Spring 2022. Team England warm weather training camp

After a day of training, and then some relaxation on the beach and in the sea, our two Commonwealth Games bound athletes are back at the team hotel and having refuelled they are now enjoying a relaxing massage with the team physios. Sat in the corner of the treatment room is their team coach who has one eye on the tv but who is enjoying some idle chat with the athletes.

As her calves are being worked on the treatment table, the female marathoner asks him “So you’ve told us what biokinetics is and why its important, but you promised to tell us more about how to improve it”.

Fundamental Movement Patterns

Turning the sound on the tv down, the coach replies, “We need to work on your fundamental movement patterns. Things including bracing, hinging, squatting and lunging, which will develop that optimal stiffness of your kinetic chain that I was talking about. As you achieve competence with some FMP movements we can progress through double leg to single leg squat; I will be looking for the triple extension and triple flexion via ROM through ankle, knee and hip in squat”.

Lunges once perfected can also be challenged with forward and reverse movement and with medicine balls thrown from a stable base- centre of mass over base support. The female marathoner asks, “So what will this do for me?’” Enthusiastically, he replies that, “This kind of work will help develop trunk control and when you are physically competent enough, the conditioning can be increased with the aid of resistance- but you have to earn the right to progress”.

Plyometrics

The coach continues that, “I’d like you to spend more time with your boyfriend- on the track I mean!”. With a bemused look the female marathoner says, “But he’s a speed-based athlete and I’m endurance based”. The coach fires back saying, “You will find that by undertaking things maximal short sprints more regularly and coupled with things like pogo / countermovement jumps, hop and stick and jumping to a low box, that you will improve your physical prep work in terms of strength and mobility”.

The female marathoner nods in agreement and asks, “So what are we both doing at the track tomorrow?”. The coach prescribes that, “You can both work on foot drills which will strengthen your feet around the big toe joints and after you’ve activated those muscles and tendons you can move on to mobilising through hurdles drills which will help with hip mobility”.

Multi-terrain and hill running

The female marathoner then asks, “So after all those drills in the warm up phase of my session, what’s my main session”. He replies, “After you’ve done a few alactic sprints on the track we will get you out onto the trails, not only to build some more strength endurance but because running the inclines and declines over the trails helps with your biokinetics too, by having to adjust your kinetic chain stiffness”.

Footwear

Her massage being finished and in grabbing her towel in preparation to head off to her hotel room for a good night’s sleep, the female marathoner fires one last question to the team coach. “Anything I need to know about kit for tomorrow?”, she asks. He responds, “Bring a couple of pairs of trainers, your racing shoes and your spikes and we will mix up what you wear as we progress from the warm-up to the main session on the trails.

Be prepared, additionally to do some barefoot strides on the grass infield of the track as part of the warm-up as I’ve checked the grass is safe to use. This is because over time it will improve your balance and proprioception”. (See Thompson, P.J.L. 2021). The female marathoner replies, “How come?”. He continues that, “If appropriate for the individual athlete then going barefoot activates the smaller muscles in the feet, ankles, legs, and hips that are responsible for better balance and coordination”.

Questions for self-reflection

1. Why is an understanding of the biokinetics of healthy movement important for me to understand as runner?
2. Where are the particular points in my periodised macro-cycle of training which give me the opportunity to focus more extensively on my fundamental movement patterns- perhaps when returning from injury; when tapering for competition or when returning to training after a period of rest and recuperation?
3. When in my microcyles of training is there an opportunity to work on some of the drills and practices alluded to above? Where are my best windows of opportunity?
4. How will I monitor the success of the training of my fundamental movement patterns? Is it solely based on my performances or are there indicators of process such as the ‘feeling’ I have when running and kinaesthetic feedback which lets me know that my running economy and efficiency have improved?

Reference

Thompson, P.J.L. (2021) ‘Biokinetic energy – identifying the fourth energy system for all track & field events’. Techniques for Track & Field and Cross Country, USTFCCCA, 14 (4): 8-13. This is the Technical Journal of the United States Track & Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) available free of charge at this link:

Mark Brace (mbrace@englandathletics.org) and Darren Reevell (dreeevell@englandathletics.org) are Regional Coach Leads for Endurance who have served as England Team Managers. Matt Long is a Midlands Team Manager for Road, Cross Country and Masters and Mentee Team Manager on the England Athletics Staff Training Programme and welcomes contact for support at mattlongcoach@gmail.com

The post The ‘Now What?’ of biokinetics appeared first on Fast Running.

You can catch up the the first article here.

