I coach high school sprinters. I am trying explain to my sprinters the proper position of the pelvis when sprinting. I have shown them clips of top level sprinters. However, I am not satisfied with their level of understanding. They seem to understand keeping the tummy tight, but the concepts of running tall and forward pelvis are elusive. I am looking for cues, drills, and/or teaching progressions that will help the sprinters can feel what the proper positioning of the pelvis feels like. This might sould stupid, but squeezing your butt cheeks brings pelvis forward, but does one sprint that way?
The whole “step down, don’t push” cue that Charlie uses helps keep the hips in place.
I wouldn’t drill it or try to force it too much. It will come in time.
Work on it indirectly, without even mentioning it to them; try and avoid “paralysis by analysis” to put it a la Charlie.
Is there anything in any depth on any of the DVD’s regarding sprint technique, such as stepping down, stepping over, drills etc
thanks
I would go with the GPP DVD on these…
I think a lot of it has to do with strength. For the hips to stay high you need to raise your COM back upto a good position. As you fatigue you loose this position. So if I wanted to specifically work on hip height i would probably choose to avoid running for too long to avoid fatigue. Perhaps some flying 20s or something? When performing these use the “stepping down” cue.
Once they can manage it you can stretch out the distance.
Others?
What is the “stepping down cue”?
thanks
Rather than trying to push to “make” yourself go faster simply “step down” - e.g. legs moving down from the bent knee position. Basically the opposite of stepping upwards! The idea is to help the athlet e to avoid trying too hard to lengthen thier stride etc. This is just my interpretation of what charlie means so i guess you are better off waiting for him to reply.
I like the above conversation on “stepping down”.
Here’s my thoughts on high school runners.
They run a certain way for a reason. It could be
- They don’t know how to run correctly, (simply correcting them fixes them).
- They do it because that’s they way their body has to function.
If it’s reason number 2, all the cue(ing) in the world won’t work.
Where I was once working, a 14 year old was working on his starts with an instructor. Every time he came out of his start he would instantly round his lower and upper back. They kept yelling at him to stop doing it and would cue him how to do it correctly. Both the kid and the instructor were both getting very frustrated. This went on for almost 20 minutes with no results.
When he rotated to me the kid was obviously frustrated. I asked him to get into an RDL position and squeeze his butt. He couldn’t do it. I then asked him to squeeze his butt in a squat position and still nothing. He also couldn’t activate his Transverse at all.
With the above not working, it was obviously not this kids fault that his back was rounding, he just wasn’t strong enough in the right areas to come out correctly.
In this case, all the yelling, and cue(ing) in the world won’t help one bit. Instead strengthening his posterior chain and transverse AND teaching him how to activate them though weight training fixed everything.
Overtime, he could come out much, much better without ever even directly working on it.
So if it’s number two, work on:
Glute Activations
Transverse Activations
RDL’s 2 and 1 Legs
Back Extensions
Pillars
Reverse Hypers
Glute-Hams
This may fix running mechanics without ever focusing on running.
These are very good points. I too have experienced this. Well put.
Great post.
I think I have the same prob (glute activation), which I think is putting undue strain on my hams and calves.
What are the glute activation exercises you mention, thanks.
Funny you ask this, I was working with two Crew and Track kids in the weight room the other day and one said she couldn’t squeeze her left butt.
Normally this might be a longer process,:
I had her/them get in the supine position with their legs bent in the sit-up position.
From here I had them squeeze their butt and go up into a butt bridge.
Throughout this process, I kept saying that the only thing that should elevate you up is the squeezing of the butt. After ten reps of constant coaching, I asked if they could feel it. Then I had them put one leg straight down and had them leave the other leg bent. From this position the had to keep their straight leg even with their body and raise into a butt bridge all by squeezing their butt only. (Borrowed this one from Ian King)
After six difficult ones on each side, I again asked them if they could feel it. With a positive response I took them right into a very light box squat, constantly coaching them do squeeze the butt on the way up.
This only took about 4 minutes and she was feeling it in both sides.
*Note, if there is a real problem, trigger point work in the glutes may be necessary. Also, EMS work can get stuff firing again too.
This is a very simple, easy case, but sometimes it’s that simple. My kids all know that if they had to define me in one phrase, it would be “squeeze your butt.”
it’s not technically squeezing the butt is it??? that would reduce leg extension when you run would a better term understanding be “holding in a fart”…???
That’s right, sometimes you’ve got to be careful what you say to high school kids, (not that squeezing your butt is really better).
Is it possible to run too tall?
are all your athletes having the same problems??? high school athletes are normally easy to work with as they are flexible,new and keen to new stimuli and don’t have major technical flaws and sprinting movements are natural.
actually squeezing the butt cheeks assists in bringing the pelvis into a posterior pelvic tilt = the pelvis moving back not forward. No, a sprinter would not run like this. trouble is, even if you wanted to use that as a marker, you have one leg in hip flexion moving to hip extension and the other vice versa. Hip extension would bring the pelvis into an anterior tilt = pelvis forward.
proper positioning will come with strength, technique and relaxation ability. the idea of flying 20’s is a great idea. quality over quantity because if you step into the arena where you are doing reps just to do reps and the form is piss poor when it needs to be right on then the athlete will go backwards in progression.
good luck