Question for Knowledgeable Sprint Coaches

It sounds like you are describing over-striding. Correcting this we want to focus on short and quick strides, emphasize getting the foot to but quicker.

Thinking about it as a runner, you want that trail leg's foot to make less of a "loop" in it's cycle. Using tighter movements helps this.

Drills to help would include form exaggerations. I think any walking/quick foot drill that involves one leg doing a quick cycle helps develop form for this. Hopefully other people jump in on this, I'd love to get some new ideas too. Hopefully my bit wasn't too general and made some sense. If not, sorry for wasting your time pal

No, this is good. I feel like it's an over striding issue also. I have one or two athletes on the team who are landing properly and are coming through on the balls of their feet.

I know the proper landing is on the ball of their feet with about a 10% angle underneath their heels.

I feel like with all of the elite coaching clinics we never get good answers on how to correct this because the experts have never worked with an athlete that over strides landing on their heels.

I just watched my sprinters on coach's eye. I have two of them who are landing correctly but the trail leg knee is still too far behind.

This is a little more confusing for me to fix.

#1 is posture. the position of the pelvis. if the butt is sticking out and the pelvis tilted downward it will lead to excessive back side mechanics.

#2 conceptual. athletes think reaching, pulling, and then overworking the backside is what sprinting is supposed to be.

posture can be cued during everything from walking, to drills, to training.

conceptually- think of the sprint said as 2/3 in the front and only 1/3 in the back.

think of sprinting as marching not cycling. straight up and down of thigh and shin. the hip and knee joints will take care of the horizontal movement naturally.

practically-google "wicket drill" it is the best thing going for reinforcing (or forcing) the above while actually sprinting

I didn't finish point #2. instead of reaching and pulling, athletes need to think of marching. vertical forces, not horizontal. cue "push up" or "bounce up" This should help reduce back side.

To help the sprinter bring the foot through properly it is important to have the sprinter dorsiflex the foot immediately after toeoff. Then when the foot moves into front side mechanics they must internally cue the same thing as the foot is fired down into the ground. If that doesn't work and the sprinter is still over striding you have the athlete do different focused zone runs. 20 meter acceleration followed by zones where you have the athlete focus on frequency, high knee running, or pushing into the ground. In between these different zones the athlete can sprint normally or float. This will force the CNS out of its comfort zone to help the sprinter pick up new skills. For more on this check out Sprinter's Compendium. I dedicated the second chapter to the topic.

I think you’re right in that posture is the issue for those not heel striking but still out of position. I try to do a lot of drills to avoid the backside mechanics

Right where to begin...

In actual fact if your clinics were worth while they would be saying that the trail knee needs to have already passed the stance knee at vertical. This is a timing issue and is the result of the athletes not working correctly on front side mechanics and perhaps pushing out the rear too much

As a coach you need to observe their hip position, rotation etc, strong core will aid this.

cue the athletes to not push out the rear!!!!!!!! most important.

As for the timing issue this is where mini hurdles come in to play (can be done with drills but to get the feeling hurdles work best to begin)

Now we are not talking about running wickets here to begin with! Place them about 2 feet apart and have them do simple switches, switches are done fast, they are changing leg as fast as possible and then sticking the landing to begin with, wait a second and then go again over the next (stand on one leg, jump/switch over the hurdle (change leg whilst moving over)). what you will see in slow motion is as the stance leg is landing the opposite knee is way ahead :-) Over time this helps cue the athletes neuro system and of course then you can move the hurdles out in distance and start running wickets and voila!

(the action of stepping over the hurdle from being slightly behind will give the feeling of front side mechanics whilst the speed of bringing the trail leg through is the timing we talk about!)

You now have correct front side mechanics and timing

Hope that helps

I'm a masters sprinter and coach

www.master-athlete.com

"To the ground"

Not "reach and pull"

This is great advice, as is Ryry's. Here are a couple of drills that I do.

