should we aim to lift our knees parallel to the ground? I have noticed that some sprinters do and some dont but the sprinters that lifted there knees seemed to have more negative foot speed and they landed closer to there cog…Can i get an experts opinion
Knee lift is a byproduct of proper form and posture. You want knee lift but I wouldn’t focus on trying to lift your knees especially high. Proper mobility work can aid in knee lift with no increase in actual effort.
so u dont want to think about lifting knees?..why do some people suggest that knee lift should be parallel to the ground?
Teaching knee lift is coaching error. It should happen naturally and is dependent on how much force is applied to the ground, direction of that force,flexibility etc.
This was the one of the major technique flaws that Charlie corrected for me, and it’s a great lesson in understanding the difference between what your body is objectively doing in space (as seen by an outsider) and what you are subjectively feeling while you’re doing it.
Previously I was consciously lifting my knees too high, which was causing my hips to drop and retarding my stride frequency. Charlie told me to forget about the knees and just think about stepping over and down with the swing foot. So in other words, my focus moved down from the knee to the foot.
After I made the adjustment, I became more conscious of stepping over the support ankle rather than the support knee. Though the recovery of my swing leg is in fact much higher than that, I can’t really feel it because it’s happening so fast. So the overall sensation I feel now is like stamping my feet up and down really quickly.
I hope that helps.
Charlie has written often about “paralysis by analysis,” and in my mind, concentrating on keeping knees up WHILE SPRINTING is an error.
But teaching proper technique through DRILLS is another matter. If you do high-knees, B skips, quick leg and other drills correctly and over a long enough period of time, better technique while sprinting will follow more or less naturally and without the athlete concentrating on technique which likely makes him slower simply because of thinking about it.
thanks…you guys are very helpful…i LOVE this forum…Sprinting is my life…
Could you please explain more on swing foot…flash. Thanks
After Charlie adjusted my technique it felt more like the swing foot was crossing at about mid shin of the support leg rather than coming over the knee. The key is that I was thinking more about stepping over and down with the swing foot rather than lifting the knee.
This exercise might help (I hope): From a standing position begin by simply stepping over the support ankle with the swing foot cocked using short tiny steps, up-down, up-down. I’ve heard this described as ankling. As you move forward start to gradually increase the speed and power of the steps, but still think in terms of simply stepping over the support ankle and then straight down. As you increase power, your swing foot will naturally recover higher without you consciously trying to do so, the knee lift will fall into place naturally.
Yes, its called ankling one of seagrave fav drills.
That’s why I always discounted it, until Charlie showed me how to progress it and make it useful.
One of the other benefits to the exercise I described above is that it teaches you to keep your feet under your body.
Is this a drill you use daily in your program?
Yes. I usually put it close to last in my warm-up just before warm-up accelerations.
Charlie introduced it to me when I trained with him mostly because at the time I had so much trouble with my lower legs that my elastic response needed to be rebuilt. If I started my accelerations from a dead start I would sink down on the first step. It felt like (and looked like) I was running on a sponge. The toe up step over drill allowed me to get the elastic response firing at the beginning of each acceleration which would allow me to transition into proper running form more smoothly. So the drill has a lot of benefits, depending on your needs. It reinforces a lot of good points technically. I find that placing it just before the warm-up accelerations is a nice way to transition from other drills (e.g., A skip, B skip, etc.) to full running technique.
Typically, it takes me about 10-15m to transition from ankling to full running. I usually only go out to 30m. I find that the transition from ankling to running is a lot smoother if you don’t rush it and let it happen more gradually.
No. He’s not stepping over and down. He’s really just bouncing on the ball of the foot. The drill in the video is good for teaching the cocked foot and isolating elastic response in the ankle, but it’s not the drill I’m describing.
Maybe this will help, imagine you are stepping over tiny 2-3 inch hurdles spaced six inches apart. The movement in the video would be the starting motion for the first couple of steps and then you would transition to stepping over the imaginary tiny hurdles and then go from there.
No shitty tech.
Yeah, he’s kicking his legs out in front too much. I made the same mistake at first.
When you do the drill I’m describing (I might try to post a video of it if I get the time), begin with a simple bounce on the ball of the foot with the ankle cocked but allow the knee to bend slightly so that the foot comes up and not out. After a couple of steps like this begin to lift the foot a little higher and step over the support ankle.
forward quick shuffle of the feet with good posture. step over the opposite ankle as quick as you can. pick your toes up as soon as the ball of your foot strikes the ground. apply the force into the ground by using a spring board action form the ankle joint. good arm action… hope this helps.