Coaching and Care of Athletes

STARTING Earlier on in this chapter I spoke of the reflex pattern created by the motor-minded athlete. Experiments have also been carried out in this connection to ascertain how many contacts the athlete makes with the track in the set position, and .what would be the regular reflex pattern established by the trained athlete in breaking these contacts. The contacts, after several hundred experiments, proved to be four in number, and they were brokep definitely by the right-handed sprinters in the sequence of left hand, right hand, right foot, and left foot. By the left-handed sprinters the order was right hand, left hand, left foot, and right foot . When the experiments were carried a stage further it was found that the breaking of these contacts was carried out perfectly naturally by untrained athletes. This, incidentally, should solve a problem which often puzzles a coach as to how he is to teach a novice the sequence of movements which are required in the start. A further and most important experiment will also solve another problem which faces the coach, and that is what he should tell his athletes to do about their breathing between the order "Get to your marks" and the firing of the starter's gun. In point of fact he need not concern himself greatly with this matter, because the experiments already carried out in the respiratory habits of sprinters at the start have proved that even the untrained novice will acquire after a short time the habit of breathing normally while in the "On your marks" position, will com– plete a normal inspiration when told to "Get set," and there– after hold his breath until the report of the pistol reaches his ears. The advantages of this scheme are that the stopping of the breath allows the thorax to be fixed, thereby enabling the athlete to maintain a steady position. It also tends to help him to con– centrate his attention upon the stimulus he is expecting, which in this case is the firing _of the starter's gun. The last of the Bresnahan-Tuttle ep:periments which I wish to mention is of absorbing interest, although, perhaps, not quite germane to the present issue. In view of the steady and pheno– menal rise of black athletes to positions of world pre-eminence, these two scientists carried out experiments, and discovered that, on the basis of population, the percentage of coloured athletes who were highly successful far exceeded that of the white race. They therefore made a comparison of the reflex times of 4100 patellar tendons taken from eighty~two white athletes as against the reflex 171