Another Coach’s Relay Epiphany

First, thanks to Coach Roger White for his enlightening article on 4 X 100 relay exchange. His analysis and perspective have inspired me to share a few insights, as well as a few overarching philosophies that—going back over forty years—pretty much led me to the same conclusions he has reached.

Applying Three Overarching Philosophies in Coaching the 4 X 100

Just a few meets back I had the opportunity to talk to a sprinter I coached at another school 31 years ago. While he was watching his son competing in the sprint events, he commented on how disappointed he was with the way his son’s team was approaching exchanges in the 4 X 100. He alluded to a math calculation I used that resulted in a no verbal command/ hand back at a specific point in the zone method of exchange that was effective in helping his teams earn state medals.

At that point, I called over my current relay guys and asked him to share with them what he just mentioned, because the method of take-off-mark determination we were using was essentially the same one I applied ever three decades ago.

This was the same formula Coach White discussed in his recent article.

I very much liked Roger’s reference to Tom Ecker’s classic work, Basic Track and Field Biomechanics. My introduction to Ecker’s approach to relay racing came from an earlier publication of his, Track and Field Technique Through Dynamics published by TafNews Press in 1976. That book brought to my attention Ecker’s original premise—that “placement of runners and baton passing skill can have a profound effect (for better or worse) on the total time for any sprint relay.”

What Ecker was suggesting made sense to me. The baton needs to travel as fast as possible at the time of the exchange, and that the exchange should be made deep in the zone at a point closer to what the outgoing runner’s top speed will be. How to determine that was the problem Ecker was able to solve.

In both editions, he offers that, “by using a simple formula, the coach can determine the exact go-mark distance for any two relay runners with very little time and effort.” In the fourth and earlier editions of Biomechanics, he simply changes the numbers in his formula from yards and feet to meters.

Like Coach White, I came across the table version of Ecker’s formula in Gerhardt Schmolinsky’s Track and Field: Text Book for Coaches and Sports Teachers published in 1978. The chart presented in the book is described as an “aid to assessing with a fair degree of accuracy the spot for placing the starting marks after clocking the time of the runner with the baton on the last 25 meters and of the receiving runner on the first 26 meters.”

Both works were as helpful to me as they were to Coach White, and it feels good to know that my epiphany moments about relay exchange were similar to those of a great coach like Roger. My only modest contribution is in presenting my three overarching philosophies for this event.

Just as no two relay exchange zones are exactly the same in terms of running distance with and without the baton and gravitational forces relative to curves, no two runners are exactly the same in terms of acceleration ability, speed regression over longer distances, coordination, and reactivity. Ecker’s Biomechanics provides the following pieces of advice. “A poor starter should not run the leadoff leg. Poor curve runners should not run the first or third legs. Poor baton “givers” should not run the first, second, or third legs. Poor baton “receivers” should not run the second, third, or anchor leg.

He acknowledges that these points are obvious, and I think this is where a coach’s personal overarching philosophy on the 4 x 100 relay comes into play. For example, I understand that most of the excellent research on this relay will point to the importance of the fastest athlete running first because he runs farther with the baton than the anchor runner, but the reason we are using the formula in the first place is to maximize the outgoing runner’s speed so that the baton is not slowing down in the zone. Therefore, the amount of running the sprinter does to build up speed before getting the baton is important.

I always consider the difference in each of the four zones, as well as the nuances in ability of the four fastest sprinters I believe should be in this event. My shortest sprinter with a low center of mass and good acceleration I like to run first. My fastest sprinters, because of the amount of running they are doing both with and before getting the baton I like to put in either leg two or three. The fastest of those two I will put in the third leg, generally because I believe he is the most prepared to deal with negotiating the curve. As Jesse Tukuafu noted his research on curve running, “In order to be continuously changing direction around the curve, a runner must generate centripetal forces with the ground. This requires athletes to put some of their efforts into generating ground reaction forces that accelerate them towards the axis of rotation of the curve. As the medio-lateral (ML) ground reaction forces increase to generate centripetal forces, the vertical forces are decreased which results in a loss of running speed.” My fastest sprinter is most likely the one whose speed through the curve decreases the least. He is a sprinter who probably runs many 200’s and 400’s, and is the most experienced at making adjustments to run the curve effectively.

To understand the zone, the athlete must live and work in the zone. Simulation training (relay baton practice) that does not account for the true context of high-speed exchanges in each of the three zones does not prepare athletes for live race conditions.

This is where the original notion of a chart or projection table was a major step forward in helping coaches gets a better handle on how to coach their 4 x 100 teams. Its benefit is that, provided the input data is good, there is a logical starting point that does not require multiple practices.

And Ecker points out the problem with conventional type relay practices. “The typical short run –up practices coaches employ results in the incoming runner accelerating rather than decelerating as is the case over the actual distance of each leg in the relay.” I like to gather data by having each sprinter run the actual distance needed to be negotiated in his leg to get a more accurate assessment of his slow down over those final 25 meters. This means the testing is conducted through the actual zone on the track.

One of the surprising insights in Ecker’s Biomechanics is his focus on accuracy. “When using these formulas,” he says, “be aware that errors in timing will produce errors in distances. Therefore, it is essential that the timing be as accurate as possible.” Years back I would station an athlete at the fly-off mark and catch the drop of his hand to get a 25-meter incoming time. Now I use Freelap.

