If you’ve been keeping up with the Just Fly Performance Podcast, you may have listened to one of my recent shows with Sam Portland, episode 141 on the topic of “Speed Gate Golf”, which makes a game out of sprinting in a manner that combines good running form with trying to get as close to a submaximal time on the clock as possible, rather than simply running all out while “trying to hold it together” or follow some external cue.
If you’ve been around Just Fly Sports as a website and educational structure for a while, you’ve probably also seen my posts in the past on things like making a game out of jump distances, as well as speaking on the “default mode” vs. “experiential mode” networks in my recent podcast talks. Based on all this, it was only a matter of time until I talked to coach Sam Portland!
As I’ve found, the best results in training things like sprinting and jumping, or any other sport skill, really come in the “near-maximal” state, combined with a unique emotional or sensory stimuli. The difference between 92-97% (near maximal) and 100% in a conscious-driven (training) environment is largely one of “compensation patterns”, or extra, un-neccesary movements and muscles brought into the run. (I get the idea and need for maximal intent for raw-recruitment methods such as overcoming isometrics, etc., which is a little different area).
There is also the judgment present that comes from not achieving what was wanted when you tried your hardest, at 100%. For example, running .1 second slower than you typically do in the 30m dash is a little harder on the psyche when you are trying as hard as you can vs. a time not quite as good, but also only on a near-max pace.
(I’ve actually had athletes who couldn’t take the “judgment” of losing when they tried their hardest to such a degree that they would start jogging towards the end of, say, a 200m race when they knew that they were not going to win… although this is an extreme case. Regardless of the extremes, some level of judgment is always present in how we respond mentally and emotionally to things like getting beat or failing to break a weightroom or sprint mark from previous training weeks).
Tim Gallwey talks about this in his framing of “positive thinking” in “The Inner Game of Tennis” (one of the greatest training books of all time, get a full spectrum on it all by also reading “Winning Ugly” by Brad Gilbert)
Hit running forehands to women, only be aware of their feet, if they were transferring weight when they hit the ball or not… no right and no wrong.
At the end of 6 balls to each participant, Gallwey noticed that the shots had all been of excellent quality, and not one had hit the net. To this he said “Look, all the balls are together in the corner and not one at the net!”.
After this “feedback”, even though positive, it set the tone of a judgment, and also of a threat of being the person to mess up the streak of great hits over the net. In the next round, there were frowns appearing on the faces of the participants, and the shots were not nearly as accurate.
Even though Galwey was trying to be helpful, his comment actually set an expectation that disturbed what the women were trying to achieve. Now these were entry level players, so I can’t say that this strategy of feedback is applicable to everyone, but we should always carry it with us when deciding on how to approach our athlete’s performances. Being a parent now, and observing other parents, I think it’s even more important with children. It’s really important to be positive, I think we just need to watch how we frame our positivity in terms of expectations (this is also why un-structured play is critical to childrens athletic, and overall, development).
Where you put your attention is where you put your energy.
Attention is also different than cueing. External cues can really “fragment” athletes, due to the mechanical nature of movement, rife with co-contractions. Attention or awareness lets the body flow, while the athlete just heightens the energy they are directing towards a particular area of the body.
There is a substantial difference between sensing what is happening with a joint (i.e. sense when pronation happens and then be done with it) vs. “lift your knees more”. Often times athletes will push longer than they need to in order to sprint faster.
Everything going on in sprinting and acceleration is insanely precise in terms of what they body has to calculate and unload. Robots can’t even accelerate to sprint well (as JB Morin mentioned on our recent podcast) even though we have found out how to make them do backflips.
In order to time everything correctly in the monumentally complex task of acceleration, the subconscious mind must be allowed to do its job!
We need to give our bodies the essential idea of what we are trying to accomplish, but then manifest it in a qualitative state, at least initially.
By “gamifying” that qualitative state, we add a positive emotional element to it, which yields a win for the athlete!
“Gamifying the qualitative”, perhaps ay be a new paradigm for coaching in a time of a forward surge in motor learning and psychology research, as well as availability of information to the masses.
When making things a game, you can do more work and recover faster (because of less compensations and the impact forces that come from moving faster in a compensated state… setting off the body’s stress alarms).
