Well, the part about don’t floor it from the start tends to be a bit of a “Motherhood” issue around here. I also think Tom Tellez’ comment about what works best for 60 doesn’t necessarily work for the best 100 applies: Look at Mo’s 6.39 and his 9.79 on youtube and you will see a difference in the first 10-20 which some could describe as holding back.
I actually haven’t had the best results by holding back. I’ve had the best results by:
1.In the blocks, concentrating on pushing on the first step from the blocks (go for power or triple extension) but without pressing for maximum force (where you go in there and tell yourself, “I’m not quite going to try as hard as I can”).
- NOT holding back after the first step. As Charlie says, people aren’t running 6.32 by holding back. But I stay down in my drive phase and accelerate for as long as possible (without the result being slower) which is almost 50m for me. Staying down in the drive phase for as long as possible helps save energy and provides for longer acceleration, which also seems to provide for higher top speed.
After all the discussions about the Jamaicans (and I did do more overdistance in the offseason and hard 200s once a week up until the last 4 weeks of GPP1), I seem to have gotten the real improvement from Vince Anderson and Tellez. And the difference is pushing LONGER. Everybody pushes and works the arms hard during the initial drive out to 15-20m, but I’ve gotten an improvement by concentrating on pushing (in practice) as I’m gradually coming up all the way out to 50m, then once up and looking at the line, I concentrate on relaxing and turnover as you said.
As Tellez says, the pushing is only down and back at the beginning, then concentrating on pushing DOWN. If you haven’t seen the Tellez interview mentioned earlier, you can find it here:
Once again, I’m not saying to push for the whole race, but all the way until you completely come up.