An Athletics Compendium

The Uterature of Athletics Mussabini, which ran parallel to that with Webster and none of Mussabini's other successfulathletes,such asWilliam ApplegarthandAlbert Hill,provideanyinsightinto the manor his thinking. What Webster's account does reveal is Mussabini's rigorous conditioning methods, geared to professional match-racing, and his ability to absorb technical informationfroman event whichwas totallyoutsidehis experience:'What Samdid not knowabout gettingathletesfitwas not worth knowing.' It is sadthat Mussabiniand Webster's reticenceprevents us from knowing much about the characterof the two great coachesof the first halfof the twentiethcentury. Websterprefaceshis account of his experience withMussabini thus: 'I wonder if I maybe forgivenfor relating two incidents in the foregoing connection?I craveindulgence in this respect,sinceone of the two stories isentirely personal.' It is probably unfair to make comparisons between the twomen for Mussabini coachedonlyrunners and, at a timewhen amateurrunners werelightlyconditioned,the rigourand severityof hismethods were bound to producesuccessat internationallevel. At this distance, it is probablybest to judgeWebster as a coach-educator rather than a coach, and his writings were,in their time, probably the most advanced in the world, even if theylackedthe benefit of much practical experienceat international level.It is probably fancifulto speculateon what useWebsterwould havemade ofMussabini,had he been alive,at his first AAAsummer school in 1933.In the event, he looked to the USAand Scandinaviafor his technicaladvice. The disappearance of the Mussabini-type 'trainer' from the literature does not meanthat he no longer existedin Britishcoaching, for clubsand universitiescontinuedto employtrainer-type coachesuntil the late 1950s. Their lasthurrah camemuch later, in the 1970s,when professionalcoaches, schooled in preparingsprinters for the Powderhall Handicap, made brief, but often successful forays, into amateur athletics. A central featureof their trainingmethodswas the 'speed ball' (a punch ball), whichstimulated a briefvoguein this typeof trainingin England.Alas,the speed balldid not survivelong, and many sports scientists were later to ascribe the successof professionally-trained sprintersto other, lessethical,methods. The foundations of most athletics techniques, if not trainingmethods, had been firmly established by the third decade of the twentieth century. From then until the immediatepost-war period thereweremodifications,gradualin the main, to techniques alreadywellestablished,developedby athleteson a trialand error basisand modified by coachesas yetuntrained in sports science.Since the SecondWorld War, though sports sciencehas rarelybeen a creativeinfluence, it hasprovideda rationalbasis for the analysis of athletics techniquesand trainingmethods. The technical changesof the pre-warperiod are difficult to determine from the formal literature. Here, high jump probably provides the best example.The straddle technique (or 'stepover', as it was first described in the 1920s) was not employed in Olympic competition until 1936. It was, however, almost certainly described by the ScottishprofessionalathleteDonaldDinnie as earlyas the 1870s.Whilston his first tour [ xxxix ]