Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #183: Gill1918 Presents Lance Brauman "Part 1 Simple Cues for the Mechanics of Sprinting"
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
- 0:03coaches, for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
- 0:06Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
- 0:09Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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- 0:21Check out the show notes below For more information.
- 0:23Now let's get into today's topic.
- 0:27Like I said this morning, we're going to talk a little bit about
- 0:30Sprint mechanics. When I mean Sprint mechanics,
- 0:32it's not by any means, you know, the numbers and everything that
- 0:36come along with somebody that like Ralph Mann, who was a
- 0:40mentor of mine. And we spent a lot, a lot of
- 0:42time together before we passed, you know, the past 15 years.
- 0:45And if you're going to look and you want to have a read in this
- 0:50sport, everybody asks what's a good book to read.
- 0:52This is the one that I would suggest you get him on Amazon or
- 0:56whatnot. I don't get anything for it, but
- 0:58he was brilliant and it's very informative.
- 1:02And most of the stuff that I talk about or will do will come
- 1:05from, you know, what he's written in that book because
- 1:08we've had conversations about it numerous times.
- 1:12With that being said, this is the first time I've done a
- 1:15mechanic's talk without him because we used to go to like
- 1:19level 4 schools and IMG and then we went to China and did one and
- 1:23you know, so it would always, we would collaborate.
- 1:25But obviously, you know, this is something that I'll just try to
- 1:29give the coach's ass or the coach's side of what we're
- 1:32talking about because it's, you know, when you're talking
- 1:34mechanics, yes, you got to know the angles, you got to
- 1:37understand the positions, you got to understand, you know,
- 1:40what you're trying to get out of it.
- 1:41But at the same time, that's the numbers.
- 1:45The coach has to be able to relate it to an athlete to get
- 1:49the result they need, which sometimes is just showing them
- 1:54something or giving them a, we talked about it earlier.
- 1:57Cue as simple as when you hang the knee and pull air to the
- 2:01ground. You know what does that mean?
- 2:04Well, that means you need to hang the knee and you need to
- 2:06time your contact, get a better position underneath the hip.
- 2:09But it's never going to be directly under the hip because
- 2:11there is gravity and you'll fall down if it's too far underneath.
- 2:14So you know all those things, but you just got to make it
- 2:17something that they understand and can do.
- 2:21You know, you don't want to, you don't want to make cues too
- 2:23hard. If you hear yesterday, like I
- 2:27said, some of the people I've worked with and some of the
- 2:30things they've done, we won't go through all that again.
- 2:34Mechanics of sprinting want to look what to look for when
- 2:39you're trying to make corrections.
- 2:41So we showed the merry go round yesterday with the position.
- 2:44So you got to, you know, when there's any type of Sprint and
- 2:48even distance running, you have an acceleration phase into
- 2:51whatever upright mechanics you're going to hold, right?
- 2:55Everybody has to accelerate somewhere in there.
- 2:57So it's it's always going to be horizontal to vertical push or
- 3:01horizontal to vertical position. Oh boy.
- 3:06All right, things you have to look for when you're talking
- 3:09about sprinting. The top one says stride length
- 3:12and the next one is stride rate. And then we have airtime ground
- 3:16time. Now more of the things that I'm
- 3:20looking for. OK, well, how, how do we time
- 3:22those well knees together at contact?
- 3:25OK, we talked about it the other day and I'll show you a couple
- 3:27of them. But when you're pulling through,
- 3:29you want to pull, pull air and shut the gap so that it happens
- 3:33right there. And everybody talks about if
- 3:35you've seen sprinting or you watch Instagram and all that
- 3:38stuff, they talk about the Figure 4 of sprinting.
- 3:41Has anybody seen that? I personally think that if you
- 3:45see a figure for when you're sprinting, that you've actually
- 3:49you're too frequent because the knee's gotten the head, which is
- 3:52this position, and for it to be dead on, it needs to be more in
- 3:55line with the opposite knee. And you want air between your
- 4:01heel and your butt. Why is that?
