Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #33: Gill1918 presents Harry Marra "Teaching Points of Excellence in the LJ" Points 5-7

Transcript

#33: Gill1918 presents Harry Marra "Teaching Points of Excellence in the LJ" Points 5-7 · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
• 0:03
  coaches, for coaches powered by Gill 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'll bring in the once a year
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  track clinic straight to your ears daily.
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  Interested in creating your own episode?
• 0:19
  Everyone's welcome to participate.
• 0:21
  Check out the show notes below For more information.
• 0:23
  Now let's get into today's topic.
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  The take off leg. Where you want to at?
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  Is that where you want to lift the leg acutely and not?
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  Swing it through. No, the left leg, if the left
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  leg's your take off, put it down.
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  So watch. If I come through, here's the
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  penultimate on the right. If I come through here in the
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  penultimate, all right. Oh, I know what it was.
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  Flat, Flat. I know what it was.
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  OK, I'm not getting Alzheimer's. Some timers.
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  Sometimes I forget stuff. Sometimes.
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  No, but not not Alzheimer's yet. All right, so I'm coming through
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  here with my knee, this position.
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  And you said should you acutely move through?
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  No, watch the leg. Just scoot it through.
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  Scoot it through and get it down real quick.
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  Don't don't do this. What's your first name?
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  Cheryl. Don't do a full cycle and up.
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  Don't instruct your athlete. Keep lifting your knees before
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  the takeoff. Ashton missed twice at 49016
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  feet. Nothing in the pole vault.
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  He had to make the third bar in London.
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  I just said finish your last three steps.
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  I didn't tell him how he knew how because of what we practice
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  all that lead up and so on. And he did he he finished the
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  last step correctly and right over.
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  No problem. Well, there was a problem.
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  I had a little heart attack, I think something, whatever, but
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  yeah, it just goes through real quick.
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  It makes it shorter, it makes it quicker and bang everything.
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  Summation of forces. All the forces come together.
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  This is a good question. Say it real loud.
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  Acute, acute angle. You stopped it.
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  You said stopped it. You stopped.
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  It but then you brought your back leg.
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  Up the right leg angle. Right to to make it up, click
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  acceleration into the air with power.
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  You put the power in and then you brought it up.
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  You converted everything she said was perfect, but the one
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  word you have to avoid using is you put your foot down and
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  stopped it, right? Don't.
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  If you stop something, do you? Is that acceleration or
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  deceleration? Never ever, ever tell an athlete
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  to run to the take off board. Always tell the athlete putting
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  your foot down correctly even though I'm showing you it's
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  stopping. It's this through the takeoff
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  board. You do not try to get height in
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  the long jump. I'll show you how to get height
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  in one second. You run through the take off
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  board, maintaining good posture, setting up your penultimate
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  correctly and put in your left foot or take off foot down.
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  OK, how do the hips remember we just said how many ever got
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  their hips in up in the air right like somebody was there
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  and just push you. It's all in the upper body.
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  If I check right here with this left hand, this moves us into
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  the the take off per SE all right.
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  If I check with this left hand and don't let the elbow pass the
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  plane pass my hip in that position, can it go back here a
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  little bit? It's OK, but try to stop it
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  right there. If I try and track and field to
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  stop this here, if I try to stop this left arm here because I
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  want to be there to throw, do I stop it right there?
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  No, it's too late. It has to stop right here and
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  go. So if I want my elbow to stop
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  there, I have to try as I'm practicing.
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  Stop right here and it'll go to there.
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  Pre program, everything. Does a hurdler wait till he or
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  she gets over the hurdle to bring your foot down?
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  Absolutely not. You got to be little gutsy right
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  here. You're starting to bring your
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  foot down. Coach, I'm not even over the
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  hurdle. I don't care.
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  Do it. Put a hurdle real low and
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  they'll see they can do it and then move it up and so on and so
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  forth. You have to pre program stuff.
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  So it's good. Run through the take off and as
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  soon as you run through the take off, soon as you run through the
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  take off with all the other stuff correct and you check the,
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  you delay the onset of rotation. You you're going to run through
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  and keep your speed and your hips are going to go right up,
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  right up. It's going to be great.
