First Day Tomorrow

Track Season starts tomorrow, before we get to that though just want to say great job to Lexie. I went and saw her performance in L'il Abner, I couldn't understand what anyone was saying for the first 5 minutes or so but then my brain finally tapped into the dialect and it was great. I recommend it to all. Here are the remaining performances:
•Friday Feb 5th 08:00 PM
•Saturday Feb 6th 08:00 PM
•Sunday Feb 7th 02:30 PM
•Friday Feb 12th 08:00 PM
•Saturday Feb 13th 08:00 PM
You can even see a picture of her in action in the MH times...
http://www.morganhilltimes.com/news/262652-lil-abner-opens


As for track, really excited to start tomorrow, this is a month later than we have been able to start, so this season is just going to fly by. A big concern of mine is people getting physicals, I put in our rosters and alot of the people who signed up were not cleared yet, we have 4 less weeks this year, so missing the first 2 because you don't have a physical and then the 3rd week is winter break and the 4th week we start getting into our meets. If you don't have a physical schedule one immediately.

See you all tomorrow. Make sure you go support our track athletes in their other endevours, we have people playing basketball, soccer, wrestling and acting. I am going to try to see everyone at least once hopefully more. - Coach Mike

Winter Update

Just like with the fall I try to see as many track athletes as I can in their other sports. Tonight i went and saw Kenny in a wrestling match, the match didn't last long but that is becasue Kenny pinned the guy quick. Pretty exciting stuff I never had been to a high school wrestling match before. Kenny really did dominate the match, good stuff, very impressive.


Here is a pic I took on my phone showing Kenny standing over his exhaused victim haha.

All Comers Meet

So today Me, Mark and erika went to the LG All Comers Meet. Here are some slo mo vids of me and mark jumping. As well as me and Erika running in the 55 and the 100. Erika ran a 13.35 100 which she didn't run until May of last year. So she is way ahead of schedule.


Here are 2 of my jumps


Here are 2 of Marks jumps



Here is me and Erika in the 55 meter dash


Here is me and Erika starting the 100 meters



Mark in the 400

Looking forward to the season

Today was one of those days where everything just goes 10 times better than you planned. Lauren was lightyears ahead of where she was last week in her skipping series. The team picked up the remedial jumps and started fixing their own balance, strength and stability deficiencies with out me. I think this workout is going to really help this year. Just made me excited about being able to coach again next month.

New Software

So I got this new software that will allow for some good motion analysis. So I went to the Long Jump pits and recorded this video. I knew the board was 10 feet away from the pit so once I had that reference distance put in I was able to figure out all kinds of stuff. For example the low point of my penultimate was 2.8 feet off the ground whereas the high point of my jump was 5.15 feet in the air. It allows you to look at speeds and acceleration, I can figure out athletes angles of projection in jumps and throws, it has a ghost feature where is overlays all the images of you on to one picture. Lots of great stuff and I am still learning to use it.

The last couple years I have been trying to talk myself into getting Dartfish, which is a motion analysis program. THe cheapest one is over a thousand dollars, this seems like it gets you 80% of the features for FREE. Very happy with this find. (It is software designed for phyiscs teachers, to help students understand labs, haha)

Here is a little of the program in action:

Here is a pic of my long jump in one picture.



Here is a graph of the height of my center of mass vs time.





Here is a video tracking my center of mass.

January Update

Still trying to figure out when we can have our preseason meeting, I am teaching a winter class at SJSU for the next 3 weeks so I won't able to be on campus at lunch. I will talk to Porras about it. The biggest thing is just letting people know they need to get a physical if they haven't played a sport yet and that practice starts on Feb 1st.

The meet schedule is all set, I need to upload it to the site (not as easy as it sounds, the computer with my web publisher is no longer the computer I use) Right now the Dual meet schedule is posted. Debating if I should buy the program again or just plug in my old computer everytime I want to update the website.

You guys all know that I don't care how many people we have on the team, but you should still encourage any of your friends that might be interested in track try it out. The more people out there the more we can let people specialize on their best events, with a small team we tend to run a little thin. I think there is a big misconception that track is just running and torture but there are 6 field events and we focus more on running quality and full recovery then the conditioning you see in other sports.

Med Ball and Body Building Series

Here is our Med Ball and Body Building Series. Typically we use this series as well as our core strength series on general days. These type of lifts are not keys to performance but help the body recover from our neuromuscular days (high intensity) these general strength series elicit a growth hormone responce which helps repair and rebuild damaged tissue. Here is a list of the other series I am planning on posting: Weight Room Series, Core Stability Series, Pre Practice Series, Multi Throw Series, Multi Jump Series, Recovery and Regeneration Series.

