Coaching and Care of Athletes

COACHING ANb CARE OF ATHtETES different starting methods which have been used with success by former champions. In approaching a problem of this kind the first thing that one has to decide is which of the methods of starting that have been used in the past has yielded in the aggregate the fastest start. What, then, is the desired objective to be attained? Surely it is this, that the sprinter must start as fast as possible, provided always that he leaves the holes and gets into his running in a well-balanced and properly co-ordinated way. Before any experiment -of the nature required can be carried out a definition of starting-time must be found. Are we to assess a man's starting-time from the -first movement he makes after the report of the starter's gun, or is our calculation to be made from his last movement in leav– ing the holes? Ninety-nine people out of a hundred, I suppose, will vote for assessing his time from the first movement he makes upon hearing the report of the gun. Unfortunately for the people who advance thi;; argument, scientific investigation has proved that the athlete's first reaction to the report of the gun is a sort of gathering together of the body, with a slight sinking backward. With the aforementioned data before them Bresnahan and Tuttle, who have written an excellent book entitled Track and Field Athletics, and under whose personal supervision most o{ the experimentation in this connection has been carried out, advanced the choice of two definitions of starting-time. Their first definition reads, "Starting-time is that interval which elapses between the firing of the gun and the removal of the back foot from the mark." The alternative definition reads, "Starting-time is that interval which elapses between the firing of the gun and the removal of the front foot from the mark." · In the experiments which were carried out it was calculated that the first definition represents the fourth movement which the sprinter makes, and the second definition the last movement which the sprinter makes in leaving his holes. The probkm then remained of devising a technique which would be applicable to both definitions. This was done by measuring the starting-time by means of a Dunlap chronoscope, recording time in o·oo I -second intervals. The method proved accurate and entirely adequate for measuring starting-time. Another matter which has exercised the minds of scientists interested in athletics was the problem as to whether the calibre of the gun used by the starter has any effect on starting-time. 168