 years. I’m very excited to get onto the track and over some hurdles, even though I know that the process of breaking me down will begin anew when hurdle endurance comes into play.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 23, 2013 at 11:12 pm #120431

8/22

45 min jog
Ab circuit
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches

Was sorer than I should’ve been, but just because it was my first power day in a while. Better to get the initial soreness out of the way now than later. Learned that some testing will be done in a couple weeks – but lifting and flying 30s and things like that, I can’t remember exactly what, but we’ll see when the time comes.

8/23

sprint 50/walk 50 for 15:00
I completed 27 50’s, but I think that I mis-measured the distance or something, because that’s 6 more reps than I did last time, and it was way easier, so I dunno.

Ab circuit

No lifting today because I didn’t have access to a weightroom – coach is out of town so I practiced on my own.

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 28, 2013 at 11:35 pm #120466

8/24

45 min jog
Ab circuit
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches

8/25

rest day

8/26

rest day

8/27

45 min jog
Ab circuit
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches

8/28

3x(300m, 60 sec rest, 150m, 60 sec rest, 150m)
10 mins between sets
Time goals: 41 sec 300, 19 sec 150s

3 low grade hills, focusing on form

Lifting
4×6 incline bench: 135 lbs
4×6 decline bench: 135 lbs
4×6 squats (feet inward, neutral, and outward): 225 lbs
4×9 quad extension (feet inward, neutral, and outward): 120 lbs
4×9 hamstring curl (feet inward, neutral, and outward): 100 lbs

Pretty much obliterated my legs. I was around my time goals for the first set, then for the second I went a little fast on the 300 and the last 150 was like 40 seconds, and the last set everything was crazy slow. Calves/soleus cramped up on around 4 different occasions (though luckily not while actually running).

[Roswell]

Roswell on August 30, 2013 at 9:18 pm #120477

8/29

45 min trail jog
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches

focus on keeping COM high on uneven terrain

8/30

Big circuit today:
1 mile bike
1600m jog
100 jump rope
40 leg swings over a hurdle (whatever they’re called along the side of a line of 10 hurdles)
400m jog
12 tire flips
1200m jog
2x50m 65 lbs barbell pushes along the ground (like a prowler)
400m jog
25×105 lbs hang snatches
800m jog
100 crunches
2x50m lunges w/ 40 lbs DBs
100 bodyweight squats
2x50m sprints
2x100m sprints

Despite being pretty tired from working 12 hour shifts the past couple of days and my gastrox/soleus still being sore from cramping on wednesday, this was actually pretty easy. The jogs were quite slow (~10min mile pace)

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 2, 2013 at 5:11 am #120485

8/31

30 mins bike ride

9/1

Beach workout

2x30m high knees resistance runs

sprint ladder-
1 step sprint
2 step sprint
3 step sprint
etc. ascending to 30 steps and descending down to 1

3×60 seconds high knee in mid-thigh water

Ladder was kinda difficult in the soft sand, but not too tough. Little worried about doing this before a hard day Monday though.

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 6, 2013 at 11:12 pm #120499

I’ve been kinda out of it since I bruised my foot right upnder my second metatarsal, which obviously is where the bulk of the pressure is when I run, so Monday-Thursday I didn’t really do anything. I’m not really sure how it was caused, but it’s improving quickly, about at 80% right now. Should be back into it by Monday next week or so.

9/6

Pool Workout
*I dunno how long the pool is, maybe 25m or so.

6x25m running in the water w/ aquajogger
not so hard, but I was really out of breath at the end due to no rest

Drills against the wall:
lead leg pulldown
trail leg pullthrough
leg swings

If I’m up to it, gonna start hurdle stuff next week

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 9, 2013 at 11:20 pm #120509

9/7

rest

9/8

30 min bike ride

9/9

foot felt pretty good today, so I just decided to go for it

300m breakdown by 50m, 3:00 recovery
This was actually pretty easy because I was rested for once
At 150m on down I was supposed to be going over a phantom hurdle every 7 steps, which I did for 150m, but it kinda hurt my foot so I just ran the 100m and 50m normally.

3x100m easy hills
pretty slow, focus on technique

Lifting
3×5 Deadlift: 315 lbs
3×5 Hang Cleans: 135 lbs
3×5 Half Squats: 225 lbs

Testing week next week

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 12, 2013 at 1:08 am #120520

9/10

Recovery day

4×800, 2×80 sprints in between
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches
That was the workout, but I only did it 2x because I wanted to take it easy on my foot.

Hurdle Drills
These are kinda hard to describe so I might make a video
3×15 Lead leg at fixed angle held at around 6″ below the top (42″) of the hurdle, going back and forth over the top
3×15 Trail leg over and backwards (39″)
3×20 bouncing bringing lead leg up to hurdle crossbar and down

9/11

5×200 5 hurdles ~30 seconds
not sure what the spacing was, but only 33″
5×200 flat ~27 seconds
Ab circuit

Lifting
3×5 snatch squats: 115 lbs
3×5 bench: 185 lbs
3×5 hang clean and jerk: 115 lbs
3×5 quick jerks: 115 lbs

feeling pretty good, foot feels a lot better, but decided to do the second set of 200s on flat just to not aggravate it.