- 4:06Because if you let this heel crash into your bottom, you only
- 4:09have .123. We talked about that yesterday a
- 4:12little bit on air time. And if it crashes here, what are
- 4:16you going to do? You're going to wind and you're
- 4:18going to lose the toe out the front.
- 4:20And if you lose the toe out the front and we're talking about
- 4:22trying to attack the ground, right, or trying to pull air,
- 4:27you're going to have more force into the ground from here or
- 4:31from here. So it all starts with how you
- 4:35recover the heel on the backside.
- 4:38And that right there when they talk about all these big words
- 4:41like front side mechanics, that's front side mechanics.
- 4:44That's as simple as it is. You need to recover from the
- 4:48ground to the front. The other thing we're going to
- 4:51be looking for in just a second is how the heel leaves the
- 4:54ground, all right? And that's heel recovery.
- 4:59So when you push off the ground, we're here when most people run
- 5:06because it's a natural position, because springing fast is not
- 5:09really natural. You have to change some things.
- 5:10It's not how we were technically made to run, but it's more
- 5:14efficient. But most people, you're going to
- 5:16see the heel is going to push long, they're going to toe and
- 5:20the heel is going to rise before it comes forward.
- 5:22Everybody know what I'm talking about.
- 5:25That's bad. All right.
- 5:28So what you're trying to do in that position is you're trying
- 5:31to keep the knee nice and hung high on the front side, and when
- 5:34you hit the ground, you want to accelerate that hip back to the
- 5:37front side. So you want to actually pull the
- 5:38knee together off the ground so that you can come through and
- 5:43you have air between your heel and your butt so you can get
- 5:46this position and hold that knee.
- 5:50That's where the knee lifter, the knee hang is.
- 5:54OK, any of that makes sense? Kinda.
- 5:57Most of you already knew all this.
- 5:59OK, that's fine. No, I had a clicker somewhere,
- 6:04and now I've lost it, so that's not good.
- 6:06Did I put it on the podium? Yeah.
- 6:07There you go. All right.
- 6:13So to maximize the start performance, the goal must be to
- 6:16produce a maximum amount of horizontal force while
- 6:18minimizing force in all other other directions.
- 6:23OK, you cannot have 100% horizontal force because you
- 6:26will fall down. There's something called
- 6:27gravity. So you have to have some
- 6:29vertical lift that countered the effects of gravity pulling you
- 6:32back into the ground. All right, we talked about that
- 6:35yesterday. So that would be the start.
- 6:37If you're talking about the five stages of 100 meters per SE.
- 6:41All right, next one, during the transition, the goal must be to
- 6:44effectively move from the end of the start to the achievement of
- 6:48maximum velocity. So that's your transition phase
- 6:50we talked about. So if we go back to the merry go
- 6:53round, your start's going to be when you get down behind it and
- 6:56you really start pushing to make it go.
- 6:58Then it finally gets to the point that it's as fast as it
- 7:01can go. You can barely keep up.
- 7:02What you got to do, you got to transition from the ground on
- 7:05top of the merry go round. That's what the transition is.
- 7:08All right #3 to produce the greatest maximum velocity, the
- 7:16goal must be to minimize forces in all other directions,
- 7:19primarily primarily vertically. OK, so, so that some productive
- 7:26horizontal force can still be produced as long as the total
- 7:30horizontal force created during ground contact is positive.
- 7:33So if we're still in the drive phase, we're trying to get the
- 7:36foot to hit the ground and recover back to the front
- 7:39without any type of shearing or towing off.
- 7:43So anytime they talk about sprinting, you're talking about,
- 7:45well, you need to keep dorsiflexion.
- 7:47Dorsiflexion is what's going to create the ability to hit the
- 7:52ground and get some stretch reflex off the ground, OK?
- 7:56Because you don't get any type of tendon help if there's no
- 8:00tension. And when we're talking about
- 8:03sprinting, we're going to talk about tension a lot because the
- 8:06body has to create tension to absorb forces in a better way.
- 8:10So you don't get any shearing of that energy.