Core Strength Series

SO we started filming all of our exercises and thought I would start posting them here:

First off, is our Core Strength Series... we typically never do all of these usually just pick 3 or 4 on any given day. Really the way to improve core strength is through weight lifting and running.

Some Fun with new camera

Here is a plyo ball hitting the ground at 1000 frames per second... quality goes down the faster the camera goes...



Here is Armando Jumping Rope at 210 Frames per second



Here is an up close shot of Armandos feet while jumping rope at 1000 frames per second. Pretty cool, you can see that he needs to keep his toes up on his landing. Plus you can just see the power of the achilles tendon.




Armando Trying a push up with a clap behind his back, swing and a miss!



Ill post some other videos later... can't wait to get some actualy track events on it!

My favorite coaching rule

Recently I read a quote that said "Did you invest as much in your career as you did in your car this past year?" I loved that and wanted to repeat that here, I couldn't agree more.

Those who have been around me a few years will notice that no two season are the same, I think we have had a different warm up every year. I try to analyze the previous season remove the things I didn't think helped and keep the things I did think helped. Then I look for new things to try out, some work some don't. There is alot of trial and error. You would be bummed if you ran the same speed in middle school as you did in your senior year of college. I am the same way, in ten years from now I hope I will be a better coach. Anyways, I never planned on being a coach, if I did I would have asked alot more questions when I was an athlete, I was more of the "blindly follow whatever your coach says" type of athlete. Anyways my first year was basically me just assigning the athletes the exact same workouts I had to do. MOnday was tough, Tuesday was technique, Wednesday was speed, Thursday Technique, Friday was tempo, Saturday was meet. The problem was when I wanted to adjust things I couldn't because I didn't know why did them just what we did.

Anyways after my first season, I got my paycheck and it wasn't much and I had bills I needed to pay, but I also felt like I should reward myself for my first season being done. It felt like if i used it for bills, I was coaching for the wrong reasons or if i used it to buy a video game that would be no good to. It just seemed right to use it to make me a better coach. So I went on to amazon and bought 4 or 5 books on track and field. The next year after coaching I used my money to take some classes at Foothill in exercise physiology. Those classes got me interested in exercise physiology and I ended up going to SJSU and getting my Masters in the subject. (there is no way this would have happened if I didn't go to foothill) now I am teaching classes at SJSU. Every year I try to challenge myself to spend as much of my coaching paycheck on making me a better coach. Again following with the theme of lifelong learning. One year I went to chicago for a week long coaching education program sponsored by USATF . It was made to certify me to coach the jumps at the NCAA level. It cost 400 dollars more than my paycheck that year, I still felt it was worth it. Over the years I have used it to buy over 80 books 15 DVDs, our team website (plus the web design class I took at foothill). A couple weeks I got my football paycheck and I used it to buy a high speed camera, I probably wouldn't have been able to justify that purchase to myself with out this rule. The rest of the paycheck I used to buy over 30 hours of video from top coaches in distance, jumps and sprints and throws.

The point of this post isn't to brag about all the stuff I bought but it is just to say no matter what field you go into, never stop trying to imporve, don't be sataisfied. If you don't like your job invest in things taht will help you get a new job.

Merry Christmas!

Goals this year

I know we are going to have a wide range of goals this year.

We have some outcome goals: I know Erika just wants to make CCS finals this year, Stephanie is looking to make it to state)
We have some performance goals: Pauline is hoping to run a 57 in the 400. I am going to want a huge amount of PRs.

I just want to remind everyone about the 3rd type of goal, process goals. Process goals are more about the technique. For example a process goal for Erika would be "I don't want to come out so low from the blocks" actually "I want to come out at a 45 degree angle" is a better way to phrase that. It would be Lauren saying "I want the second phase of my triple jump to be at least 30% of my total distance". Chelsie might say "I want my first lap to be my slowest of the race". Stuff like that Erika. Chelsie or Lauren may lose their events (outcome) and may not get PRs (performance) but their is still an important thing being accomplished. Part of the difficulty of process goals is you have to underdstand your event.

I don't think any type is anymore important, (I have my personal preferences about which are the best) but if going to state motivates Stephanie to work hard and improve then it did its job.

Lauren in the MH Times

http://www.morganhilltimes.com/sports/261206-field-hockey-drewniany-heads-lo-all-leaguers

New Blog

Hey guys,

So I created a new blog which will be a place for me to write down my thoughts on whatever I am thinking of related coaching etc... I figured it was best to leave this blog for only Live Oak related things (i.e. Meet results and stuff)

For me personally, writting things out is the only real way I can digest information, just reading it or hearing it doesn't work which is why I took advantage of this blog to get my thoughts down. Anyways if you are interested it is called "My Brain's Colon" (get it? its my way to digest information) My goal is to post everyday. So far I am 3 for 3.

