Track & Field? Good for football?

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Sportsfan24 said:
Not to be argumentive but....the techniques that will lower track times will not make you faster on the football field. Coming out of the blocks with your head down, chin tucked will get you knocked unconscious on the football field. Asside from staying low coming out the blocks everything else is foreign to football. Track is long speed, football is bursts (short) of speed. Track is about turnover (number strides...the longer the better) football is change of direction. There is nothing in track that takes into account the effect another individual (maybe long distance runners who don't have to stay in an assigned lane) might phyiscally have on you.

I would say that basketball, wrestling and soccer are better sports for football preparation than track and field. Basketball gives you stamina, change of direction and hand eye coordination. Wresting gives you stamina and leverage, leverage and did I mention leverage? Soccer gives you stamina and footwork. And we know that it translates directly to kicking and punting.
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Just saw your post 24,
I definitely agree that change of direction and hand eye skills are not improved by Track and Field.
However, track is not simply long speed, and explosion out of the blocks with your head down would certainly get you hurt in football, but think of it as training for explosive movements, it will help the athlete's acceleration.
Jumpers and throwers work on coordination and balance as well as short speed culminating in an explosive movement(similar to a tackle/block/jump ball/diving swat, etc) Also on angles of power and getting your hips through a movement (block/tackle).
Short sprinters work on strides, which may not help an athlete juke his way to daylight or break on a ball, but it will help them take it to the house or chase down a ballcarrier from across the field.
The whole sport is like a season of strength/speed conditioning, which kids are neglecting more and more while going to specialized camps and training facilities. It builds an excellent base from which a good football player can become a better athlete and therefore a better football player.

Nothing groundbreaking from the meet I saw on Friday in regards to local prospects.
I may go to the state meet which will certainly display some of the top local kids.
 

You get faster by running fast. You have to get the synapes(sp) to snap fast. Running fast will get you faster, distance running will not. Track will benefit any kid.
 

Sportsfan24 said:
Not to be argumentive but....the techniques that will lower track times will not make you faster on the football field. Coming out of the blocks with your head down, chin tucked will get you knocked unconscious on the football field. Asside from staying low coming out the blocks everything else is foreign to football. Track is long speed, football is bursts (short) of speed. Track is about turnover (number strides...the longer the better) football is change of direction. There is nothing in track that takes into account the effect another individual (maybe long distance runners who don't have to stay in an assigned lane) might phyiscally have on you.

I would say that basketball, wrestling and soccer are better sports for football preparation than track and field. Basketball gives you stamina, change of direction and hand eye coordination. Wresting gives you stamina and leverage, leverage and did I mention leverage? Soccer gives you stamina and footwork. And we know that it translates directly to kicking and punting.
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I hear ya. Though, they definitely use some of those drive phase techniques when trying to get those 40 times down lol. As Ole mentioned, something like coming out the blocks doesn't simulate coming off the line as a receiver, but still simulates explosive movements that can help you on the field. But you're right, a guy can work his 100 down from 11 flat to 10.5, and do little that actually helps him on the football field, just from sprinting techniques alone. At the same time tho, he could drop a half second off his 100 from just improving his running form, which may or may not translate on the football field.
 

Track is great for training for football. We spent our entire springs and summers basically doing track workouts (mostly much shorter sprints than in track--more 40s and not much more than 100 unless it was a conditioning day, and nothing more than 400). I cut .12 off my 40 in four months from April-July before my senior season. It was all from doing different speed drills, pretty much running track everyday.

Also, the throwing events are great for linemen. The shot put "throw" is similar to the punch used in throwing a block. The shot put and discus and hammer throw are also great for teaching body control and footwork for the big guys.
 

Fellas, I ran track all 4-years in highschool and I have been around football all of my life. Almost nobody is training by running track after the highschool level. It's far from the most beneficial thing a player can do to get better at football.

Will it help a kid who is doing nothing until football season? Sure. But if you want to get better at football....practice football.

Guys who want to improve their speed, do so through strength and conditioning and speed training. Before you get to giddy, speed training consists of drills like:

Bounding - think long hops from one leg to the other
Running with resistance - tied to a parachute
Running Z's - running in a z pattern
Accelerating sprints - running sprints of various lengths (50yds/100yds ect.)

My point is why would a football player waste time and energy at track practice and meets on drills and techniques that don't make him a better football player? Answer, they don't. At least not the serious ones.

Now if a kid wants to run track for the fun and beauty of the sport...cool. But if his goal is to become a better football player there are far more beneficial things he could be doing.

Now with that being said, I think specialization in sports for highschool kids is horrible. Regardless of talent in one sport, kids should have fun PLAYING sports and not just waiting for next season to come around.
 