- 8:12Does that make sense? So when they're talking about
- 8:15this, you're going to have, if you come, you hit the ground in
- 8:18front and then all of a sudden your heel hits and then you
- 8:21buckle a little bit and then you got to jump to push off the
- 8:23ground. You created too much time and
- 8:26you've got too much loss of force.
- 8:29It's going to get absorbed and then you have to recreate.
- 8:32The only way you can recreate is you got to jump, which causes
- 8:35more airtime, which is also bad. See how all these connect now?
- 8:40OK, once maximum velocities reach, the goal must be to
- 8:46produce the the largest level of vertical force required to
- 8:50maintain proper mechanics while continuing to produce the small
- 8:53amount of positive horizontal force needed and maximum
- 8:57velocity. You still have to have a little
- 8:59bit of a push off the ground to counter the fact that we can't
- 9:03just go straight up and then you're just going to have to get
- 9:05some push. I like to tell my guys to
- 9:08project. That's a word I use all the
- 9:11time. All right, so if we're sprinting
- 9:14and I want you to hang the knee and pull the air and recover the
- 9:17heel, sometimes the best thing to do is to tell them.
- 9:20Find something out in front of you fence.
- 9:23You know how fences have the pose to go across and you want
- 9:26to drive the knee up and through the fence, not straight up and
- 9:29down because you're going to go to vertical and you don't want
- 9:35to reach with the foot for it. Because then you've lost, you
- 9:38know, you've created too much stride length and you lost all
- 9:40your power off the ground. So a big work for me and that's
- 9:43what we're talking about. They're just different cues for
- 9:45the things you're trying to reach is in a maximum of
- 9:48velocity. I want them to project to
- 9:49something. This was the block start thing
- 9:53that we just, if you looked at the definitions a minute ago, if
- 9:56you don't have this, but the block start is probably 0 to 5
- 9:59meters. Highest increase in velocity
- 10:02happens during that time. I'll show you the graph in just
- 10:06a second. The drive phase is 5 to 25.
- 10:11We emphasize the increase in horizontal velocity through the
- 10:14position. The transition is 25 to 40,
- 10:17which you're transitioning from that horizontal force to
- 10:22vertical force. Maximum velocity phase is 40 to
- 10:2780, which is where you reach maximum velocity.
- 10:34And then the last 20 meters is a rhythmic continuation of CNS
- 10:38coordination, holding proper mechanics to lessen the decrease
- 10:41of horizontal velocity. All right, So when anybody says,
- 10:45well, what are the different parts?
- 10:46What do you think about when we work on this type of stuff?
- 10:49You can just Simply put tones down at the distance you want
- 10:51them to hold different positions.
- 10:53All right, things on the track that they can see best cues you
- 10:57can give them because they have visual things that they can look
- 11:00at and do all right. It says you can sit there and
- 11:04know like if maybe they're a 12 flat 100m runner.
- 11:08Well, they're not going to be able to drive 25 meters because
- 11:13they're going to reach their maximum velocity sooner because
- 11:15their maximum, their maximum velocity's not as fast.
- 11:19So you actually reach it sooner. Maybe they just need to drive to
- 11:2218 or 20. A cue for that is if they're in
- 11:26the right position, you stand at 80 and just tell them I don't
- 11:29want to see your eyes until you until you pass me because you
- 11:33want them to stay down and try to continue to be in a position
- 11:36where they can apply, apply as much horizontal force as they
- 11:39can without falling down. And the only way you can do that
- 11:42is you have to actually get your body in a position to apply it,
- 11:47which means you're going to be at 45 and you want to have a
- 11:49straight back, straight hip so that you're still having the
- 11:51power in a position that you're not sharing off force.
- 11:56You don't want to be in this position because what's going to
- 11:59happen? We're losing contact there.
- 12:03Does that make sense? And then, you know, the simplest
- 12:07thing for me is that once you're in that position and I'm trying
- 12:10to find a spot that I can do it better.
- 12:12Because once you're in this position, we're making, you
- 12:17know, horizontal force because we're driving, which is going to
- 12:20be in this position right off the ground.