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  All right. Running through.
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  There is no staff to continue to guide you.
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  Absolutely. How about a router plus fishing?
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  Cheryl, you're in the top of the class 5 minutes.
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  All right, all right. So to take off, the upper body
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  must remain perpendicular. There must be a checking or
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  delaying. This is called checking.
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  Delaying. How do you check or delay?
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  There's a million different ways.
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  Watch that can be it, that can be it, This can be it.
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  That was my style right there. I just kicked it off to the
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  side, but I didn't allow to go back.
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  Some people do this, catch it right away, all right, they
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  catch it, they stop it and then go up with it.
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  Inevitably, however, you do check or delay the onset of
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  rotation cost checking. Watch this.
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  My thought as an athlete and I tried to sell this to the
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  athletes I coach. It's the same thing.
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  I said check, reach and grab the golden ring and hang on.
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  Reach and grab a cloud. Just hang on so you can ride.
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  So in checking here and it comes right up.
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  If I'm hanging or hitching or hitch, hang either technique in
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  the air. Any of the three.
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  OK, I'm going here, reaching up and then it cycles through and
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  the land. OK.
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  But as soon as you check with the opposite arm of takeoff
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  here, then it starts, it goes up and stops, keeps perpendicular.
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  So you're going off the board perpendicular C GS, not out in
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  front of you. All right.
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  And then you rotate your arms around that, set up the landing
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  and then come into it. How many times you rotate
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  around? Depends.
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  Are you hitching? Are you hanging or you
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  Hitchhank? Which is the best hitch hanger?
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  Hitchhank, They're all the same, right?
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  They're all the same. Why?
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  Because it was dictated 90 to 95% of what you do is on the
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  runway and take off. If that's the case, your
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  parabola of CG, your flight has already been established.
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  You can't change that. And all the hang, the hitch or
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  the hitch hang does is help you set up a long extension at
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  landing. How do I decide whether this
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  person does the hitch? You do the hang and you do the
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  hitch hang. How do I decide that I watched
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  it? I just watch what they're doing.
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  If they're constantly doing the hang and they're doing it pretty
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  good, I leave it. I don't try to instruct
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  something else. I you can, you can and so on and
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  so forth. And but that's what I do.
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  So I've had good people do hitches, hitch, hang and hangs
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  and jump, fart all right, jump far all over 8 meters or
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  whatever, something like that. It just depends.
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  Go with what the kid does naturally.
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  I'll tell you a great story coaching wise.
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  Carl Lewis, high school kid runs pretty quick in 100.
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  I can't remember where he ran, but pretty quick and he jumps 26
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  feet in high school in the long jump, 26 weeks.
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  Pretty good. All right, coach Tom Pelets,
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  greatest coach in the world down in Houston.
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  I went down to Houston that first year because I was a young
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  coach. I want I followed Tom Moran and
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  just learned from him all day. I, I followed him around every
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  single event he did. And then the night that which we
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  learned by watching actually started in my mind, I took him
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  to dinner and say, hey, you were doing this.
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  This happened. What what was the deal?
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  Why were you doing that? What's the rationale behind
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  that? He took a 26 foot long jumper.
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  Carl had no clue what he was doing jumping improper in high
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  school, but he jumped 26 feet and he said you can't jump that
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  way. You're going to hurt yourself.
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  You're never you. Maybe you go 27.
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  Whoop Dee Doo, you're way better than that.
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  He broken down freshman year that that kid was jumping 24
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  feet and almost crying his freshman year.
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  And what did Carl do by the end of that year?
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  He jumped 27 something or other, but it was pulling teeth because
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  Tom knew that what he was doing was only going to get him so
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  far. In today's world, what a coach
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  is doing at the Division One level, they're just leaving the
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  kid there to get points on the on the scoreboard.
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  That's not good teaching. I'm sorry, but that's not good
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  teaching. That's not looking out for the
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  betterment of the athlete. Tom Talez needs to be patted on
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  the back, you know, for doing something like that was great.
