I think Gateshead 9.77 may have been better.
Look at the chart on this page:
Asafa ran the first 10m the same as Carl and Ben was 0.06 ahead of Asafa at 60âŚbut at the end of the race Asafa went faster, and that wasnât the fastest Asafa ever ran. But I think this makes the point that Pfaff is trying to make. For me personally, what works best is the Steve Francis way (âlong, longer, longer yetââfrom the youtube âAsafa Prepares For Sprintingâ): Getting a hard push from the blocks, concentrating on pushing power for the first 4-6 strides, then beginning to extend, which is the same thing I see Asafa doing (comes from the same coach).
But my impression is that low heel recovery comes as a second order result from pulling sleds. And thatâs what you do if you want strong accelerationâyou pull a sled or sprint up a steep hill. But if you decide you need low heel recovery because people who pull sleds have low heel recovery and you concentrate on heel recovery instead of the thing that caused the heel recovery, are you simply messing up your biomechanics and making the second half of your race slower like Dr. Pfaff talks about? One of Charlieâs favorite phrases: Paralysis through analysis.
Another thing Iâm noticing, and I noticed with Bolt back in 2009, is tall sprinters ending the drive phase earlier and getting their legs extendedâŚand going faster by getting into MaxV sooner. I see Asafa this year getting his head up just before the 4.0 point, compared to staying in the drive phase longer before and getting fully up around 5 seconds.
I just watched the 9.74. What a testament to latent abilities for him to perform at this level following the multi-year competitive layoff. Interesting that he is one that sacrifices complete extension during the initial acceleration and has been an exceptional accelerator; while Tyson Gay is also notorious for sacrificing complete extension (forcing the torso forward) during the initial strides yet, in contrast, has never been exceptional over the first 20-30m.
Even more than sleds, the elastic contraptions that athletes (including Gatlin) attach to their ankles, thighs, wrists, upper arms completely alter natural kinematics by inhibiting heel recovery and forcing front side arm action.
Well said regarding heel recovery being a symptom of other causalities versus an end unto itself.
I would encourage you to read Ralph Mannâs âThe Mechanics of Sprinting and Hurdlingâ before dismissing Asafaâs technique. His max velocity mechanics in his 9.72 run in Lausanne are what I would argue are the best ever. Ralph has studied virtually all the top US sprinters for the past 25 years, and he has a very clear model of what his data shows is optimal technique. Regardless of what you think of Mann, you should own his book.
I donât think it is fair to state that evidence of Boltâs heel to butt technique on pull-through is superior to Asafaâs shin parallel to ground on pull-through. You are talking about two guys with levers of different lengths. If I had to choose, I would choose Asafaâs technique every time over Boltâs, but I would choose Boltâs levers. Mannâs data suggests you will save 0.005 per stride with a parallel shin pull-through. Bolt doesnât need to experiment with this, as he is the fastest.
I will tell you that I have spent time with two elite US coaches in the past year, and they have each incorporated Mannâs technical model with very good results. I can tell you that when Mann initially presented his findings a few years back, there was MAJOR resistance from top US coaches. A few years later, they are all using it. That should tell you something.
With regard to start data and Mann, he found what Charlie figured out 30 years ago: âHe who is not on the ground cannot push.â Whoever gets their foot down on the ground to push again first (and whose centre of gravity isnât in front of them) is going to be the fastest starter. While Mann trashes the jumpstart as inefficient overall (and correctly so- who since Ben has had success with it?), the reality is he espouses the same big picture advice that Charlie did: get back on the ground and push. Ben made the jumpstart work for him because he was back on the ground pushing again while everyone else was still floating in mid-air with their long, slowass pushes
.
I am familiar with Manns research however you are going off on a tangent.The initial argument was based on Asafa first few strides, which is that the toe drag is not efficient. Whilst there is a need to minimse flexion in the first few stride , dragging the feet is not the optimal technique.
Do I have any peer-reviewed evidence? Nope. But science is an inherently conservative field which trails practical experience by up to 30 years, so I donât have time to wait for that.
You are making some very broad generalisations about the entire field of science. I am a researcher in medicine however my background was previously sports science. I think a little bit of context will be helpful. Thirty years ago in medicine a number of drugs were prescribed on the basis of practical experience by doctors, they were also approved on the basis of uncontrolled trials. However, later when probably controlled studies were designed it was found out that these drugs were actually highly toxic with no therapeutic benefit. This is the worst possible outcome when patients die because doctors prescribed medications on the inherently bias nature of experience. The take home message is that well controlled clinical trials exceeds practical experience , especially in the field of medicine.
There is high quality evidence in literature however you need to spend the time reading it.
Dan makes some excellent points. Just some further points, greater ground reaction forces causes greater displacement through the flight phase. This means during max velocity that stride length will be greater for the fastest sprinters, this is well documented in the literature.
One of the reasons why he has already run 9.84.
Gatlin took 41.5 strides when he ran 9.77 in 2006. Last year, he took 43.0 strides to run the same time, and this year it was 43.5 strides for 9.74. He seems to have worked on shortening his stride length probably to avoid overstriding.
After his runs at world relays, this result should not come as a surprise.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGhF1STB3mI
-if we go back to the texas relays 100âs the oregon training dual, bailey and morris. Morris ran 9.8x windy
before the kiryu race, but he really powered the first 20m such that he got there in 15 contacts, and then had the strength to maintain the frewuency and momentum to cover the 100m in 44contacts.
