GPP = General Physical Preparedness

 Decathletes: geniuses of GPP

Off season athletes (of any sport) should do training that is non-specific to the sport they play. The training should be more generalized, other wise stated, the workouts you do should prepare you for any athletic event set before you. So your training should be such that you could run a 5k if someone asked in a decent time, or you could run a 100m in a decent time. You could do a horizontal athletic movement (front to back), or do a lateral athletic movement (side to side) just as well. Basically you are looking to do well at any number of events, and you will not run record times, throw record throws, or jump record height/distances.


Great sites that help with GPP are below. I'm sure there are many many more, and if anyone has any please put them in the comments.
www.crossfit.com
www.crossfitfootball.com
www.gymjones.com
www.crossfitendurance.com/
http://coachrut.blogspot.com/
http://www.cathletics.com

Most of these are Crossfit based. I am a big fan of Crossfit for GPP (not so much for specific training), although there are many other ways to achieve GPP. I would speak to a qualified trainer for more GPP training, or simply do a Google search for "General Physical Preparedness" and see what you come up with. Also, many of the sites above serve specific purposes, so I would recommend a mish mash of them--do one workout from one, the next day choose another (the first three choices on the list already do a nice job of mixing activities, so you could stick to the workouts posted on those sites).

Nack

Strongest American Teenager....EVER!

I don't know what to highlight about the below video: the fact that he is doing the lifts that I am sure make you a better athlete than any other lift (Squat, Snatch, and Clean&Jerk), or the fact that he is the Strongest American Teenager ever. I think I will go with the second, because anyone that has spent time with me in the weightroom knows how important I think the above mentioned lifts are to power/strength/speed athletes.

Imagine the hard work that this young man has put into this interest of his. I will not say that "anyone can do this", because that would be stupid; but there is no way he would have a 500+# clean&jerk (!!!) or a 440# snatch (!!!x10). The fact that he achieved these numbers means that he, most likely, had a good amount of coaching, but did a lot of work independently; ate a lot, but ate very well; did uncommon things, but did them uncommonly well; sacrificed "fun-time" for "work-time", but tell me he hasn't created his own fun in the process; and experienced a bunch of pain, but loved every minute of it. Never talked to the guy, but I bet he has bucket-loads of passion. Passion will take you a long way.



Remember the Nike commercial post from a couple of weeks ago? If so, great! If not, check in more often. Anyway, that commercial had the quote"Passion has a funny way of trumping logic." The logic before young Mr. Mendes was that the Americans could not have strong young weightlifters; the laughing stock of world Olympic Lifting--fodder of jokes for Germans, Chinese, and Bulgarians. This young man's passion has proven their "logic" wrong.

I hope, hope, hope you can draw a correlation from this young man's situation to that of your own. What do you think you have to do to reach levels that seem out of reach, but are humanly obtainable?

Nack

P.S., I might be coming off as somewhat of a music snob, but sorry again for the music in the video. I love cheesy 80s music, but come on! Here? Really?!?

High Jump: For the Gents

As I promised some time ago (has it been two weeks already?!?), below is a video of the progression of male high jumpers. This is the second part of this video, so please go to youtube if you wish to watch the first part.



This is a great video, that has many great examples of fabulous high jumpers. However, I would like to apologize for the music. Creed sucked, they still suck, and they always will suck. Terrible song. Also, the last song is Van Morrison and Tom Jones. Nothing says world class athletic performance like a duet between Morrison and Jones. What were Ronstadt and Bolton not available? I guess this is a good substitute.

I think the highlights of the video are numerous, but look at the videos of Javier Sotomayor from Cuba. Sotomayor is the world record holder in the high jump, and I believe the record has stood for around 16 years now. You can see a really good example of his jumps beginning at the 4:11 part of the video. Do what you can to watch his steps, his rhythm, his distinct phases, his speed, his arms, his bar clearance...all of it. He is the world record holder for a reason. His approach is much different than ours, but you can see some of the same principles in that we use imbedded in this much different approach. The number one thing I would like to point at is the "figure 4" running motion he gets on each step. He is on his toes. He lands with his foot directly under his center of gravity, and he is running tall. We talk about this alot, but rarely is it seen in as fine of form as it is here.

Also watch the part with Sotomayor at the 6:40 mark. Yet, another reason to not give up on a jump! He stretches that bar to the very limits, but because he is well-practiced and maintains his technique the bar stays on. (There is another video of him right after this one that I also love, because not only is it a beautiful jump, but he totally snubs the little kid that comes out to give him a high-five right afterwards. So awesome.) And then beginning at around the 8:30 mark is the world record jump. It speaks for itself.

Practice Tomorrow

If you check Coach Sep's blog you see that the distance kids are going to practice at 4pm. I think they waiting until the afternoon for all of this awful weather (????) and all this snow (????) to disappear. Because we are a team, I think it would be good for as many groups of us to be there at the same time.

So practice is on the track at 4pm for all jumpers and sprinters. I'm sure you want to keep it short and so do I, so be on time.

High jumpers, below is a video of what we'll be doing in practice:

So, I will need everyone to bring their camels, and wear their best jumping sarongs.

