Precisely my thoughts. Cycling the swing leg via bending at the knee more than is necessary to establish the optimal stride length relative to one’s power output is inefficient at that stage of the sprint.
IT’s like CF says in the very moment the Gun go off, Don’t swing the arm in an arc - move the arm in a straight Line from the Start to above your shoulder, It’s faster.
the vid shows two athletes side by side and only one has the pause, it is not hard to control.
there is a drill, it was bastardised by a coach who was awarded a level 5 for doing a session on it at a ATFCA conference a few years back.
Any idea what the drill is called? or if Youtube footage?
Level 5 coach - other than sucking up, does it get you any benifits? Or any Level coaching from ATF?
Are they based on passing courses, or based on getting Athletes Fast and into certain Times?
It is also common in a number of the other MVP men. Personally I think it is a combination of focusing on full extension and long powerful strides at the start as well as a natural pattern brought about by the copious volume of sled and hills where you almost have to run with low heel recovery.
I read an interview where Bolt states that Mills was trying to get Bolt NOT to drag his foot, saying it could slow him down. Minor I would think considering how beneficial full extension is. Bolt was also coached to recover the rear foot fast once block clearance has occurred. That is straight from Bud Winter as well interestingly.
Good stuff.
When I think in terms of mechanical principles only, and I know this can be a slippery slope, if a humanoid/robot were to be constructed for the sole purpose of linear sprinting from a block start, it only seems logical that low (distal limb) recovery would be programmed subsequent to the start and gradual achieve greater clearance coincidentally as the machine assumes the upright sprint position.
Of course the counter argument to this is that a shorter lever requires less force to mobilize; thus greater heel recovery may facilitate the faster forward travel of the swing leg. I, however, feel that during early acceleration, due to the steepened angle, the low recovery is more favorable.
I was going to post just that -wouldn’t such an issue be resolved almost on its own by the staring mechanics of the individual and his ability to clear the blocks low or not? Since all guys were/are pretty fast, what’s the difference in this regard between Ben, Usain, Asafa, Tyson, etc? I mean, is this something new? Genuine question.
David Lease teaches this… he calls it power bounding out of the blocks as there isn’t a cycling motion in the first few steps.
double post…
Interesting thread…I saw 5 weeks of work this summer so I have a little understanding of what cues they use. One of the instructions I saw Mills use with Blake and Bailey was a jump out of the blocks to initiate full extention. They spoke about lower heel recovery alot for the acceleration phase and the verbal cue they used for this was scooping sand with the feet with dorsiflexed feet. Hope this helps.
Awesome - thanks 
Thanks for sharing. Much appreciated
Does it matter if low heel recovery is more biomechanically efficient or not? The first few steps are so much slower than those at max velocity that I can’t see it being a huge deal whether you use low heel recovery or not.
There are plenty of athletes using a traditional higher recovery that still run fast. I wish I knew enough about biomechanics to be able to compare the two approaches.
…
Bolt and Gay’s first steps from the slow motion video:
This is block clearance:
It does look like Bolt might be jumping. Note the difference in extension and also in departure angle.
This is the first step landing:
I think if you show somebody the guy on the right in this image (#2), he would never guess the result at the finish line.
Great info thanks!
Any other cues that they used for different parts of the race?
Top speed cues, etc.?
If the distance from the ball in hip to the knee is the same as from the ball to the ball of foot does bringing the foot closer to the butt create a shorter lever
The lever becomes shorter the greater the knee bend.
This is why in the sprint position at MaxV it is advantages to execute high heel recovery; minimizing backside mechanics and providing for faster knee through.
This is also why we do not see complete knee extension in the flight phase subsequent to stepping over as this would cause GCT to occur far in front of the hips.
During early acceleration, however, where the force vector is predominantly horizontal and the speed is slower by default, and considering how well Powell and Bolt start for taller guys, I think they’re definitely on to something with the low heel recovery.
One of my players does this during speed work; however, it ends being a detriment because he continues to carry out the low heel recovery too far into the sprint. So this is something we’ve worked on during the previous off-seasons- stepping over and down.
i assume you mean he keeps using low heel recovery during the transition phase. what type of cueing is used during this? it seems to be established that the best cues for tope speed are down down down, and the best for starting is horizontal pushing, but what about during the transition?
Actually, if you look at image #1, Bolt clearly has superior triple extension. Look at the straight line from his heel through his head. Gay has a bit of a break at his hips. He looks like he is trying to stay low.
As far as image #2, it is hard to tell from the angle, but it looks like Bolt is slightly ahead of Gay, even at this stage. Also, note that Bolt’s swing leg very low, but is still further advanced compared to Gay’s. That means that his second step will happen quicker.
Great job on the images!