Norwegian Athletics Training Conference

November 20 - 22 there was a very useful training conference at the Norwegian School of Sports Science. Here are some of the main highlights.

Vincenzo Canali - "Postural Base of Sport", this was a true eye opener. His method of ´kinetic chain´ testing and building in the body, is fundamental for all sports particularly athletics, gymnastics, swimming and all yoga/pilates. His methods are simple and straight forward, but are underpinned by an excellent knowledge of anatomy and physiology. His six phases 1) passive, 2) isometric, 3) eccentric, 4) concentric. 5) dynamic and 6) sports specific, really show how posture is the medium between which strength and technique combine to produce effective power in a sports specific movement. Since his workshop I have been incorporating his techniques with all my clients on a daily basis. I am currently working on my own presentation of his ideas with video, in the mean time you can see his work at:

http://www.stabhochsprung.com/epvc/gymnasticmovies/index.html

The presentation he gave is at:

http://www.stabhoch.com/epvc/canali_gymnastics.pdf

Plus a lot of pole vault videos relating to his work can be found at:

http://www.stabhochsprung.com/

When you understand how the body best deals with force, with regard to postural postion in the sagittal plane, it becomes obvious how and why athletes are using their bodies. For example in the high jump there are variations in technique, all of which can be justified regarding the mobility of the individuals kinetic chain, like foot up or down during the jump, lead arm position, lead knee position and sartorial strength relative to adductors and hamstring co-ordination. If you would like to discuss any of these aspects please just email or comment below.

Edvard Harnes - Strength and conditioning for jumps. I had a good chat to Edvard about his experience with the German national team, and his website can be found at:

http://www.trenerforeningen.org/

He has a lot of presentations and video at:

http://www.trenerforeningen.org/webmaster.shtml

Norwegian Athletics Training Conference

November 20 - 22 there was a very useful training conference at the Norwegian School of Sports Science. Here are some of the main highlights.

Vincenzo Canali - "Postural Base of Sport", this was a true eye opener. His method of ´kinetic chain´ testing and building in the body, is fundamental for all sports particularly athletics, gymnastics, swimming and all yoga/pilates. His methods are simple and straight forward, but are underpinned by an excellent knowledge of anatomy and physiology. His six phases 1) passive, 2) isometric, 3) eccentric, 4) concentric. 5) dynamic and 6) sports specific, really show how posture is the medium between which strength and technique combine to produce effective power in a sports specific movement. Since his workshop I have been incorporating his techniques with all my clients on a daily basis. I am currently working on my own presentation of his ideas with video, in the mean time you can see his work at:

http://www.stabhochsprung.com/epvc/gymnasticmovies/index.html

The presentation he gave is at:

http://www.stabhoch.com/epvc/canali_gymnastics.pdf

Plus a lot of pole vault videos relating to his work can be found at:

http://www.stabhochsprung.com/

When you understand how the body best deals with force, with regard to postural postion in the sagittal plane, it becomes obvious how and why athletes are using their bodies. For example in the high jump there are variations in technique, all of which can be justified regarding the mobility of the individuals kinetic chain, like foot up or down during the jump, lead arm position, lead knee position and sartorial strength relative to adductors and hamstring co-ordination. If you would like to discuss any of these aspects please just email or comment below.

Edvard Harnes - Strength and conditioning for jumps. I had a good chat to Edvard about his experience with the German national team, and his website can be found at:

http://www.trenerforeningen.org/

He has a lot of presentations and video at:

http://www.trenerforeningen.org/webmaster.shtml

High Jump Run-Up Calculation

DOWNLOAD EXCEL FILE CALCULATOR $10

How to calculate a curved 8 stride high jump run-up for the flop technique.
1 Curve length
2 Take-off position
3 Take-off angle
Are all important in a good run-up. This video shows how to measure the average curve thength. Then using the calculation programme the correct dimensions can be measure and marked out.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezLnSF6xj7o]

VIDEO DOWNLOAD 15 Mb

Using the Excel file change the numbers in the red boxes. Use the technique in the video to measure straight and curve length. A good take-off angle is 30 - 35 degrees, below 30 increases the risk of medial ankle injury. The take-off position depends on run-up speed and the bar height. Higher speeds (7.5 m/s +) and bars (2.20m +) require a take-off position over 1m out from the bar (position 'y')and less than 30cm from the end of the bar (position 'x'). Junior jumpers should practice jumping from approx. x = 0,35m y = 0, 70m. This position should be decided by a high jump coach or using video analysis.

The resulting figures are the measurement where the run-up markers should be placed to visually guide the athlete through the predetermined and practiced run-up.

Cardiac Health Infomation

Here are all my Cardiac Health Presentations on Powerpoint. They are all great education for post-operative heart patients. They are also relevant for many other health issues. These are just the presentations, and in practice are accompanied by a specialist lecture, please bear this in mind when reading through them. If you have any questions please leave a comment.

