Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #189: Gill1918 Presents Aimee Day & Cindy Hausner "Part 2 Training Wheelchair Athletes"

Transcript

#189: Gill1918 Presents Aimee Day & Cindy Hausner "Part 2 Training Wheelchair Athletes" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Gil 1918 Project, a podcast series by coaches, for
• 0:04
  coaches, powered by Gil Athletics.
• 0:06
  Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
• 0:09
  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
• 0:12
  you grow as a coach. We're bringing the once a year
• 0:15
  track clinic straight to your ears daily.
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  Interested in creating your own episode?
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  Everyone's welcome to participate.
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  Check out the show notes below For more information.
• 0:23
  Now let's get into today's topic.
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  Athletes should be able to get in and out of their chairs on
• 0:29
  their own. And in the beginning, it's
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  tricky. But what we found that works
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  really well is, you know, most tracks have a fence right,
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  Surrounding it, Push the chair up to the fence.
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  Have them use that as stability. You can hold the front of the
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  chair, right? But really try to encourage
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  them. This is about independence.
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  And they're growing, they're getting older.
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  They should be able to get in by themselves.
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  And sometimes that means figuring out what ways work for
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  them. Is it one leg at a time?
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  Is it transferring on and kind of balancing on the corner of
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  the chair and literally picking up your legs and sliding them
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  in? And it does get easier.
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  And, you know, they'll figure out a way that works for them
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  because what happens? I know last year there were a
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  couple, couple crashes at the state meet Gianni has.
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  That's the big. Crash Gianni avoided them both
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  because we forced him to. Practice passing.
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  At practice. A lot and and that's, you know,
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  something too, that if you work with us and you come to one of
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  our practices, the kids will be able to actually participate
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  with other kids in wheelchairs. They'll have other competition
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  and just kind of learn how to navigate the track with other
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  track chairs on there. But if you know, you crash at a
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  meat, a Dairyland meat, a glass of meat, a national event that's
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  specifically for para coaches can't help you.
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  They can't touch you. If you get back in your chair,
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  you can continue on with your race.
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  So just something to think about.
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  These are I just wanted. To add in for the independent
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  transferring, Hayden's done a really good job of asking other
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  athletes and he he goes to the memorial.
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  So like if he needs a spot or right, not having to track down
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  a coach, but being a part of the team, right?
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  You're part of the team. There's fifty other athletes on
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  your team. If you need a spot, encourage
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  them to ask a spot, or maybe they develop some patience that
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  way. So.
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  That's that's been really helpful.
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  Awesome. Thank you.
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  The other thing I was going to if, if it's a new injury, I'm
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  thinking of Sierra from MSOE, we encourage her to take the chair
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  to her dorm and transfer in and out from the bed.
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  Because I know at MSOE when we first took the chair, she just
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  looked at us like, you gotta be kidding.
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  I'm I'm gonna I have to transfer in there.
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  She's also about 6, too. Yeah.
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  You know, I mean, yeah. So again, you know, being
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  there's the track, but then also other places that you know, to
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  get comfortable so that they're able to do that independently.
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  Absolutely, yeah. And I, I will say, you guys have
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  probably all experienced this. I am a parent, but really trying
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  to have the parents they're unless you're a coach, but
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  having independence is huge. And a lot of time the parents,
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  because they've been used to doing it, really want to help.
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  And so if you can, the independence is where we're
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  headed. So.
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  Absolutely, because that filters over, right?
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  I mean, we talked about that. I don't know if everybody was at
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  the dinner last night, but Don even talked about that.
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  What you learn in sport will transition to what you're doing
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  later in life. And that's the goal for all
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  kids, right? You want to help them be the
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  best they can be. These are just a few main
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  components of a track chair. My big one is this right here,
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  the compensator and the set screws every single time a new
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  kid comes in from a high school, these are fully set.
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  It will not move. Don't do that.
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  If you're going to do anything, open them all the way up right?
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  Because look, this little piece right here pivots the front
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  wheel. The front wheel leads you.