-also it always seems to me that a skinny dude in their first 2-3years of formal sprint training(age 17-25 or thereabouts), has the ability to muscle some long initial srides with that skinnier(less muscled frame) build, and not get too dinged up. It makes me think that at the younger adult ages, one should run with as much techniques as they could handle and push the envelope (within reason) in each of respected techniques(power stride length, power stride frequency, speed endurance stride length, speed endurance stride frequency, so on and so forth)(even co-contraction quad n hammy stride length maybe lol)
The toe drag is a motor learning approach to teaching low heel recovery. Toe dragging isnât absolutely necessary I donât think, but low heel recovery is an indication that your pelvis is in a neutral position, and that you are using your spine rather than spinal erectors to direct force. That is very desirable in my opinion. The way Ralph teaches it is not optimal unless you are super elite and are a kinesthetic genius who can turn vague cues into something sensible. For the average athlete, itâs a disaster.
Low heel recovery is faster than butt-kicking out of the blocks in every test I have conducted or have seen others conduct. Not everyone agrees- Dan Pfaff argues that it puts too much strain on the hip flexors and is intolerable for some. Most other US pro coaches teach some form of low heel recovery though.
The generalization I made about science was a fair one I think. There is no money to be made studying track and field technique, so I wonât hold my breath for a peer reviewed study. Iâm not suggesting that peer reviewed studies arenât useful- they just take forever to happen, and Iâm not going to put my coaching on pause until someone studies the start.
Some good start training footage here of Asafa. Not sure how long ago it was filmed as the video was posted last year. Good footage none the less: https://youtu.be/4Ac8PGq-dYA
Yes, that channel has a lot of good videos.
That Ad/Commercial of soloshot.com that was on the front end was HOT as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVyYWy4dgc8 <<soloshot
Last year our group got bigger, four new athletes joined our squad. Three out four have an anterior pelvic rotation. I have done a basic interview and assessment. Every single one of them had a ham injuries. After assessment (Thomas test and other) I can say that hip flexors werenât stretched/ long enough on top of that glutes werenât firing. Getting pelvic to more neutral position itâs quite different task. Every drill, movement on and off the track has to be adressed. I am wondering how you are going about that particular problem?
Note the toe drag in action at approximately the 2:03 mark from Asafa in todayâs 9.81
//youtu.be/YZiNCL0ckyM
Iâm far from an expert on technique, but, man, does Vicaut look tight/restricted in his maxV phase. My initial reaction was along the lines of, âImagine what he could do if he were able to truly open up.â
Imagine what he could do if he didnât get injured every season. The tightness might be a remnant from his last injury.
Hey Wermouth,
Sorry I forgot about this post! Well the short answer is itâs definitely not easy. The first thing I did is got away from all the powerlifting / Olympic lifting coaches, because they arenât strict enough in my opinion. Their sport is getting weight up- they do not mind some variability in technique in order to get the job done. When it comes to sprinters, I feel you have to do the opposite. Every single thing in the weight room has to have a pelvic neutral focus, and you need to balance anterior and posterior work especially in the core (nobody forgets to do this in the extremities, but seems to be a different story). I have a someone I go to that does some good osteopathic type adjustments, and is really good at using various anterior / posterior exercises to elicit a neutral and balanced athlete. His lifting work is also completely focused on neutrality of the pelvis. He is really a special guy, and he belongs at the upper echelon of the track and field world, but he is a virtual unknown due to the fact that heâs too busy in the trenches to get out there and meet others.
One thing I do like is Kelly Starrettâs book âBecoming a Supple Leopard.â He addresses a lot of postural issues with some solid real world solutions that work. I had a chance to meet him at WAC in November of 2014 and he is a great guy- super passionate. Not everything he advocates is what Iâd do, but there are a lot of great takeaways from his work I think.
First of all, Vicautâs start was the shits! Look at how much faster Asafa gets his foot down and starts pushing. There is minimum one hundredth there, probably more like two or three.
Vicaut look like he lifts his head (with his pelvis correspondingly moving back into an anterior tilt), and starts heel cycling almost immediately. Vicaut is down noticeably at 30m. Once he hits his max V phase things seem to get a whole lot better. Just look at the way Vicaut DESTROYS Collins at Max V- it is not subtle! Vicaut clearly has greater frequency than Collins, and is getting some decent negative foot speed despite not looking to be in the greatest pelvic position. Still, he looked to have some decent hip height and negative foot speed, and had to be striking decently close to bottom dead centre in order to have that frequency.
Collins seems like his shin just kind of flops forward and down, touches down, and then moves back- there seems to be less negative foot speed prior to touchdown at Max Velocity.
Remember, Gatlinâs frequency has increased but I will bet you any money his stride length is at least the same. End result: PB. This is Ralph Mann stuff. Maybe the French are sorta catching on to modern Max V mechanics (though Vicautâs pelvic position looked only mediocre), but clearly not the modern start!
Iâd be more inclined to think the âtightnessâ Vicaut displayed was partially due to hitting that tremendous frequency / velocity / rhythm for the first time and thus looking a little tense and uncoordinated, but letâs give the poor guy a break, heâs never âbeen thereâ before. Vicaut definitely dowloaded some big time lessons in todays run!
Asafa looked like he had his best drive phase of the season, and his Max Velocity looked totally relaxed. There definitely looks to be more in the tank there! Exciting times for him, he looks like heâs enjoying himself and appears much more confident. I listened to a podcast with his brother / coach Donovan Powell that ESTI sent me the link to, and it sounds like Donovan is a really smart guy with great big picture coaching skills. He said theyâve been very careful coming out of blocks this year, and have been doing pretty much only sub maximal starts just to be on the safe side of injury. Not only that, but you can bet they arenât training at 5am MVP style in Austin.
Oh- and gotta love the French announcers freaking over Vicautâs time- âQuel chronooo!!! Quel chronoooo!!!â
Actually, Gatlinâs stride length has decreased by 1-1.5 strides compared to 2006. He was probably over striding back then. His frequency has increased significantly, allowing him to run faster despite taking more strides.
Break it up in 20m sections.