A finishing kick?

Letyourselfgo

Just wondering is it something that you either possess or don't.
Is it something that can be worked on and if so how?

ecoli

Letyourselfgo wrote: »

Just wondering is it something that you either possess or don't.
Is it something that can be worked on and if so how?

Definitely something which can be worked on. Should it be is the question?

If you are running anything from 800m up unless you are racing championships that are slow tactical affairs why would you. If you are chasing PBs then there is more benefit yielded from developing your overall fitness.

Take a 1500m for example is it easier to improve 1300m by 2-3 seconds or the last 200. Strength will bring out a kick if you have one and if not then look at look to weights, plyos, sprint sessions and biomechanics as part of improving your over all form and running fitness.

No point in being able to out kick someone if they leave you for dead a couple of hundred metres earlier in the race

Letyourselfgo

It's with championship races in mind and not me
Just having watched a few of the 800 indoor finals over the weekend, there were just a couple of girls who were up with the lead and with a 100m to go were left for dead.

ecoli

Letyourselfgo wrote: »

It's with championship races in mind and not me
Just having watched a few of the 800 indoor finals over the weekend, there were just a couple of girls who were up with the lead and with a 100m to go were left for dead.

At the younger ages you will find that given that 800m is the longest distance (at these age groups). Again here I would imagine this is down to strength and you will see many of these athletes who are blowing people away in the last hundred are simply more distance runners by nature and will gravitate to the longer distances when they get older

What I would say is having change of pace style sessions can help for a longer distance runner who is not used to changing gears

Pisco Sour

Fionnuala Britton, who has never been known for her speed, has been doing a lot more speed stuff of late (racing a lot of shorter distances etc) and it seems to be working. 12 months ago she would not have outkicked the field like she did in her recent European Cross Country victory.

Same with Radcliffe. Never had much of a kick, but it did improve as the years went on (remember her outsprinting Wami at World Cross in 2001).

Of course, put these athletes up against a Sonia and they have no chance.

ecoli

Pisco Sour wrote: »

Fionnuala Britton, who has never been known for her speed, has been doing a lot more speed stuff of late (racing a lot of shorter distances etc) and it seems to be working. 12 months ago she would not have outkicked the field like she did in her recent European Cross Country victory.

Same with Radcliffe. Never had much of a kick, but it did improve as the years went on (remember her outsprinting Wami at World Cross in 2001).

Of course, put these athletes up against a Sonia and they have no chance.

Has she been doing alot more speed stuff? From everything I know the change in focus to 5k and the aim to develop aerobic capacity had been the main focus when she moved to Chris Jones.

Similarly Radcliffe was switching focus more so to the 10k over the years building up to this.

I am not saying there is no place for speed development in training what I am saying is normally it is the stronger athlete who is able to implement their kick to the best of their ability. Your not gonna have a kick if you are dying from the hard effort in the early parts of the race (Tadese would be an example of always driving the pace in Championship races and then being beaten for the pace change)

dna_leri

See this article from Steve Magness on How to train a kick.

Some key points I picked out:

• What we ideally do is look at what each runners strengths and weaknesses are in terms of why they can or can not kick, place the emphasis on developing that attribute, but make sure we cover the opposite side too.
• Essentially we need to get to the “kicking point” as aerobic as we can without delving deeper and deeper into our anaerobic and muscle fiber reserves. To do this, we’ve got to build the aerobic system.
• The other main component of a kick is having the ability to recruit additional muscle fibers when fatigued and call upon our anaerobic energy reserves.
• Doing this stuff on it’s own is easy. You might have the best sprint mechanics, be highly aerobic at race pace, and all that jazz, but the ability to transition from your race pace to the final 200m or so is often what separates the kickers from the non-kickers.

Clearlier

There's no kick in the vast majority of 800m races. The athlete that wins is the one that slows the least.

Bearing that in mind there's two ways that I know of to improve your kick at longer distances.

1. Improve your aerobic fitness so that you delay as long as possible the move in to anaerobic territory.

2. Improve your max speed.

I suspect that many athletes make the mistake of going after no.2 instead of no.1.

I never understood the point of an athlete looking to make the step up to elite international level with something like a 3:45 1500m pb spending much time on improving max speed. If you want to mix it up at elite international level then you have to be able to run in the low 3:30's even if you're running in a tactical race that is won in 3:4x.

Letyourselfgo

Clearlier wrote: »

There's no kick in the vast majority of 800m races. The athlete that wins is the one that slows the least.

Sorry I should have mentioned earlier that the race in question was u14 level so maybe their 800 would be more comparative with 1500/3000. It was just amazing to see how much of a gap the kickers opened over the last 100m.

Just I coach a few kids myself but am new enough to it, just seems that a kick is a very useful tool and if it's sth that one can acquire, well even better.

ecoli

Clearlier wrote: »

There's no kick in the vast majority of 800m races. The athlete that wins is the one that slows the least.

Unless your Yuriy Borzakovskiy

RayCun

Letyourselfgo wrote: »

Sorry I should have mentioned earlier that the race in question was u14 level so maybe their 800 would be more comparative with 1500/3000. It was just amazing to see how much of a gap the kickers opened over the last 100m.

With a lot of those kids, they're not used to racing the distance, they have no idea how to pace it. So they go out hell for leather and die slowly in the last lap. The ones who kick on, as the guys said above, are the ones who didn't kill themselves early in the race.