A lack of judgment, combined with “near maximal” work allows the body to move in a manner that is much more “compensation free”. It is when we compensate that we also set ourselves backwards.
I wanted to give two anecdotes that I’ve found useful since I recorded podcast #137 and #141 that represent where I’ve taken the philosophy of the system
The first is splitting seasons and phases of training up into quantitative and qualitative, or “experiental” and “default”. I feel it is important to have a large portion of your “base” training and “peaking” training be of the experiential/speed gate golf version of work, while some of the “meat and potatoes” of the middle portion of training (or in undulating series of the central portion of training).
It’s important to use experiential work for the base training, since we are really building a “base of technique” (and experiential work is critical for technique that fits an athlete’s own body well) in base training for the vast majority, if not all, sports, even endurance sports (you could argue this for distance running, cycling, etc. which I can see, but regardless, technique determines all other adaptations in the program). Technique determines which fascial pathways and associated muscles are going to be strengthened in further training, so it makes sense to build that which you want to strengthen down the line.
In peaking, experiential work is incredibly useful because it is in the peaking phase of any sport that you want to avoid the judgement that comes with the regular testing of KPI’s. Performance swings up and down throughout the week, and if you catch yourself checking a KPI number on a “down” day, you’ll pass a judgment on it, and it’ll cause a mental dip and potentially downward spiral if enough of this get in the system.
For example, I have a lot of swimmers who love testing their vertical on the Just Jump Mat. I also find that when their jump is very high, they typically are swimming extremely well (short course especially). When they get close to their big meets, however, I know they still want to come in and see where their jump is, but I’ll make it a game instead. “How close can you get to 34.0 exactly”, for an athlete who jumps 39.1 may be something I’ll use, and I found this to be very effective. I’ll also do things like cover up the score readouts of Keiser jumpers and pretty much anything else that could be considered a judgement at this point in time.
The second thing I’ve done is consider the extent of “gamifying” a skill-based training session based on the cerebral nature of the athlete. For example, if I’m working on acceleration, and the athlete is highly fore-brained, what often times happens is the first sprint is the fastest, and all others thereafter are slower. In the first sprint, the athlete wasn’t thinking, and afterwards, they were consciously focusing on some (likely internal cue based) element to get faster, which only leads to compensation patterns and running worse.
These athletes are almost always going to get a better training session when you use the speed gate golf mentality as you go through the work. I often like to pair speed gate golf with gear, such as the exogen suit, to also enhance elements of the technique. I generally like to hover the “target” an athlete should try to run about 4-8% slower than what an athlete can run on the day. For example, if they can run about 4.40 in the 30m dash, I’ll have them aim for targets in the 4.65-4.75 range, and then if we want to go “fast” we’ll go for 4.50-4.55 (the 4.50 attempt can often result in a PR or a daily best!).
These are just two elements that I’ve been working on, and I’ve also recently come up with a list of 10 ways to use a 10m fly for “speed gate golf” including speed bounding, LLRR style bounding, backwards running and more. The possibilities are endless, and while it’s important not to get carried away (read: there is a need and time for standard “meat and potatoes” training), and it’s also important to know that not every athlete will respond to this type of work exactly the same, we can’t ignore the repurcussions of this training paradigm.
About Joel Smith
Joel Smith, MS, CSCS is a NCAA Division I Strength Coach working in the PAC12 conference. He has been a track and field jumper and javelin thrower, track coach, strength coach, personal trainer, researcher, writer and lecturer in his 8 years in the professional field. His degrees in exercise science have been earned from Cedarville University in 2006 (BA) and Wisconsin LaCrosse (MS) in 2008.
Prior to his current NCAA DI strength coaching chapter, Joel was a track coach, strength coach and lecturer at Wilmington College of Ohio. During Joel’s coaching tenure at Wilmington, he guided 8 athletes to NCAA All-American performances including a national champion in the women’s 55m dash. In 2011, Joel started Just Fly Sports in an effort to bring relevant training information to the everyday coach and athlete. Aside from the NSCA, Joel is certified through USA Track and Field and his hope is to bridge the gap between understandable theory and current coaching practices.
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