What are some drills I can do to fix my sprinting form/technique? Because it has just been horrible lately, and i feel like i dont have any speed in me.
sprinting technique
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Participant
There are a handful of form drills you can rely on to help….they include A,B skips, running A's, and stationary arms (simply isolates the pulling motion of the arms and relaxation of the upper body that is critical during a sprint).
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Participant
Yup :yes:
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Participant
If you want work on your arm action i like harness runs. With a rope or a bungee have someone provide tension so you have to really work hard to pull them. I think that improves my upper body and arm action a lot!
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Participant
i don't believe they will so that if you do them correctly.
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Member
When it comes to harness runs, overstriding most certainly will occur. Have you ever done them? Once you start running closer to MaxV you start overstriding. That "working hard" you're referring to actually is you overstriding to build speed and momentum to fight the resistance.
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Participant
i see what you're talking about. Most people when they do them try to take long powerful steps…when i do then i'm hardly moving. Really quick steps almost like running in place. I find it helps me…but to each their own right?
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Participant
I haven't posted here in a while. Some serious improvements to the place while I was gone.
Along with a's, b's and c's, this drill worked for me:
2-3 reps 300-400m, 60-70% speed
short 1m strides, high knees, exaggerated arm movementAt the end of the 3rd rep, run the last 100m normally at 70-80%
You may also want to run another rep normally the entire way around.
No idea of what actual merit it has but it worked for me. Also helps to maintain technique in 400 m runs.
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Member
[i]Originally posted by Trck400mRnnr[/i]
i see what you're talking about. Most people when they do them try to take long powerful steps…when i do then i'm hardly moving. Really quick steps almost like running in place. I find it helps me…but to each their own right?The really quick steps may be a good thing in that it builds turnover, but at the cost of stride length. That's why I stay away from harness runs period.
One thing you can try to do is some strength endurance work.
i.e. – 3 x 40m high knees (maintain PERFECT form) followed by some runs of 200-600m at a slower pace (like 65% or so) with good form. It helps teaching maintenance of high knees when fatigued.
fasttwitch – How did those work for you? I see the high knees, but I would think your stride would shorten up doing all that short-strided running. You probably build a lot of strength, but I'm curious to see how those would actually benefit into a longer stride.
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Participant
I found it actually lengthened my step and gave me a better pulling movement on the track.
If you're trying to shorten your stride you drop your knees and dig into the track. This drill does the exact opposite. While the actual stride length decreases the amount of movement of the leg is greater because you have to bring it up higher than normal. Once you remove the restriction of the stride length the knees stay high but you also extend further down the track.
It's pretty damn difficult to raise your knees and still shorten your stride while running full out. I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that it's impossible.
I have no idea whether this will work for anyone else but my form feels the best it ever has.
I should also note I'm doing alot of tripple jump excercises which help with cadence, strength, and stride length quite a bit.
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Member
[i]Originally posted by fasttwitch[/i]
I found it actually lengthened my step and gave me a better pulling movement on the track.Sprinting is a pushing movement. Pulling is the result of overstriding.
P.S. – You should NEVER try to shorten stride when sprinting.
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Participant
I dont know if thats neccesarily true, I've heard that sprinting can be as much pushing off the rear foot as it can be pulling. I dont remember where, but i've seen graphs of the muscle activation during various parts of the sprint, and they pull as much as they push. You'd have to ask someone who knows, though, because i'm not entirely sure, but when your leg goes out in front i believe the hamstrings work on pulling your body to the leg infront of you…once again, i'm not certain.
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Member
It's more a push than a pull. Your foot, during MaxV sprinting usually lands right under or slightly in front of your COM. When it lands here (as it should) your legs push your body upwards propelling it forwards. That is the reason why dorsiflexion of the foot is sometimes emphasized. When your toes are pointing upward upon landing, they are able to help generate more power through the stride to help push you forward.
When you overstride, your foot lands in front of your COM and your feet and subsequently your entire legs are forced to pull you forward to keep you going down the track. This foot placement results in a braking action and usually when you overstride your foot is plantar flexed and so you get minimal power output in each stride.