Topics covered:

• Exercise for Heart Disease


• Anatomy of Heart Disease & Treatment


• Eating for a Healthy Heart


• Stress and the Heart


• Medicines and the Heart


• Smoking and Heart Disease


• Risk Factors of Heart Disease

Norwegian National Championships and Olympic Trials

I have had the pleasure of training Margrethe Renstrøm for over a year now and was pleased to see her achieve her 5th national title in that time. It was a convincing first round victory in the long jump, her only event this year, over a highly competitive Ida Macusson. The 6.33m jump equalled her non-windy personal record. This was a little short of her goal of the Norwegian record of 6.56m, which is looking ever more likely for this developing international athlete.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj5r6GmFE6I]

Irresponsible Damage to Bislett - 'The World Record Track'

Bislett Staduim is one of the best running and jumping surfaces in the world, and supposedly the flagship track for the whole of Norwegian athletics. But now as a result of apathy, the track and grass playing surface has suffered very real and serious damage.

Bislett stadium has seen a lot more than its fair share of world records, why? Because it is flat, very flat. The ground is flat and the track surface is flat, resulting in only a few millimetre variation from one end to the other. On the 6th of June 2008 Bislett saw a fantastic Golden League meeting, a new women's 5000m record was set, Blanka Vlašić nearly set a new women's high jump record and the American Jeremy Wariner ran one of the fastest 400m in history - not bad for one afternoon. Anyone would have though this track to be deserving of respect. Alas it is probably only the extremely hard working and unpaid athletes that truly respect these facilities. In the face of profits offered by events companies the Bislett-Aliance and the Oslo Kommune have neglected their roles towards this place and the dreams of its users. Today, as it stands, the Bislett track would simply not pass the inspection needed to grant an IAAF international competition licence, required to host the Golden League event.

This is an article in 'Aftenposten', Norway's equivalent to 'The Times', from 27th June 2008. The reporter, Berit Baumberger (berit.baumberger@aftenposten.no), was investigating damage to the grass playing area at the time I was coaching in the stadium.



Here is a brief description of the article in english.
'Grass driven on by bikes, athletes suffering under these conditions. Motor bikes were used on the grass area for a motor-x show, last weekend, but the grass could not take it. This just 4 days before 20,000 fans arrive for a Leonard Cohen concert. The damage was so bad even the football team 'Skeid' could not play. Problems are, no one claims responsibility and there is no effective communication between the Oslo Kommune and the Bislett-Aliance. "We that use the track wish to run on the grass too, but we are strictly told that we can't as damage will occur. I think it is crazy that others can use it in this way", say's Simon Hunt. The grass is greener in Sweden where they have better stadium routines, one day horse jumping followed by ice hocky the next, no problem. The event organisers need to take responsibility for the grass and track.'



Well the 20,000 fans did come for the Leonard Cohen concert, and once again the stadium was used irresponsibly by the event organisers. The track surface is fairly delicate compared to a road. Therefore it is important to keep the pressure of any vehicle down to a minimum by using small buggies with large, low pressure tyres in order to spread their weight, this avoids distortion and ripping of the track surface. These are the two main thing to be avoided if the track is to remain as flat as it is. But the concert saw 12,000 kg lorries with road going tyres parking and making tuns on the track surface, along with many cars. But some of the worst damage was done by heavy lifting trucks that carry loads of up to 60-100,000 kg. These vehicles completely destroyed two sections of the track, along the back straight and on the long jump run way. This shows that neither the event organisers, nor the Bislett-Alliance, truly understand the nature of the materials that make Bislett the 'world record' stadium.

How are events companies made responsible for protecting the sports facilities? Is the Bislett-Alliance interested in looking after their sports facilities, or is it more interested in making money regardless of sporting development?

Oslo & Akershus Friidrett

While in karlstad the Oslo junior athletes did some high jump training. Click the picture below to view and dowland the video of some of the jumps.

Julien Le Cornec Video's

Julien has created space dedicated to high jumping. He has an excellent archive of jumps at various hights for you to view. He also has an number of high jump articals for all the researching coaches out there. The site is in french but can be translated by clicking the flags on the left.

Go direct to his site at:

www.jump.and.feel.free.fr

I have compiled some of his best video's in to a 3 min clip that you can view and dowload by clicking the pic below:

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4565578324524504777&hl=en]

US Jumps Coach Joel

Joel's JumpCoach Blog.

Check this smart blog out. US based Joel takes you through his training and philsophies on high jumping and strength training.  A nice personal guide to the inside of jump training that jumpers and coaches of all standards will appriciate. His 'Techniqual High Jump Manifesto' gives a good breakdown of high jump components. Click the highlighted text above to view, or you can go to see his videos on youtube at:

http://uk.youtube.com/jumpscoach

Circuit Training

Circuit training is excellent for your aerobic fitness, movement strength and recovery rates. Here is a circuit that I use in the 'Foundation and Base' phase of training. It is presented in MicroSoft Excel file. Click the image below to download.