- 12:22And that knee never gets straight because if it gets
- 12:24straight, what's that telling me you just did, especially off the
- 12:28front block pad means you jumped off of it, which means you're
- 12:31going to land, which means you're going to increase your
- 12:33ground time on opposite foot. OK, so and we'll get to it in a
- 12:39second. We'll talk more specifically
- 12:41about the start. But the regress here, you're
- 12:44going to be in a position that you can apply as much force as
- 12:46possible. But all this is from a dry phase
- 12:50is if you just stand them up, isn't that pretty much what you
- 12:53look like running? So it's just the lean of where
- 12:56the body's at, trying to keep us straight of positions as
- 12:59possible into the ground. Because a straight application
- 13:03of force generally gives you a return in the opposite
- 13:06direction. And that's what we're looking
- 13:10for, as much return as possible so that we can maximize
- 13:13everything we do. Yes.
- 13:15How? Do you adjust these spaces for
- 13:18different levels of athletes that that you're going to have
- 13:21on a baseball team where everybody thinks they're 102
- 13:24hundred? Yeah, which is fine.
- 13:29It comes down to strength levels.
- 13:30The stronger you are, the longer you can hold a dry face or
- 13:35creation of horizontal force or velocity.
- 13:39Excuse me. So strength levels matter.
- 13:42Strength levels matter. When we get to the block starts
- 13:44in a second too, because how you need to start at my level, most
- 13:49of your people aren't going to be strong enough to get that
- 13:50position. That's understood.
- 13:53All you're trying to do is get them as close as possible over
- 13:55time. But that's why programs are more
- 13:58than just a Sprint program, especially the higher the level
- 14:03or you've got to be able to lift weights and you got to do other
- 14:05things to create or to mold your body into a position that they
- 14:10can handle these forces that we're talking about doing.
- 14:13But the younger ones that aren't as strong, you just drive them
- 14:16less, all right? Which means you're going to have
- 14:19to decrease everything, which means their maintenance phase is
- 14:21going to be longer. They're probably in a
- 14:24maintenance phase from 60 to 100.
- 14:27That's OK Train them that way. Then over time, if they get
- 14:30better, slightly start moving stuff down the track.
- 14:34But it's, you know, I mean, one of the biggest thing I say to my
- 14:40guys all the time is that I understand that this is, you
- 14:43know, there's a lot of science, a lot of numbers, all that stuff
- 14:45involved. But you know, we're playing a
- 14:47game of checkers. We're just trying to get better
- 14:50at the little things every single day.
- 14:53And if we get better at the little things, you're going to
- 14:55end up getting, you know, better overall.
- 14:58But you don't need to over complicate this stuff.
- 15:01It's the worst thing you can do as a coach too, because all of a
- 15:05sudden you're starting to stutter on what you're trying to
- 15:07give them and you're trying to throw out these words because
- 15:10some guys, some clinic started talking about, you know, some
- 15:14muscle that does something through the shin bone and like,
- 15:16what's that got to do with what we're talking about right now?
- 15:19Honestly, I mean, there's a reason it stabilizes something
- 15:23it great. They don't need to know that.
- 15:28They simply want to run fast. So you try to simplify it down
- 15:31to a level that makes sense. And then over time, when you get
- 15:35somebody like Tyson Gay or no allows or you know, some of
- 15:39these other people that I've had, we can start having more in
- 15:43depth conversations about the specific things of sprinting
- 15:46because they learn it with you as you go along.
- 15:49But at the beginning it's just simply get this position.
- 15:52Do you feel that? Yes, all right, I give them a
- 15:55cue. What's that mean to you?
- 15:57Because sometimes you give them a cue and they're like, Yep,
- 15:59Yep. And you ask them two months
- 16:01later after you've given that cue every single day and you're
- 16:03like, what does that mean? I have no, absolutely no idea.
- 16:08You just keep saying it and I'm just shaking my head because I
- 16:10want to go. So you've got to actually ask
- 16:13them some questions over time too.
- 16:15All right, to start, horizontal force application.
- 16:22That's a bunch of numbers, isn't it?
- 16:24That's the type of stuff I have to look at when we're doing
- 16:27starts and they measure it all. All that's fun.
