how many steps

[flettotenko]

@T-Slow

This is a very difficult question to answer with any degree of reliability for the “average athlete.” For the beginner, they very often chop their strides short in the first 10 metres because it “feels faster” to take a million short steps than fewer long ones. ESTI has found that by getting novice athletes to take bigger steps within the first 10 metres their 10m time would be the same, but their 20m time would drop by at least a tenth. I have also found this to be true.

I believe when Ku2u#1 was working with one of his football athletes, a similar cue resulted in a similar drop in time. Basically, getting them to fully extend in the initial stage (with for example, the 8th step landing further than it did from the start line than when the athlete was chopping
their stride) would result in them taking possibly one less stride (more likely 1/2 of a stride less) in a full race.

Of course, if you overdo it, put a bunch of sticks down and start screwing with their max velocity stride length, I think you’re going to do way more harm than good. I know people here have said Pierre Carraz works on stride length with Christophe Lemaitre, but I’d like to see what he’s doing in the context of the overall program. He has done a very nice job of progressing Lemaitre.

If you use a spacing of 1.4m to marking/stick for 3 spacings and really ‘attack’(accel)
to reach/extend for each spacing, once you come out of the third spacing and begin letting your natural flow and frequency of your ‘personal limb ratio makeup’ come into play by relaxing, its pretty much a given that you’ll get to 10 m mark in 8 strides…i too used this for myself to achieve 10m, 20m, 30m personal bests…at first i felt like it was too long and that i was overstriding, but i
reassured myself it wasnt overstriding since i was maintaining 4 strides a second off the start, flowing into 4.5 strides a second starting at around steps 7-8.

In the video below d.miller has lashawn merritt establishing stride length and speed/rhythmn coming out of the first 10m…however, given his elite status, he has him getting to 10m in approximately 6.8 steps(right on par with longest 100m elite striders-bolt, powell, lemaitre, gatlin)

The First 50 Meters With Dwayne Miller

The more i analyze videos of 100m the more i realize its pretty easy for elite male sprinters to hit 10m in 7 steps(give or take so much centimeters)…alot of the decathletes do it…

Decathletes 100m- www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L2eC2Sofhk

Heat 1- 10.91…7 strides at 10m
Heat 2- 10.89…7 strides at 10m
Heat 3- eaton 10.3x, hardee, the canadian…all 7 strides at 10m
Heat 4- 10.71…about 7.3 strides at 10m

Eaton training vid: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqoqleB7Giw

At 0:40 seconds eaton is getting to 10m in 6.5 steps, which is very similar to merritt(albeit with merritt on the bend