My son plays football and one area he needs improvement in is his speed. He likes to play linebacker and while you don’t need to be a world class sprinter you certainly find yourself often chasing down whoever has the ball.
I have no experience in track & field or sprinting specifically. To my untrained eye I would say his mechanics are incorrect. I think his stride is way too short. I have a few questions I’m hoping some of you might be able to help me with.
1. Are there some links to good sprinting mechanics info on the web?
2. Related to #1 above I was searching on this site and found some posts.
https://elitetrack.com/forums/viewthread/9767/
https://elitetrack.com/forums/viewthread/9415/
They talk about “cycles” (gait cycle, drive cycle, etc.), “basic things like high hips/knees/stepping over the knee/high heel recovery, making sure hands approach but do not cross the center line”. I can guess at what some of these terms mean but I’m hoping there are some good documents out there which explains all of these.
3. My son is working with a personal trainer. I’m a little skeptical at the benefit of this as the facility is very small (and therefore I can’t see how you would do sprinting work) and I’m not sure the trainer is working specifically on form. I guess he’s working on strength, flexibility, and fitness. While I can see this might help, I would guess the biggest gain to someone whose form is not correct would be to correct his form. I was expecting the trainer to want to video tape the person and show them their form and where it might not be correct and over time work on it and video tape again so the person being trained can see the improvements, of course keeping track of times to quantify the improvement.
Thanks,
Nick