- 16:31And it'll tell you where you should be at 3 meters, where you
- 16:35should be at 5, how many seconds it takes to get there, your
- 16:39velocity, meters per second, your step length, which is
- 16:46important to me to step right in the number of steps, contact,
- 16:50air time, stop first. I can't even see that first stop
- 16:54number and distance from the start, OK?
- 16:58All that's important to me because we've done this enough
- 17:01that we're mapping out exactly where every step for the first
- 17:06step and steps are through 10 meters.
- 17:08OK, if you're in high school, unless you're a big time 4*5*
- 17:16running back that's been in the weight room since he was 12,
- 17:19you're not going to have the power it takes to hit a step.
- 17:22These steps that we're trying to do here.
- 17:25So what you are trying to do is you're trying to find a step
- 17:27pattern that looks the cleanest and that you're actually in a
- 17:30position that when they drive out over the foot, you can see
- 17:34the foot come back and the same through here and it comes back
- 17:40said it would generate and force each step.
- 17:43And you want to see a rhythmic increase in distance.
- 17:47I mean, it's going to be slight and it's going to be, but
- 17:49there's rhythm to it because most of the time and it's
- 17:53inevitable, you're going to go to a block star.
- 17:55And I still get them now they're going to be sitting here in the
- 17:58blocks like this because they're so loaded up on that first
- 18:01because they want to jump at it, right?
- 18:05And this foot's just kind of dangling.
- 18:06So the first thing they you tell them, oh, you need to push off
- 18:09the back. So what they do, they flick
- 18:10their toe and it comes up here. And then they jump out here like
- 18:14this and they float and they float and they float.
- 18:16And they finally hit the ground. They collapse.
- 18:18And then the second step is catching themselves.
- 18:24No matter on their strength, you still need to develop a pattern
- 18:27for them. OK?
- 18:30And it needs to be a gradual increase in distance per step.
- 18:39Now I'm going to show you something that you know, we get
- 18:41it USA track and field gave me and I'm show you the site in a
- 18:44second. I will.
- 18:46Well, I guess we'll show Noah first.
- 18:48If this works and you kind of get a better idea, hopefully
- 18:54what we're doing here is I'm going to see if I can do this
- 18:55off the computer though. So this is so this is oops,
- 19:08shoot, went the wrong way. This Is Us getting ready at
- 19:13Paris for the Olympic Games. This would be at the warm up
- 19:19track. Yep, first day on the warm up
- 19:21track. So you can see that.
- 19:24Oh, I'll show you because you're going to see what I'm talking
- 19:28about, about their rhythmic. Can everybody see it?
- 19:32So the first movement is going to be the hands trying to split,
- 19:40split it off the ground. Backside gets a push.
- 19:42Now in that position, If it's me, I'm looking for this back
- 19:47leg, and this isn't a great picture for it, but I want that
- 19:49back knee to slightly go back at the beginning because that's
- 19:52telling me he's applying force on the back pad.
- 19:55OK. Sometimes he does that better
- 19:58than others and he's considered one of the better ones in the
- 20:00world, obviously. But this one's not too bad and
- 20:09he was hitting pretty good this day.
- 20:14But you can see he's going to drive out.
- 20:16See how low that foot stays? I do not want it to hit the
- 20:19track no matter what anybody says.
- 20:21Toe drag is bad because it's slowing down velocity of the
- 20:25foot, but I want it as close as possible.
- 20:29See where the knee goes, It goes up.
- 20:31And what's he trying to do with it?
- 20:33Drive it right back down underneath the hip.
- 20:35So for him, I know that that should be about .50 meters.
- 20:41And then the second step, see how he keeps it low, doesn't
- 20:46drive, but it's close. And he tries to repeat the
- 20:49action here, but see how that back leg never gets totally
- 20:56straight. He's going to give as much force
- 20:59as he can into the ground as fast as he can to recover that
- 21:03knee back to the front side. So you don't want to jump, you
- 21:07want to drive. And I know over time that that
- 21:13should be about 1.67 meters because we do this a lot,
- 21:16obviously. And that's a pretty good
- 21:28position for me, though he probably could have pulled that
- 21:31back underneath just a little bit more because the knees are a
- 21:34little bit separated there. And by the third step, they
- 21:36should almost be together. But he does a good job of
- 21:39recovering to this side. And you see what that yellow
- 21:44cone, that yellow line is, That's 10 meters.