Anatomy and Physiology of Coronary Artery Disease and Treatment

This presentation is given to post-operative cardiac patients where I work in Birmingham. It covers Heart Disease and Treatment Methods. It was written by a Adrian Lucas from The Queen Elizebeth Hospital Birmingham. This presentation is usually accompanied by a specialist lecture, given by a Cardiac Nurse.

Click the heart icon to download.



Size: 4 MB

Movement Drills

All athletic exercises require good technique to perform them. To show you how to build a usefull technique I have introduced a series of basic movement drill videos. These include walking and running transition drills, hurdle walk overs/knee drives drills and jumping drills. Click each picture below to view and download to your video-ipod to take away into your training environment.

Hurdle Walk Overs - Right knee drive, left knee drive and full walk overs
Focus on moving your legs fast and freely, using a big and fast arm action. This exercise is as much about arm technique as leg technique so make sure to remember this. Try placing white tape or arm bands around your wrists so you can easily see if you are driving you arms up to your eye level. Keep an upright body posture through out.
5 Hurdles 3-4 feet apart, waist height. Drive the right knee and step over the hurdle placing the foot straight down on the floor. Follow with the left using a hurdling trail leg action, again placing the foot straight down on the floor. Repeat as fast as possible for all 5 hurdles. This is one rep, perform 3 reps and move on to left knee knee drives. The technique is the same driving the left knee first, perform 3 reps and move onto full walk overs. For the full walk overs, step over each hurdle in one stride placing the foot straight down. All these exercises are good for your running action and hip mobility.

Hurdle Drills - Knee and Straight Leg Drives
Use 5 hurdles up to waist high, 3-4 feet apart. Knee Drives - Using a lateral movement drive each knee lifting the foot over each hurdle. Going over all 5 hurdles and back again is one rep. Do 3 reps and move on to Straight Leg Drives. For the Straight Leg Drives do the same but bring the leg over each hurdle while keeping it as straight as possible. Use a good arm action for both of these drills. Focus on a good posture and moving your legs as fast as you can. These drills are good for establishing rhythm and leg speed. It is good to do this in pairs, on either side of the hurdles, allowing athletes to compete for speed.

Brazilian Twists
Agility, Balance and Co-ordination. All of these are covered in this exercise. Be as quick as you can with the upper body when turning. Keep the legs neat with a high knee action and stay light on your feet bouncing on the ball of your foot. Use 5 hurdle up to waist height. Perform 3 reps clockwise and 3 reps anti-clockwise for one set. 2 - 3 sets will do it.

World's Fastest Men Documentary

Michael Johnson presents an inside look at sprinting and the motivation behind the athletes. A must see for any competitive sprinter. Click here or the picture to view and download to your video-ipod.

Abdominal

Abs - Straight Leg Raises



Good abdominal and hip flexor strength is required to balance hamstring and gluteus strength. To achieve this hang from a bar or set of wall bars. Raise your feet to the bar and down in a controlled way while keeping the legs straight. Try 3 sets of 5-10 reps. Straight leg chin-ups are also a good way to train abdominal control. All of this will help postural stability when running and making movements in the air. Click the picture above to view the video and download to your video i-pod.

Freestyle Weight Lifting

20kg weight lifting bar, freestyle cool down at the end of the session. Filmed at Norman Green Centre Solihull England. Arje, Luke and Si show how its done.

Click image to view and download
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8861953154791324706&hl=en]

Coronary Heart Disease and Exercise

This presentation is given to post-operative cardiac patients where I work in Birmingham. It covers Cardiac Rehabilitation exercise guidelines and recommendations. It was written by Simon Hunt and Sarah Springett, supported by Eastern Birmingham PCT. This presentation is usually accompanied by a specialist lecture, given by myself.

Click the picture to download.



Size: 910 KB

Coronary Heart Disease and Exercise

This presentation is given to post-operative cardiac patients where I work in Birmingham. It covers Cardiac Rehabilitation exercise guidelines and recommendations. It was written by Simon Hunt and Sarah Springett, supported by Eastern Birmingham PCT. This presentation is usually accompanied by a specialist lecture, given by myself.

Click the picture to download.



Size: 910 KB

Smoking Advice Service

This presentation is given to post-operative cardiac patients where I worked in Birmingham. It covers Smoking. It was written by a Community Smoking Adviser, supported by Solihull PCT. This presentation is usually accompanied by a specialist lecture, given by a Smoking Adviser.

Click the picture to download.



Size: 132 KB

Stress and the Heart

This presentation is given to post-operative cardiac patients where I worked in Birmingham. It covers Stress and the Heart. It was written by Community Stress Advisor Valary Calcoon , supported by Eastern Birmingham PCT. This presentation is usually accompanied by a specialist lecture, given by a Stress Advisor.

Click the picture to download.



Size: 143 KB

Risk Factors for Heart Disease

This presentation is given to post-operative cardiac patients where I worked in Birmingham. It covers Risk Factors for Heart Disease. It was written by Community Cardiac Nurse Lisa Holcroft, supported by Eastern Birmingham PCT. This presentation is usually accompanied by a specialist lecture, given by a Nurse.

Click the picture to download.



Size: 114 KB