Altra Running Shoe Finder Quiz: Pick the Right Altra Shoe for You
I’ve been fighting to find the correct building to train track and field athletes. In the process I’ve been pricing spike resistant flooring, high jump pits, plyo boxes, sleds and kettlebells. The cost of building out the facility is going to be around $20,000 dollars and I have to take on the expenses as well as a new lease. The most difficult aspect of this process is the indoor season begins in December. (Donate below to support the buildout)
Because the athletes are homeschooled, finding track time and training facilities is inconsistent. This has hindered the athletes from improving as quickly as they could. The athletes compete in High Jump and Sprints. These events can be taught and developed without getting access to a track. It would be better to have the tools traditional high school athletes get access to, but families who make the decision to homeschool are a diverse mix and the challenges are comparable to paying for private school in many instances. It’s an expensive and difficult path but it’s a road allowing for complete engagement with children who need additional support and time not provided by classic education. For student athletes, it’s the toughest thing a parent can decide upon.
With basketball there are countless gyms and leagues for homeschool athletes to compete in. In track and field, the limited number of tracks at schools and liabilities involved with allowing athletes access to facilities creates considerable challenges. I’ve been able to alter the training regimens of my athletes to offset the lack of track time and the inability to bring them all into one space to work.
What does this have to do with Building Better Trainers?
The training consists of schedules for all athletes which they have to work on independently. I treat coaching like education. My approach is a diversified method of instruction. I pull the athletes together and do a series of skills and then I add in a 1-mile run. This allows me to see current skill sets and strengths. I then group and train, while continuing to reevaluate and shift athletes to different events as I see improvement.
The strength and conditioning sessions take a hit outside of group because most of them don’t have battle ropes, plyo boxes and kettle bells. They also don’t have the best streets to run for road work. I’ve been able to offset these issues with an extensive amount of jump rope and a ridiculously long warm up routine filled with lunges, side stretches, A and C Skips, straight leg, butt kicks, high knees in place and pogo hops. Many of the tasks the athletes can do with only 5-10 meters of space.
In the past, the issue has been when we come together as a unit, something unfortunate began to happen with a number of the athletes. A lot of them were complaining about leg, foot and back soreness. For a time, I chalked it up to the offseason and to stiffness. After a while only one of the athletes didn’t experience any pain. It wasn’t because she’s stronger or more flexible. It was her equipment choice. She wears a zero-drop training shoe with a wide toebox during strength and conditioning. She also trains barefoot at home, and she changes shoes often during practices because she high jumps. She will shift from a minimalist shoe during warm up, to a sprint plate spike for sprint endurance and then a high jump (full TPU plate) shoe. She has 3-5 pairs of shoes for daily workouts.
My other athletes tend to wear distance training shoes throughout a workout. There isn’t anything wrong with this when we are working on extensive tempo runs when we have a track, but in more explosive workouts for sprinting and jumping, the trainers they wear create a lot of instability. They are like most everyday people who may not be competing athletes. They assume a good running shoe is just fine for the gym and for other activities. The reality is brands have missed an opportunity to educate the consumer. They’ve instead opted for feeding money to NIL athletes for cool images and videos on TikTok. They give fitness trainers funds to create workouts, but these fitness trainers often overlook the gear and explaining their choices for the particular exercises they do.
One of my favorite video channels on YouTube is Squat University. In the video above best options are discussed, but here is where brands lose ground to smaller, knowledgeable influencers. This channel launched their own sneaker brand which, with 5 million+ subscribers will undoubtedly, quietly disrupt brands without considerable name recognition.
Working with my athletes I bring up to parents that their kids should have different shoes for different practices, but I understand the reality is kicks are expensive, but when injuries arise and I see parents asking for tape or braces, when I see parents compounding injury risks by having their children pull two-a-days and additional practices (when my training sessions are 2 hours and include recovery (another set of shoes, my daughter uses Birkenstocks when she isn’t barefoot), I begin to stress the importance of the correct footwear. There is an opportunity here for brands to do more. Educating the consumer/athlete is empowering them and will add to the number of trainers sold.