That's what I've learned so far….maybe someone like Mike, JJ or Phoenix can clarify
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Member
"With proper technique, a sprinter can achieve an optimal stride length. It should be one that is as long as is mechanically efficient. The foot should strike the ground with the lower leg at 90 degrees to the ground. If the foot comes down in front of the leg, the result is one of braking. The legs' strength is in pushing, not pulling. By overstriding in this manner, the athlete must wait until the center of gravity passes over the foot to begin the pushing action." (Tom Tellez)
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Participant
guys…
Sprinting can be seen as a push-pull action. While the lower body is doing the pushing, the upper body (arm action) is performing a constant pulling motion.
just thought I'd throw that into the mix 😉
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KeymasterI don't know that I'd ever recommend actively thinking to either push or pull during the ground contact phase of maxV sprinting….the time of force application / ground contact is too short at maxV for higher level thought processing to have any real or beneficial effect.* Despite this, I still think the Tellez quote is a great one because it points out one of (if not) the most important part of efficient sprinting: the importance of ground contact point relative to center of mass (COM). It should however be pointed out that every athlete (I've never seen or heard of otherwise) is pulling to some extent during sprinting. This is because other than during acceleration, foot contact is always in front of the COM at foot strike. The degree to which this occurs, as Tom's quote hints at, is one of the factors that separate the good from the great. The more in front of the COM the foot contact is, the greater the braking forces will be. I'd also like to point out that what Tellez mentions about sprinting being a pushing motion may not be completely correct. As the COM passes over and in front of the support foot the action is arguably a pulling motion performed by the hip extensors (hamstrings and glutes) rather than a pushing motion performed by the knee flexors and hip extensors (quads and glutes). Several muscle activation studies using EMG have supported this notion (for example: Coh, 2002) while a couple have suggested sprinting may be a pushing motion (for example: Mann et al., 1986). While it was initially very difficult for me to conceive, I am now leaning toward believing the main role of the quads, especially rectus femoris, is for knee joint stiffness and the main role of the rectus femoris and glutes is active hip extension.
*EDIT- this sentence has been edited for clarification. Prior to the edit it read:
I don't know that I'd ever recommend actively thinking to either push or pull during sprinting….the actions are just too fast to be thinking about what happens on the ground.ELITETRACK Founder
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Member
In the science of sprinting, sprinting is a pull/push action. In the ART of sprinting, sprinting is a pushing action.
If your hips are high and you are landing with a 90 degree shin you will only feel the push part of the run, and that push is an upward push.''I can outstride you,'' said the 5 ft. 7 in. Florence.
''The thing I like is I can't hear her running any more,'' continued Al. ''She has perfected her leg lift to the point where she's pushing off the ground. She's [ed. Flojo] definitely better than she was before the trials.''A lot of coaches like to use Flojo as an example of an athlete that pulls because her legs seem so far infront of her. However, from the above quote you can see that her focus was on pushing.
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Member
"At the beginning of the run, the emphasis should be on pushing backward and downward to set the body in motion, overcome inertia and gain speed. The body should have a lean, relative to the ground, but there should be no trunk flexion, as that would restrict hip flexion and cut down the stride length. As the rate of acceleration slows, the body position becomes more upright and the emphasis becomes more a downward push off the ground, to utilize the body's momentum" (Tom Tellez)
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Participant
Mike-
Going off your comment below and relating it to a horz. jumpers approach…
'I don't know that I'd ever recommend actively thinking to either push or pull during sprinting….'
I thought Boo and yourself taught the jumpers during their approach that each step needs to be an active pushing off the ground so as to gain the proper velocities leading up to take-off. Am I thinking of something different when I compare that thought with the push/pull sprinting comment?
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Keymaster
[i]Originally posted by 400Stud[/i]
So are you leaning towards a push or pull? I can believe both, but not one or the other after your last comments.I agree with this very well put answer by 2belite:
"In the science of sprinting, sprinting is a pull/push action. In the ART of sprinting, sprinting is a pushing action.
If your hips are high and you are landing with a 90 degree shin you will only feel the push part of the run, and that push is an upward push."I should have added to my previous post that while I am now of the mindset that sprinting is at least partially a "pulling movement" in that the hip extensors seem to play a large role in forward propulsion at top end speed I would NEVER and have NEVER instructed an athlete to feel themselves pulling, pawing, or clawing at the ground. In fact, the cues I tend to use most often are almost identical to those stated by Tellez.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
[i]Originally posted by jumpscoachmike[/i]
I thought Boo and yourself taught the jumpers during their approach that each step needs to be an active pushing off the ground so as to gain the proper velocities leading up to take-off. Am I thinking of something different when I compare that thought with the push/pull sprinting comment?You're right we do teach ground contact as a pushing movement for the reason I stated in my previous post but to clarify my first post in this thread, the key part of it is in the following: "thinking about what happens on the ground." Perhaps this would be better stated by saying that when ground contact has occurred it's too late to change anything….the thought process has to start during swing phase where something can be done about the positioning of the limb relative to the COM and the direction and magnitude of the force application.*
*EDIT: I have edited my original post to clarify this point.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
I wanted to point out that my above comments are for top speed running. During acceleration, I think ground contacts are long enough to actually be able to have some control over what is going on while the foot is still in contact with the ground and as a result coaching athletes to push longer, harder, etc. may be effective cues during the early parts of jumps approaches and also the acceleration phase of sprints and hurdles.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
I don't know if i described it right when I said "pulling motion". What I actually experience is a more of a balance; pusing of the trailing leg and pulling (not really sure how else to describe it) with the leading leg. It's not a true pulling movement but it feels like it in contrast to last season where I was jamming my strides and resisting forward momentum.
