When startinging from blocks, is it ok to have the toes of your front foot touching the track or should your entire foot be on the block? I ask because I always felt more comfortable with my toes on the track but alot of the elites I see have their whole foot on the blocks. When I put my entire foot on the blocks I don’t feel like I have as much leverage at my ankle.
That’s interesting because i’m doing a research study about that very thing. From what I’ve heard, putting your toes on the track, or cocking the toe, puts the lower leg muscles in more pre-stretch. Theoretically, this should lead to greater force production at the start. I’m not through with the whole study yet, so i can’t give you any results, but i’ll keep you all posted.
I find that putting my toes mid-way up the block leads to faster sprints.
I do the same. Its called “climbing the blocks”. I also like my hips lower. What are you body dimensions? Height weight and leg length (from the floor to the greater trocanter? Also what are you block spacing in inches from the line and block pedal angles? Im just curious because not many ppl. climb the blocks.
Well, here’s what I know:
Height: 5’7
Weight: 155
Whole Leg Length(floor to very top of leg): about 36"
Lower leg length: 17-18"
Upper leg length: 17-18"
Damn, what a proportion. Is it good or bad to have the lower leg equal in length to the upper leg?
I measured the highest point of my leg as being the point right below the bottom of the hip bone by the way.
And to be honest, I haven’t measured angles or distance from starting line. But, according to my block settings, the first block is set between “10-15” and the second block is set between “40-45”. I don’t know the values of those numbers though, but it might give you an idea of how far apart my feet are. And I put the angles as low as possible for the blocks, but I might run faster with higher angles now because of the learning experience ive went through these past few months. But I’ll have to try.
My bad, didn’t know how late I was in replying. Get back to me on this, let me know what you think.
Bumping for Quik to see.
My upper leg is like 16" and lower leg is about 18" so I guess it’s usually a lower leg bigger to equal length between both as normal.
Anyways I usually start with my whole foot on the blocks and without my toes bent. If your toes are bent it would seem as though you’d be using some of your power into pushing upwards into the air, which in the drive phase isn’t what you want. If you have your whole foot on the block then you’re just pushing forward and not wasting energy or power anywhere else. I have no idea whether that is really the case or not but that’s how I thought it to be.
I have my toes partly on the ground, with the rest of my foot on the blocks. For my block settings, I put my thumb on the start line, then I reach my pinky as far as it’ll go and that’s where I put the blocks. Then I move it to 30 for my front block and 60 for my back block. The front one is almost vertical, and the back one is as shallow an angle as the settings allow. I have tried putting my entire foot on the block with no toes on the ground, but it feels awkward, so I just put my toes on the ground and that works fine for me.
CaptinPain- maybe youre right
Bumpin this for Quikazhell to see.
Personally, the tips of my toes touch the ground in the blocks, but I’m not known for a phenomenal start anyway.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I always thought having your block pedals vertical was bad, because your toes were more pointed, thus “loading” your calf muscle less to get out faster…does that make sense? (layman’s terms, I know) It seems like you’d get more force if your toe was pointed up towards your knee than if partially extended.