School Athletics help?

[Butterscotch]

Hey, can someone give me some tips on running and jumping for athletics? My school will have their annual athletics carnival, this year I'm quite motivated in doing well in my events and hopefully scoring among the ribbon places

I signed up for 400m and I never actually ran it before as a race, I did a test run over the holidays and managed 1 minute 09 seconds... Is this a good or a bad time?

Also I'm doing 100m, which I've done in pervious years, but I really never got off to a good start, I have bad reactions, so usually I push out split seconds later than the rest, is there a way to improve this?

Any secrets to jumping further in long jump?

Thanks in advance, much appreciated for any help!

[Planck's constant]

I signed up for 400m and I never actually ran it before as a race, I did a test run over the holidays and managed 1 minute 09 seconds... Is this a good or a bad time?

It's very good. Paricularly as it was your first run.

[Butterscotch]

Thank you! My nerves are much calmer now

[Planck's constant]

If you are not in Year 12, I recommend you join your local athletics club if you enjoy running.
They will teach you how to improve and you could also represent your club on the weekends.
It's good fun.

If you don't have time for this, you could train for the 400m  races by doing 200's and 600's in training.

[spectroscopy]

ive gone to state and regional athletics before and got offered a sports scholarship for athls/soccer, so let me tell you how most people i have trained with train

i dont know what school you go to or what your eventual goals are so ill make my info generic

firstly - you should pick an event or two which will be your main ones (they dont have to be related) for me it was 100m and high jump - judging by the OP yours would (probably?) be 400m and long jump. try to get competitive times/distances in these, hopefully you have a natural ability in some; just try every event and see which ones you excel at, then train in those, most people end up favouring one over the over.

for jumping, strong legs are important, for long jump speed is also important because if youre fast, odds are you have strong legs, and thus momentum and leg strength will help, technique is also important but a bit less so than high jump
advice: do leg day at the gym, practice, if you can join a sport that does kicking (soccer/footy) do that, but its a bit late in the season now

i think that with the 100m you can get your starts good, and refine your ability, but some people are just insane 100m sprinters from the get go, and when they get training; they annihilate the competition, so if you arent naturally fast at 100m i'd probably drop it, depending on your zone/region/state(obvs vic?), odds are you will end up having some random who runs funny but wins by like a metre, and if you get to state, you get those crazy fast kids, and one of them will have training and will win by like 5 metres so yeah, a way one of the seniors at my athletics club put it to me was "if you cant top your year level at school with no training, you probably wont be able to get far with training" anecdotal evidence to support: two kids at my school have done athletics outside of school for 2+ years (i know at least 2), they took it seriously at our school carnival wearing spikes and compression pants and everything, one came third, the other didnt place, alot of people at the first level of interschool athletics (zones) think theyre all going to win 100m because theyre the best at their school, but they dont understand the level of competition

400m is a good event to try hard in because you can improve fitness with training, so if you run tonnes of 400m sprints, you will get good at it, but seriously get really fit for 400m, and your leg strength training in long jump will probably complement that.

weekly training for a kicking sport tends to help with everything, but its a bit late in season to join anything now


best of luck !

[Butterscotch]

Well, my main focus was actually 400m and 100m, although I want to do well in long jump too.
Last year when I did 100m I came second, but represented the school in district, I think, because the other girl couldn't compete or something, but my time was 14.32, I think it's increased this year. But, definitely, I will have fierce competition for 100 this year!

I think it's a bit too late to join a club, since the carnival is in a couple of weeks... Do ankle weights help strengthen the leg muscles?

Thanks a lot! it's really helped understanding it all

[brenden]

To strengthen your leg muscles, I'd jump. Get something pretty high up off the ground and jump onto it (you should really need to be powerful with your legs) then jump back off and squat on landing and repeat. Do some lunges with pulses (youtube if you don't know what I'm saying), wall sits, deep squats or some high intensity interval sprints.

[CH3ezEC4KE]

The 100m is generally the event in which you have to be the most naturally gifted if you want to get anywhere. Having the power, strength and fast-twitch fibres as well as the talent to do the 100 is fairly rare.

However, it is possible. But really I think if you want to do running fairly seriously at school level, I would say stick with the 100 and add the 200 (dump 400) or stick with the 400 and add 200. (Dump 100 and maybe long jump too)
Since its only school level, you can get away with doing all of them anyway. But I'd say doing the 100/200 double would be better especially considering relays are only 4 x100 mostly at school level.

In terms of preparing, two weeks is not enough. If you make it to the next level and have a goal race/distance then you should start training.

Sprints -   weights, gym, core + lots of practice starts, 20m sprints, drills, get someone to watch if you are leaning forwards/backwards too much, maybe resistance running with a parachute-(lol that's fairly serious running level though, but nevertheless eBay has them cheap)

200/400 double- work on running the bend, start is also important, drills, interval training, aerobic runs,

I think the jumps events are fairly niche. The people who excel at the jumps at school events generally do athletics outside school. For instance my mate did high jump, and he dominated district, zone and medaled at state, but even outside school events at proper states, only 4 or 5 guys were competing.

[Butterscotch]

Thank you all for the many advices given, I'll definitely implement these They're all so useful! Thanks again!