- 21:46So we've taken to this point 123456.
- 22:02So he's about 9.85 meters on that.
- 22:05So when he does that, he's going to be OK because naturally he
- 22:11wants to be more of a shuffler because he, you know, he grew
- 22:14up, he was a real skinny kid. You know, he's drawn that
- 22:17strength. I find laughs all the time now,
- 22:19but he's gotten stronger. But that doesn't change the fact
- 22:22that what feels fast to him is short.
- 22:27So I have to drill him and drill him and drill him to get in a
- 22:31better position. All right, So this is what it
- 22:37looks like at the Olympic Games when you're warming up for the
- 22:40final at 100 meters. And now this is probably four or
- 22:50five days after the one I just showed you.
- 22:57Well, if I can get to it, it'll play maybe or it won't.
- 23:13That's low. That back leg doesn't get
- 23:16totally straight. See how it's already coming back
- 23:18to the front? You can see he's actually
- 23:21covered a little bit more ground over the start line on this one.
- 23:27That was a much better second step.
- 23:29If I changed anything, I'd say he probably lost a little bit of
- 23:35directional force because the toe flicked in just a little bit
- 23:37behind him. But the third one was the one I
- 23:47had a a minute ago. Remember we talked about it.
- 23:51He does a much better job. Look where he drives it to and
- 23:53gets on top of it here, closer together.
- 23:57So this is 123456. Yep, we're ready to go to the
- 24:13track now. That's for him.
- 24:16Now you got to remember he weighs 170 lbs and he cleans
- 24:19300. You don't probably have many
- 24:22guys that way or ladies. So over time it takes, that's
- 24:27what it takes. But the queues were always the
- 24:32same. He just doesn't cover as much
- 24:34ground per step. And over time he's gotten better
- 24:37at it, which is why he's gotten better at the 100 meters over
- 24:39time. Any questions about any of that
- 24:44right there so far? Anything you have a question
- 24:49about what we look for to meet like this?
- 24:51How you feeling about it? What you tell them?
- 24:54Yes, looks like the. Kryptonite queue the one you
- 24:58hate the most thing about like development.
- 25:01What would you prefer your? Your athletes never hurt growing
- 25:05up in the track and field development.
- 25:08That's a really good question. I think people are told to push
- 25:15too much in my opinion, because I mean, there's there is a push
- 25:21element, but and when you're sprinting, there's going to be a
- 25:23push pull. Does that make sense?
- 25:26You've got to drive off the ground, but you've got to also
- 25:28pull it together because we're always trying to close the gap
- 25:32to keep your frequency up. I mean, I hate when I hear
- 25:41coaches talking about yes, you want to, you know, there's a
- 25:43trampoline effect off your bottom when you're sprinting.
- 25:46If your heels hitting your ass, you're a running bad.
- 25:49That's it's just plain and sample because you're not going
- 25:56to be in a position to do what you need to doing.
- 25:57Well, we'll run down the rabbit hole for a second.
- 26:02I'm good with that. But if we're trampolining off
- 26:05here and we throw it out front and this foot's got angular
- 26:07velocity and you're trying to pull it back into the ground
- 26:10because we're running at 11 and a half, 12 meters per second.
- 26:13You hit the ground here and your legs contract them because it
- 26:16wants to recover back to the front, but you've already hit it
- 26:19here. It's stuck in the ground.
- 26:21You're contracting. When do you mostly pull a
- 26:23hamstring contact into the ground trying to get off?
- 26:27And it usually happens because you put the muscle into
- 26:29position. It's not made to do.
- 26:34Your hamstrings are going to feel a whole lot better when you
- 26:36attack the ground here then here because you're just exposing.
- 26:50I don't know if that answered your question, but it's as best
- 26:52that I could do on that one. Yes.
- 26:54How often? In your competition.