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  These set screws allow primarily the athlete you want to do it
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  when they're in the chair because their weight will throw
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  it off. But I can set my wheelchair to
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  lane one, lane 2, lane 7. You know, you can adjust that
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  with just these little screws. And so then when I'm pushing
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  around the track, all I have to do is hit this one hit and it I
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  can continue pushing around the corners, right?
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  Does that make sense? And then when I come back out of
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  the turn, hit it back to straight.
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  So one side adjusts the straight, the other side adjusts
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  the corners. If your kid is not doing
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  anything besides the 100, sure, tighten it up.
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  That is less confusing for them. But the goal is to be able to
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  learn how to use this and this can be very irritating to learn,
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  but once you get it, it's life changing and you'll see PRS all
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  over the place then. You got to know there's
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  different and I didn't know this and I coached shopping disc for
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  years and I just found out two years ago there's different
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  types of tracks with compound curves and things like that.
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  So and so Prairie Star track is a compound and the first year
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  we're trying to figure out the compensator and it's like it's
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  not working if the kids stay in the lane and then find out it's
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  a compound track or it's not a a complete, just deeper.
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  Curve. So the athletes gonna have to
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  hip and try to. Hop what he means by that is you
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  can use your hips right? They're very light.
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  I encourage you to come try to pick this up when we're done.
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  But even even on a perfect Oval, right, the compensator is not
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  going to be perfect. You're always going to have to
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  make tiny adjustments. But again, because the chair
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  fits you like a glove, you should be able to do that with
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  your hips, right? So thank you for that.
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  That's a great point. Yeah.
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  And tracks vary, so we have to get out there to check it at
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  each track. And then you also have to take
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  into account what lanes they're in and how we're doing lane
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  preference. It's the way we set up lane
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  preference puts him in lane 4, but then we have to set for 8:00
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  early a lot on the track once. So we have to actually take into
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  account where this compensator got to be at when we switch from
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  one race to another. How many turns is that?
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  What's that really going to look like?
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  What we do at parameets is, you know, let's say there that's the
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  400 and then right after the four hundreds of 15 and a kids
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  doing both the 400 and the 15, we a lot for compensator
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  setting, right, Because if you're running a fifth a mile,
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  let's just call it a 1600. I know state does that.
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  You're not going to be wanting to push that in lane 4.
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  You're silly to do that, right? So you want to have time to be
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  able to adjust the compensator. So we open the track for, I
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  don't know, 5 minutes and the kids who are going to be running
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  that can go out and reset to lane one.
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  Sometimes that doesn't always happen, but at again parameets
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  what we do is ask you know you're going up for the 400 ask
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  say hey, can I get a warm up lap right and sometimes they let you
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  and then you can set your compensator then if.
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  You're doing it. Yep, go ahead.
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  If you're doing an 8 or a mile and you potentially have a
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  waterfall start, you would have a a setting for the first be.
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  In lane one. Or two just as.
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  The. Race goes on, just set for lane
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  one. Yeah, even if it's not a
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  waterfall start for the 800 and you're in lane 7, still set it
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  for one. And what you can do is as you
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  get more used to knowing how the compensator works, you can kind
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  of eyeball it, right? So I know this is set at lane 1,
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  so I'm going to knock it out right?
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  Just try to eyeball and see while I'm on the track how
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  curved my wheel looks and that just comes with experience.
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  One more thing, these tires are extremely expensive.
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  There is a tiny front bike brake on the front wheel.
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  I do not like the athletes to slam on those brakes either.
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  I say tap it right to slow yourself down because let's say
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  you're going, I don't know, 15 miles an hour and you put the
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  brakes on wheel stops. What happens to that tire,
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  right? Huge skid the tires thinner and
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  huge increase of popping tires. So I either say to, well, I say
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  spam the brake because, you know, a lot of kids play video
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  games, spam the brake or use their gloves to kind of tap and
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  slow themselves down. Amy, can you clarify the current
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  rules on lane line touching and what's allowed and what is?