Declines in force application during repeated practice trials make the value or such rehearsals questionable. This is the one key insight I picked up from Biomechanics.
“The commonly used trial and error method can take hours of practice time and often produces go-marks that are not accurate. Because of fatigue on the part of the relay team members, the go-mark distances that seem correct at the end of one trial-and-error session often turn out to be all wrong at the next session.” That has always been my observation and another of the benefits of trusting a method that may only need tweaking after races themselves.

But there is another rendition of the sprint table that coaches might wish to consider. Randy Huntington sent a detailed Excel chart to Christopher, who then forwarded it to me. I asked Randy if it was OK to present this in a follow-up to Roger’s article, and he graciously gave me permission to discuss the spreadsheet.

I will briefly digress to present my relationship with Randy, and my appreciation for what he has done throughout his career for those of us involved in the sport of track and field. Randy has always been patient, generous, and supportive in dealing with coaching colleagues and as well as athletes, and that at times can be difficult, especially when differing approaches become contentious. Several years ago while I was debating Dr. Mike Yessis on the significance of the pawback technique for high speed sprinting, I sent Randy images run through SiliconCoach of more advanced high school athletes who, though trained by their coaches to execute an effective pawback, revealed no such pawing action in the speed trials I conducted.

Randy’s response was that the pawback was not in evidence because the sprinters were spending too much time in backside mechanics. I should have accepted that as a credible answer, but at the time I was hesitant because in my own mind I could not understand how Weyand’s analysis from JAP2000—that swing time in all sprinters at their respective top speed was essentially the same—could jive with Ralph Mann’s position, going back to the early eighties, on the significance of frontside mechanics. How could swing times be the same if it appeared as if a significant part of that swing was being eliminated?

When Drs. Weyand and Mann did clinic sessions together and agreed with each other’s research, I was compelled to think a little deeper, and realized that, rather than something being “cut out” of the swing, the entire swing was just shifted forward, thereby allowing a more productive thigh angle on the frontside (70 degrees in the elites tested).

Now that Dr. Ken Clark’s groundbreaking springs study, conducted with Dr. Weyand at the SMU locomotion lab, has revealed that elite sprinters have a surprisingly fast rising edge to their force curve, and are applying greater forces in the first half of contact, the mechanics of exactly how they accomplish this are becoming clearer. They are applying a powerful leg drive with a stiff contact on landing.

The training implications of these findings point to minimizing backside swing, a maximizing of frontside knee lift, a forceful down and back ground attack, and a shin vertical/stiff contact on the ball of the foot. And the coaching cues to achieve this kind of landing, things like Frans Bosch’s “whip from the hip” and some of Dr. Clark’s cues such as “hammer the nail and “spin the globe” do indeed seem somewhat like what the original notion of a pawback was intended to achieve.

So Randy, if you’re reading this, thanks for your patience in allowing me the time to better wrap my head around a mechanic that may still be semantically problematic—the pawback—but conceptually similar to what current research is suggesting, and what you pointed out years ago.

And now back to Randy’s approach to the 4 x 100

The table that appears is apparently based on a concept Fred Wilt, the famous “FBI distance guy,” developed many years ago. Like all Excel spreadsheets, this one has probably gone through several versions, but the math is still accurate. For example, on the table that appears in the GDR textbook, if an incoming runner’s last 25 meters is 2.8 seconds, and the outgoing runner’s first 26 meters is 4.1, the take-off mark for the outgoing sprinter is at 11.6 meters on the GDR chart and 11.61 on Randy’s spreadsheet. Assuming both are projecting a free distance of 1 meter in the baton exchange, coaches should have no concerns using Randy’s work.

What I like that he’s done is to add things in a simple way that gives coaches some flexibility. For example, assuming that coaches may want to run a full relay simulation in practice, he accounts for the fact that marks will be different in trials than they would be in an actual competition due to a runner’s aggressiveness. As a result, he presents both practice mark projections as well as what coaches can anticipate as take-off marks for an actual race.

I will close with one final overarching philosophy on the 4 X 100 relay. I refer to this event as Full Tilt Boogie—acting in an extremely focused manner in the pursuit of a goal and putting forth a superlative level of endeavor that is inherently exciting. If a formula gives my sprinters the confidence to run with abandon, trusting that the incoming runner will deliver the baton to them late in the zone when their arm comes back, it is well worth using. High risk is not an issue for me.

I like what Coach Vince Anderson once said about coaching concerns over possible failures in the 4 X 1: “Can someone explain what, exactly, is a safe pass?”

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References

1. Clark, K. P., and P. G. Weyand. “Are Running Speeds Maximized with Simple-spring Stance Mechanics?” Journal of Applied Physiology 117.6 (2014): 604-15. Print.
2. Clark, K. P., and P. G. Weyand. “Are Running Speeds Maximized with Simple-spring Stance Mechanics?” Journal of Applied Physiology 117.6 (2014): 604-15. Print.
3. Tukuafu, Jesse Tipasa, “The Effects of Indoor Track Curve Radius on Sprint Speed and Ground Reaction Forces” (2010). All Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2348.
4. Weyand, P., Sternlight, D., Bellizzi, M. and S. Wright. “Faster top running speeds are achieved with greater ground forces not more rapid leg movements.” Journal of Applied Physiology, 89: 1991-2000, (2000).Print.