1. Foot over calf: have the kids pretend there is a bar running through the middle of the calf. They need to step up and over that bar with each stride. This will fix a lot of issues. If they don't dorsiflex the ankle, they will "trip" over the bar. If they step up and over the bar quickly, it reduces backside mechanics. If they put their foot right back on the ground after stepping over the bar, it reduces or eliminates over striding.

2. Switching drill (as described above) on the bleachers. Switch foot with each step up the bleachers. Hold for about a second. When they are getting this down, have them do it at a slow run, with out a pause. Once they have the slow run, go to a faster run. Focus on upright posture, keeping hips tucked under trunk the whole time. Coaching cue is that you want their push off foot to already be off the step when the lead foot comes down on the next step.

AJ2000 wrote:

In actual fact if your clinics were worth while they would be saying that the trail knee needs to have already passed the stance knee at vertical. This is a timing issue and is the result of the athletes not working correctly on front side mechanics and perhaps pushing out the rear too much

Yeah, they were worth while. Just not completely in relating to my HS athletes in terms of correcting their major problems.

According to them the golden position is to as close to having the knees together as possible. Some of the most powerful sprinters can be passed the "stance" knee but that's the case with the most powerful sprinters. The trail knee does not NEED to be passed the trail knee for most athletes. Just that the distance needs to be minimized with the goal being to have the knees together at touchdown. I've heard this through Ralph Mann, Loren Seagrave, and others.

I will try the wicket drills as you suggested. This is great advice. Thank you.

I meant I will try the mini hurdle drills! Thank you!

Here is the problem with "over thinking sprinting". Once you get an athlete to start thinking about a lot of the mechanics of sprinting, he or she is going to become too mechanical or robotic with their running. So, instead of being fluid and "natural" they loose the ability to be efficient and powerful with their running.

I worked with a runner who was given lots of key phrases and drills that are suggested by the "experts" only to find him struggling with his turnover and speed. I had him try and forget those instructions, and, instead, had him run relaxed and "light", keeping his CG over his hips and "driving" his body forward. I also had him do short grass hill runs where the incline was steep enough that he had to drive forward and not pull and sit trying to go up the incline.

Once he got those concepts figured out, his form and running style become much less strained and more efficient.

I am not a fan of the "pawing " that seems to continue from when Loren Seagrave first introduced it, as I feel that method of running defeats the purpose of getting a proper CG position and driving the body forward. Instead I see the pawing method as one where sprinters end up "sitting" or "squatting" as they try to increase their speed.

Running tall, pushing the body forward, making quick contact onto and off the ground is a more natural method of sprinting and takes a lot less thinking to accomplish.

Thank you, will give this a try

I agree to a certain extent. The backside mechanic stuff has to be fixed by some means if cueing the athlete to run tall and make quick ground contact does not. If that worked with your athlete that is great.

If the athlete is late they are placing great stress on their hamstrings.

Wickets. You are looking for posture. The easiest one. However, your “sprinters” are lacking the proper strength to hit their positions.

Just my 2 cents here.

Teaching someone how to sprint who isn't already a natural at it is very difficult. The problem, in my opinion, is that the athlete may fully understand the words you are using, but has never experienced the actual sensation that you are trying to describe. So they'll tend to think they are doing it right, but still aren't getting the proper sensation.

It may help them to feel the sensation via mirror-neurons by watching some of the best sprinters do their thing in slow motion over and over. The words will only tend to cue the sensation in someone who already knows the sensation.

Sort of the problem of: you can't tell somebody something they don't already know. And likely the reason why wise old asian dudes would say something like "those who know, do not speak; those who speak, do not know."

Appreciate the discourse despite that last paragraph.

Forgot to mention above: if someone has too low of a percentage of fast-twitch IIb fibers it's possible they simply can't generate enough force and can't cycle the contractions fast enough to run like a proper sprinter.

Cue helps a lot. However, the cue you uss also depends on what type of sprinter they are. If a quad centric the cues need to be what the do while on the ground. If they are hamstring centric it must be things they can process internally.