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  In WIAA it doesn't matter. They're not no, but the.
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  You're right, she's 100% right, but Randy's point just so that
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  I'd let for good practices it would be good for.
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  We make the kids stay in their lanes.
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  You can't go in or you can't go out.
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  You can technically touch the inside line for three strokes in
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  a pair of track meet, but I just tell the kids you can't touch
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  the lines at all. I don't want them to know that.
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  And then they're excited if they don't get dequeued and they
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  touch the line. But I guess.
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  My these parts are great, but after working with chairs, what
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  would you recommend that coach have on hand?
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  Both. You got it, I mean.
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  You've got that so. So before we continue on with
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  fields, how am I doing on time? You're a.
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  Little over 1/2. Hour.
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  OK, then we're just going to quickly go through this.
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  So all these wheels get put on and off with the Allen wrench,
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  right? Sometimes with carbon fiber it
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  can be a metric system, but most of those spoked wheels are
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  standard. You can, you know, get it at Ace
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  Hardware lows somewhere. Tire irons are really important
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  for quick tire changes. I have file and sanding sponge
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  on here because these hand rims, especially if they're brand new,
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  they're going to come with a piece of tape around it.
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  Take that off. I see that on all the time too.
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  Take off that string. It's not worth it.
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  It's too slippery. Then you're just going to file
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  it a bit because these are coated with tire, right?
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  So you want to get a little bit of that film off of it.
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  So they become somewhat tacky because rubber on rubber, right?
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  The gloves are made of rubber. I don't know if I showed the
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  gloves yet. The inner ring yes.
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  So I just kind of file that a bit or if they use too much
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  clister, which is or Spider Tack.
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  That's a good way to get that off too.
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  Is a sanding sponge or a file heavy duty?
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  Right? Extra tires.
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  Washers are a big one too. Let's say your kid put on some
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  weight over the offseason, right?
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  And they get back in their chair and it flexes a little bit and
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  they're trying to push and their wheels got too close to these
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  side guards. They can't push.
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  Throw a little washer in there to add a little bit of space.
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  Again, Home Depot, they're $0.25 air compressor.
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  I really like air compressors versus a stand up bike pump
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  because then the kids can do it themselves, right?
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  They can learn how to maintain their chairs.
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  They they don't need to stand up to put air in the tires.
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  Why am I forgetting anything I want to?
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  Point out that most of the valves are pressed up as opposed
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  to Schrader that. You know you.
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  Need an adapter. Right.
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  I yeah, yes, I think most air compressors are coming now with
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  that on there. Yeah, but I could be wrong.
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  My son races mountain bikes and now every single pump we have is
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  just with those fancier presta valve things.
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  But maybe I'm wrong on that one. Cluster Spider Tack down here at
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  the bottom. A lot of you're going to hear
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  about it. It's they say it's nice to use
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  in the rain. It is not.
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  It's very, very tricky to get it to work correctly.
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  Have you ever used rubber cement?
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  You know how you have to lay it out, kind of let it dry before
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  it gets real tacky, then press both pieces together?
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  That's what you're trying to do with this Spider Tack with your
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  glove and the ring, right? So it takes a good 20 minutes to
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  work it in. You have to make sure you're
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  doing it in a dry area and not using too much.
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  It's extremely hard to get off once it's stuck in there.
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  So then if the weather becomes dry, it's not going to be your,
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  your hands are just going to be like you're trying to RIP them
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  off the ring, right? What I do if an athlete's
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  insisting on using it is we'll put it on.
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  And myself, I never used it. But anyway, if they're insisting
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  on using it, we'll put it on, right?
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  And then put a little piece of duct tape on the frame of the
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  chair with a little dab. So while they're out pushing,
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  they can add to it and kind of still work it in in the rain, if
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  that makes sense. But again, I prefer not to use
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  it. We've had some good success with
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  suede putting that on gloves, like a little mitten almost for
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  it. And then that'll give you some
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  grip when you're pushing. OK, we already went through
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  that. I think this is it for track.
