I was coaching my best athlete today through some 20m block starts. He asked me a great question which Ive never learned the sure answer to. I told him I would get on the forum tonight and work through it!
The question is, what is the mindset and body doing during the set position? Should I relax and react, focus on loading up like a spring, flex the pelvis up? Should I be tight anywhere? Do I get a big inhale and wait for the gun or keep breathing constant?
I realize I’ve never completely answered these questions and established a consistent routine in myself or my sprinters. And from what I’ve read in the cfts and race dynamics I didn’t come up with a solid answer. What are some recommended tactics from the coaches and athletes who have been around the block?
Mindset? I teach my athletes to be focused on the gun, that’s it. Reacting on the “b” in “bang”, not waiting for the bang to finish. The cue after that would be a wrist flick/arm movement but that is something for practice and through repetition isn’t a focused thought in the blocks.
For myself and my athletes I do this
back into blocks.
Slight lean forward.
IN the set postion raise hips only, feet flush on pedals
inhale and clear mind
snap and pump aka flip wrist and pump arms.
Mindset,
I am asking athlete I coach to clear the mind and stay relaxed before we are getting into the blocks.
They are getting only one instruction before, whether it is to flick the hand or press the back heel to the block it’s only one thing.
They need be in the zone, then we are ready to go.
My approach is that we are doing only four/eight starts, low number of starts contributing to certain way of thinking that every rep matters and therefore all the conditions must be optimal so that they are able to execute the start effectively and efficiently being as close to perfection as possible.
when in the blocks keep it sweet n simple=less confusion. when in the blocks or in set relax as much as you can. by anticipating an action your actual reaction will be slower. if I was to scare the crap of you while you were ina relaxed mode ie watching tv etc your first reaction would be to jump/react right. exact same principle in the blocks. the rest after that you’ve practiced over and over in practice and honestly the first 30m will be a blur as it happens sop fast ina a meet situation
All good points indeed. We also found that with the StartMeter, we’re able to establish some degree of visual awareness to support the cognitive process.
Just another tool to associate the scheme of things. We’re a small group which does allow a good deal of time spent on it.
“You must train your body so that every single limb on your body thinks and acts for itself. Messages can only travel so fast through the nervous system. When you rely on thoughts for physical activity, you lose precious time.” - Whis to Vegeta, from the anime Dragon Ball Super
Thank you for all the replies they have been super helpful. I’m gonna try to be the “sleeping cat” on my starts on friday. in the meantime, I have some videos on a start from last week and a 30m fly. Anyone care to critique?
Form looks good on those. The only thing I would change is to raise the back block to a steeper angle. Atm. the foot is at a different angle to the blocks and therefore has to push back to make contact with the block before it can push off the block.
Charlie’s block settings were front pad minimum angle, back pad up one click. But I totally agree with X-man in the post above. My “cue” in the blocks is: Don’t Think.
You demonstrate an interesting movement anomaly in the block start videos similar to what we see from DeGrasse in that, during your acceleration, one elbow (your left) fully extends during back side action while the opposing one does not. Have you noticed that in yourself for some time?
Regarding the 30m fly, be mindful not to over do the knee lift. On a few of those strides it appears as if your knee is bordering on vertical displacement beyond the crease in the hip. If this happens, the horizontal distance between the knee and the hip begins to lessen and the hips will drop. Something to be mindful of.
Yes, the stretch reflex is important. The difference between SFP and Bentz is that SFP’s back foot is in contact with the block which means the heel only travels back one or two cms to initiate the stretch reflex, while on Bentz’ video most of the foot is not in contact with the block thus forcing the heel to travel back quite some distance before push off can occur.
i have noticed the elbow extension for some time now. Im not sure what to do about it. On the fly I don’t think I display that in longer sprints, on that rep i was thinking about stepping up and over and getting my foot to cycle above the opposite knee. i really wanted to hit that sprint position and feel it in the hamstrings and glutes. I have a 60m race on youtube do you see a similar pattern?[video]https://youtu.be/haLduACDSII[/video]
I did the same thing but with my right arm in HS 10-12th grade. Even though my left leg was stronger…it was slightly less explosive bc I damaged my left knee Fresh year of HS.
In video of me when I was in 8th grade winning the 100 and LJ I did not do that however.
After that, I realized this and worked on it but it took a lot of time.
I used to be able to dunk of my left leg in basketball before it happened. but after the injury…forget about it.
I deduced that you were, in effect, forcing a particular position on that fly. In the race you look good. Interesting to note the left arm in the race during the acceleration. Clearly it’s something that happens during max intensity acceleration which is why we don’t see it in your fly video.
It would be interesting see high fps (+120) and his resolution (1080p) film of you from the front on a max intensity acceleration in order to see if the longer lever arm of your left arm creates an excess of observable asymmetric thoracic rotation.