What a Coach See's Watching the Olympics; Part I.

So, my first blog back in a while (I know it is long overdue) will be part 1 of a series of posts that when complete will be a brief synopsis of things I noticed top level athlete's doing during the Olympics that not all collegiate/high school athlete's have a firm grasp on.

Part I. The Warm Up

The first, thing that stood out to me as I watched was how sweaty the athlete's were on the starting line. In particular, the sprinters. The warm up is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of performance. Look at Usain Bolt above and how sweaty he is. This guy trains in hot temperatures in Jamaica, and here he is sweating in London! Do you think it is from racing 100m? NOPE! It is from his warm up. Now of course he is racing the 100m, so he needs to be primed and ready before his race to be able to maximize power output, where as a 5k runner may not need to be quite so -sweaty... I remember the first year I coached sprints, I had a women's 4x4 that ran 4:11. For that performance they did their warm up then stood around in a circle jumping up and down and giggling for 20 min before it. Afterwards I told them they need to time everything perfectly and get on the line at the end of their warm up- no giggling and jumping in a circle. Well, they ran 4:03 the next time for a school record at the time. Was it the difference in 1 week of training? I don't think so. They started their warm up 25 min prior to the race instead of 45 min prior and eliminated the jumping in a circle and giggling. Sometimes a good warm up is the difference between a great race and a horrible race. Sometimes you don't need to look much further than what you did 45 minutes prior to the race, when assessing what went wrong and what went right.