Abdirahmans Stride

Abdi's got a big engine and is efficient in his own way.

Slightly pigeon-toed, with a very low gate/low rear leg lift, nothing wrong with that. It is a very efficient stride for marathoning and long distance road racing, sort of similar to Al Sal. I myself have a very similar gate.

But as many people will post here, the prettiness of one's stride is not at all correlated with one's speed.

"But as many people will post here, the prettiness of one's stride is not at all correlated with one's speed."

so its all just a coincidence that bekele, haile, komen and el g have smooth, powerful strides with a good range of motion?

I guess his stride would be better for marathoning but could he run faster with form work+strengthening, etc?

absolutely

I believe some of the Athletics West coaches tried to "fix" Salazar's stride as well. He never ran faster than the 13:11 he posted with his "broken" stride.

You are right about all of the greats, but did they really practice this? I think if we were to watch video footage of a young Bekele running across a grass field it would look awfully close to his current day form.

This is an interesting discussion that seems to come up quite a bit around here.

People love to say that the stride an athlete uses can't be critiqued once they are at the world class level, forgetting that there are degrees of world class.

One can't help but think that guys like Abdi and Sully would be a bit better if they just had a slightly better stride.

The question is can they change at this point.

yea , and Paula Radcliffe has such an efficient stride. Doesnt seem to affect her too much.

i'm guessing that you have to do form work almost constantly (daily) or it will go back to how its meant to be naturally

still, I think strength work and a less "clipped" stride might help-he doesn't even fully extend his hip, which is crucial for maximum power and stride effeciency-just look at El G-he spends less effort because he has a greater RANGE OF MOTION.

I would say its even important for a marathon, though obviously since the marathon is a slower race it is a good place to go if you lack speed...or correct biomechanics

I would guess that paula does have an effecient stride

sure her head is all over the place but so what? As long as your hips, knees and feet are in alaignment who cares? the important thing is to have a smooth lower leg action with a good range of motion-look at Zapotek (sp?)

upper body-everywhere

legs-smooth with good range of motion

A couple of points:

-Salazar was completely burned out by the time he tried to change his stride. It was during his downfall after the Duel in the Sun. So saying he didn't run as fast as earlier doesn't mean anything

-Radcliffe's lower body works well. Similar to Zatopek.

-Form drills are pretty bad for changing ones mechanics. If you practice changing your mechanics the right way it eventuallt becomes pretty much natural and it is not something that you have to think about/do every second of the day to make the change.

-Many elites do work on form or changed their form.

if not form drills then what?

Yeah, you are right about Salazar, but that doesn't change the fact that he ran a 13:11 with his original stride.

Also, I don't know how one can say that upper and lower body form are not related. Yes it is true that Zatopek and Radcliffe have smooth lower halves, but why? Maybe the reason their legs move so smoothly has to do with their crazy head/arm action.

If not, it certainly can be improved upon, can't it? If form drills are bad, then what does one do?

I will state it again as no one has seemed to comment on this: Does anyone really think that the East African greats spent a great deal of time on form work once they got to that level? Maybe . . .

I tend to believe that people like Bekele and Komen were born with their respective gaits. I truly believe they looked very similar in form as 5 year olds playing tag as they did in their prime/currently.

conscious practice of running right/correcting things at various speeds.

Just basically learn how to run as you would learn how to shoot a free throw or swing a bat.

You correct things and work on them until you get them to where you want to be.

For example, if you are sprinting and you have a low swing of the recovery leg then it is either caused by an incomplete extension of the hip of the drive leg or their not applying enough force to the ground. To fix the first one, for example, you have to get the athlete to feel waht it is like to run while extending his hip at push off.

Drills aren't necessarily bad, it's just that that's all everyone wants now. And drills don't do the best job when changing mechanics. They are better for dynamic stretching and the like.

spokompton wrote:

Does anyone really think that the East African greats spent a great deal of time on form work once they got to that level? Maybe . . .

I do, but that's just because I've been to Kenya and watched guys like Isaac Songok and Augustine Choge do this stuff after most runs.

EL Guerrouj worked on his mechanics. THat's a fact.

The kenyans are naturally very efficient/good runners. Why? Well it's probably there upbringing. Running barefoot it is almost impossible to land on your heel like most american HS kids do. Go out and try and do it, it feels rediculous and it hurts. Running over natural terrain also doesn't hurt. Plus, people try and emulate others when they are kids. With all of the great runners who also look great when running, the kids have great role models. While ours are inundated with joggers heel banging, overweight baseball players running bad, etc.

incomplete extention of the hip/ not enough force applyed to the ground? those both cost more energy-how do they make one more effecient?

I've seen it several times that Bekele does about 30 mins of drills EVERY day.

Also, I think the reason Zatopek and Radcliffe look so smooth in the lower part because your speed is your stride length x stride frequency. With a fast speed, everyone looks smooth down below. As I understand it, the upper portion is more to keep you in control and from toppling over and having a more effortless stride will waste less energy. Other than that though, I don't think it really affects their speed that much.

Curious G wrote:

incomplete extention of the hip/ not enough force applyed to the ground? those both cost more energy-how do they make one more effecient?

If you notice, I said if he was SPRINTING so we aren't worried about energy cost.

But anyways, in distance running if we have incomplete extension of the hip b/c you are cutting it off, you will also get a lower/slower leg recovery. By getting an incomplete hip extension, we wouldn't fully inact the stretch reflex mechanism. Which would be more inefficient.

might want to youtube and watch a video of Paula running. No, her stride is not even close to being 'efficient'- even the lower body.