- 26:58Phase Do you practice lots with no one from?
- 27:02The other guy, if we're getting ready for like this meet, he
- 27:05would have had a, He was probably in blocks every other
- 27:09day for about 7 days out, maybe 8 depending upon our travel.
- 27:15But we weren't overdoing any one day.
- 27:19Less is more. Quality is better about it
- 27:26generally. Generally what I do is 2 to 21
- 27:29to 40 and then if he needs it, we'll do a family, which is
- 27:34generally 60. I mean, that's, but I'm giving
- 27:39him as much rest, 10810 minutes. Usually I'm taking a minute
- 27:44longer than what he thinks he's ready for any of them are
- 27:46because they want to get it done.
- 27:48So they start rushing. But my job to control all that
- 27:53and their jobs to listen to me. So that's what we do.
- 27:58And that's why I go to track meets.
- 28:01I mean, because I can tell you as soon as this is over and you
- 28:04DAP them up and say, hey man, let's get this done.
- 28:06You don't see him for 45 minutes until he's on the line.
- 28:10There's nothing you can do to help him at that point.
- 28:16I'll give you a story real quick.
- 28:17I had, and like I said, we just veered off target here, but I'm
- 28:21OK with that for a minute. So I'm a coach at the University
- 28:25of Arkansas and I've got two really good guys at the
- 28:27University of Arkansas at the time and they're, you know, and
- 28:32their names were Tyson Gay and Wallace Spearmint.
- 28:35Pretty good. And we're running, it was
- 28:38Wallace's freshman year in Tyson's junior year and running
- 28:41the 200 at the NCAA's. And we're in position to win the
- 28:45meet, you know, and they're ranked number one and three
- 28:47going into the final. And Veronica, who I Campbell,
- 28:53who I trained at the same time, had just broke the collegiate
- 28:55record in the 200. And the place was, it's at
- 28:58Arkansas, it's electric in there.
- 28:59And they're lining up and all of a sudden, you know, I'm, I know
- 29:02the meats on the line and I've already talked to them and
- 29:05everything's good. They're on the track.
- 29:07Boom, false start, right? And I'm like, oh shit, you know,
- 29:11this is, you know, trying to make this rough.
- 29:13What? They both saw me and they both
- 29:14saw me put my head down and go, oh, man.
- 29:19And they knew right then that I wasn't confident in what they
- 29:21were about to do. And then they proceeded to go
- 29:25out there and get 5th and 8th and we lose nationals as a team
- 29:27by three points. So moral of the story, your
- 29:33athletes can never see you sweat.
- 29:36You have to be the most positive person in their life at that
- 29:40moment all the time. If you're nervous, you better
- 29:45not show it until they're gone. That is my number one piece of
- 29:50coaching advice. So ever since then, I don't
- 29:55really get that kind of nervous anymore because hey, I've done,
- 29:58I can do. They've done what they could do.
- 30:00We'll just see where these things fall.
- 30:02But if I do get nervous, it's after they've walked inside and
- 30:05gone back to where they're not going to save me.
- 30:08And then I go to these trap meets and nobody knows.
- 30:10Pretty much me and one other guy that's a friend of mine, that's
- 30:13an agent, he knows where I go for all these races.
- 30:17And I don't want TV cameras by me.
- 30:19I don't want. I just want to be there because
- 30:21I don't want to see. All of a sudden they see my face
- 30:23on a big screen and I'm over there like, shit, man, let's go.
- 30:29So yeah, I mean, but what they do on a daily basis, I mean,
- 30:35that's that's part of your job. You got, they got to have
- 30:37confidence on what they're doing too.
- 30:38So at least that's my opinion on it.
- 30:43Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
- 30:46episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
- 30:49It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
- 30:53amounts of value and I hope this one hit the mark.
- 30:56The Gill 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
- 31:01build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
- 31:04heard you have something to say and teach other coaches out
- 31:08there. So please get a hold of me,
- 31:10e-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
- 31:15and let's help create your episode of the Gill 1918
- 31:18Project. Hope you enjoy today.
- 31:20They will see you tomorrow.