Sportsfan24 said:
Bounding - think long hops from one leg to the other
Running with resistance - tied to a parachute
Running Z's - running in a z pattern
Accelerating sprints - running sprints of various lengths (50yds/100yds ect.)
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Being a former track athlete and now a high school coach for 9 years, this looks a lot like what we have done in track practice both at the U and now in HS (minus the running Z's). As a coach, and I think I speak for most of them out there, our main focus in training athletes for track is increased explosion, power, strength (conditioning), and top end speed. We bound weekly, we do resistance and assistance training, and obviously we run sprints.

I read on this board a lot and whenever track comes up everyone talks "drive phase". Although this is an important part of track, I would say I spend 5% of my time focusing on that specific nuance of T & F. We don't do drive phase practice daily, and even when we do talk about drive phase, it is more talk about pushing fully out of the blocks and good angles...similar stuff to what is talked about in football.
 

Sportsfan24 said:
Fellas, I ran track all 4-years in highschool and I have been around football all of my life. Almost nobody is training by running track after the highschool level. It's far from the most beneficial thing a player can do to get better at football.

Will it help a kid who is doing nothing until football season? Sure. But if you want to get better at football....practice football.

Guys who want to improve their speed, do so through strength and conditioning and speed training. Before you get to giddy, speed training consists of drills like:

Bounding - think long hops from one leg to the other
Running with resistance - tied to a parachute
Running Z's - running in a z pattern
Accelerating sprints - running sprints of various lengths (50yds/100yds ect.)

My point is why would a football player waste time and energy at track practice and meets on drills and techniques that don't make him a better football player? Answer, they don't. At least not the serious ones.

Now if a kid wants to run track for the fun and beauty of the sport...cool. But if his goal is to become a better football player there are far more beneficial things he could be doing.

Now with that being said, I think specialization in sports for highschool kids is horrible. Regardless of talent in one sport, kids should have fun PLAYING sports and not just waiting for next season to come around.
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I can respect your opinion. As a track coach I cringe at it, but you've got some good points.
Your example workout is pretty much what our sprinters run, plus weights and dynamic stretching, core, etc. so there is an overlap somewhere there.

I'm often looking at track and field from a field perspective, specifically the throws.
The balance, coordination, and power work throwers do can benefit linemen type kids immensely.
Wrestling, Bball, and Shot/Disc all will help a big man get his feet quicker and work on explosive power. Often it could be a chicken/egg argument, but many top linemen have some shot/disc throwing background.

You're spot on with the specialization take. Kids need multiple sports to prevent burnout and expand their athletic perspectives and skills. AND TO HAVE FUN IN SPORTS :D which is vastly underrated in developing a kid's health and well being.

Go Gophers!
 

Ole

Was that you hitting the grounder to 3rd Sunday, and still beating out the throw to first by a country mile?
 

Sportsfan24 said:
Fellas, I ran track all 4-years in highschool and I have been around football all of my life. Almost nobody is training by running track after the highschool level. It's far from the most beneficial thing a player can do to get better at football.

Will it help a kid who is doing nothing until football season? Sure. But if you want to get better at football....practice football.

Guys who want to improve their speed, do so through strength and conditioning and speed training. Before you get to giddy, speed training consists of drills like:

Bounding - think long hops from one leg to the other
Running with resistance - tied to a parachute
Running Z's - running in a z pattern
Accelerating sprints - running sprints of various lengths (50yds/100yds ect.)

My point is why would a football player waste time and energy at track practice and meets on drills and techniques that don't make him a better football player? Answer, they don't. At least not the serious ones.

Now if a kid wants to run track for the fun and beauty of the sport...cool. But if his goal is to become a better football player there are far more beneficial things he could be doing.

Now with that being said, I think specialization in sports for highschool kids is horrible. Regardless of talent in one sport, kids should have fun PLAYING sports and not just waiting for next season to come around.
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I agree with a lot of what you said, although I think running track is great for football players (not only helps with speed and explosion, but helps running form and conditioning). Certainly the key to success for a football player isn't going to come from just sprints. They need to do a lot of agility and weight lifting, as well as position-specific drills (catching passes for WR, blocking for OL, etc.). They key is to find a combination.
 



Ole said:
I can respect your opinion. As a track coach I cringe at it, but you've got some good points.
Your example workout is pretty much what our sprinters run, plus weights and dynamic stretching, core, etc. so there is an overlap somewhere there.