Next Monday

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, I definitely did. Ate a ton thursday, played some ultimate frisbee Friday and then ate a bunch more. So Monday is the start of offseason training, I know I just made a blog entry wondering if we even needed it. It should be known that it is completely volentary and individuals who don't go won't be punished (don't even know how I could punish someone, it's track I can't reduce someones playing time)

The main goal is to keep people who wouldn't be active otherwise... active. We won't do any type of specific training, no block starts, no long jump approaches. It will be working on general fitness. There will only be 3 componants of our training: Strength, Conditioning, Flexibility. At the end of it I would like to think you are prepared for any sport rather than just for track. Anyways it starts Monday, Nov 30 at 3:20pm at the Live Oak Track

Fall Sports Round Up

Well now that all the fall sports seasons are finished we are on to winter. Soccer, Wrestling and Basketball are starting up. I don't think we have nearly as many athletes in winter sports, off the top of my head I think it is just Leach in basketball, Kenny in wrestling, and Alex Ukanwa in soccer. SO make sure you guys go out and support your track teammates in their other sports.

Before moving on though just wanted to wrap up the seasons of our fall sports athletes.

Cross Country (Adam Groen, Pauline Olsen, Chelsie Faulk)

As I mentioned before all three of our athletes made the CCS Meet. They would be the first to tell you it did not go as well as they had hoped. That being said it was a great season for all three. I think Chelsie and Adam took a couple steps forward this year and Pauline accomplished her goal of staying in shape and getting a good base aerobic fitness down before the beginning of the season.

Field Hockey (Lauren Drewniany, Catherine Sparling, Erika Rodriguez)

Well after I put the blog jinx on them by mentioning there chances of making the CCS Playoffs they ended up coming up just short, with a loss to Leigh and a forfeit win against Homestead. I don't think I ever saw a complete game but I did end up seeing like 12 halves, haha. It was really enjoyable seeing these other sides of athletes. Catherine making juke moves against defenders, Erika bringing a ton of energy to the game (I guess that is nothing new) and Lauren being a leader out on the field. Speaking of Lauren she came away with some recognition at the end of the season, being named First team all-league, Junior of the yeat and Non-Glam Player of the year.

Football (Lots, haha)

Like cross country and field hockey another tough ending to the season. They ended up making the playoffs and played against Terra Nova, the number one seed, in the first round. They had a 24-7 lead in the 3rd quarter but couldn't quite hold on and lost 28-24. The biggest thing about this team had to be it resiliancy. They started the season 0-4 and had tough losses to rivals (Gilroy/Sobrato) thet battled back though to beat Oak Grove, make the playoffs and give the number 1 seed all they could handle. Lots of positives to take out of this season. Also because I am a football coach I already know that some on the track athletes on the team will be also getting some awards and recognition but since we haven't had the awards banquet yet I am going to have to keep it to myself.

Great Job All, Hopefully next fall we will have even more athletes competing in fall sports.

Even More? YES it's true! haha

Here is another website with alot more of a science based background than the typical websites that are trying to sell something....

http://www.ifi.ku.dk/english/communication/previous_arrangements/consensus/program_video/

Free bit of advice that is worth every penny: People that take something simple and make it complex are trying to sell you something, People that take something complex and make it simple are trying to teach you something.

This is something I have learned looking through endless websites and research. I guess there is such thing as over simplifying but in general this is what I have found to be true.

More

Keeping with my current theme of lifetime learning I just wanted to pass along a website that I love looking at. IT has speeches from the TED conference which rountinely challenges the way things are and gives me new ways to think about problems.

www.ted.com

Offseason training?

Do we need it?

Up until 6 months ago I would have said yes... now being in my "questioning everything" phase. I really do wonder about it.

Erika qualified for 4 different CCS events last year, due to an injury she didn't start running until February (and we had to reduce her workload when she came back) Hard to argue she didn't have enough time. Tolson did come out for Offseason training and was able to make it to CCS and take a good 4 seconds off his 400 time. Mark always did offseason training, Courtney did absolutely nothing in between seasons. Both were very successful.

Is year around training one of those "imbred thoughts" that has been passed along? The people who do offseason tend to be the most dedicated (willing to work when it isn't mandatory or required) that probably has a bigger role on thier success then offseason training. (At the very least it plays a role)

THe logic of offseason training is the better shape you are in the more you can do, if you are out of shape it will be hard to do more than a 3*150s, but someone in shape can do 6*150s. They can do more, meaning they can get in better shape meaning they will perform better.

