Question: Biomechanically, what is the premise behind maintaining a neutral spine in the set position?
I seriously doubt anyone is producing enough force to warrant a safety concern, so then, whats the point?
Could it be that the neutral spine is the most stable and limits the absorbtion of force by the torso, which would otherwise deform under the load of the ground reaction force transfered from the legs and up the body?
That said, if an athlete was strong enough to maintain the (‘un-neutral’) spine position under the load then, logically, there would be no reason to attempt to achieve the neutral position?
ps. I think I may have made a simple question sound very, very complicated :eek: . I think you get the picture.
You are strong like an ox. No need to worry about that for now. Get more upper body flexibility (that is just an aside…something to work on now and then).
Technically, in the vid you drop your hips after you are in the set position. Keep your hips up and motionless. Secondly, focus on driving your right arm FORWARD (not the left arm back). Keep your hands more underneath your chest. Shorten the arm-swing at this point and get things moving. With the back arm back that far, it causes a lag in your sprinting rhythm at this point, and causes your center of gravity to drop. With the lead arm…Forward, forward, forward, and the down down down for the rest of the race.
If you take a look at the second to last pic here and the last, you can see your front leg opening up. By the time you reach the second to last position, you should be thinking DOWN! into the track already. Get your feet down quicker (don’t reach).
Herb,
I thank you very much for the infomative post. You addressed the exact problem I am having to fix.
First off, I know my hips dropped in the set position before the gun went off. I think this happened because we were held long. I actulaly felt like I got out better by doing this although I know because of timing it perfectly it would become a issue and would have negative consequences.
I do focus on driving the right arm foward and I think as a result the back arm goes way back. How do I fix this? Should the arm swing be shortened at the first arm drive or wait for that?
Is the lag in my sprinting time stemming from this and is it what is causing me to reach?
Now with the main problem, getting my feet down quicker. This is my main concern. As I said in an earlier post. I seem to be reaching and as a result I am landing flat footed, having long ground contacts, long air time. HOW CAN I FIX THIS? I will try it more but the cue to get my feet down doe not seem to work? Acceleration stick patterning perhaps? This way of I reach I will hit the sticks? But how would I figure out what my stride should be? How much is this acceleration killing my time? It seems I am 3 frames slower than I should be in my first 4 strides. Almost a tenth of a second.
rounding of the spine and shoulder means your spine is not in a neutral postion. when you are sprinting everything should be in a perfect horizonal line…with a rounded back no force is being used out of the blocks you’ll crumble… lats and core should be set before you go in set position, so you can power out of the block and you will have perfect lines!and if kind of looked as though you were sitting not up tall. if you are up tall you will gain more stride length instead of over striding caused by sitting
I wouldn’t recommend going with stick patterning. Although there can be some useful correction with it, it needs to be setup by keen observers. Otherwise it may make matters worse.
What I try to do with our athletes is consciously limit the responding levers (after the lead arm goes up) to not allow the down stroke to go past the back pocket. My experience has been that this approach can take a full training year before it can become a fairly consistent action. It’s slow at first, with patience and trust being the key.
In addition to hills, some contrast training with applied resistance can also help.
So after the initial arm drive outof the blocks the hand hould not go past the back pocket and this will help me get my feet down faster instead of overstriding and reaching during accel?
Good questions. One thing to remember. Each athlete that we work with has some attribute(s) that may point to their success, or immediate lack of, to another. We don’t make a point to fit a specific corrective action universally.
Having said that, when we implemented the above recommendation, we were only concerned with front-side recovery (post stepover) and TD angles prior to amortization. When we work it progressively in practice, there can be no compromise with optimal back, hip and knee extension. For us, that is what dictates the stride pattern we are working to. Gradual hills and resistance apparatus help significantly here.
And though the mechanics and rhythm of the acceleration pattern are important in its’ own phase, we emphasize it more to set up an optimal transition and maximal sprint phase effort. In other words, if it means giving up an inch during block clearance, to enable a smoother, more controlled step sequence, we don’t hesitate. Oddly enough, it is in the 30-80m area that we occasionally utilize some form of stick patterning.