by
Fraser Horn
(Class of '04)
and
Dr. Alan W. Reichow
(Professor of Optometry)
To complete a marathon is an achievement for anyone. To win a marathon is an amazing feat, no pun intended. To actually win multiple marathons, while setting records, is a legendary level few have achieved. One such person who is able to write down many marathon victories in his running dossier is Alberto Salazar.
Born in Cuba, Salazar and his family moved to the U.S. and eventually settled in Massachusetts where he competed in high school track and field. He was recruited by the University of Oregon, where his stardom began. As a sophomore in 1978 he ran against the legendary Bill Rodgers in the Falmouth 7.1 miler in Massachusetts and won.
In 1980, Salazar won his first New York City Marathon, which was the fastest marathon debut in history. The same year he qualified for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team. The following year Salazar won the New York marathon again, this time breaking a 12-year-old world record with a time of 2:08:13. 1982 was another busy year with another New York City Marathon victory. That same year Salazar set a record while winning the Boston Marathon by out-sprinting Dick Beardsley. Two years later Salazar qualified for his second, and final, U.S. Olympic team.
Salazar also proved his legendary status in the 1990's by winning the 1994 Comrades ultra-marathon, a 54-mile ultra-marathon from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. That same year, he led a Nike team of elite runners to a Hood to Coast relay record, which will stand for many years.
After his six U.S. records, one world record, two Olympic teams, and last year's induction into the Track and Field Hall of Fame, Alberto Salazar remains active in athletics as a sports marketing consultant for Nike. He also participates in many running clinics and speaking engagements. One such lecture recently occurred at Pacific University College of Optometry.
Graham Erickson, Alberto Salazar and Al Reichow, left to right
Dr. Alan Reichow, a Vision Consultant to Nike, invited Alberto Salazar to present to the Sports and Recreational Vision Elective course, a course team taught with Dr. Graham Erickson. Mr. Salazar's discussion centered on special training and how it can make a difference with athletes. Salazar noted how "athletic skill is a given now," and that coaches can rarely use athletic skill as a differentiating factor. So how can an athlete set himself/herself apart from the others? Salazar believes that a way to make athletes better is to make them smarter than their competitors "in terms of applying American 'know-how', sports medicine, training, smarter cross training, altitude [training] and so forth." "Athletes nowadays need to train smart, they can't just go out there and train hard."
With this in mind, Salazar has worked with Nike to develop a "speed, agility, quickness training" program. In this program they work for two, or three days per week at the most, on speed, agility and quickness. During the workouts the athlete is focused on the program and trying to fine-tune his/her neuromuscular system. "Once you get tired, you are not stimulating your neuromuscular system." Nike is trying to develop this protocol, which will be taught by certified trainers and will be applicable to high school, and even junior high, athletes.
Alberto went on to say that kids in their teenage years, especially 12-13 year olds, develop their neuromuscular connections much better and faster when trained at this age; "their system is much more responsive to that stimulation." "I believe that what happens is often a kid who is very good at a very young age doesn't continue to work as hard in terms of developing the physical system properly. And then you've got a scrawny kid and he's just doing tons and tons of practice and lots of weights and stimulating his system. What happens is that at some point his system is so much more developed than the other boy that once puberty kicks in . . . now he is the same size as the other kid, but now one has an enhanced nervous system and the other one doesn't."
No matter what training you may do, all of the little things can give athletes an improvement, "when you add all of the little extra advantages up, you have a very good increase in performance." "All those little things are what I think are important. If you can just get a little bit, one percent from here, one percent from there, one percent from there, all of a sudden you are looking at a significant advantage."
Reichow explaining principles of running to Salazar.
So what role does Optometry play? Optometrists can provide one of these extra advantages by sports vision screenings and sports vision training. If practitioners can help individuals with their visual processing in a sport, then this is an added advantage for that athlete. "What you (Optometrists) do is so important .. any sport where seeing a ball, in particular, a little better is going to allow you to have an advantage over somebody else." Optometry is more than a profession of prescribing glasses and diagnosing disease. These Doctors also have the opportunity to make people's visual systems work more efficiently and effectively, thereby enhancing human performance.
Sports vision is a part of optometry under-utilized by athletes. Optometrists and optometry students are in a wonderful position to offer an athlete a specialized training program, which may give him/her an advantage in their sport. Salazar agrees that "you are in a great situation here where you have great professors to teach you how to use sports vision to enhance performance." So go ahead and become involved with sports vision, and who knows you may be helping the next Michael Jordan, Ichiro Suzuki, or Alberto Salazar!