Maybe the truth is, that difference early in the year 3 150s vs 6 150s ends up being 14 150s vs 17 150s at the end of the year which isn't as big of a difference. Or maybe after you get to the point were you can do 10 150s there is no marginal benefit of going above that.

I am still having trouble thinking there is no benefit to offseason training (shows how tough it is to get rid of ingrained thought) I think what we will do this offseason is more related to supplementry training. (Weight room, aerobic, medicine ball work)

Coaching Part 1

So one of the big problems with coaching is there is a lot of imbreeding (metaphorically speaking) "I had to do this so now you do." I am no different, you guys do alot of workouts that I had to do in college at CMC (500 bds, in&out 200s (old style, not the kind where we actually run to in&out), 50 sec repeats, hammerstrides) Those all came from Claremont. My feeling was we won 4 conference titles in my 4 years there (they are going for 19 straight conference titles next spring) it should be good enough for you. While studying other coaching styles in track I have discovered that at CMC we took alot of our workouts from Jim Bush (coach at UCLA for many years). SO at LO we are doing similar workouts to UCLA in the 70's and 80s.

So why is this a problem?

Well most track coaches look to other track programs for ideas and change but say I talk to someone who follows Bud Winter's (SJSU head coach during speed city) approach that seems like a good idea except Jim Bush was influenced by Bud Winter. WHen you start to study track you realize there is so much imbreeeding of ideas that horrible ideas are reinforced. I have completely stopped looking at track people for references, I no longer ask my old college coach for training advise, I don't read books by track coaches period, and I don't ask other coaches what they do. I cut track off about 2 years ago. Every book or resourse I use is from people outside the sport. I read what athletic trainers are saying (they say static stretching hurts perfromance when done before expolsive activities) so we cut it out of our program. Mark on the other hand is training at West Valley college and they still static stretch. Why? because Bud Winter used to have his athletes do it. His coaches blindly follow what Bud Winter did, the other coaches they run into reinforce it because they were influence by someone who was influenced by Bud Winter too. At the end of the day it seems like 'hey 1000s of coaches are doing this it must be right', turns out 1 person actually decided to do it, everyone else just followed.

Now I read blogs by strength coaches. Books by psychologists. I find as much info as I can and hope there isn't a single mention of track in it. That leaves it up to me to interpret how it fits or doesn't fit into our program. I also like reading things totally not related to sports and find connections, Seth Godin has a great blog about Marketing that I have found with alot of parallels to track. (I even bought his book "The dip" which has no sports mention whatsoever but felt to me like he was talking precisely about track). Malcolm Gladwell's books are awesome for athletes none are about sports.

If you are wondering why is this important? My response is look at the results of the 84 olympics in LA and 08 Olympics in Beijing besides Bolt is their much of a difference? Our sport is stagnating, why because coaches are still doing the exact same things they did in the 60's today. We need some fresh DNA in the track gene pool, way to much imbreeding.

Here is a quote from Seth Godins blog today: "One study found that when confronted with a patient with back pain, surgeons prescribed surgery, physical therapists thought that therapy was indicated and yes, acupuncturists were sure needles were the answer. Across the entire universe of patients, the single largest indicator of treatment wasn't symptoms or patient background, it was the background of the doctor." In our sport almost all the doctors have the same background. How can we advance?

Sorry

What was I thinking talking about ccs qualifiers before seasons ended. I jinxed it big time. Unfortunantly field hockey had a little bit of a rough ending. They were eliminated after playing the first place team on Wed, then they team they were supposed to play Thursday didn't show up. (they thought the game was Friday)

That being said I really did enjoy watching our track stars in their other sports. Track year around is probably one of the worst things you can do (and I am a track coach). I really do encourage you all to try out different sports (as long as it isn't in the spring, haha. Actually if their is a sport you enjoy more then track definitely do it).

A little tangent but the abruptness of the ending for the field hockey team had me thinking about this. In most sports your season ending is usually a disappointment, except for teams that win championships, it either ends in a loss or if it ends in a win it is on a team that didn't make playoffs. That is a very small percentage who have their season end positively. I know it is kind of a generalization but every last game I had, I went into it hoping it wouldn't be my last.

This is just another reason why I think track is so great and the fact that we can have PRs is awesome. You could have a long jump competition of 16 people and only 8 advance, but you can have all 16 walk away happy if they PR. Now people in team sports can feel this way too even after a loss if they have a caoch who has done a good job of putting the season into perspective. I just think track has an advantage becasue it would be more of a quantitative positive then a qualitative positive. "I wnet in with a PR of 20' and I jumped 21' " That is as tangible of a result as "I qualified"

Anyways congrats to Erika, Lauren and Catherine on a great season. I am biased but the way I saw it was Catherine was in charge of the offensive end, Lauren the defensive end and Erika was the bridge between them.