TFBubendorfer

ecoli wrote: »

If you are chasing PBs then there is more benefit yielded from developing your overall fitness.

I don't deny that statement, but when I got outkicked for the win at the end of a 30-mile race in an absolute mad sprint to the finish line, only a few months ago, I clearly learned about the benefits of having a finishing kick (or the disadvantage of not having one, to be more precise).

Having said that, I am perfectly aware that I do not have any natural pace, so when I was racing a guy for some prize money in a 15 mile race 2 years ago, I went hell for leather with about 1 km to go and left him for dead. Weakness in one area can be overcome with the appropriate tactic if you're getting it right.

dna_leri

Clearlier wrote: »

There's no kick in the vast majority of 800m races. The athlete that wins is the one that slows the least.

Bearing that in mind there's two ways that I know of to improve your kick at longer distances.

1. Improve your aerobic fitness so that you delay as long as possible the move in to anaerobic territory.

2. Improve your max speed.

I suspect that many athletes make the mistake of going after no.2 instead of no.1.

I never understood the point of an athlete looking to make the step up to elite international level with something like a 3:45 1500m pb spending much time on improving max speed. If you want to mix it up at elite international level then you have to be able to run in the low 3:30's even if you're running in a tactical race that is won in 3:4x.

There is still a point in improving your max speed.

e.g. Using your 100m time as a reference for your max speed. If your 100m time is 13.0s and your 800m time is 2:02.4, you are running at 85% of your max speed.

Now if you improve your max speed to 12.5 for 100m, then running at 85% of your max speed will bring you home in 1:57.6 or 82% effort for 2:02.0

We could argue about how well the 100m time will translate upwards but if you have increased your max speed you are running at relatively less effort.

I am surprised how slow some middle-distance guys are over 100m. You have got to attack the problem from multiple different directions.

Caveat: Different guideline may apply to 13 year olds running 800m. They should be in the "Training to Train Phase" of their Long Term Development where they are still learning sport specific skills and developing both endurance and strength.

Rogue Runner

ecoli wrote: »

Has she been doing alot more speed stuff? From everything I know the change in focus to 5k and the aim to develop aerobic capacity had been the main focus when she moved to Chris Jones.

You're right Ecoli. The focus of her training was switched to longer aerobic runs.

ecoli

dna_leri wrote: »

There is still a point in improving your max speed.

e.g. Using your 100m time as a reference for your max speed. If your 100m time is 13.0s and your 800m time is 2:02.4, you are running at 85% of your max speed.

Now if you improve your max speed to 12.5 for 100m, then running at 85% of your max speed will bring you home in 1:57.6 or 82% effort for 2:02.0

We could argue about how well the 100m time will translate upwards but if you have increased your max speed you are running at relatively less effort.

I am surprised how slow some middle-distance guys are over 100m. You have got to attack the problem from multiple different directions.

You definitely have a point and are right at the advantages of improving top speed as part of an overall part of your training plan (though dropping your 100m time by half a second could take a considerable amount of effort to the point where it might impact on the overall emphasis of your training)

Your last line sums it up though many ways to improve your performance the trick is to find out what is going to yield maximum benefit in relation to effort put in

woodchopper

Rogue Runner wrote: »

You're right Ecoli. The focus of her training was switched to longer aerobic runs.

Any more information on her training or Chris Jones coaching philosophy?

Rogue Runner

Chris gave a talk at our club a year or so ago. More LSRs were added to her training coupled with longer interval reps with less recovery time. He also worked with her on her form and stride pattern.

ecoli

woodchopper wrote: »

Any more information on her training or Chris Jones coaching philosophy?

http://www.athleticsweekly.com/coaching/how-they-train-fionnuala-britton/

I would say a few of the specifics missing as with most of these articles but still gives a general outline

tergat

Letyourselfgo wrote: »

Just wondering is it something that you either possess or don't.
Is it something that can be worked on and if so how?

Letyourselfgo,

I am going to come at this from a slightly different angle. Training specific "fiber types" to achieve greater strength, recruitment coordination, and race-specific conversion leads to many running benefits, including:

Muscle fibers that can produce more force;
Muscle fibers that can fire at a faster rate;
Improved stride efficiency;
Improved energy efficiency;
Improved speed; and
Improved endurance


Understanding muscle fibers allows us to design workouts that target specific fiber types, train them at the correct intensity and for the proper duration, and ensure maximum adaptation. Force, not speed, determines how many motor unit fibers are activated. Even though you turn your legs over faster on the flat, speed doesn't determine activation of fibers. Force does. That's why hill sprints are great.

Knowing that we can strengthen our muscle fibers, it stands to reason that we'd want to strengthen all of them. Yet many runners don't. Distance runners who focus solely on volume miss the opportunity to strengthen intermediate and fast twitch fibers.

Recruiting and then strengthening all three types of muscle fibers is essential to achieving our best running. Of course, we have to be sensible in how we structure this training. We can't train fast-twitch every day, because fibers have only so much adaptive energy. As for the slow twitch fibers, you can't stimulate them completely with short, high-quality workouts. They require a combination of low intensity and long duration to get maximum training effect.

Remember, learning to run quickly requires skill, which improves rapidly with small doses of fast running using excellent form and technique.

Tergat