Track and Field stuff

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psycho_dad

Well-known member
Last season at the Regional, Austin Town Fitch forced us to use their blocks and would not allow block holders. After a rain delay, my 100m kid had his block slip out. (Very powerful start) They recalled the race, but he injured himself. (hamstring) Is this something we can have changed? Our blocks are different and the pads have the spikes in them, so they don't slip even without a block holder. Fitch has nice blocks, but not allowing block holders seems a bad policy. The state meet has holders. If they are not going to allow holders, they should allow us to use our own blocks. I believe there were at least two other block issues in other races.

We had an anything that could go wrong did go wrong end to a season where we could have won the state, and this was a big reason. Took us out of 4 high scoring events.

Is this something that we can do something about, or is it really up to the meet management? Fitch does a nice job and this was somewhat fluky, but It's the only meet the entire season we are not allowed to have block holders and I find that unacceptable. I'm not thrilled that we can't use our own blocks, but I can live with that. I understand not wanting to check spikes for every block. Not allowing block holders even after a rain delay is negligent IMO. Not just for my kids, but for all kids.
 
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Rule 3-2-4 says the games committee may provide batons, starting blocks, and throwing implements.
Rule 5-7-7 allows the starter to authorize "an attendant to support or hold the blocks."

At the Regional level, the games committee SHOULD include a boys coach and a girls coach. Use those contacts to convince the rest of the GC to allow other blocks. Alternatively, there are several decisions that are reserved for the GC in the rule book that are essentially decided by Columbus at the Regional and State levels. Ask the OATCCC to get allowing other blocks included in those decisions.

If that doesn't help, ask the starter to authorize block holders. The GC has no authority to disallow this. This is authorized solely by the starter. (Note that neither the GC nor the referee has no authority to allow this either. If you have a thick-headed starter...he or she is the boss when it comes to this).
 
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Thanks. It was one of those things that happened too fast last year. I will let it be know ahead of time that at a minimum, we wish to use block holders with the starter. We literally had someone in every event at the Regional and there were a lot of things to take care of after the rain delay making sure all the kids knew what was going on. Had I been paying more attention, I would have tried to insist on block holders, but the race started before I even thought about it. Live and learn. I was very disappointed with myself. I under coach more than over coach, and I do not get wrapped up in the blocks and stuff like that. The kids usually can work all that out. We had a lot of moving parts in relays and the 100 was on autopilot and then BAM all plans blown up.
 
Weight room tracking.

We are old school in that I just pass out what I have planned for the kids on 3 sheets of paper at the start of the season that they can fill out or not fill out. I don't really stress over it. Just like on the track, if they want to get better, they will put the work in. I do not micro-manage. We might also write some special things on a white board for a specific day. Throws coach does that every day. I put the entire season on paper so that Football kids and coaches could see what we were doing and see that it's beneficial to them to come out for track and field. Waste of time.

My question is, do any of you use apps the kids can pull up on their phones to track weight room progress? Is it any better than just a piece of paper? Just trying to think if there are ways to engage all of the kids. I'm not a weight room guy. I almost have to force myself to go in there to show the kids I'm interested. I pair kids up, give them what I expect them to do and hope they do it. Eventually, they pair themselves up in different pairs or groups. I really can't demonstrate things anymore, so I just sort of observe and encourage. Is there something to make something I can't stand, better and more interesting/ fun for the kids? What I am doing seems to be working, but it could be a lot better IMO. I've got my track stuff down. Still working on long jump. We don't do as good a job there as we should.

How do we engage track and field kids in the weight room?
 
psycho_dad said:
Weight room tracking.

We are old school in that I just pass out what I have planned for the kids on 3 sheets of paper at the start of the season that they can fill out or not fill out. I don't really stress over it. Just like on the track, if they want to get better, they will put the work in. I do not micro-manage. We might also write some special things on a white board for a specific day. Throws coach does that every day. I put the entire season on paper so that Football kids and coaches could see what we were doing and see that it's beneficial to them to come out for track and field. Waste of time.

My question is, do any of you use apps the kids can pull up on their phones to track weight room progress? Is it any better than just a piece of paper? Just trying to think if there are ways to engage all of the kids. I'm not a weight room guy. I almost have to force myself to go in there to show the kids I'm interested. I pair kids up, give them what I expect them to do and hope they do it. Eventually, they pair themselves up in different pairs or groups. I really can't demonstrate things anymore, so I just sort of observe and encourage. Is there something to make something I can't stand, better and more interesting/ fun for the kids? What I am doing seems to be working, but it could be a lot better IMO. I've got my track stuff down. Still working on long jump. We don't do as good a job there as we should.

How do we engage track and field kids in the weight room?
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Like most things, the best choice is finding someone to run the weight room who (a) knows what they are doing and (b) is enthusiastic about it. We got lucky a couple of years ago when the district decided to hire someone from an outside company to run weight room sessions. Before that we were also lucky, and had an assistant coach (former athlete from our team) who was enthusiastic about the weight room. Having someone knowledgeable and enthusiastic is the best choice.