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  All right, so hitch hang or hitch hang is they're all good.
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  One of the cues I always told kids is if you're, you feel the,
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  the approach in the takeover is really good and you don't land
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  or I, I just, I tell him to say to himself, don't land, don't
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  land, don't land, don't land, you know, and delay the, the
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  landing mechanics until the very last second.
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  Or I tell him, hey, Mary, on the next jump, jump the hell out of
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  the pit. Just jump the hell out of the
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  pit on this one. You know, you're looking good.
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  Just try to jump out of the pit, you know, beyond the sand or
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  something like that. Some cue like that the the long
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  jump is a very simple event to coach.
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  And if you follow anything you read, keep it and read it and
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  read it and read other stuff too.
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  All right. But it's, if it's
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  contraindicated everything I told you, I'm telling you right
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  now, it's not igotysical, it's correct.
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  And I backed up everything I said with the scientific
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  principle of some sort. And I use the old adage, you can
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  argue with me, but you can't argue.
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  What's her? Isaac Newton OK, the laws of
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  human movement dictate how we teach every skill in track and
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  field. So become familiar with them.
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  And you don't have to be a PhD, you don't have to be a physics
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  major. You just have to be a movement
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  person, right? That kind of thing.
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  Hey, guys are good, guys are good.
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  Come on, some questions. What do we got?
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  We got 3 minutes, right? I can go on forever.
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  But some of the questions that all the questions that were
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  asked were good. Come on, there's got to be some
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  question. Everybody got this perfectly.
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  You all can go on and take your high school kids.
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  They're jumping 90 feet, no jump 25 feet right now.
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  Loud, nice and loud. So everybody hears it all right.
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  I'm not throwing any other speakers under the bus, but when
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  they when they talk about the initial start, they're all
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  saying OK, you need that approach and roll into.
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  The approach and. No, I and I want to because.
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  Want me to punch your lights out?
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  No. I I think this is a as an
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  equation you want no variables and I see when you're talking
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  now. There's no variables.
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  There's no variables. I'll tell you why I see that.
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  There's sideways and rolling into it.
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  There's always variables. How do I get the, you know, back
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  away? From that that nonsense to gain
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  speed. To to drive into.
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  It all right, here's here's the answer to that question.
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  Let's say you're at 7 lefts, the athletes at 7 lefts.
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  Let's say for argument's sake, the typical high school kids,
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  about 120 feet back, you have 120 feet.
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  That's 40 yards, right? So that's probably, what, 35
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  meters? Something like that.
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  You have 35 meters to accelerate down the runway.
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  It's a perception event. If I roll, drive out whatever
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  words those guys are using, which are wrong, all right?
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  And like this, I've already eaten up.
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  And then I come up. I've already eaten up 12/15/18
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  meters. I don't know something.
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  All right, now I come up, what's the first thing I have to do?
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  I have to use a proprioceptor to perceive where I'm at.
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  It's OK, it's OK, but I gave it up back there.
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  I can perceive and make subtle adjustments right back there.
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  When a hurdler comes out of the starting blocks, what's the
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  cues? Seven steps or 8 steps?
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  That doesn't matter. What's the cues you use for a
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  young hurdler coming out of the short block, going to the first
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  row? 3 drives, three drives and a get
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  toll set. Drive, bang, drive, drive,
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  drive. You have to drive.
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  It's a Sprint race, right? And then get tall.
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  That means get up tall, get your posture up tall and then 45678.
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  I'm perceiving where that hurdle is and then I negotiate that
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  hurdle. Who wins the hurdle race?
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  Not the kid who gets the hurdle off the the first hurdle, the
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  first hurdle first or off the first hurdle first.
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  It's the kid who comes off the first hurdle in the greatest
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  position in which now to apply forces for the rest of the race.
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  That's the key. Three drives and a ghetto.
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  It was as simple as that. So it's the same idea.
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  I saw one coach teaching somebody to start like this in
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  the back of the runway in the long jump.
