I’m not in favor of trying to annihilate the first 10m or so. If you do, I think you will usually suffer later in the race. Not if you’re Ben, but maybe if you’re Desai. If you do blast the first 10m hard, it can be beneficial to take your foot off the gas a bit if you need to adjust your posture very late in accel. Take this advice for what it’s worth. I am talking mid/high 10 - 11 mid sprinters here.
That’s the category I fall into, so I will take your advice and at least try it out. What have I got to lose? Can you differentiate between Ben and Desai for me please? I know they were different athletes in terms of ability and relavitve strengths, but can you explain a little more deeply why Ben could get away with a more dynamic first 10m than Desai in your opinion?
Thanks.
I have no idea with the Ben vs Desai issue. I guess the simple issue is Ben could relax while Desai couldn’t and got passed by several athletes he was in position to beat in '88.
I guess it comes down to knowing your body and having a lot of experience. I think if you blast the early part of the race with 100% effort but don’t get the results you want, the first thing I would try is just making your start 99% instead of 100%.
I don’t know if this helps but from my experience I find that the races that “feel” slower tend to be my faster runs. The times when I am in a hurry to get to the finish seem to be substantially slower. I don’t remember if I came up with this or not, but the pre-race cue I like to use is “don’t be in a rush to get to the finish” During my best runs I feel like the finish is coming to me rather than I going after it.
i agree, i have ran some of my fastest 40’s when they felt slow and i focus on being powerful not quik
All good input. Very interesting. I think there is value in feeling rhythmic, which often can be related to better timing I guess and therefore more power like tamfb says. In ensuring you are not chasing the finish line, it is really another cue for relaxation I guess, but we need cues to ensure we can do that and twhite03 has one that appears to work for him. Regarding Ben and Desai, I would imagine Ben was just the beter athlete, or better prepared and therefore had the confidence to stay relaxed more easily. Mortac8, your ideas make sense though. If 100% isn’t working, then you can’t increase the effort, so perhaps decreasing it is the way to go.
I’d quite like CF’s input here if he doesn’t mind giving it?!?
Charlie’s description of running a 100m race to me was simple: flick the wrist and pump the arms.
The reference to acceleration patterns I think has more training applications, e.g., flying sprints. If you do say a 20m flying sprint with a 50m lead in (total 70m), it’s really a 60m sprint with an extra 10m to get started so you’re not expending as much effort to overcome inertia. Hopefully, this will allow you to conserve energy at the beginning that can be applied later in the run to reach a higher max velocity than if you burned all out from the start. However, this does not necessarily result in a faster overall time for the run. In a race, Charlie always advised his sprinters to go all out from the start. That’s in Speed Trap as well.
The point of my original post is that once you start to decelerate, don’t fight it. The very top guys can run to the end with little deceleration, but that’s a conditioning question. If for whatever reason you don’t have enough speed/conditioning to avoid deceleration there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You can only make it worse.
As far as acceleration training is concerned, it’s also a relaxation issue. Those “submaximal” starts you’re referring to are probably faster than your “maximal” starts. As a general rule, you usually run your fastest when you think you’re only going 90%. If you push the acceleration too hard, it causes you to tighten up. There’s a slight delay between when you apply effort and when you feel it get translated to the track. It’s only a fraction of a second but it seems much longer. A mistake many runners make is to keep pushing when they don’t feel instantaneous power.
Thank you, fitness, strength, relaxtion, and run fast from 0-100m - SIMPLE.
Thank you for getting back to me Flash. I understand what you’re saying regarding the flying sprints. Whenever I do a flying sprint I do it off a gentle acceleration.
In terms of absolute performance, it’s a case of disciplining yourself to run at ‘90%’ or keeping relaxed to allow your best performance.
Would lower level sprinters decelerate to a greater extent though because they are taking longer to complete the race. i.e. they are performing maximally for an extra couple of seconds, therefore they would see greater fatigue leading to a greater drop off in intensity??
You need to accelerate with a powerfull pushing action for as long as possible by driving your arms, although your giving it max effort it wont drain as much energy as going out at a high cadence. Well this is my own personal experience. My best races are always when I can get this driving action for as long as possible before hitting top speed while staying relaxed, I run poorly when I’m ‘quick’ out of the blocks as I’v used up alot of my energy envelope already with the high cadence.
You need to accelerate with a powerfull pushing action for as long as possible by driving your arms, although your giving it max effort it wont drain as much energy as going out at a high cadence. Well this is my own personal experience. My best races are always when I can get this driving action for as long as possible before hitting top speed while staying relaxed, I run poorly when I’m ‘quick’ out of the blocks as I’v used up alot of my energy envelope already with the high cadence.
You need to accelerate with a powerfull pushing action for as long as possible by driving your arms, although your giving it max effort it wont drain as much energy as going out at a high cadence. Well this is my own personal experience. My best races are always when I can get this driving action for as long as possible before hitting top speed while staying relaxed, I run poorly when I’m ‘quick’ out of the blocks as I’v used up alot of my energy envelope already with the high cadence.
Thanks man. Jus watched all 5 of the episodes of HSI on YouTube. This helps a lot.
Glad they were of help. What you can do is try something like that out as a template, and then modify it to suit your strengths and reduce the effect of your weaknesses.
Is the “flick the wrist” advice about the start - ie throwing up the hand, or something else?
Yeah, flicking the lead wrist is supposed to initiate the movment correctly from the blocks.
I do not notice any templates in there though.
All I see is John Smith telling us to go hard all the time.
Then we have different sprinters like Boldon, Greene, and Drummond telling us how to run a 100 or a 200.
The templates I am referring to are those scenes of Boldon, Greene and Drummond telling you how to run a 100 or 200. I believe Inger Miller tells her race plan too.
Yes she does man. And those tips are very helpful. Especially for the 200m and how to turn and use the curve. Now I don’t have to floor it from the get go and just try to keep my form together for the last 50m.
Can’t wait until I start the offseason program you set out for me come June 18th hahha.