Why so many 800 runners start with the wrong foot forward and take their first step backwards?

Almost half the field in the 10k, but no consequence there at that distance.

"Wrong foot" seems relative to the runner, just like standard vs goofy stance surfing/skating and right vs left hand.

The step back is just less than perfect starting form, but even in the 800 not sure it matters. 400 without blocks I could see it being a slight factor.

Funny you mention this as I’ve been noticing it quite a bit lately.

It matters in races that don't start in lanes. While everybody else is taking a step backwards you can be pushing off your front foot and getting off the line faster thus less likely to get stuck behind people off the start.

i have kids on my team who do this and it kind of pisses me off and kind of makes me laugh. seems so simple, but they can't stop doing it. have tried switching to other foot forward and same thing.

just something with the brain wiring.

I've wondered if anyone has done a proper biomechanics study to determine the best way to go from standing to acceleration in a footrace without blocks, but have not found a good video.

Like you, I watch races and know that what a lot of people are doing certainly isn't best, or even remotely efficient. And I am sure that I was not very good at it in my track days.

If anyone has a link to a study or video, I'm interested. (No, I don't expect anyone to do my homework. I have looked around. But if anyone knows something scientifically-based, I'd appreciate it.)

Is it the wrong foot forward or the wrong hand forward?

You should have the toe of your best jumping foot right behind the line with that knee slightly bent. Your opposite hand should be below your chin with your elbow out.
Your other hand will drop behind your lead leg, elbow bent.
Your back leg she be back far enough that you won’t step back further at the gun. That back foot should push forward at the gun.

In summary, your back foot needs to be back further if you are stepping back at the gun.

I think they are too wide in their stance, so they pull back a tad, and then push off.

What is your "best jumping foot"? One foot can't really be better at jumping than the other.

I would suggest rather putting the toe of the foot that is attached to your best jumping leg right behind the line.

I worked a lot with this back in the day as I had a young man who was one of the top long sprinters in the country. I found that it’s not just a matter of dominant foot forward but also getting center of mass over the starting line on the set command.if you watch some of these athletes carefully, the front foot moves backwards and the back foot comes down behind the start line or ver close to it. Total waste of 2 steps?

The exact same reason no woman has EVER figured out that the most optimal way to run the opening 200m is when you hit the break mark at about 120m, you should simply run in a dead straight line directly to the pole at the 200m point.

I swear I have never seen an elite woman ever do this - no matter how good they were/are. I'm not being facetious.

We host a middle school practice meet where we don't let any of the kids use blocks (most of them don't know how anyway and it just makes things run so much faster). Literally every sprinter does this. We try to beat it out of our sprinters from day one. The last drill of our warm ups is a standing start / full acceleration to 30m. By week 3 or 4, most of the kids are not stepping back.

A couple of key points

1. put the foot that they prefer to kick a ball with back

2. have them lean forward until almost all of their weight is on their front foot.....almost as if they're about to fall forward.

3. If that doesn't work, have them lift their back foot off the ground. When they do this, they really have no option but to swing it forward first.

As stated, it really doesn't matter for distances 800 and up, but there are instances (read, huge HS fields in the 1600) where getting a good first step can save you a lot of headaches. I taught one of my girl milers how to start leading into our section masters meet one year. She accidentally ended up in first when the rest of the field took a step backward at the gun.

everyone saying push off your front foot is wrong! Your front foot is not behind you and will not push you forward, only upward. It's not on a block sticking vertically up from the ground, it's on the horizontal ground.

Because you're not in blocks or a 4-point start, you won't get leverage for a huge leap. Your first step will be small. Take a small step forward with your front foot, but stay crouched to keep your body weight ahead of it, so it can push you forward. Stand up only as you get up to speed.

You can't explode out of a crouch start like a sprinter from blocks, don't try to.

Moran

no, you've been doing it your way because everyone says to. But if you actually watch yourself on video, you'll see your lead foot first has to readjust itself as a plant for the trailing leg to swing forward, which lands about a meter past the line, in spite of the extra time taken.

Because the lead foot moves anyway, might as well step it forward. Much more stable of a first move, and will get you out just as quick. Try it.

here's the question. in soccer before we specialize, we teach basically how to play the sport in a general sense. everyone learns to dribble, pass, defend, shoot. you grow into specialty.

so should track coaching start with more generic teaching useful to all events? our JHS encouraged us to try a lot of events before playing favorites at the championship end of the season. so i tried some hurdling, jumping, running out to 800. plus i'd played other sports. you do that you figure out what's my favored takeoff leg, which leg would be back in blocks, etc.

to me it's that we scout the kids towards a specific event from day 1 based on immediate promise to do x event. we emphasize work ethic as opposed to learning the little things. and some of the little things might best be learned by at least initially being either less specialized, or at least having to try other things.

I think in a lot of cases it has to do with the wrong arm being forward. My coach taught me this on day 1 of my life as a distance runner.

Have you ever tried to run with the same arm and leg forward at the same time? Feels weird and is basically impossible. So when you start with the same arm and leg forward, you have to realign to the correct position to start running. Either you will step backwards while not moving your arms, or you will freeze in place while moving your arms. Either way, the people who started with correct alignment will already be ahead of you.

I had a great video of a 1600m conference championship I won where if you slo mo'd the start, everyone in the field except my two teammates and I were misaligned and you see the whole field step backwards together except for us. In a professional level race on a waterfall start, this could be the difference between getting the inside position and controlling the race, or getting shoved into the middle of the pack and boxed. I'm shocked to see it in professional races.

This whole thread is silly. Physics dictates that you have to push yourselves back to initiate running. There isn’t much room to consciously optimize that process.

High school 800m runner here. I guess I haven’t put much thought into starting position besides opposite arm opposite leg. From what I’m reading here it’s more efficient to push off your back leg than front leg? If this is correct is there any drills which I can do to practice this.