Just kidding (I know I had a couple of you going...I'm looking at you Paige, and Colin)

Seriously, tomorrow's practice will be no joke. It will be intense. Intense in a way that lets me define intensity. You see, workouts can typically be defined by the amount of volume or intensity they possess.

• Volume is the amount of work which you do in a workout. So a workout with high volume would be running eight 1000m intervals like our stud distance crew does. This is a lot of volume as defined by the number of meters they run, and the number of footfalls it takes to do those runs. Rest time is usually low (compared to intensity) in this workout domain.
• Intensity is the amount of energy put into a short effort. A workout with high intensity would be doing 5-8 thirty meter starts with a great concentration on the production of force over the short period of time that it would take to run 30 meters. Rest is usually high in this workout domain.

Tomorrow's workout will be intense in that we will not do a ton of jumps, but will do few at very high quality. In fact, we are going for near PR/PR heights. Tomorrow's practice will be a meet simulation. It will be a competition, but competition against only yourself. Focus is a must.

See you tomorrow at 4pm.

Coach Nack

Combined Emphasis Workout

Below is a workout from Flotrack.com featuring Carolina Kluft. In this one workout she works on the high jump, power (with hurdle jumping--these are our plyos), and a little endurance work (600m run x1).

You may consider this a long video, and you may be wanting to get to your homework, so I'll boil it down to the essentials for you.

1. From 2:15-3:25 point of the video. You see her take a good number of jumps, but what I would like to highlight is her running form. This is what I picture when we discuss approach runs (minus her skip/ stutter steps), instead of the bounding type approaches we use.
2. From around the 4:00-5:35 point of the video. Kluft performs hurdle hops. I like the jumping itself, but I love her explanation of it afterwards. You can see the value she holds for her training.

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

We all cannot do what this world-class athlete can do as far as times, heights, and distances. However, we can simulate her efforts with dedication to the work, and scaling of the training to fit our needs.

Nack

Runner's Roost @ RMHS for 3.27.10 postponed

Yes, again our meet for this week has been postponed, but at least it came with plenty of notice.

We will be attending the meet when it is held on Monday 3.29.10, beginning at 10:30am.

Entries remain the same for CHS High Jumpers:

Ladies

• Grimm
• Bacovcin

Mens

• Reasoner
• Bills

Be prepared to leave the school around 8am. I have no idea what time we will be returning, but I would potentially plan on having a late night.

This works to our advantage, I believe. Given that we are coming off of Spring Break, which is one practice disturbance, and with all the recent weather providing plenty of other distractions, it is probably best we get some more practice time in. For now the plan is to have practice on Friday and Saturday, both at 9am. See you then, unless further notified.

Most importantly let's plan on getting PRs, victories, and state placements at the Runner's Roost invite on Monday!

Guest coach on Monday 3.22.10

This is not Coach Lozier, but you have to think that height is close

On Monday we had an awesome guest coach stop by our high jump practice, Jeff Lozier (spelling?). Jeff is one of our athletes' uncles and was able to provide some much needed insight that I could never adequately provide, and that is that he actually competed at this event. As a matter of fact, he did so very well. With a PR of 7'6" how could we not listen and learn.

Coach Lozier pretty much took over the practice from the beginning and introduced the athletes to some new warm-ups that involved medicine balls, cones, and speed ladders. The focus of the warm-up was on preparing the athletes for the explosiveness that comes with jumping. The progression:

• Med ball underhand forward throw
• Med ball overhead throw
• Butt kicks for reps over ten meters
• High knees with hamstring kick over cones
• Fall in runs through a progressively sized ladder (loved this drill, esp. for LJers & TJers)

From there we went to the jump apron and worked on circle runs. We started at 17' of radius in the circle, and we ran inside the circle, which was new to me and I loved it. Total of 4 circle runs.

Then came the heart of the practice--approaches and full jumps. Coach Lozier gave all the athletes detailed evaluation of their approaches, specifically in the curve. He was amazingly patient given the recent changes all of the athletes have made to their marks, and as a result their starting marks (the athletes were also patient, bravo!). Takeaways from this:

• We. Must. Jump. Up. (not into the pit)
• The curves significance- this should sound familiar
  
• Measuring your mark- confirm your measurements at all meets with measuring the three sides of the triangle
• Curve initiation mark- I usually wait a few more weeks to introduce this, but it is good to hear it now

Coach Lozier provided personal experience with what it takes to reach high heights and go beyond what we think we can. It is not easy, and nothing is guaranteed, but attention, hard work, and dedication will take you further than you may think. Remember, talent is overrated.

Panther Invite cancellation and Spring Break Practice

The Panther Invitational scheduled for Saturday March 20, 2010 at Harrison High School has been postponed, and we will not be making this meet up.

This leaves one less state qualifying chance for the athletes, and means that we need all the greater focus and effort in our following meets and practices to make up for this loss.

With all the great work we have seen so far this season, tomorrow's postponement is most likely a bump in the road that we will overcome.

Be sure to communicate with your individual discipline coaches on when you have practice during Spring break.

High jumpers have practice Monday - Friday at 9am, at the track. The same training plan that we have had will apply--runs, jumps, plyometrics, and weights.