[Isaiah Miller]

Isaiah Miller on August 6, 2011 at 4:24 am #17733

As coaches and athletes we constantly talk about the forces that occur during sprinting and what should be happening, but we rarely talk about what the athlete should be feeling. I can read all types of data on sprints, but that data doesn’t tell me what I should be doing/feeling. I would like to get everyone’s feedback on how they feel when acceleration and running at max velocity. Personally I feel slower pushes during acceleration and light taps during max velocity. Thoughts?????

[Alex Andre]

Alex Andre on August 8, 2011 at 5:11 pm #109735

Well you’re pretty obviously feeling the decrease in ground contact time between accel and max V. Beyond that, during a good accel rep I feel acute shin angles, wide foot contact (wider than shoulders), and driving from the glutes (quads take care of themselves). My best accel reps are when I feel as if I’m very close to falling over forward, and I focus on driving my elbows both forward and back to maximize power and stride frequency. My Max V is pretty shoddy so you don’t want to know what I’m feeling there lol.

EDIT: There is a pretty blurry line between feeling and focusing on cues.

[Isaiah Miller]

Isaiah Miller on August 9, 2011 at 4:01 am #109738

Well you’re pretty obviously feeling the decrease in ground contact time between accel and max V. Beyond that, during a good accel rep I feel acute shin angles, wide foot contact (wider than shoulders), and driving from the glutes (quads take care of themselves). My best accel reps are when I feel as if I’m very close to falling over forward, and I focus on driving my elbows both forward and back to maximize power and stride frequency. My Max V is pretty shoddy so you don’t want to know what I’m feeling there lol.

EDIT: There is a pretty blurry line between feeling and focusing on cues.

True..I wanted this thread to be a bridge between what’s going on and what we are suppose to do as athletes to achieve that goal. Too often as athletes we are told what is going on and what is suppose to happen, but not necessarily how to do it. Hopefully we can have a few athletes turn coaches to help to bridge the gap also since they know from 1st hand experience eg John Smith/Charlie Francis.