All I know is the result is a more fluid step and faster times in my case.
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ParticipantI agree with mike on his comments…very well stated.
Any efforts to increase power of contraction during sprinting is a injury waiting to happen or less then ideal run….slight adjustments and chronic technique work will increase the application of force.
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Participant
i would actually disagree (sorta). At top speed what you think, how you think does *can* make a difference.
Some athletes don't do a very good job at ground prep, some don't do a good job of changing thigh direction very well. Some try to do it to rapidly….
I guess I'm saying that while I understand that top speed sprinting is highly reflexive, what you're thinking can change those reflex patterns. you can become more or less "elastic" throughout the run. You can overpush, you can let the foot get out in front. I believe that if you're really tuned in you can feel and even correct these things. Otherwise once you made one mistake that would be it.
But athletes make mistakes at top speed and recover…. you can feel yourself start to press or overdrive sometimes… so there must be something going on.
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Participant
I agree KT…more direction in the foot landing and less in increasing power or muscle contraction.
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Member
[i]Originally posted by ktolbert[/i]
i would actually disagree (sorta). At top speed what you think, how you think does *can* make a difference.Some athletes don't do a very good job at ground prep, some don't do a good job of changing thigh direction very well. Some try to do it to rapidly….
I guess I'm saying that while I understand that top speed sprinting is highly reflexive, what you're thinking can change those reflex patterns. you can become more or less "elastic" throughout the run. You can overpush, you can let the foot get out in front. I believe that if you're really tuned in you can feel and even correct these things. Otherwise once you made one mistake that would be it.
But athletes make mistakes at top speed and recover…. you can feel yourself start to press or overdrive sometimes… so there must be something going on.
Last year I said the same thing (sprinting is not all hindbrain) :rolleyes:
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Participant
Who said it was pure? If it was hind brain only we would see kids in the inner city doing "drivephases" from reflex after a drive by!:lol:
Stepping over is a choice and not hind brain but adding too much ingredients to soup can spoil the recipe!
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Keymaster
I have NEVER thought that sprinting is all hindbrain. In fact, I've written in the past on this board (see here) about how this notion seems a little strange to me. I likewise have never said that alterations can not be made mid-race or even mid-stride. What I am saying is that I think that once ground contact has occurred there is little that can be done to alter the direction and magnitude of the force application because the time frame for ground contact during maxV is so short. I think that if one is expecting to change the magnitude and direction of force application at ground contact, the thought processes that will lead to these alterations must begin or occur prior to ground contact. I can't really conceive how our feedback loops would allow alterations in direction or magnitude of force application in a time period as short as the ground contact times in maxV sprinting. So while athletes may feel themselves "pushing up" during ground contact, I think the neural message to do so has been sent prior to ground contact and the action and resulting sensation is only a result of these pre-ground contact neural messages as well as the swing phase mechanics that have put the athlete in a position that permits them to do so. Ultimately, I think the take-home message may be that changes can and in many cases should certainly be made at certain parts of a race or stride (as KT points out) but overthinking such things will only lead to trouble (as Phoenix very nicely pointed out in his previous post).
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
Here's another thing I wanted to ask to everyone involved regarding the push / pull debate:
Do you consider a "push" to be a motion caused by the knee and hip extensors (quads and glute) or do you consider it to be one where the force application is behind the COM. Likewise, when you're referring to "pulling movement" are you referring to one that is a result of hip extension (bicep femoris and glutes) or one that occurs as a result ground contact being made in front of the COM and then pulling the body over and in front of the foot.
I think clarifying our terminology may help things out a little.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
Anyone else?
Also, Kebba, I'd be interested to know if you still think we have differences of opinion on this or if what I posted cleared up some misunderstanding from my earlier posts.
ELITETRACK Founder
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