I'm often looking at track and field from a field perspective, specifically the throws.
The balance, coordination, and power work throwers do can benefit linemen type kids immensely.
Wrestling, Bball, and Shot/Disc all will help a big man get his feet quicker and work on explosive power. Often it could be a chicken/egg argument, but many top linemen have some shot/disc throwing background.

You're spot on with the specialization take. Kids need multiple sports to prevent burnout and expand their athletic perspectives and skills. AND TO HAVE FUN IN SPORTS :D which is vastly underrated in developing a kid's health and well being.

Go Gophers!
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Maybe I'm not as up to speed on current track techniques as a I thought, both you and rungopherrun made some good points on overlaping techniques and their correlation to improvement on speed and explosion.

I think we all can agree there is more to be gained (social and mental health) participating in track than specializing in football only type workouts. There is more than enough time over the summer (after track season) to prepare for fall practice.
 

As a person who grew up playing spring soccer, which I believe has more positives for football specifics skills for skilled position, and also doing spring football. I don't think there needs to be an either or. Play a spring sport and keep practicing football.
 

Ole said:
I can respect your opinion. As a track coach I cringe at it, but you've got some good points.
Your example workout is pretty much what our sprinters run, plus weights and dynamic stretching, core, etc. so there is an overlap somewhere there.

I'm often looking at track and field from a field perspective, specifically the throws.
The balance, coordination, and power work throwers do can benefit linemen type kids immensely.
Wrestling, Bball, and Shot/Disc all will help a big man get his feet quicker and work on explosive power. Often it could be a chicken/egg argument, but many top linemen have some shot/disc throwing background.

You're spot on with the specialization take. Kids need multiple sports to prevent burnout and expand their athletic perspectives and skills. AND TO HAVE FUN IN SPORTS :D which is vastly underrated in developing a kid's health and well being.

Go Gophers!
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It's too bad that even at the high school level it's not longer about participation. I know for a fact at Eden Prairie they're telling kids to specialize early on.

I'd love nothing more than for the MSHSL to mandate something like no more than a 1000 10-12 graders can be within a single athletic program. This would mean that the mega-schools like EP, Wayzata, etc. would have to be broken up into 2 or even 3 athletic programs. :clap:
 

BisonGopher said:
It's too bad that even at the high school level it's not longer about participation. I know for a fact at Eden Prairie they're telling kids to specialize early on.

I'd love nothing more than for the MSHSL to mandate something like no more than a 1000 10-12 graders can be within a single athletic program. This would mean that the mega-schools like EP, Wayzata, etc. would have to be broken up into 2 or even 3 athletic programs. :clap:
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Shifting gears a bit from the original thread, but an interesting subject.

Your idea might be counterproductive to building great programs, but it's in the spirit the MSHSL should be following which is to regulate MN HS athletics to the benefit of the kids by expanding opportunities AND enriching opportunities.

The MSHSL has recently become more interested in creating a vanilla, simple, and cheap to run(or MSHSL moneygrubbing) venue for HS athletes, which IMO has only further hurt the state's athletics as a whole by pushing talented kids towards specialization and traveling teams seeking top competition and coaching.
An emphasis on rewarding great team play, great coaches, and solid athletic programs would do the HSL well. This would include some sort of class reshuffle not based on money potential in tournaments or enrollment numbers, but competitive levels, coaching quality, and athletic department quality based on historical winning %, desire to compete against top competition etc.
 



I still don't like all the classes in all sports. We have too many champions! Real life isn't like that. You go for a job and you don't get a break because you went to a small school you have to compete with the big boys.
 

littlebigboy said:
I still don't like all the classes in all sports. We have too many champions! Real life isn't like that. You go for a job and you don't get a break because you went to a small school you have to compete with the big boys.
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Seems to me that you should change your moniker to oneclassboy if your truly believe what your are saying.
 

Was at State Track yesterday for Class AA. Here are some comments on seniors and juniors.

- It will be interesting to see how Cortez Ham does at Augustana. Watched him throw discus in the finals yesterday. At 6'2 or 6'3 230, he has the potential to be a beast. He never got much recruiting traction last year, but definitely a player to watch.

- Same goes for Torsten Rotto, who is walking on at Stanford. He definitely is built pretty solid and had good size.

- Top junior football players throwing - Bryce Johnson from Champlin Park, Athony Moss from Big Lake, and Tom Anderson from Andover. Andre Hinds played WR for Blake last year and threw discus in Class A.

- Emeche Wells from Roseville has great size for a wide receiver and runs the hurdles like a gazelle. Although I guess all hurdlers fit that description.

- Jason Williams, a sophomore from Washburn, has nice size at 5'11 190. Ran in the 100m finals but appeared to tweak his hamstring.
 

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