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  Let's move on to throwing Oh, the.
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  Helmet. Looks like everybody has a
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  helmet. That's a requirement.
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  I assume it is. It is.
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  Is there any special? Standard for that or just a
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  like. By comment.
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  Some kids like the cool ones with the visors, you know?
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  And if it's a new athlete and they're just, you know, you're
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  just starting, make sure that it sounds dumb, but the helmet is
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  on 1st because this is so tippy. And even we, even though we've
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  been doing this for 1000 years, you know, we'll get somebody in
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  and you know, it's like, oh, the helmet.
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  But they you know this it doesn't take much for this too
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  tip so I. Think technically.
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  The athlete can be DQ D if they don't have their helmet on while
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  transferring. Oh great, great.
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  Definitely need it while they're pushing around the track for
• 15:07
  sure. These are the a couple different
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  types of gloves. These are 3D printed gloves.
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  You can get them at Ingenium manufacturing.
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  That's the only place I know of now.
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  Other high schools have printed them off.
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  You can find whatever form you need to put into a 3D printer
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  online if you just Google 3D printed wheelchair track racing
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  glove they. Come in.
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  Various sizes and then these are my favorite because of the form,
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  right? You want to make sure that if
• 15:43
  they don't have that correct form, the gloves, the big black
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  mittens, they're very cumbersome, but wherever they
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  hit right, they don't have that right form.
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  They're still getting some kind of push, some kind of force with
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  their stroke versus the smaller 3D printed glove, the 3D printed
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  glove that's flat like that. Will you hold it up, please?
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  Waz teaches wrong form. Not a huge fan of them at all.
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  So harness gloves are hard to get, but they work right?
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  The 3D printed gloves work. What we do is we'll start almost
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  everybody with those 3D printed gloves that I don't like and
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  then we try to transition them to the next step of a 3D printed
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  glove, which creates a groove in the glove and gives you more,
• 16:33
  again, more traction, right? So you can kind of hook, but you
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  need to know what your form is, right?
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  It has to be proper form before you can transition into that
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  grooved glove. And I don't think we have one of
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  those with us today. No, we don't.
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  'Cause I, yeah, we're an athlete, is borrowing them right
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  now. Those are even more expensive,
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  about $400.00 for that grooved glove.
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  But it is the ideal step to take when you can get there.
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  So where are you finding the harness post now?
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  Do you have a? Man, so somebody just bought
• 17:06
  that out. They said they're going to be
• 17:08
  starting to make them again. Yeah, it for like 6.
• 17:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, any helmet will work.
• 17:19
  Any other questions about track great I.
• 17:26
  Know where everybody where you know where are you I'm?
• 17:29
  Madison Memorial. So hey, oh.
• 17:30
  Perfect. But I yeah, OK, perfect.
• 17:32
  I don't have a lot for that. I'm trying to be able to.
• 17:38
  Awesome. Amy, can I tell a quick track
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  story? Robin, I was working with a
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  wheelchair athlete because the track team was so large.
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  And so I went had his practices. At went to high school at high
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  school and it was high. School and he was doing the 400.
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  It reminded me when I saw that picture of the 400 and the
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  officials moved him from lane one to lane 2, but didn't move
• 18:00
  him up in the stagger. And I'm up in the stands looking
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  what's going on. I bring that and he actually did
• 18:04
  a four O what it would be four O 3.
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  And I think the impression was that this was kind of an
• 18:09
  exhibition or whatever. So I was a bit frustrated.
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  The athlete was obviously frustrated.
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  I bring that up because the officials aren't maybe as
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  familiar with the wheelchair athletes and just be aware of
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  things that are so common sense sometimes get overlooked so.
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  Real. Example yeah, and coach Brian
• 18:29
  and coach Nicole, if you guys want to add just even
• 18:32
  interaction with your peers, safety on the track.
