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Today was all about recovery. All short sprint athletes performed 30 minutes of light pool work and a 30 minute yoga routine. We have worked our athletes so hard that today was greatly needed/earned.
When I first got to practice I approached the athletes that are competing in our first meet this coming Saturday and gave them an option to come with me to work on approaches instead of yoga/pool. It was completely up to them. I informed them that if they were experiencing any pain whatsoever to simply perform the recovery workout and wait on approaches until either tomorrow or Friday.
Of my 12 jumpers competing on Saturday all of them are veteran jumpers and are extremely experienced in approach mechanics and awareness. I worked with 7 of them today, and will help the other 5 to get their approaches when they are pain-free.
If you have any early season track meets like we do, I recommend only jumping experienced long and triple jumpers. In the past I have jumped younger (less experienced) jumpers because I was excited about their potential and it backfired on me. What I noticed is that many of them get overwhelmed by the meet itself and lose a great deal of confidence if they don't perform well. It's simply better to take veteran athletes who have "been there" before.
Once I had marks for my 7 athletes we finished our time together and I dismissed them. Nice and easy!
These kinds of days need to happen from time-to-time. It communicates that you truly care about your athletes (instead of always "beating them down") and gives them a sense of positivity and excitement at the thought of a lesser workout. Recovery days are great not only for physical recovery but also mental recovery - remember that!
TOMORROW
Triple jump work will focus on new jumpers continuing their work on the entirety of the jump, and the veterans will work on unilateral leg strength and plyometrics.
In long jump, I'd like to finalize my records for how each athletes starts, their jump foot, and the overall number of steps in their approaches. If there's time, I'd also like to find their approach marks and record. I'm assuming this won't happen (completely) due to the large number of jumpers I have this year. We'll see...