[Mike Young]

Mike Young on February 24, 2005 at 10:46 pm #10473

I was thinking about the recent discussion on sprint start mechanics and came up with some ideas I thought I’d throw out. When examining the swing phase of sprinting acceleration their is some debate over whether it is more beneficial to step over the opposite knee during early acceleration or move the legs through a piston like motion during the swing phase. As I discussed in the linked thread above, I’m a proponent of the piston like motion early on during acceleration with a gradual shift toward a stepping-over motion as an athlete approaches top-end speed. While I stated some of my reasonings for this thinking in the thread above I was giving some thought as to the etiology of the shift from piston to stepping over swing leg mechanics. It occurred to me that the motion should be dictated by the athlete’s velocity. At first glance this may seem intuitive and overly obvious for those who have the same thoughts (starting with piston like motion and gradually moving to a stepping over action) on leg swing as me. It is however slightly more complex than might meet the eye. The following examines the etiology of this relationship (as I see it).

In technically efficient sprinting the degree of stepping over should be dictated by the velocity differential of the athlete’s foot at ground contact and the athlete’s body at ground contact. At ground contact, the velocity of the foot is zero but the athlete’s body continues to move. During early acceleration, this differential is relatively small. With each step however, the differential gets larger and larger. The greater the velocity of the athlete’s body at ground contact, the greater they will be moving relative to their foot at ground contact. When the athlete is running at or near top-end speed this differential is at it’s highest. Because of this, and the limited ability of an athlete to apply force within a short period of time, the velocity of the run should dictate the actions of the swing leg. That is, a person needs a given amount of time to apply force to the ground throughout the course of a run (ground contact time). While this time will gradually decrease with each step during a sprint acceleration to top-end speed, it will not decrease at an equivalent rate as the athlete’s forward velocity will increase. Because of this, the athlete’s body is moving faster and faster while their foot is on the ground for roughly (for the purpose of this discussion) the same amount of time. As a result, as a person accelerates their body will be moving forward more relative to their support foot with each step. Early on in acceleration, the differential between foot velocity at ground contact (zero) and the body’s velocity with respect to the ground / foot is relatively low and as a result a piston like motion is not only possible but beneficial. It is beneficial because it makes it easy for an athlete to attack the ground with the appropriate shin angles and finish their push-off with their feet well behind their hips which is critically important during acceleration. At higher speeds, while athlete’s should probably try to attack the ground with a similar piston like motion (with their body more upright of course!) to attack the ground with a vertical shin position so that they can increase vertical ground reaction forces, the higher foot:body velocity differential at ground contact will mean that at toe off the body will be will be far ahead of the body and stepping over (which shortens levers and allows a faster swing phase) will be required to allow an athlete to get back into correct position to attack the ground with a vertical shin position for the subsequent ground contact.

So in summary, it may be beneficial for an athlete attack the ground with a piston like motion at any speed because it allows an athlete to make ground contact with the desired shin angles. At higher velocities however, the body will be moving so fast relative to the foot that it will require the athlete to step-over the opposite knee so that they can get the leg back into a piston like position for ground contact. At lower velocities, such as early on in acceleration, the stepping-over action is not necessary because the differential between foot and body velocity at ground contact is small and the stepping over action may even make having the desired shin angles at ground contact more difficult.

What does this mean as far as coaching and cueing in the sprints? I’m not quite sure yet but it never hurts to understand the mechanisms of why we should have someone do something. Thoughts?

ELITETRACK Founder

[coachformerlyknownas]

coachformerlyknownas on March 1, 2005 at 7:20 am #42484

Very interesting points. One of my athletes has been working hard at the process of overcoming inertia from the blocks and acquiring force to accelerate from 5-10m out. It can be shown that the foot is landing slightly ahead of the hips and this athlete’s level of strength is possibly too low to compensate.

Would the piston-like action mentioned require more emphasis to drive the knees “up” or simply continue to develop greater strength levels to increase the rebound effect? In addition, would body position require less or greater forward emphasis to maintain a small differential between foot and body velocity at ground contact during block clearance? And what, if any, change occurs with arm swing during the transition phase – aligning with the change in lower body swing action?

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on March 5, 2005 at 7:09 am #42485

[i]Originally posted by Price[/i]Would the piston-like action mentioned require more emphasis to drive the knees “up” or simply continue to develop greater strength levels to increase the rebound effect?

I think it’s probably a combination of the two. I would mention however that much of her problems would be solved with less body lean. She doesn’t yet have the strength/power to create the flight necessary when departure and push-off angles are so low early on in the run.

In addition, would body position require less or greater forward emphasis to maintain a small differential between foot and body velocity at ground contact during block clearance?

I don’t understand your question. Please clarify.

