"This increased speed is an inevitable result of girls’ growing up not just after the passage of Title IX, in 1972, when schools first started rushing to put together girls’ sports programs to comply with the law, but several decades later, after those programs matured. Coaches no longer tend to baby female runners, assuming that they can’t handle as much training as boys. Gone, too, is the outdated idea that the best way to make a girl run faster is to make her skinnier, so that she carries fewer pounds around the track.
The dominant philosophy now is that girls, like all other runners, should train to become very strong by lifting heavy weights. Running mechanics are fairly simple: Speed comes from a foot hitting the ground, loading with energy, like a spring, then exploding off with propulsive power. For years, sprinters have trained for strength. Recently this focus has spread to middle-distance runners and even marathoners. All Oregon Project runners do squats and dead lifts, some up to twice their body weight."
The article also seemed to accept, without question, Noakes’ central governor theory.
…and that it is a 15 minute drive from Nike to UP. My record is 25 and that is only because my hours miss traffic.
the stats are pretty compelling regarding HS girls cross country injury rates. I suppose it’s fair to question whether weight training has been shown to make a difference there (I don’t know either way). Or whether nutrition is a big factor too. I know that there are coaches out there (as the article suggests) who still think that they need to starve their runners.
This article isn’t the best one on Salazar’s theories, there are many others I’ve read. The bulletpoints:
-Americans will never beat the Kenyans or Ethiopians on mileage, our runners can’t do 150+mpw
-We can get close in mileage and beat them with a much better strength program
-They do lots of running centric exercises that involve medicine balls and kettle bells
-They do lots of squats and deadlifts
-The only cross training they do is water running, which they do a lot (This gets Farah’s totals close to 120mpw)
My record is 25 and that is only because my hours miss traffic.
