CUBANS JUMPERS ARE STILL FLYING..

Pedro Pablo Pichardo’s whirlwind start to 2015 continued when he improved his Cuban triple jump record to a world-leading 18.08m at the Copa Cuba-Memorial Barrientos meeting in Havana on Thursday evening (28).

The 21-year-old Pichardo, the 2012 world junior champion and 2013 world silver medallist, has now improved the national record at three successive meetings in 2015.

He jumped 17.94m in Havana on 8 May and then broke through the 18-metre barrier with 18.06m to win at the first IAAF Diamond League meeting of the season in Doha on 15 May.

He has now gone two centimetres farther to consolidate his place as the third-best triple jumper of all time, behind only Great Britain’s world record-holder Jonathan Edwards and the USA’s Kenny Harrison.

His big jump in Havana came in the second round after he had opened with 17.93m. He passed his remaining four attempts.

"I did not expect this result because since my return (from Doha) I have been working on technical improvements, focusing on my run up and take off, but I still felt great,” he told local reporters.

Another amazing result by a Cuban trained Triple Jumper-where does the success of the Cuban jumpers comes from?

Cuba has the best training system in the world- even the IAAF claim that Cuba has the best jumps school in the world. These results are not only from hard training, but also from a combination of a great relationship of trust between athletes and coaches.

When an athlete has good results, everybody puts all the attention to the athlete and nobody talks about who is the coach behind all that work.  Journalists and commentators just mention sometime his name, but nobody knows what a coach has to go to through to bring an athlete to the top.   

To be an elite coach in Cuba is not easy, and sometime politics play an important part in this matter. This can make it difficult for many new coaches to reach the elite position, but it does not mean that they are inferior coaches-as I’ve mentioned before, to qualify as a coach in Cuba, you have to study for at least a 5 year degree in Sport Science, making even the minimum standards very high compared with many other countries.  Cuba has project work in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, sending many coaches abroad to do exchange work with different countries.  Among them are the jumps Coaches who, for the last 15 years, have done amazing jobs with many different athletes.

What few people know about, is the conditions in which the Cubans coaches have to work to achieve these results. For example, I have traveled all over the world and I have been in different places with really nice facilities, indoor and outdoor. Cuba as a tropical country, fortunately does not need an indoor track, but although they have a nice athletics stadium, the conditions can  never compare with an athletics track in Europe, in terms of the sophistication and range of equipment available.

For example, the weight room is very limited, and the equipment is really old, but the knowledge of the Cuban coaches, and their ability to improvise, is so developed, that although it is difficult to work under these conditions, nothing will stop them achieving their objectives. Cuban coaches are highly qualified and have a brilliant knowledge of athletics and their specialties, and therefore are recognized   as among the best coaches in the world.

My observations of common problems of trainee athletes. Part 2 Speed during The approach.

In one of my recent workshops I was focusing on the approach and the speed for Long jump and Triple jump. I saw many problems with the approach, but I want to mention the problem which was the most significant to me. If you are an athlete with a personal record of 6.60/6.80m in Long jump, it is not possible to have an approach of 45m long. Everybody thinks that the longer the approach, the better they will jump, but if you have to have a 45m long approach to jump over 6m, imagine how long you have to run when you have to jump over 7.80m. For this reason, it is really important to work hard at running techniques in combination with speed, together with the most important work of speed control. 

The other problem is, there is a big lack of technique coordination and rhythm. The athletes don’t know anything about drills exercises for coordination and rhythm, and this results in  bad coordination between the arm and leg movement.

Another problem is that they can`t lift the knees high, and the worst things is that they let the hips drop down during the approach, something which also often happens with triple jumpers. When you let your hips drop down during the approach, you have to make more effort to achieve the height and distance, and so the end result is always poor. 

Now, about speed in  Triple jump-  I have to say that I can`t remember how many time I heard it said in Europe that the best triple jumpers have to run between 10.05/10.80ms in 100 meters. Of course speed is very important, there is no doubt about that, but an athlete can run 10.00m/sec in 100m and may still not be able to reach even 15.00m in triple jump.

Why? Everything  in triple jump is balance- a good approach is essential, and of course you have to run fast, but the issue is  how do you build  speed during the approach? For example; if you have a 35m approach, you know that the last 15m before the board, you have to be at your max speed. This   means that the first 6m you have to start to drive and build your approach (you can drive from 6 or 7 steps etc according to your quality).  You then have 14m to increase the acceleration to reach the max speed in the last 15m, to be capable to run to the board with maximum explosiveness.

 

A fast approach is not everything for a good jump. but a combination of control and balance are essential. One of most important things is to try maintaining the speed between the jumps- for example, I know athletes that with a (7) step approach, are able to reach 17m. Why? Because they are able to keep the speed during the jumps, and they work really good with time and space.

To my surprise, during both of my recent workshops, I sow triple jumps athletes who are unable to do bounding properly, do single leg hops, a combination of jumps as hop-hop-step jumps, or quintuple. There neither seems to be any knowledge about specific hurdles exercises or plyometric exercises for Triple jump. 