And what, if any, change occurs with arm swing during the transition phase – aligning with the change in lower body swing action?

Arm swing movement amplitude (especially at the the elbow) should get smaller as the athlete progresses to an upright position.

ELITETRACK Founder

[jjh999]

jjh999 on May 10, 2005 at 5:57 pm #42486

(…back from the dead…)

Nice topic for discussion, Mike. My $0.02:

I think that the “piston” and “cyclical/stepover” cues both have pluses and minuses.

The “piston” cue can be very beneficial for the athlete to visualize and perform vertical force production once the acceleration phase is completed. One drawback, however, could be the athletes overemphasizing the “upstroke” portion of the piston-like movement and adopting a posterior lean at the waist (kinda like a drum major) in order to drive the knee up as much as possible.

The “cyclical/stepover” cue can be excellent for max velocity mechanics, but I think it is imperative that along with that cue, that the coach emphasize that the foot needs to come straight up to the glutes and “letting the knee lead”. Otherwise the athlete may feel like they are stepping over, but doing it while spending way too much time in the backside.

From a practical standpoint, I’ve predominantly used the “stepover” once I have cleaned up the backside mechanics to a point that I can tolerate. However, some athletes tend to get too long at the end of a 100m dash and in that instance, may use the “piston” cue in order to preserve a decent ground contact position with respect to the COM.

Thoughts?

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on May 12, 2005 at 8:13 pm #42487

[i]Originally posted by JJ[/i]
The “cyclical/stepover” cue can be excellent for max velocity mechanics, but I think it is imperative that along with that cue, that the coach emphasize that the foot needs to come straight up to the glutes and “letting the knee lead”. Otherwise the athlete may feel like they are stepping over, but doing it while spending way too much time in the backside.

Agreed. In reality, I think that an athlete should probably be attacking the ground in a piston like manner but because the differential in speed of their body with respect to their foot at support is so great, the foot will fall behind the body at midstance-toeoff. This is especially the case in athletes that aren’t super powerful.

From a practical standpoint, I’ve predominantly used the “stepover” once I have cleaned up the backside mechanics to a point that I can tolerate. However, some athletes tend to get too long at the end of a 100m dash and in that instance, may use the “piston” cue in order to preserve a decent ground contact position with respect to the COM.

Thoughts?

I’ve actually found out the same thing. One of my athletes has excessive posterior mechanics and the stepping over the knee cue never seems to get the right response. I’ve found that using “push up,” “get off the ground quicker,” and “imagine there is an elastic band attached from your glute to your heel.” I can’t take credit for the last one. Someone far smarter than me thought that one up.

ELITETRACK Founder

[coachformerlyknownas]

coachformerlyknownas on May 14, 2005 at 8:01 am #42488

[i]Originally posted by JJ[/i]
(…back from the dead…)… I’ve predominantly used the “stepover” once I have cleaned up the backside mechanics to a point that I can tolerate…

With this in mind, should rotary running sessions, similar to that of Frye, Carson, et al, be a regular activity during general and specific work phases?

[jjh999]

jjh999 on May 15, 2005 at 5:25 am #42489

[i]Originally posted by Price[/i]
[quote][i]Originally posted by JJ[/i]
(…back from the dead…)… I’ve predominantly used the “stepover” once I have cleaned up the backside mechanics to a point that I can tolerate…

With this in mind, should rotary running sessions, similar to that of Frye, Carson, et al, be a regular activity during general and specific work phases? [/quote]

(Please note, Price, this is not directed at you):

I know that this is probably blasphemous, but I don’t believe in “Rotary Running”. I believe in correct and efficient biomechanics. I don’t believe in gimmicks and jargon.

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on May 24, 2005 at 12:43 pm #42490

[i]Originally posted by JJ[/i]I don’t believe in gimmicks and jargon.

This may very well be grounds for removal of your moderator status. :spin:

ELITETRACK Founder

[QUIKAZHELL]

QUIKAZHELL on June 22, 2005 at 10:37 am #42491

Now that I think about it this may be a problem one of my athletes is having. It seems that her ground contact times are way to long and she sounds real heavy each time her spike hits the track. Im think now if we clean up her backside mechanics which I never really noticed or for that matter had a look at maybe things will improve. I will try the 2 cues mike had mentioned. It seems as her stride frequency is not very good but maybe it is due to backside mechanics. The cues I have been trying to use in reguards of improving her frequency with not much sucess has been "get off the ground quick" and make believe you are running over eggs and each time you step down and crush the egg shells you dont want the egg sticking to your feet"
thoughts.
I may get some video of her on here in the next few days.

[Todd Lane]

Todd Lane on July 1, 2005 at 9:34 pm #42492

Was cleaning up some folders last night and came across some notes from Vince Anderson presentations several years ago a Level III.

