should we plant the foot with all the weight on the ball of the feet or should we land flat footed.
Ball of the foot. The idea is that you wanna get maximum power from minimum time spent on the ground, and the best way to do this is to land on the ball of the foot (John Smith refers to it as the sweet spot).
should we plant the foot with all the weight on the ball of the feet or should we land flat footed.
I would advise that no sprinter should land flat footed.
The foot plant differs between individuals, the outside edge of the ball of the foot general strikes first. The ball of the foot is bears full weight on pushoff.
should the footstrike be light or should it apply high force into the ground.
Originally posted by Sprrinter984
should we plant the foot with all the weight on the ball of the feet or should we land flat footed.
Turn over your sprint spikes. What would the pattern suggest? 
I think that’s an interesting point regarding whether we should be light on the ground. I’ve read 2 schools of thought that I think’s related to this.
HSI athletes are taught to ‘pick their feet up’ and then ‘put them down’. Doing that suggests to me that you put them down with power. They also say ‘if you put more power into the track, you get more power out of it’, or words to that effect as I understood it.
Tom Tellez says that the foot placement should be natural. The foot just lands as it were. You don’t try and put it down quickly, you don’t reach out with the foot. This to me suggests a lighter landing.
However, I think the more important focus is how long you spend on the ground, and how much power you can generate in that time.
should the footstrike be light or should it apply high force into the ground.
On intial touchdown footstrike should be light, on pushoff higher forces are produced.
I would think the higher the hips and the closer touchdown is under the c.o.m the “liter” the foot strike.
Going back to Maris’s post on HSI forcing the foot down (hard contact), this would cause the hips to fall and lead to decceleration each stride. (Kind of like planting hard into the long jump). Overall, a hard foot strike would cause longer ground contact time, which we are trying to prevent.
so let me get this straight…
you want to land as light as possible, with as much force as possible but the least amount of ground contact?
If posture is correct, everything should fall into place
dlive11,
could you explain what the correct posture is?
Hips are tall, limbs rotating toward center of body, shoulders relaxed but not slouched.
how the hell are we supposed to generate vertical force if our foot strike is light
Ok sprrinter984. Chill, no need to get nuts. As you know, if you force the foot strike, you will decelerate because all the force will dissipate into the ground and back into the joints. It is not light, because sprinting is plyometric in nature, so tip-toeing down the track would be an unreasonable request. The fact is, you dont cue the athlete to force contact, which among what has been discussed earlier in the posts, would also cause the athlete to tighten up. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, would you teach an athlete to plant hard in the takeoff of the long jump, or do you use the NRG from the approach? Same principle applies.
during my pre christmas workouts, my training partner (who is a track guy) noticed i wasnt dorsi flexing and was reaching for the ground with my toes…if i am dorsi flexing, how can i run on the balls of my feet? at what point do i go from dorsi flex to extend the ball of the foot?
nightmare,
My first response is to say that if you are worrying about this, you are probably thinking too much when you are running which will cause a host of other problems more significant than not dorsiflexing.
However, it is true that you should not be “reaching” for the ground with your toes. Usually when you do this, you will contact the ground too far in front of you. The solution is to dorsiflex just a bit. The cue that I have heard Charlie use is to pull up your toes. I think this is in contrast with consciously pulling up your whole foot (which could cause you to land flat-footed and lose your spring.)
Thoughts anyone?
xlr8
zoom and X
thanks for the feedback and that may be the first time anyone has thought i may being thinking too much :sing:
im looking forward to more input.
i can understand that we shouldn’t force the foot strike but the other question is how is it possible to get stride lengths in the 8ft range if we’re just “tapping the track”?
Sprrinter984 writes
“i can understand that we shouldn’t force the foot strike”
Intial forces on ground contact are breaking, planting the foot harder will cause more breaking forces.
“how is it possible to get stride lengths in the 8ft range if we’re just “tapping the track”?”
When the COM pass’s over footstrike elastic energy is stored and released from the hip to the ankle joint which peaks at approx 3000W on toe off. Such high forces cause a forward displacement of the COM of 2.20-2.70 range. If you think of the leg as a spring then you will be able to answer your own question.