The problem is what to do with numbers. So few indications are not enough for coaches…
I’ve tried many models for sprinters. Taking the 16 all-time best 100m sprinters, they average 45.0 steps for 9.84sec, and 4.57hz frequency. When they were younger, at average age 22, same 16 sprinters did 10.08 with 45.3 steps and 4.50hz frequency. 45.0 vs 45.3 and 4.57 vs 4.50 seems very little improvement and minor changes, but that made them improve from 10.08 to 9.84, during a 5 year period. Does it shows also that both stride length and frequency should be improved simultaneously? Were these small gains steady in the whole 100m races, or some segments had more improvements than others?
During Ben’s career and movement down from 10:30 to 9:79, his stride length average didn’t change at all- reason, the initial few steps got progressively shorter due to the need to “save himself from falling” due to a progressively lower departure angle- the middle strides got a bit longer due to more power and force application, while the last strides got shorter, as they bacame power strokes, rather than very long, freewheeling and slow final steps. Bottom line, average frequency increased dramatically.
Charlie, I was wondering if you found anything scientists told you useful to you as a coach (e.g. biomechanical analysis etc)? I spoke to Henk Kraaijenhof a few months back and he said that none of it was really useful - with the exception of Omegawave.
Fascinating. Thank you very much. So one of the keys to Powell’s WR was his remarkable speed endurance, especially the last ten meters where he made up 3 one-hundredths (!) on Montgomery’s time! That is amazing!
PJ, any idea what kind of splits Asafa had in Ostrava? I am curious to see what speed he reached in that race. The way he pulled away from the entire field was just sick. Racing against some of the best in the world, you just don’t win by that much! It reminded me of Ben’s race in Zurich in 86, just amazing. :eek:
Asafa was not faster in Ostrava than Athens, and the quality of the field in Ostrava was lower than in Athens, this explains the big visual gap. In Ostrava Asafa passed the 60m point in @ 6.42.
Although it wasn’t raining as hard, Sydney 00 100m final MEN was run in pretty cold conditions. Safa’s 9.85 was awesome condisering the conditions, has to be worth 9.79 or 9.80 in much ‘friendlier’ conditions
Um, I am pretty sure this is not the case. I have plenty of pictures of world class sprinters with full extension. If you read the above posts you will find that frames are missing from the Asafa pictures wherein he may very well be at full extension.
yeah, at acceleration and transition they reach full extention, but i saw a lot of vids(for example pognon) where tehy dont do it at full speed an according to uwe hakus(germans national sprint coach) they dont wanna do so because it needs more time.
hey charlie,
did ben every time in the race try to reach full ext ? i think he would be one of 3-5 persons in the world who could do so?
Nobody is specifically trying for extention or to leave early for that matter. This is all automatic. They are stepping down and the more force involved, the higher the hip, the higher the hip, the straighter the leg underneath before it leaves the ground.
This is very interesting. I’d like to hear some thought and opinions on this especially from the more informed coaches. Why is this happening in Asafa’s race/s? Surely a sprinter of his ability and strength can reach full extension. Do you think this is something he has been taught conciously to do i.e. chopping his steps? Is this a result of an old injury or something like that? Would Asafa be running faster if he was reaching full extension in his strides?
We can see childs on the playing fields having the triple extension, which also has to do with hip flexors flexibility.
If we are talking about a 180° knee extension at take-off or slightly after, few world class sprinters can do it, i have pictures examples of Kenteris and Pérec, who have very long legs relative to torso. As for Pognon, he isn’t trying to avoid full extension at full speed and from this picture at @ 70m during a 10.02, the extension is about to be there.