But if you are not lucky (see the couple decades pre-2019) enough to have a good weight room coach fall into your lap, here are things we did that seemed to help.
• Keep sessions shorter. Our standard summer evening weight room sessions were 40 minutes. Hour max. It makes it easier on you and easier for the kids to stay focused and enthusiastic. Having a short time period forces them to get to business.
• Talk to people who know what they are doing to get a good plan. We had a football coach who is very knowledgable about lifting, and I would get his advice a lot.
• Appoint a couple of weight room captains. This helps a ton in lowering your stress level. And you can lean on them for enthusiasm.
• I would use the last 10-15 minutes of off season lifting to talk about race strategy and other things running with kids who wanted to chat. I would look forward to that and it seemed like the kids did too.
• Focus on getting the most enthusiastic kids a good experience. Over time, more kids will engage because they want to be better.
• We don't mandate the weight room. The unfocused, unenthusiastic kids just suck up your attention and don't generally get much benefit.
• Apps are useful, and by all means kids who like them should use them. But a lot of our kids just use their paper running log to record their work as well. We do use the whiteboard to write out the day's lifts for them.
 
When I coached, I wrote the programs, dictated what an athlete would lift on a given day based upon my evaluation of where they were strength-wise at any given point in time. I micro-managed as I knew how important it was to control a weight room environment in many ways. No way, no how, would I allow minor athletes to control their own strength-condition programs.
 
For my sprinters, I have a written program. General outline for off season. That is really only for kids that do not do other sports. If they do other sports, I do not get involved until they start Track practice. They have the general outline with written explanations of what and why. Once they leave me in June, they go to football, wrestling, Basketball, XC and I have very little contact. I have a written explanation of what to do in the summer and Winter but it is general. Then, I have a specific in season plan. Detailed and written out. It's been working ok. Our performances have been very good. The problem I have is that during the track season, I don't have a 100% buy in to the weight room. I have kids I just don't seem to get engaged.

I do allow the kids to own their plan. I plan it out and give them the tools, but then it is up to them. I will step in and offer advice and will help modify the plan for an individual if they need and ask, but each kid is as much in charge of executing their plan as I am. Same on the Track. I have a workout and if they pull themselves out, I don't get bent out of shape. They know what we were supposed to get done and I continue without them. They will make it up if they are motivated/ dedicated.

We do not have a strength / Weight room person, so it's on the coaches for now. Multiple sports using a pretty limited space. I'm just wondering if there are specific APPs the kids like and help or if the way we are doing it is as good as we can hope. Again, not my favorite place to be, so ways to make it better is the goal.
 
Long Jump

We/ I have done a terrible job of developing Long Jumpers. I think we do a very good job in nearly every other event, but Long Jump escapes us.

For the boys, our best jumpers at the end of the season are our 3, 4, 5th sprinter that has an event. I will throw them in the last meet before conference and they will outperform our normal jumpers every time. Now, we have started to have them learn more technique in MS, but that just started last season. I know with every other event, it's a 4 year process and perhaps we pull the plug on guys too soon, but we have had maybe 1 kid long jump as a freshman and as a senior and be any good at it. Our school record holder just got thrown into the event as a senior.

Do we need to come up with year long training and by god stick with it for 4 years. (The problem there is that the kids will develop as Regional Qualifiers in 4 other events before they are even close in the LJ) We have had success with our 6th 800m runner jumping 20', but have not gotten that kid that we can put over there and consistently win with.

What is the plan?
 
psycho_dad said:
Long Jump

We/ I have done a terrible job of developing Long Jumpers. I think we do a very good job in nearly every other event, but Long Jump escapes us.

For the boys, our best jumpers at the end of the season are our 3, 4, 5th sprinter that has an event. I will throw them in the last meet before conference and they will outperform our normal jumpers every time. Now, we have started to have them learn more technique in MS, but that just started last season. I know with every other event, it's a 4 year process and perhaps we pull the plug on guys too soon, but we have had maybe 1 kid long jump as a freshman and as a senior and be any good at it. Our school record holder just got thrown into the event as a senior.

Do we need to come up with year long training and by god stick with it for 4 years. (The problem there is that the kids will develop as Regional Qualifiers in 4 other events before they are even close in the LJ) We have had success with our 6th 800m runner jumping 20', but have not gotten that kid that we can put over there and consistently win with.

What is the plan?
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Long Jumpers are sprinters first. They should be training with the sprinters most of the time. A good long jumper is someone that is fast has a good "pop". If you find kids with that attributes, train them as a sprinter so their "pop" can be unleashed with their newfound speed.

In terms of certain training methods/drills. We have done sled pulls with 10% of the athlete's bodyweight for 30-50 yards with at least 4 minutes recovery in between each. With really no more than 6-8 reps. This is something that should be done twice a week in the preseason and the beginning part of the year and concluded by mid-season. We also do a lot of falling box jumps, start on one box and land with both feet on the ground then immediately jump and onto another taller box. The goal is to be on the ground the shortest amount of time as possible. This is a great drill to do throughout the season.

Long jumping is definitely one of those events where less is more. Targeted training with days in between with no jumping is key. This keeps them fresh and saves that "pop".

Long jump is also one of those events where you will see increased results with taking meets off. You should really only jump one meet a week. And at some point in the season take a whole week off of long jumping, even in training. Usually about one or two weeks before the conference meet.
 
Look for kids that aren't just "fast", but have coordination. I've seen tons of fast kids over the years that have extremely little coordination in events other than sprinting. Good hurdlers typically can do multiple events because their natural coordination. They are in fact the prototype athletes to recruit into the decathlon because of their overall abilities. Long jumping is one of them.
 
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