Spring 2022. Team England warm weather training camp

After splashing about in the sea following a hard day’s work at the track, our two Birmingham Commonwealth Games bound athletes have made it back to their car and are enjoying the ride as they are chauffeured back to the hotel by one of their team coaches.

The female marathoner is teasing her sprints-based boyfriend who half an hour earlier you may recall fell flat onto his face in sprinting across tarmac onto the soft sand. In concentrating on his driving, the team coach has discarded the article he has been reading on ‘biokinetics’ and the female marathoner has begun to flick through it. Her boyfriend has by now fallen asleep in the back seat and after becoming bored as the minutes tick by, the female marathoner runner recalls the promise of the team coach to help her understand what he termed ‘optimal stiffness’.

Optimal stiffness

With a laugh the wise old team coach tells his budding marathoner – “Of course you should still do your static stretching after every session. When I say ‘stiffness’, I’m talking about something different – optimal and adaptable stiffness of the kinetic chain”. (See Thompson, P.J.L., 2021).

With a quizzical look she asks, “So why is that important?”. He responds, “It needs to be optimal because too much stiffness and you will end up with bone injuries and too little stiffness can lead to soft tissue injuries”. Suddenly wide awake, her sprints-based boyfriend calls from the back seat, “We don’t want to get injured and miss Birmingham 2022 do we?”. With a chuckle, the coach responds, “Hold fire its not just about injury prevention – biokinetics can help your performance when you both get to the start line at the Alexander stadium”.

Performance gains

The knowledgeable coach says, “When the both of you run, whilst sprinting biomechanics and endurance running are slightly different in terms of the technical templates we coaches use, they do share considerable commonalities. Both of you, for example, need to keep your centre of mass stable whilst running at speed”.

“So how else can an understanding of biokinetics help me?”, says the intrigued female marathoner. “Its not just about a stable centre of mass”, replies the coach, “it will help you minimise ground contact time. The longer your foot is on the ground the more you are slowing down a bit like me hitting the breaks on this car”. After a pause, the female marathoner responds with a further question – “So if I get into this biokinetics stuff will I feel any fresher during the marathon around the streets of Birmingham?”

The coach responds, “It’s quite possible you will because you can expect to see an improvement in your running economy. It helps facilitate what we call ‘metabolic energy sparing’”. “What does that mean?”, responds the marathoner. Before he has the chance to reply, her sprinter boyfriend interrupts saying, “It basically means you get improved running performance from the same metabolic energy – at any speed of running.”

With a touch of sarcasm she responds, “And how come you seem to know more about this than I do clever-clogs?”. As her boyfriend shrugs, the coach responds that, “It’s probably because he is a sprints-based event group athlete whereas you are endurance based”.

What the endurance community can learn from sprints, jump and throws based athletes

The coach continues to explain that, “the problem is with the endurance community is we tend to focus too much on the volume of our work. In terms of the five key components of fitness we are more inclined to put our proverbial eggs in the baskets of endurance and speed but less inclined to take care of strength, co-ordination and flexibility”. After reflecting, the female marathoner nods in agreement saying, “Yes we all tend to talk about what’s on our Garmin and how our last long run went I guess”.

She then asks, “So how are you trying to change this as a coach”. With a sigh he responds – “all of us in the endurance community can begin to change the sorts of conversations we have in changing rooms after we’ve run or over meals in this training camp. Rather than you endurance athletes asking each other about your session splits you should try engendering conversations about how your latest S&C session went; how well you did on your last stretching to extend the range of motion session or even how you’d score yourselves out of 10 in terms of effecting the drills during a recent warm up”.

The female marathoner nods once more in affirmation as the coach pulls up at the team hotel car park and they prepare to head back inside. The marathoner asks the team coach, “you’ve told me what biokinetics is and now I get why it’s important but when are you going to tell me how to improve my biokentic capabilities?”. With a friendly grin he says. “Lets go grab some food and then when the physios are giving you both your massages, we’ll talk more in the treatment room”…..

Reference

Thompson, P.J.L. (2021) ‘Biokinetic energy – identifying the fourth energy system for all track & field events’. Techniques for Track & Field and Cross Country, USTFCCCA, 14 (4): 8-13.
This is the Technical Journal of the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) available free of charge at this link:

Darren Reevell (dreevell@englandathletics.org) and Mark Brace (mbrace@englandathletics.org) are Regional Coach Leads for Endurance who have served as England Team Managers. Matt Long is a Midlands Team Manager for Road, Cross Country and Masters and Mentee Team Manager on the England Athletics Staff Training Programme and welcomes contact for support at mattlongcoach@gmail.com

The post The ‘so what’ of biokinetics appeared first on Fast Running.

