My meet is on Dec 13th and I will be doing the 60m and possibly 200m.
Can someone tell me when I should start to do block work? This is my
first time training for a meet so I don’t have much experience with
the the timing…
thanks…
When do I start to implement blocks?
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Participant
Never.
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Participant
How much work have you been doing with things like 3pt starts, lying starts, medball accels, etc.?
I think, with proper coaching and implementation, you could have adequate (albeit not best possible) block work within 3-5 sessions. If you have developed good strength and general acceleration abilities, it shouldn’t take too much work to be able to come out of the blocks effectively.
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Participant
How much work have you been doing with things like 3pt starts, lying starts, medball accels, etc.?
I think, with proper coaching and implementation, you could have adequate (albeit not best possible) block work within 3-5 sessions. If you have developed good strength and general acceleration abilities, it shouldn’t take too much work to be able to come out of the blocks effectively.
The past 3+ weeks I’ve been doing the accel drills you mention. So you’re saying that I probably don’t need any work until a couple of weeks leading up to the meet?
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Participant
[quote author="utfootball4" date="1224140133"]Never.
Can you explain?[/quote]
I didn’t do any block work during gpp/spp and during the season I probably did 5-8 block sessions. Like davan mention if you are strong enough, done the sled/hill work, acc drills etc the transition to blocks should be simple (finding your block settings etc).
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Participant
Block work is necessary if you are a complete novice at starts, but honestly I feel like they detract from my accel sessions because I end up freezing from thinking too much. If you have someone with you able to call the starts its a lot better, but if you are by yourself they tend to hurt more than help me.
I do tons of start work, ie: medball accells, starts from mutliple positions (falling, on stomach, pushup, etc) along with hill sprints. I usually only do blocks once a week for only a few starts.
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Participant
Block work is necessary if you are a complete novice at starts, but honestly I feel like they detract from my accel sessions because I end up freezing from thinking too much. If you have someone with you able to call the starts its a lot better, but if you are by yourself they tend to hurt more than help me.
I do tons of start work, ie: medball accells, starts from mutliple positions (falling, on stomach, pushup, etc) along with hill sprints. I usually only do blocks once a week for only a few starts.
I disagree, novice should stay away from blocks even more and put more focus on the other start components.
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Participant
Some degree of comfort has to be developed though or else it will feel entirely foreign when you race. I’m not saying full workouts happen from blocks, but getting out of the “what the hell do i do” phase is necessary.
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Participant
Some degree of comfort has to be developed though or else it will feel entirely foreign when you race. I’m not saying full workouts happen from blocks, but getting out of the “what the hell do i do” phase is necessary.
I just remember hearing CF story about his group not able to afford blocks so they focus on the other components – mb starts etc and the transition was like clock work. If you took a rookie and did tons of block work:
1: It would cause more problems.
2: Once they got stronger you would need to adjust all settings.
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Participant
learning acceleration movements > learning blocks.
you cannot learn how to use blocks effectively until you start learning how gravity and functional strength and power affects acceleration first otherwise you’ll stand right up out of the blocks negating their purpose.
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Participant
I fully agree, but how big is the split? 60/40? 80/20? I can’t ignore that there is a certain comfort level that has to be in place in the blocks, especially in the high school level. I’ve seen too many people freeze in the blocks, people with years of football, plenty of power and great 40’s. Once they get in the blocks they are clueless and they freeze, so there has to be some emphasis.
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ParticipantThat’s the art of coaching….observe and adjust.
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Participant
[quote author="davan" date="1224141006"]How much work have you been doing with things like 3pt starts, lying starts, medball accels, etc.?
I think, with proper coaching and implementation, you could have adequate (albeit not best possible) block work within 3-5 sessions. If you have developed good strength and general acceleration abilities, it shouldn’t take too much work to be able to come out of the blocks effectively.
The past 3+ weeks I’ve been doing the accel drills you mention. So you’re saying that I probably don’t need any work until a couple of weeks leading up to the meet?[/quote]
I would spread it out more than that. I’d probably start putting in block work at least 3-4 weeks before the meet. Ideally, you would have been doing at least 6-8 weeks of accel work or so before you started in the blocks. These are general numbers btw, not the same for everyone.
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Participant
I agree with davan and 00Scoots, doing/learning blocks on your own is far less effective than with a knowledgeable observer (coach). I too would spread learning out over a few weeks rather than trying to take in everything “new” in only one or two sessions.
You may not actually need to be in as much of a hurry as you think, check with how they implement rules locally, where I am the officials only require use of blocks for Juvenile age and older and even then depending on the exact meet and number of athletes “upright” starts are still allowed. -
Participant
[quote author="BLogaN" date="1224143106"][quote author="davan" date="1224141006"]How much work have you been doing with things like 3pt starts, lying starts, medball accels, etc.?
I think, with proper coaching and implementation, you could have adequate (albeit not best possible) block work within 3-5 sessions. If you have developed good strength and general acceleration abilities, it shouldn’t take too much work to be able to come out of the blocks effectively.
The past 3+ weeks I’ve been doing the accel drills you mention. So you’re saying that I probably don’t need any work until a couple of weeks leading up to the meet?[/quote]
I would spread it out more than that. I’d probably start putting in block work at least 3-4 weeks before the meet. Ideally, you would have been doing at least 6-8 weeks of accel work or so before you started in the blocks. These are general numbers btw, not the same for everyone.[/quote]
Thanks, davan. I’ll try throwing in blocks sparingly into speed sessions when I’m 4 weeks out and see how it goes…
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KeymasterMost of sprinters who just start training with me are shocked to see how little block work I prescribe. I often don’t have athletes get in to blocks for the first 3 months…even if they are competing during indoors. I have some progressions I like to follow that take athletes from higher starting positions to lower starting positions (with blocks being the lowest) and from mindlessly simple to highly technical (with blocks being the most technical). The exact progression varies based on what a particular athlete needs but I’d say that my athletes probably take between 600 and 750 starts in a year in that includes competitions and warmups. While that may sound like a lot that breaks down to only about 20 a week (again including competitions and comp warmups) for the 8 or so months we might use blocks.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Mike,
Care to give an example of what the progression might entail? E.g. falling starts > crouch starts > 3 pt starts > block starts, etc? Where would pushup starts, med ball accels, etc come in (if at all)?
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