If you are one of my readers who are a track and field coach, this article is for you! If you coach, especially on the college or pro level, you know what a long season track can be. College track coaches, at least every one that I have known, seem to have a severe distaste for things such as intramural sports (and based on injuries, they certainly have their reasons). What I have learned over the past few years, however, is just how important the implementation of team sports such as basketball, soccer, and ultimate frisbee are to the total development of the track and field athlete.
Basketball: An under-rated training method
In college track, seasons are long, and especially with incoming freshman who are not used to the long haul in a single sport, it is very important to keep things fun, competitive, and varied in the fall training months. It is for this reason I tend to put a lot of games in my fall training program. Games are great for many reasons. The first is that they are a great psychological recovery tool from typical training. They also are good for training a large variety of motor patterns that the athlete doesn’t hit from typical training. Finally, they are a good way to train competitively in early training months without actually training sprints or jumps hard; this way the athlete will not get burned out.
Something I have learned this summer to hammer this point home for me is the training practices of Russian and Eastern Block athletes, especially their high jumpers. In the conversations I have had with a Russian high jump coach who worked with the 2000 Olympic champion, and then reading books such as “Secrets of Russian Sports Fitness and Training” and “Block Periodization for Sport”, I realize that games are a vital part of a well rounded track athlete’s training! Even a world record hammer thrower in the material I was reading played basketball a couple of times a week during their competitive season!
Games are very important to the total development of any athlete, and track coaches shouldn’t shy away from them so quickly just because of fear of injury. They can actually help to prevent injuries in track athletes, especially in the lower leg area. I will admit, there is a small chance of injury present in team sports, but there is also a chance of injury with regular training as well. In my own programs, I tend to fill my preseason training with plenty of team sports. We will typically warm up with a 30 minute game twice a week in the off season, and sometimes fill a whole practice with a game once every couple weeks. I tend to not use it very often in season, although I may change things as time goes on.
Joel
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