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  I just went nuts. If you want more speed, I think
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  part of your question was how do I get more speed if there's six
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  left, moving back to seven. If you're 7 and you need more
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  speed, go back to 8, right? Go back to 8.
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  Just go back that way. But don't give up the
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  perception. Don't.
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  Little kids, especially young kids, high school kids,
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  perception is good. You're steering.
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  You don't want to over steer because that could help the
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  seller or assist in deceleration or something like that.
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  But that's a good question. Somebody said keep your eyes up.
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  Don't look at the board. You shipped it.
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  It doesn't work everybody, and not because everybody looks at
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  the board. Here's another cue, here's
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  another thought. And if there's more questions, I
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  want to hear them. Look at video, look at the great
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  athletes in all the events. But do I'll tell you a story.
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  Do not mimic them in everything they do.
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  Remember, they're great athletes.
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  Remember, we're working with high school college kids that
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  are pretty good athletes, but they're growing and whatever.
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  Take the good points that they're doing from them and then
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  bring those into your program. But if there's something that's
• 15:37
  too advanced for them, don't do that Story 1955 at 8 years old,
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  I make the Little League team at 8-8 years old.
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  All right, I should have been on the farm team, but I was pretty
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  good second baseman and an outfielder, so they put me up on
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  the big deal. 8 to 12 years old and I was a little, I'm a little
• 16:01
  now, but I was even real little of that.
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  All right, guy hits the ball. My dad played baseball in
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  college. He taught me how to play
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  baseball. My dad sitting in the stands,
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  guy hits the ball at pop center field.
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  I'm playing center field and routine pop fly.
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  Nothing. I ran over to maybe my right or
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  left, I can't remember, and I catch it like this, like Willie
• 16:20
  Mays. Willie Mays was my hero.
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  Willie Mays played for the New York Giants back then and the
• 16:25
  Polar Grounds in New York City and I got the guy out.
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  OK, whatever. I'm a hot shot.
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  I'm a big 8 year old hot shot man.
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  I'm catching like Willie Mays and we're riding home after the
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  game. My dad said, hey, I never saw
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  you do that before. Why did you do that?
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  Why did you catch the ball like that?
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  When I hit your pop flies, you're always catching them like
• 16:45
  this standard way, right? And I said, hey, Pop, Willie
• 16:49
  Mays catches like that. I'm going to catch like that.
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  It's my Euro. He said, no, that's what's good
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  for Willie. If it's good for you, OK, you do
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  it. But if it's not, don't do that.
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  Well, it didn't make a sense relative to coaching back then.
• 17:03
  But you know what? He was right.
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  He was right. And that's how I learned to look
• 17:12
  at video. You have to take from video what
• 17:15
  you can use and what you can teach the athlete.
• 17:18
  But if they're doing an advanced Carl Lewis does a double hitch,
• 17:22
  I wouldn't teach. I've never taught anybody a
• 17:23
  double hitch. That's a tough deal.
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  If I was coaching just a long jumper and he or she happened to
• 17:29
  be pretty darn good and I thought the double hitch would
• 17:31
  work, that I'd spend time. I never coached the heptathlete
• 17:34
  or that at the athlete. The double hitch kick.
• 17:36
  Oh my God, there's nine other events to do.
• 17:39
  I I can't be spending 18900 hours on just that and and maybe
• 17:43
  have it screw up in the meeting. So come on, some more questions.
• 17:46
  Yeah, I can't do. The demonstrations that.
• 17:56
  You are suggesting because. I.
• 18:01
  Get some Geritol, man. Get yourself fired up.
• 18:08
  Yes, you can. Absolutely you can.
• 18:10
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I used to
• 18:12
  physically when I was in my 30s, I, I would physically, I do the
• 18:16
  whole high jump or the whole pole vault or something.
• 18:19
  And then there came a time where I couldn't do it anymore, you
• 18:21
  know, a lot younger than you. I was probably in my 45 or
• 18:24
  something like that and I couldn't.
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  So I had to figure out a way to demonstrate it from a standing
• 18:29
  or walking through and stuff like that.
