ol' gus":16j0t1p7 said:
RogueEconomist":16j0t1p7 said:
Back 40 years ago in 11 man we started every practice running 2 miles which took less than 15 min to increase endurance in big games. Being a little tired better showed weaknesses that could be worked on. This wasn't the only kind of conditioning that we did by far, but an important part. I played both ways and never ran out of gas. BC simply ran out of gas, they were more skilled overall than Calvert and should have won. It is true Calvert has no XC program, but their kids will go play a couple of hours of full court BB after practice, they did not run out of gas. Six man requires endurance more so than 11 man. I see a good number of 6M games that are lost due to poor endurance conditioning. How can running a couple of miles at the start of practice be a bad thing ?
You could say the same for running 100 30 yd. sprints at full effort. Not a bad thing at all.
The jury is still out regarding how effective running 2 miles at a very slow pace is, especially in 6man? I think the science supports sprinting over LSD. But, If a kid wanted to do it over the summer I sure wouldn't tell him no. There are as many different training styles, I suppose, as there are coaches/trainers.
Back when I played 8 man at GC, we had a head coach who came to us from the 6 man ranks (Bob James) who believed in conditioning. We were not the best team, in fact were mediocre, but one thing for sure, we NEVER ran out of gas in ANY game, even as we were getting clobbered by better teams. Pre -season conditioning practices were topped off by doing anywhere from 3500 to 4000 yards of sprints, depending upon how hard we hustled and listened (and how sadistic Coach James felt that day) (jk). He usually started us with 10 sprints at 40 yards, followed by 10 at 30 yds, 10 at 20 yds, and 10 at 10 yards, then working back up the ladder in 10 yard increments at 10 each to 40 yards again. The finishing touch was a killer where we ran 10 yards, then back, then 20 and back, then 30 and back and then 40 and back, and again finishing by repeating the sequence in 10 yard less increments.
He would relent after the first month and cut it back to 2500 to 3000 yards of sprints on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday practices.
There were a lot of Technicolor yawns those first few days in August......