Spring 2022. Team England warm weather training camp

In the post pandemic world, a couple of Team England athletes are away on a warm weather training camp in anticipation of hard-earned selection for the summer’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. After a hard day’s work at the training track they decide to head to the sea to cool off for a dip.

Together with a team coach, they park their vehicle in the concrete paved car park and lock up carrying their towels and a couple of folded up deck chairs under their arms. The female athlete is a marathon runner who begins to break into a steady run as she excitedly spots the blue waves and she gently strides across the concrete strip towards the sand in between the car park and the sea. She momentarily stumbles as her bare feet touch the sand with her knees buckling ever so slightly before she composes himself and manages to regain her relaxed stride.

As she dives into the sea to refresh herself, she catches her breath after immersing her head under water and pops up out of the foam waving to her boyfriend who is a 200m runner and who excitedly sprints to catch up with her in waves fully intending to join her in her playful swim. He belts across the concrete with a smile on his face but stumbles and falls flat on his face as he hits the soft sand.

Momentarily his girlfriend is concerned that he has injured himself but he soon springs to his feet with an embarrassed laugh, dusts the sand off his shorts and picks up his sunglasses, eventually finishing off in the arms of his girlfriend having walked across the rest of the sand into the sea.

The team coach is by now sat on the sand, shaking his head in bemusement. He has his head buried in a coaching magazine and is doing some prep on what’s referred to by Oregon based coach Peter Thompson as ‘biokinetics’. (Thompson, P.J.L., 2016).

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Biokinetics

‘Biokinetics’ is a term which is distinctive from metabolic energy systems which we are taught about on coaching courses and sports science degrees. In terms of the way in which we conceive of the aerobic, lactate and alactic capabilities of athletes – we call this ‘bioenergetics’.

On the other hand, the energy gained from internal kinetic sources is labelled as ‘biokinetics’ and is underpinned by knowledge that how the whole kinetic chain operates is critical. It requires an appreciation of elasticity and reactivity simply because all athletic events whether running, jumping or throwing involve rapid acceleration of force in order to move the mass of an athletic body. In terms of running, for example, basically the shorter the ground contact time is, the faster one can run with the same metabolic energy.

The internal elastic response with the ground which the athlete can generate releases biokinetic energy. It involves the hip, knee, ankle and foot joints and furthermore as a starting point the elastic properties of the tendon and aponeuroses need to be understood.

Tendons and Aponeuroses

An understanding of the role of tendons is important. They are shiny white and opaque like a rope and their primary function is to connect muscles to bones. Additionally, the role of the Aponeuroses is important as a white transparent sheath which acts as a collagenous connective tissue, which may involve muscles but can connect bone to bone.

They both have elastic properties that can return or amplify forces with the key difference being that tendons are uniaxial whereas the aponeuroses are multi-axial the latter of which is pivotal when multi-directional movements are required.

Postscript

The two athletes finish their refreshing splash about in the sea and return to the beach to towel off and enjoy a fruit juice with the team coach who has been reading his coaching article. “Did you trip on something on the sand?” asks the female marathon runner, recalling the fall of her boyfriend several minutes earlier.

“I don’t know what happened”, he replies. At this point the team coach drops the article on biokinetics into his lap. He pauses, takes a swig of his drink before adding with wisdom – “You didn’t trip on anything. It’s because you were sprinting and she was jogging that your kinetic chain could not adapt in time to the stiffness required to run over the sand”.

With a frown on her face the female marathon runner exclaims, “Stiffness – I thought you wanted me to be more flexible?”. With a laugh the coach responds, “I mean a different kind of stiffness – I mean optimal stiffness of the kinetic chain. I’ll explain it as we drive back to the team hotel”.

The trio head back across the sand to the concrete car park- article two takes a back seat ride with them.

Reference

Thompson, P.J.L. (2016) Current Perspectives of Biokinetics in Middle and Long Distance Running – An Examination of the ‘Elastic Response. IAAF New Studies in Athletics. 31:1/2; 25-40. Available at:
https://worldathletics.org/nsa/article/filter?&authorId=5461fcc71111ff42acac6c37

Matt Long is a Midlands Team Manager for Road, Cross Country and Masters and welcomes contact at mattlongcoach@gmail.com.

Darren Reevell (dreevell@englandathletics.org) and Mark Brace (mbrace@englandathletics.org) are Regional Coach Leads for endurance who have both been England Team Managers at various domestic and international competitions.

The post Beach of biokinetics appeared first on Fast Running.