Base Building

                                                            

Last blog (http://tsukinegradprogram.blogspot.com/2016/06/injury-prevention.html), I discussed the importance of injury prevention. This included hydration, proper warmup, and stretching. The previously stated factors are very important, but they are not the only ones. There are many continuous factors that asses minimizing the chance of injury. The one I will discuss in this blog, is base building.

Regardless of the sport and/or activity, you will always perform much better when your body is prepared for it. It is a fact that your body will do much better in physically demanding sports and/or activities once repetition has been applied. The concept of repetition is just as simple as it sounds. The more you do something, the better you will be at it. Someone who has done something a thousand times, will more than likely outdo someone who is doing it for the first time. There are three sports that make this very apparent:

- Football

- Basketball

- Baseball

With these three sports, you can always tell the difference between those who are just talented, those who are fundamentally sound and those who are both. For example:

- Football players that can run fast, catch and break a tackle, but don’t know how to run routes.

- Basketball players that that can dunk and dribble, but don’t know how to shoot free-throws.

These things improve with time, but only if you use that time for repetition.

                                     When Is The Best Time For Base Building?

The answer is offseason. Offseason revolves around base training and base training revolves around endurance training, which revolves around repetition. Simple math. From my experience as a track & field sprinter, I can say that this method is very effective. Offseason lasts about three to four months and consists mainly of the following workouts in addition to weight training:

- 16 200m runs at 36sec pace

- 5 300m runs at 45sec pace

- 10 100m runs at 12sec pace

- 10 Bleachers

- 20 hills at upbeat tempo

- 10 45sec runs

These offseason workouts are very repetitive and effective. As a result of completing them, I was able to finish seasons without injuries, and I was able to shave a second off my 200 meter dash time.