Coaching and Care of Athletes

COACHING AND CARE OF ATHLETES whether long- or short-length strides pay best in distance running let him try out an athlete at 300 yds., telling him to hold a 7-ft. stride. Long striding involves loss ofenergy, because excessive action brings into play more muscles than the distance runner needs to use. There is a school of thought, based upon the success of Nurmi and his disciples, holding the tenet that the heel should be placed down first at the end of each stride. Exhaustive studies which I have made recently with Boyd Comstock do not support this theory. The many films showing great athletes in action which we examined suggest that the best modem runners, not excluding some of the best Finns or the Marathon men, are now using a ball– heel foot placement, in which the flat of the sole of the shoe makes contact with the track surface before the heel is let down lightly. The ball-heel action, I believe, leads to a more even distribution of the work imposed upon the leg muscles. Those who favour the heel-ball contact with the track contend that it saves jarring the muscles of propulsion. Old-time coaches used to say that success in long-distance run– ning represented 95 per cent. sweat and 5 per cent. scientific style in training. No man, I think, has more completely vindicated this principle than has Arthur Newton. Statistics of his training work, summarized from his book Running, are of absorbing interest, for they show how a man of forty built up the ability to break records at 100 miles, and who when over fifty made light of a so-mile run! Here are the figures: MILES YEAR WALKED RuN TOTAL DAILY AVERAGE I922 I584 3094 4678 I2 I923 I688 7480 9I68 25 1924 2608 516I 7769 21 1925 2609 3949 6558 I7 1926 1832 6o82 79 14 21 1927 I552 5383 6935 19 1928 1948 (;>193 8141 22 . 1929 2249 5214 7463 28 1930 3540 4273 7813 21 1931 1899 6866 8765 24 1932 2553 5659 82I2 22 1933 1989 54 19 7408 20 1934 2759 5678 8437 23 1935 (Jan.-June) 823 2651 3474 19 ToTALS IN13! YRs. 29,633 73,102 102,735 20