K Bekele's Form: 180 degree inversion of foot

Won't open.

It's here.

http://trackandfieldnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3054

or

http://goo.gl/uqEdFN

Can someone explain to me what a "180 degree inversion of foot" means?

Baptism of Fire wrote:

He can invert his stride at 180-degrees,

The weather will never be hot enough for him to use that special talent.

dfdsfsdf wrote:

Can someone explain to me what a "180 degree inversion of foot" means?

The article explains it but maybe I can clarify it: At the uppermost point of Bekele's back kick, his foot is facing upward and away from the surface he's running on, but at an angle close to, or actually parallel to said surface.

lipstick on a pig wrote:

dfdsfsdf wrote:

Can someone explain to me what a "180 degree inversion of foot" means?

The article explains it but maybe I can clarify it: At the uppermost point of Bekele's back kick, his foot is facing upward and away from the surface he's running on, but at an angle close to, or actually parallel to said surface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0jvxx55J_8

I now see it in that video. He basically shows the sky the sole of his shoe. Must be pretty crazy ankle mobilization.

That is just his natural stride.

How can you achieve this stride?

Just act it out. Not that hard. The difficult part is raising your performance to the point where you use a sprinting stride for all distances.

Baptism of Fire wrote:

The revelation here is that Bekele was actually trained to develop his notorious and unique back-kick.

Not true.

Not only does he have that crazy stride, but he constantly looks back while doing it. It is like he has everything on a swivel.

dfdsfsdf wrote:

How can you achieve this stride?

100mpw

I think it's simply a matter of leg length/levers. He has very short, stout legs. Farah and Geb and Rupp, etc., all have longer legs. It is quite impressive, as I have not seen another athlete be able to have that mobility.

Ethios Ethos wrote:

That is just his natural stride.

Did you read the article?

"120 pounds (1.60/54), the unique power dynamics of Bekele’s’s stride was refined by his early career mentor the late Woldemeskel Kostre.

The national team coach worked meticulously with Bekele and a long list of Ethiopian medalists on sustaining a sprint stride where the trail-leg foot is fully inverted 180 degrees from the running surface.

Kostre went on to explain that most runners invert 140-150 degrees and that 180 adds about 50% more torque to the forward leg whip of the subsequent stride. He also added that Bekele was so strong that he could invert his stride not only in the sprint, but for the full 10,000 meters.

Looking closely at Bekele’s stride, the 50% more torque is evident as his leg whip is reminiscent of the torque imparted on Sandy Koufax’s left arm. And in both cases, seemingly unbelievable torque yielded the prospect of career ending injury, especially when that torque is applied endlessly on a concrete-hard track."

I have heard that the Ethiopian training groups emphasize sprint drills, almost daily, so this is not too surprising.

Great. Coaches take credit for all sorts of stuff they had nothing to do with. You don't know this? And if Bekele's stride is due to this "Ethio system" of training, why don't any other runner's look exactly like him (many have a high back-kick, but none look quite like Bekele. ) ?

Find an early video of Bekele running, when he had barely trained with this Kostre and I bet his stride looks exactly the same.

I am sure focusing on sprinting helped. But I don't buy at all that this is some "developed" stride.

Hbwl wrote:

I now see it in that video. He basically shows the sky the sole of his shoe. Must be pretty crazy ankle mobilization.

Yes, "shows the sky the sole of his shoe" is the proper way to describe this (180 degree inversion of foot is confusing). However, I think it has little to do with "ankle mobilization" and much more to simply pulling his trailing foot up close to his butt with each stride. Once you do that, your ankle will pretty naturally be in that position (maybe not quite as parallel to sky as Bekele, but close). Pull your foot up to your butt right now (quad stretch). My foot naturally faces the sky, with no stress on my ankle. I think having great quad flexibility would be key, and also hamstring relaxation. He's also really little and to go at the pace he needs to go, he almost needs a sprinter's style in order to cover a good distance with each stride (or he would need to pump out about 220 spm without a long stride at same pace).

Flying V wrote:

dfdsfsdf wrote:

How can you achieve this stride?

100mpw

Yes, all 100 mpw runners have this stride.