Coach Anderson's point on sprint mechanics, was that "good sprinting looks rotational, but should feel like marching".  His rotational comment refering to the backside of stepping over the knee and the front side looking like that presented by the mustached gurus of, $$$ videos of the mid 90's.

Cues and feelings being different than looks…

Don't know if that adds anything to above discussion.

[tony]

tony on July 15, 2005 at 2:36 pm #42493

The muscle groups being utilyzed and relied upon predominantly during these two phases of the sprint race may dictate the type of cue you wish to use.  As you pointed out Mike,

"It is beneficial because it makes it easy for an athlete to attack the ground with the appropriate shin angles and finish their push-off with their feet well behind their hips which is critically important during acceleration. At higher speeds, while athlete's should probably try to attack the ground with a similar piston like motion (with their body more upright of course!) to attack the ground with a vertical shin position so that they can increase vertical ground reaction forces, the higher foot:body velocity differential at ground contact will mean that at toe off the body will be will be far ahead of the body and stepping over (which shortens levers and allows a faster swing phase) will be required to allow an athlete to get back into correct position to attack the ground with a vertical shin position for the subsequent ground contact."

During the accleration phase we tend to use our quad groups more predominanetly than our hamstring groups.  The Quad group is much stronger and can generate a great deal more force than can the hamstring group and hence the cues that seem most helpful would tend towards the piston action with the lower heel recovery and larger amplitude arm drive.  The problem is that quads are slow in the neural recruitment and firing sequence.  The hamstrings however, are the fastest firing muslce in the body so as the athlete makes gains in velocity it is natural to transition to a more cyclical and hamstring dominated process.  Hence our more cyclical cues. I find that athletes who transition too early tend to burn out in the late stages of the race (Surin in his early career), and athletes who continue to attack the ground in a quad dominated drive never really get up to speed and are passed early on as other competitiors make the transition. 

I am very much a proponent of an active foot on touch down and the piston cues later in the race tend to lead towards a more vertically inclined ground attack increasing the oscillation in the COM. Over striding in the later stages tends to come into effect when the hamstring is tired and the athlete lowers their COM to utilyze more of the quad grouping.  I prefer to cue them as to staying tall and engaged through the hips to allow the cyclical motion to continue without thinking about it too much.  I also cue them to concentrate on a good fast elbow drive from the high position down to keep the shoulders relaxed and the turn over quick.

Let me know what you think

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on July 30, 2005 at 5:09 am #42494

Tony-
Welcome to the board. Nice post. What do you mean by active foot contact? Negative foot speed relative to the COM? If so, do you cue this directly or through indirect means.

ELITETRACK Founder

[tony]

tony on August 24, 2005 at 3:41 am #42495

Sorry about the delay in getting back to you Mike, I've been away for the past couple of weeks.

I do mean negative foot speed relative to COM.  I view it as a natural process due to good posture and excellent recovery back side mechanics to efficient front side mechanics.  To my way of thinking, as the free leg recovers and swings forward to a high knee position you are creating the potential for a good active release and "active" foot contact.  So my cues tend to be indirect for most athletes — upon staying tall and keeping the heel tucked until release.  The only direct cue I use for late race fatigue resulting in a longer than desired foot contact is "fast foot".  Indirectly in a race I would cue the arms or posture "quick arms", or "stay tall", or "stay over" for those who tend to get into a negative trunk position.  In practice cues depend upon the athlete's ability to put into action what I am looking for.  Some direct, some indirect and a great deal of individual questioning.  I often find that it comes down to some physical problem such as inflexibility, muscle imablance or incorrect sequencing so in corecting the problem I find and add drills or sequences that allow the athlete to search for the feeling that provides the most efficient action. 

Sorry, it does not seem like a clear answer to your question — I guess in short, how I cue it depends upon what is producing it.

All the best,

Tony

[purebreeze]

purebreeze on July 23, 2006 at 9:00 pm #42496

I this is late,but I wanted to give some thoughts. I had a chance to work with Dennis Mitchell a couple months back and he used both the piston motion and stepping over in his sprinting approach. He would take the drive phase and explain to the athletes that it should be like a car pumping its pistons and then athlete should transition into stepping over for max velocity.

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on July 23, 2006 at 9:24 pm #42497

I this is late,but I wanted to give some thoughts. I had a chance to work with Dennis Mitchell a couple months back and he used both the piston motion and stepping over in his sprinting approach. He would take the drive phase and explain to the athletes that it should be like a car pumping its pistons and then athlete should transition into stepping over for max velocity.