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  I cannot tell you guys how many times, you know, we hear because
• 18:41
  you're not these are not you're not looking for this and they're
• 18:45
  low to the ground. So even myself, it's just I just
• 18:48
  want to Sprint across them, you know, so you're not looking.
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  So if you guys want to talk about the safety and
• 18:55
  interactions with the peers, you know, would love to have you
• 18:59
  guys share that. Sure.
• 19:01
  And with like reins and practice, our head coach gives
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  us usually lane 11 and 2, where all other athletes are not using
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  that. And they know now obviously
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  they're high school kids and they're crossing the track.
• 19:15
  You know, we're not looking all the time.
• 19:17
  And your athlete has to be ready.
• 19:19
  Like Megan, Yeah, I work with has a nice loud grooming voice
• 19:24
  where she yells track and then people are getting on the track,
• 19:27
  which is nice. Encourage your athletes to keep
• 19:30
  their heads up. That's a good point.
• 19:32
  It's up to the athletes too to watch out for other people.
• 19:35
  But. Yeah, and that we ran into an
• 19:37
  issue with a soccer official who was in the lane changing.
• 19:43
  You have a whole turf field to be on, and he's in lane one.
• 19:47
  And sure enough, Megan hits him in the heel.
• 19:50
  He's screaming. And you know, but you just got
• 19:55
  to let him know that's not your spot.
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  Yeah, that's what's been great at Some Prairie, is that the
• 20:03
  kids just accept Megan as a just a regular teammate.
• 20:07
  Help her out when she needs help and.
• 20:11
  Yeah, yeah. We have a really kind of similar
• 20:13
  system on one of the first like our first all team meeting.
• 20:16
  I remind the boys, you know, this is kind of a one time use
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  break. If he has to use the brake and
• 20:20
  he wrecks his wheel, then it's your mom and dad that are buying
• 20:23
  the new one. That's a good.
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  One. I like that.
• 20:25
  Like this is a one time use break.
• 20:27
  I I exaggerate a little bit and say, guys, if you wreck the
• 20:30
  $7000 chair, it's going to be your mom and dad that I call
• 20:33
  because you were negligent. And we, Gianni gets lane 8.
• 20:38
  He and his coach know he gets lane 8.
• 20:39
  Our distance gets to get lane 1:00 and 2:00.
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  So we actually have our track kind of partitioned if hurdles
• 20:44
  are out there in lanes 4:00 and 5:00.
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  So we have our track designated by lanes and yeah, we have to
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  modify kind of the distances for his workouts to calculate for
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  the fact that he's in lane 8. But he can do starts in lane 8
• 20:57
  as well as a can in lane one. It's straight or it's.
• 20:59
  Curved. And so we actually have our
• 21:02
  track partitioned by lanes and the sprinters know they can't be
• 21:05
  in lane 1-2 or eight at any given time.
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  And usually your sweet sprinters that I they are, they just kind
• 21:13
  of go straight and forget that there are corners.
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  So we give them the middle of the track the otherwise they're
• 21:18
  also walking into the distance workouts.
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  So we set that expectation really early and our captains,
• 21:24
  we tell them it is our expectation that you remind your
• 21:27
  teammates who are new that they cannot be in eight and they
• 21:31
  cannot be in one at any given time because those aren't our
• 21:33
  legs. And I mean our our guys love
• 21:37
  having Gianni around. We always make sure that like
• 21:39
  they know when he's trying to hit a school record, they know
• 21:41
  when he's trying to hit a meet record.
• 21:43
  We get people out on the track. People are yelling splits like
• 21:47
  we've he's a part of the team. So it's.
• 21:51
  Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
• 21:55
  episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
• 21:58
  It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
• 22:01
  amounts of value and I hope this one hit the mark.
• 22:05
  The Guild 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
• 22:09
  build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
• 22:13
  heard you have something to say and teach other coaches out
• 22:17
  there. So please get a hold of me,
• 22:19
  e-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
• 22:24
  and let's help create your episode of the Gill 1918
• 22:27
  Project. Hope you enjoy today and we'll
• 22:28
  see you tomorrow.