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 16, 2013 at 7:13 am #120528

9/12

rest

9/13

rest

9/14

rest

9/15

Testing day #1

45 second run: 346m
15:00 rest
20 second run: 170m
*in spikes on grass

Lifting:
1RM Deadlift: 455 lbs
1RM Power Clean: 275 lbs (lifetime PR)
1RM Bench: 245 lbs

Felt pretty good about today. I’m pretty sure I could’ve gotten 475 DL if I really tried but got lazy and jumped to 495 and couldn’t get it.

[Roswell]

Roswell on September 19, 2013 at 4:59 am #120547

9/16

got confused by the workout email – actually wasn’t supposed to do anything this day, but went in to practice anyway, so just warmed up, did some strides and hurdle drills.

9/17

rest

9/18

Testing Day #2

30m fly (gate timed)
on astroturf:
3.22
3.20
on the 30 year on piece of “track” nearby:
3.02
3.08

Lifting:
1RM Snatch: 185 lbs
1RM Clean & Jerk: 245 lbs
1RM half squat: 495 lbs

So the 30 fly was a bit slower than my PR (2.91), but it’s still very early in the season, non-ideal conditions, and I wasn’t really feeling that great in warm ups. Also we’ve basically done no power work at all so far, so I’m confident that those factors will make up for the difference. Lifting throughout was about on par for where I was at the end of last season and what I typically see in the fall, so I’m happy with that, because we don’t do very much heavy work. Testing will be done every subsequent 6 weeks that I know of, and this next cycle will be a power one, including hurdle work, so I’m excited about that, and to not be losing every workout to these damn 400 runners. Oh also might have a 13.8 110 guy coming in to join our training group, so hoping that goes through. I have practice off until wednesday, so I have to be diligent about actually keeping active, because I have a tendency to take off days completely off, which leaves me in a bad spot when I come back.

[Roswell]

Roswell on October 1, 2013 at 7:00 am #120609

9/26

Started up again with some easy technique runs on grass in flats that were recorded and analyzed. I’ll post them here when I get home. Couldn’t really get traction in order to have a proper drive, but I thought I had fairly good mechanics for interhurdle shuffling on many of the runs.

9/27

rest

9/28

Abs/elliptical

9/29

rest

9/30

First workout of new mesocycle.

10x
100m over 39″ hurdles 1,3,5,7,9 at ~10 steps in between
rest 15 secs
sprint 100m back to start

Focused on leading with my chin and knee, lead leg dorsiflexion over the hurdle. I was pretty rusty, but I’m encouraged that when I tried the change something, it actually happened (although inconsistently as of yet) I got a bit fatigued at the end just because I’m not used to it.

We tested bodyfat after practice with electronic calipers, but I think mine was artificially low for whatever reason at 9.7%

[Roswell]

Roswell on October 2, 2013 at 8:18 am #120610

Here are some of the technique runs that I mentioned earlier, trying to run short and shoppy like interhurdle shuffling:

10/1

5x100m strides
3×5 each leg hurdle drills

[Roswell]

Roswell on October 3, 2013 at 12:31 am #120615

10/2

3x300m
15:00 rest
grass; spikes; hand timed
Tonie wanted us to be within 0.40 of our previous rep
37.64
38.02
36.42

I think my record for 300m is around 32.9 in mid season in spikes on a track, so I’ll take it for this point in the season. It’s also a bit better than the 45 second run that I did a few weeks ago, so I’m happy about that, especially because I was super sore in my hip flexors and lead leg hamstring from the first actual hurdle practice on Monday.

Lifting
3×8 Military Press: 185 lbs
3×8 Incline Bench: 135 lbs
3×8 DB Rows: 70 lbs

Light lifting because I know we have a pool workout on Friday and those are always brutal on the whole body. Hopefully recovered by then

[Roswell]

Roswell on October 7, 2013 at 8:36 pm #120625

10/3

5x100m jump ropes
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches

10/4

rest day: sick

10/5

rest day: sick

10/6

5x30m ~60 lbs sled pulls
5x5m block starts on grass
5x10m block starts on grass
4x150m
some isometric exercises working around the hip girdle

10/7

rest day: sick

[Roswell]

Roswell on October 12, 2013 at 7:09 am #120641

10/8

rest day: sick
note: both illiopsoas very sore from isometric exercises, which is good given my problems with the one on my trail leg side. hopefully strengthening them helps this issue

10/9

got in a car accident so didn’t make it to practice

10/10

5x100m jump ropes
Ab circuit
100 sit ups
100 push ups
100 crunches

10/11

hurdle mobility
5x trail leg one step drill over 10 36″ hurdles
focus on keeping my trail leg tight and close to my body
hurdle drills
5x40m 55 lb sled pulls
4x40m ~3% grade downhill runs
isometric exercises

Lifting:
1×12 deep squats: 185 lbs
1×12 bench: 135 lbs
1×12 hang cleans: 135 lbs