I’ve been watching how professional athletes run and compare their technique to mine.
When the gun goes, I take long steps as quick as possible, and keep my head down, pumping my arms really hard, then when I come up, I keep my hips high as possible and try stay off the ground.
Basically I try keeping my hips REALLY HIGH, take my feet off the ground as quick as possible when in the process of foot-strike and try not to bounce across the track. I like to run smoothly across the track without any bouncing…
Perhaps the word “try” shouldn’t be in your vocablorary? You can’t try to run fast you have to let it happen trying to alter foot contact duration is probably only going to increase it - especially at top speed. It is a fine balancing act…
Agree that trying only leads to longer ground contact times. it tightens up the muscles that are supposed to be relaxed which causes more effort by the working muscles and less flexability.
( to BoldWarrior: I can’t find naked Tesla anywhere… I heard he avoided women as well… )
From August the 1st, our kids do 2x/w hill sprints (10,20m —30m), and the coach once said to me: “Mladen, you should say to them not-to-sit-down while running, and to extend that following leg”
Well, I have explained him that this is not something that they won’t do – it is something that they can’t do due still poor relative power of the push-off. Anyway, to meet his request and to show him that I am right, I have said to kids to extend the leg (tripple ext) and to raise the hips… Guess what happened: NOTHING!
Again, I mentioned him the story that you cannot teach someone technique of 200kg bench press if he can only lift 75kg!
To conclude, sprinintg and any other “fast” activity is “automatic/unvoluntary” action. Trying to bring some voluntary control in it (speeding up ground contact, extending the leg etc) will only screw the technique and slow you down. This is why CF uses various drills (medball acc) to improve this “unvolutary” actions (during the start). What is important is voluntary preparation of preceding movements before ground contact ---- this is something I still explore in CF phylosophy — guys correct me if I am wrong here, but I think the “trick” is to step over and push down hard while the leg is preparing for ground contact! Relax the shoulders and pump the arm! The rest in all “natural”…
I also asked about sprinting, I asked if I’m supposed to bounce off the track or not, because I don’t do that, I run smoothly acros the track with no bouncing at all!
This positive vertical displacement you talk about is due to the fact that these guys were the best and extremely strong. As a result they produce massive lift after ground contact. You can’t try and do this. It will happen naturally when you start running 10.2-3 or lower (i’m just guessing here by the way). There is more discussion of this on the Van’02 DVD, where CF goes into depth about running mechanics.
Everyone should have a look at these shots to get the idea of lift. The one of Ben is better because you can see all the way to the ground, whereas the ground is cut off in the Ato shot so you don’t get the full picture of the height.
The same issue is demonstrated very effectively in the GPP DVD! With a lower level athlete (from what Charlie says at the beginning), but it was very well filmed (“watch the lift”)! Thumbs up for this!
LOL