One arm forward. One arm back. Just like everyone else- but moreso!
Then, the big difference i see between you and Piasenta is that Piasenta believes in ground contact far ahead BDC. This can be seen at take-off for jumps, and for Piasenta should be done during sprinting. On the other hand, Pia doesn’t believe in early ankle flexion either.
The picture shows Christine performing a a proprioceptive exercise dealing with the amplitude of take-off, with ankle and knee extension as well as maintenance during support. (By the way notice the size of her calves, they have decrease a lot since she has left Pia, while her thighs has bulk up with her new coach since 2003).
“Piasenta believes in ground contact far ahead BDC”.
What is BDC?
Think of a crankshaft turning and the point directly below a plum-line dropped from the hip would be bottom dead centre (BDC).
Bottom dead center.
PJ, how can he believe in ground contact way ahead of BDC and still expect his sprinters to have low knee flexion. 
You got it! With an equally straight leg, The leg must swing down and strike the ground closer in front of BDC and leave the ground closer after BDC! Many of you will have seen my diagram to explain this in lecture materials.
According to Piasenta, it’s possible if leg muscles are stronger, and if the athlete use forward leg cycle while sprinting: you have an example with the small picture of Christine at touch-down (while running at 10.7m/s, semi final in Budapest’98 in 10.81) : when her left leg touches the ground, the right leg have already swinged forward and her tigh has passed the vertical line of BDC. Each leg center of mass is ahead of hips at ground contact. Pia says that if it’s not the case while sprinting, the center of mass is under the hips, or even worse behind, and it overloads the support leg and creates knee flexion, overworks thigh muscles and lowers hips.
Maybe I’m not understanding this correctly but it seems as if the opposite of what he’s saying would occur would be the reality of such a position(being under or just slightly ahead of bdc). There would be very little knee flexion and support leg overload if the plant occurs more underneath(closer to bdc) than out front. Also, if it occurred behind bdc wouldn’t the sprinter fall for lack of contact?
Is contact made almost flat footed? I can’t see someone doing this high on the balls of their feet.
It would also result in more ground time…maybe, that is why he aims to increase everyones stride length, because this technique surely would not aid frequency. It’s like using your leg like a pole vault.
In his group, EVERYTHING was done in the ball of the foot, including warm-up jogging… This may explain how Arron can still sprint on the ball of the foot.
You are right, that sprint technique doesn’t help frequency that’s why his sprinters had enourmous stride length, here is the number of steps the 4 fastest women did during their best 100m performance while training under Pia:
10.73 Christine Arron (1998) 44.7 steps
10.96 Marie-José Pérec (1991) 42.8
11.16 Frédérique Bangué (1998) 46.8
11.35 Linda Ferga (1998) 46.0
under an other coach (Ontanon) :
10.96 Muriel Hurtis (2002) 45.6
The usual standard for women is 48-51 steps…
This option is the opposite one used in former GDR with coaches Hille and Meier (Göhr, Wöckel, Stecher, Koch and Gladisch among others all beeing between 50 and 56 steps).
However, even if Piasenta is a former Pole Vaulter, the comparison between sprinter’s leg and a pole would not please him because no question to bend the leg while support (well, at least his aim to limitate that knee bending). They used drills where the sprinters runs with straight legs with resistance (sprinter slowed by a rope held by a partner).
What do people think about this drill:
“A good way to do specific muscles development is a 20m drill shown on video: 12.5m full speed acceleration from blocks, and the sprinter should decelerate before the 20m line, with a progressive backward inclination of the body.”
I cant think what the purpose would be.
To work the muscles “in the specific event movement”. Here it is more on eccentric way. As their athletes touch the ground well ahead of BDC (about 38-40cm in case of Christine Arron) the eccentric loadings ar high, thus Pia used this exercise. He is a big fan of specific strength developpment, and doesn’t often use barbells.
Running down a hill/slope may be a better choice.
They did hill and slope runs too… For downhill runs, Pia used indoor track bends, starting up in lane 6 (outside lane) and crossing lanes 5, 4, 3, 2… They used ladders to control the stride length (to prevent too much overstriding during downhill).
eccentric work makes sense.
Which came first, the calf development of Pia’s athletes, or landing ahead of BDC?
Does landing ahead of the body develop the calfs? Or does developing the calfs lead to the foot landing ahead of the body due to increased weight on the end of the fulcrum?
Second option i guess. Foot/calves strength for Piasenta is usefull to stay on the ball of the foot during the whole contact, as well as having a more powerful push on the ground, he always says that the foot should move backward in the shoe.
I’ve played with your 12,5m then stop exercise this winter in my gpp, and while using it sparingly I found them not tooo stressful, but cannot say if helped or not, since using for a couple of weeks
I personnally dont use them with my athletes but im not saying i never will.
Pierrejean, do you use any of the methods mentioned in the thread with your current athletes? eg Polish Bench, 20min runs etc?
Thanks
John