All of the above elements are fundamental to the technique of Triple Jump, and without this knowledge, I’m not surprised that little significant progress is being made.  In training my athletes, as a coach I try to correct as much as possible any technique issues of each athlete, and know that this will result in more productive training sessions, better results, and better athletes. However, it does seem to me that there is big lack of knowledge about this discipline in some coaches, and that this is the main reason for the poor results of this discipline.   

My observations of common problems of trainee athletes. Part 1 The Warm Up

A Long time ago I wrote about the importance of the warm up for the jumper, but I would like talk again about this theme, because what I see is that there is a great lack of information about this very important part of training.  I get so frustrated when I see athletes running only two laps on the track, and without any warm up they immediately start training.

This week during my first workshop, I was watching what the athletes were doing as a warm up ,and to my surprise ,everybody just ran 2 or 3 laps on the track and they were ready to start training. My first question was, “for how long have you trained in athletics?”  The answer also surprised me-  all of them had  trained in athletics for more than 5 years.  My second question was-“ what kind of warm up do you do?” Another surprise- they said “just running and immediately we start training.”

I want to explain something to everybody- the warm up is crucial as it prevents injuries and prepares the body for any practice of sports and also prepare the athlete physiologically and psychologically.

The Aim of the Warmup is to:

-          Prepare the body to effect an intense physically activity (the body adapts to the stress gradually) and psychologically.

-          Facilitate the stimulation of the nervous system and activation of the vegetative functions (cardio-respiratory).

-         Avoid or reduce the possibility of muscle or joint injuries due to increased body temperature.

I know that here in the UK athletes train for only one hour and in that time they have to do everything but the coaches have to teach the athletes the extreme important of warm up and let them know that this is fundamentally important before starting any physical activity.  The coach is the only person who has the responsibility to stress the extreme importance of these issues.

If you are a jumper (long jump-Triple jump- High jump etc), no matter  in which level you train, and  even if you have only one hour to do your program, a sufficient  warm up must  be included as  one of the most important parts of the training program. 

 Example of how to make a general warm up, divided into 4 stages, as follow. It is important that the stages are done strictly in the same sequence as below:

1.      Joint mobility: This is to put in motion the major joints that we will use in the subsequent activity (especially if we are in the early hours of the morning).

2.      Exercises to increase muscle temperature and increase the number of keystrokes: these are intended to increase the pulse so that more blood comes to the muscle, and to increase the temperature ,enhancing the subsequent stretching exercises

3.       Stretching exercises: These will be made at this stage, not at the beginning of warm up, because we have now increased the internal temperature and therefore are in a position to have stretched without risking injury.

4.      General Exercise: these exercises are intended to equate the heart pulsations at an approximate rhythm activity. In order to get this progression there will be a change of rhythm, direction, skipping and all those exercises of the second stage, done with a higher intensity.

I want to remind you that this is only a general warm up. Each individual athlete should analyse with their coach which types of exercises are best suited to your needs.

   

Fault diagnosis and correction in jumps technique

As previously written, I am currently organizing a series of workshops here in London in July and August, aimed at providing my specialist advice and training on Long Jump/ Triple Jump technique to developing athletes who are struggling to make improvements in their performance.

I have worked as a professional coach internationally for the past 25 years, and have spent the last 4 years here in the UK. I have had many young athletes contact me for private 1-1 coaching, as they know that they have excellent potential, but are failing to make progress in their performance. I always begin my training with an analysis of the athlete’s technique, and I'm finding that I am coming up against the same types of problems again and again, problems which are quite simply linked to a lack of an understanding of the very basis of Jumps Technique, and without a correct basis, the athlete can train as they like at running and jumping, but no progress will be made.

 After a diagnosis session, I spend the next session giving advice as to what the athlete is doing wrong in their technique, and go on to advise the corrections that I recommend. Usually they are completely astonished at how much they need to learn and correct, and are equally delighted with the improvements they make, once the corrections are implemented in further training with me.

Here in my blog, I would like to write over the coming weeks about some of the problem areas I am coming up against in working with UK athletes, and will offer some advice as to how these problems might be corrected. Hopefully this will offer insights and advice to aspiring athletes who may not have access to specialist training, but of course nothing beats having face – to – face coaching, and anyone interested in 1-1 or group coaching here in London, can contact me directly at panicoach@gmail.com.

I am also available to travel to coach internationally, and if you are interested in this please contact me with your details.

For further information about me, my background and my work, including testimonials form athletes I have trained, please visit my website on www.osoriocoaching.co.uk. 

New Additional Dates Long Jump and Triple jump Workshops, July 2015.

I've had a great response to my last post re my planned August Jumps Workshop in London, so much so that I am adding more workshop dates in July, to meet requests for earlier summer dates.

At the moment, the planned dates are …Sat 4th July, Sat 11th July, and Sat 18th July.

Price: £45 for 3 hours.

The focus will be on specific areas of technique such as drills to improve the hop and step in Triple jumps, and drills to perfect the attack of the board and improve maintenance of body orientation during the flight phase of the long jump. 

  

If you are interested in taking part in any of these training workshops, please e mail me at panicoach@gmail.com , with your details.