This is how I teach it to most of my athletes. The question however is how much the stepping over should be coached or is the movement actually a pistol movement that is occuring when the body (relative to the ground) is moving at a much greater rate thus resulting in a leg that travels further behind the hip and an accompanying elastic response that causes the hip to flex violently and in so doing cause the heel to tuck up under the butt and step over the knee……I don't have an answer….just posing a question. I think in most cases, cueing the stepping over action is definitely important but this seems to not be necessary in all cases and it may be a case of what is going on is actually more reflexive than previously thought.

ELITETRACK Founder

[Guest]

Guest on July 24, 2006 at 3:32 am #42498

Is Dennis still using 50m overspeed cords and pulling his athletes?

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on July 24, 2006 at 4:55 am #42499

Is Dennis still using 50m overspeed cords and pulling his athletes?

To the best of my knowledge he is. I haven't been at LSU for 9 months but he did them the last time I was there.

ELITETRACK Founder

[purebreeze]

purebreeze on July 26, 2006 at 12:30 pm #42500

check this article out….

https://www.inno-sport.net/Sprinter%20Symptoms.htm

what do you guy think?

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on August 2, 2006 at 4:53 am #42501

check this article out….

https://www.inno-sport.net/Sprinter Symptoms.htm

what do you guy think?

It's hard to tell what he is actually suggesting…is he saying that athletes shouldn't push up using the quads? If so, how does the athlete reverse the vertical acceleration of their body towards the ground? Is he saying that athletes should pull? It kind of seems like he is? If so, does he think it should be cued?

ELITETRACK Founder

[Carl Valle]

Carl Valle on October 22, 2006 at 11:26 pm #42502

My question to Mike with the Weyand study on swing times.

Here is what I found.

The swing times of elite athletes and regular Joes are about the same but I look at the degrees traveled (at the hip joint)for an elite guy (1996 finals) were longer and the radial swing was faster. The measurements were only on Dartfish so don't shoot me! How much contribution is from elastic response of the hip flexors from hip extension and how much is cognitive concentric response from the athlete?

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on October 27, 2006 at 10:07 pm #42503

Good question. I actually spoke with Pete and Ralph Mann (the USAT sprint biomechanist for ~20 years) about this a couple weeks back. They both verified that there are negligible differences in swing time among the best and the worst runners. They both agree that this difference is not significant and isn't really the reason they are running faster. I specifically asked if the thigh of better sprinters was moving through a greater angular range of motion (and thus potentially making the angular velocity of better runners considerably better since they would move a greater distance through a shorter period of time) and both said that this is not the case. They both concurred that the ROM essentially is the same for elite and sub-elite sprinters and that range of motion of the thigh essentially just shifts more anterior in better runners (minimizing backside mechanics). Neither commented on the elastic response of the hip flexors but heres what I think…

In light of the above points one could easily think that the greater backside mechanics of the lesser sprinters would actually create a greater elastic response in the hip flexors than the better sprinters who display less backside mechanics….the leg travels further behind the body, placing a greater stretch on the hip flexors prior to toeoff and thus creating a greater elastic response, and a faster swing leg. This is not the case though.

In better sprinters the pelvis exhibits a more posterior tilt and the trunk tends to be more upright. This means that at any given point of hip extension the hip flexors are under more stretch than a more anterior pelvic tilt and less upright posture. So why then would the thigh not move through a greater range of motion or move faster if the hip flexors should be under a greater stretch. I think the answer is simply a matter of lever arms and gravity. To bring the thigh from a position of moderate hip flexion (~75 degrees from anatomical standing position) up to a position of great hip flexion (with the thigh parallel with the ground at 90 degrees) requires considerably more force than to bring the thigh from a position of poor hip flexion (~60 degrees) to moderate (75 degrees) even though the angular displacements (15 degrees) are the same. This is because the higher the thigh is raised the greater its effective weight due to the increased horizontal distance between any given point on the thigh and the hip joint. This is true regadless of pelvic attitude. So in a nutshell, I do think that better sprinters have a more significant elastic response of the hip flexors but the effect of this may be washed out when looking at swing times and angular velocities of the thigh because of the mechanical advantage (but not performance advantage) that moving through the shifted range of motion that lesser sprinters typically operate in (lesser knee flexion  / lower knees) has over moving through the range of motion that better sprinters typically operate in (greater hip flexion / high knees).

I'm certain the elastic response plays a role. Whether it is greater or less than the conscious (or subconscious) effort of the athlete I do not now. I think that it would be quite difficult to run mechanically efficient with high knees, minimized backside mechanics, high hips, etc. at 11+m/s without it.

ELITETRACK Founder

[senri]

senri on May 29, 2007 at 3:25 am #42504

so where does this lead to successful sprinters with anterior pelvic tilt. Or is there none? Do they hae a unique way to run with the pelvis tilted posteriorly?