How to train a
kick:
In the
last post, we took a look at the physiology behind the kick. That’s all well and good but it’s pretty much
useless unless we can translate that knowledge into something practical. So
let’s give that a go based on theory and practical experience. Here’s my guide to creating a kick:
Finding the weak
point and attacking it from multiple ways:
If you
are at all familiar with my training style, one of my central premises is to
attack a problem from multiple different directions. The same thing applies to the kick. What we ideally do is look at what each
runners strengths and weaknesses are in terms of why they can or can not kick,
place the emphasis on developing that attribute, but make sure we cover the
opposite side too.
That
means the first question that needs to be asked is, what’s the balance between
their aerobic strength and anaerobic capacity?
Obviously increasing both is needed, but this answers the question of
whether they run out of gas during the race (lack the strength to stay more
aerobic deep into the race) or whether they have the speed ability to actually
kick. This will develop the proportion
of emphasis. You want to attack both sides, but sometimes one side needs a
little bit more emphasis because it’s a bit weaker. Given that, let’s go into the different ways
of developing a kick:
The steps:
If you remember in the last post I gave a general outline of
what you need physiologically. Let’s use
that as a template and I’ll show you how to develop those abilities:
