How Can Drew Hunter Open His Stride?

Who cares. I mean really who cares. Elites don't all have identical form, never have, never will.

meeeeehhhhhhh... wrote:

Who cares. I mean really who cares. Elites don't all have identical form, never have, never will.

Yeah, what difference could technique possibly make. It’s not like 1% improvement is going to make any difference to these guys. They have run so much, their body automatically finds the perfect stride for them. It is impossible to change. And they are already elite so obviously they are at max efficiency already or else they would be sub elites.

Capoeira. But first he has to ride a bicycle to South America.

Lasse Viren and Abdihakem Abdirahman come to mind.

hart crane wrote:

Capoeira. But first he has to ride a bicycle to South America.

Nice one!

Really though, Drew's issue if you want to call it that is he carries too much tension. He's always run like that. I remember being at Footlocker when he won and I was a bit taken aback how strained he looked versus the athlete I was there coaching...whom he beat by a solid 30 seconds or so.

It's very difficult to let go of tension. Stretching is absolutely not the answer, though I do know that much. It's more an issue with the golgi tendon organ I believe.

Logician knot wrote:

They have run so much, their body automatically finds the perfect stride for them. It is impossible to change. And they are already elite so obviously they are at max efficiency already or else they would be sub elites.

I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but that's basically true.

Excellent work. You could not have found a more apposite reference in this case.

hart crane wrote:

Capoeira. But first he has to ride a bicycle to South America.

And he's not the only one wrote:

Lasse Viren and Abdihakem Abdirahman come to mind.

OP, thoughts on these two?

24 min to look at Abdi form:

I agree, look at world-class runners and you see no matter how hard they're running they're always relaxed, Drew seems like he's brute force running, straining against his body.

Not sure why, but he always looks choppy and inefficient in his races, but pretty great in training clips. Example: https://www.instagram.com/p/BrQW_-mnqBc/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

mooonshot wrote:

Anyone else watching that 5000m at USA's thinking how can Drew Hunter have such limited mobility and range of motion in his stride as a professional distance runner? His gait is extremely limited, and reminiscent of an ultra marathoner. His body position is poor and his balance offset.

Reminds me of kids that run a lot mileage in their youth with poor form and then build all the scar tissue and limitations. Tough to break out of it. He should move to the marathon because she just can't compete at this level with that form. I would say he looked like a fish out of water, but his big gulps of air that last 150m would make it too literal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwz6jvpDXK8

Interesting take... any evidence/scientific research to prove this?

tinmobber wrote:

Not sure why, but he always looks choppy and inefficient in his races, but pretty great in training clips.

Probably due to tension, needs to go to one of them massage parlors down here in Florida.

Drew looks much better running a 5K than a 1500, and has less side-to-side motion in the 5K. But, his workouts show him running much smoother than his race efforts, even at the same speed.

So I agree it's tension.

This said, nearly all this can't be changed anyway. I believe his best move is to move up in distance as quickly as possible, since slower speeds won't torque things quite so much, and possibly allow a longer viable career path.

Thank you for posting the video of Lasse Viren, he is a great example of an extremely efficient runner. What you need to focus on is the last 400m of Lasse Viren in the Olympic 10,000m and if you want to compare apples to apples, watch one of his 5000m races: Lasse was able to open his stride tremendously and was undoubtedly one of the most efficient and fluid runners of our generation. Watching him in person, I thought I was seeing effortless running at 63-64" pace, wheares when I saw Drew in Des Moines, I saw a really rough mechanical runner with limited mobility from a physiological standpoint. If you have time, research how high of a butt kick Kenenisa Bekele has (almost horizontal foot to plane) in his gait cycle. Understandably, Drew is no Bekele, but what I see from Hunter is an over-use athlete with a high engine. Very limited. Not sure if we'll see a sub-13:05 out of him before he is done.

OP, thoughts on these two? wrote:

And he's not the only one wrote:

Lasse Viren and Abdihakem Abdirahman come to mind.

OP, thoughts on these two?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mglwnEG86Xs

24 min to look at Abdi form:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jHBd-zVYN0

tarckstar wrote:

Drew looks much better running a 5K than a 1500, and has less side-to-side motion in the 5K. But, his workouts show him running much smoother than his race efforts, even at the same speed.

So I agree it's tension.

This said, nearly all this can't be changed anyway. I believe his best move is to move up in distance as quickly as possible, since slower speeds won't torque things quite so much, and possibly allow a longer viable career path.

He’s a great runner with great coaches.

It would be interesting to look at quality video and slow it down to see if he is landing in front of his center of gravity a little- this could give an impression of “straining” more than if he were landing closer to “underneath” his body. This can be related to posture and core strength- but obviously he is very strong and world class regardless of whether this is true or completely wrong.

Watching the video I see a couple of things.

-Drew has much faster cadence and lower stride length throughout the race compared to the rest of the front pack so when it comes time to kick he can't increase cadence as much and ends up losing ground in final 150m

-the two non-Africans, hunter and Kincaid are much less efficient in stride although Kincaid is much better than hunter. Chelimo, Mead, and Lomong have very compact strides with their feet coming right up to there butt while hunter and Kincaid trail their legs leading to less power in knee drive and therefore less air time which tires them out as they need to either put more power or cadence to keep up with the others.

As mooonshot said Bekele is a great example of this as well as Rupp/Farah and to a lesser extent other NOP athletes

Needs to do a hill circuit, all Lydiard runners had beautiful and strong form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m0_Q7sH2i0

Jgt11 wrote:

Watching the video I see a couple of things.

-Drew has much faster cadence and lower stride length throughout the race compared to the rest of the front pack so when it comes time to kick he can't increase cadence as much and ends up losing ground in final 150m

-the two non-Africans, hunter and Kincaid are much less efficient in stride although Kincaid is much better than hunter. Chelimo, Mead, and Lomong have very compact strides with their feet coming right up to there butt while hunter and Kincaid trail their legs leading to less power in knee drive and therefore less air time which tires them out as they need to either put more power or cadence to keep up with the others.

As mooonshot said Bekele is a great example of this as well as Rupp/Farah and to a lesser extent other NOP athletes

Knee drive? You mean the leg that doesn’t have weight on it? Recovery is passive, you don’t get speed from knee drive.

Higher knee drive gives a longer stride length as you spend more time in the air between strides which is more efficient in distance running