• 18:32
  And yeah, so you could have another athlete do that.
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  That's, that's important. That's part of the whole growing
• 18:38
  posture. I was standing at San Francisco
• 18:41
  State, we were maybe our 4th, my 4th year there, maybe 851985,
• 18:46
  and we were starting to progress.
• 18:48
  And some little freshman I brought in was a good shot
• 18:50
  putter. It's a good example, a good shot
• 18:52
  putter. And my teaching of him was
• 18:56
  contraindicated to what he was taught in high school, and he
• 18:58
  was pretty good coming out of high school.
• 19:00
  So he was struggling kind of like the Tom Thales and Carl
• 19:02
  Lewis thing, and I was trying to adjust them and he was arguing
• 19:06
  back and forth with me and he was really upset because he
• 19:09
  wasn't throwing far. He was intense and he really
• 19:11
  wanted to throw far. One of the seniors came over,
• 19:15
  happened to come over and said I can't remember his name.
• 19:18
  Joe Joe, shut up. Keep your mouth shut.
• 19:22
  Harry will have you ready for the conference championships.
• 19:25
  Done deal. He won the conference
• 19:26
  championships. All right, So an upperclassman,
• 19:29
  another student, another athlete in effect.
• 19:32
  He didn't show the technique, but he he brought the the
• 19:35
  concept in and that was good. So you learn those things and so
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  on. Yeah, you can have another
• 19:40
  athlete do it by little. Brian Brophy was a great
• 19:44
  decathlete 8276, and in his he was slower than molasses in
• 19:52
  winter in Wisconsin. OK, he was slow, but he ran 1476
• 19:57
  in hurdles. Not good, but not bad.
• 20:00
  Not bad at all. And but his technique was bad
• 20:04
  and what he wanted to do when he went over a hurdle here, and
• 20:08
  this is part of technique and long jump and so on, he got
• 20:11
  here. As he was leaving the ground, he
• 20:13
  pulled his left foot, his right foot through his trail leg as
• 20:17
  fast as he could before he ever before he ever fully extended
• 20:25
  that foot and used all the forces applied to all the
• 20:28
  forces. If you only use that foot to
• 20:31
  there, to there and then pull off the ground, you're not
• 20:34
  creating linear acceleration. Right?
• 20:37
  All right. And I said, Brian, why are you
• 20:40
  doing that? Why are you pulling your foot
• 20:41
  through so fast? I want to get it through and get
• 20:44
  it on the ground. I said, yes, you have to do
• 20:47
  that. You have to get it through fast,
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  but not at the expense of using the lever completely.
• 20:52
  So I taught him push off of this.
• 20:55
  Don't bring your foot through. Use your glute muscle.
• 20:59
  This is how you hurtle. Push off, lift with your glute
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  muscle, lift there and then you create a stretch reflex.
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  That foot goes flying through. You can't even stop it from
• 21:12
  coming through and it will go through faster by extending and
• 21:15
  staying on the ground, lifting with your glute and it'll pull
• 21:18
  through as opposed to quick here, which you go de
• 21:22
  accelerate. That guy ran 1140 in 100 meters.
• 21:26
  I mean with a smoking tailwind. He was slow.
• 21:30
  He was slow, but he ran pretty good hurdles and he ran 48
• 21:32
  seconds in the 400 meters and 4:28 in the 15.
• 21:36
  Thank you very much. Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here.
• 21:41
  Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Guild 1918
• 21:45
  Project series. It's really my mission, my
• 21:48
  passion to bring you massive amounts of value and I hope this
• 21:52
  one hit the mark. The Gill 1918 Project is really
• 21:56
  dependent on you if for you to build your own episode, to hear
• 22:00
  your voice, to have your voice heard you have something to say
• 22:04
  and teach other coaches out there.
• 22:05
  So please get a hold of me, E-mail, text message, Twitter,
• 22:11
  smoke signals, get a hold of me and let's help create your
• 22:14
  episode of the Guild 1918 Project.
• 22:16
  Hope you enjoy the day, they will see you tomorrow.