mo greene says he defines the 100m into three phase. the drive phase, acceleration phase and decelration phase.
he says in the drive phase its like an aeroplane taking off where he maintains an optimum angle for his pushing action. in there he says he is able to produce maximum power with little energy consumption!
he also says an interesting point, its that the second you reach top speed you start slowing down, there is no such thing as maintaining top speed. he says only the better athlete is able to keep that deceleration to minimal and thats how ur time is ultimately very fast!
what do you think mr francis?
and how can you train yourself to produce maximum power with zero energy consumption? sounds impossible even!
I may have people disagree with me but THEORETICALLY, I understand what he means when he says “the second you reach top speed you begin to slow down.”
In my mind I know exactly what he means, but I can’t think of how to explain it so I won’t. Not saying whether I agree or disagree, but I do understand his opinion on that.
What I would like to know, however, is how do you train to produce max. power with zero energy consumption?
Yeah, he said something about starts:
“Using as much power as you need but not using energy”
i remember when i tried explain this to my english teacher ( i´m not a natural english speaker) and she said: But how can a person differentiate Power from Energy ? 
I guess is more a psychological understanding than just physical aplication.
I’m not Charlie but here is my take
First
“in there he says he is able to produce maximum power with little energy consumption!”
From what you wrote it sounds like he is saying with proper form energy consumption is minimized. Or another way to think of it is that if form is clean, then the body is moving most efficiently, with out any wasted energy, effort, or movement.
About top speed.
When one reaches maximal velocity, by defenition every other speed is sub maximal. That is why it is top speed. This “top speed” would be impossible to maintain for any period of time. You may be able to maintain 98-99.9% of your maximal velocity, but not true maximal velocity. I hope this makes sense.
Well, This is my interpretation of what you wrote.
Greene’s emphasis on keeping deceleration to a minimal seems to back up a previous post of mine about a “stronger finish”.
There was a thread a while ago that was titled something like “How far do you get in your seven seconds”. If someone could find it I think it would really relate to the deceleration thing. I tried searching and came back empty handed
Fully agree. The two points made clear text (as you did) are obvious and in fact sound trivial and ervery coach/sprinter is aware of them:
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if form is clean, then the body is moving most efficiently, with out any wasted energy
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When one reaches maximal velocity, by defenition every other speed is sub maximal. That is why it is top speed.
Only slower speed can follow…
It’s the things coach Smith tells his athletes, it is not really Mo’s invention.
The special thing about coach Smith’s sprinters is the emphasis they put on holding their heads down til 40 meters and reach upright position around 50-60m.
My question would be - Ben ran as fast without the “head holding down hocus-pocus” and less forward lean (although accelerating leaning forward, of course) Why?
Another point is that holding down their heads for less advanced or physically weaker (especially core/squat) athletes can lead to bad form. It often leads them to not fully reaching a 180 deg. line from their head to their heels when starting. They hold down their head and tend to bend their back because of lack of strenght I think.
That does not apply to athletes like Mo, Ato or Jon of course.
It’s hard to explain, but easy to show - a good example how it’s done right is Jon’s start (back straight) - but couldn’t he achieve the same thing without looking down until it’s almost looking back?:
or complete series:
www.advantageathletics.com/sprints/drummond.html
I agree with you as well. You can’t spend zero energy even if you’re sleeping still and breathing!
There is a detailed discussion of this topic in the Forum review E-book related to the studies presented by Peter Weyand from Harvard. Mo rightly points out that the first step after acceleration is deceleration, as you are no longer generating the negative foot speed required(foot moving back faster than the ground is moving back relative to you).
This is what Mo Greene used to do during his prime time. As one can see in some splits provided by X-King the master statistician who pulls the splits from computer image using dartfish.
Mo Greene is tied for or has the fastest individual 10m segments in various 100m races. these splits all add up to like 9.4X-9.5X range for a perfect race. However he or no one else couldn match all these fastest splits in one single race.
The closest two came to doing it was prob Ben 88 seoul and Mo 01 edmonton. Both at 60 at 6.33s and 80 at 8.02s, however Mo injured at 75m. Ben seemed to decelerate, seeing visually as his heel recovery goes and starts to strike up and behind at 80m while Mo gets injured at 75m and maintains the last 25m on one leg and notably, visually slower. Ben runs 9.79 with ragged last 20m and Mo runs 9.82 with maintenance/hobbling last 25m.
So perhaps the closer they get to the supposed ultimate top speed, maybe 60m 6.19 and 80m 7.85, they either decelerate markably, like Ben and his heel recovery and lower hips, or get injured, as Mo did in 82.
Ben shut down at the end in Seould as you can see on the film.
Charlie, did Ben have a set of sick practice PB’s, so to speak, of 60m and below that were faster than his fastest splits from his sub 10 races? In other words, what type of speed reserve did he have built up in him at say 30m-60m so that he could better maintain from 60-100?
If he did then he and mo were the best at cruising slightly below the speed ceiling rather than hitting and bouncing off of it.
One of the most interesting studies I have seen on Mo suggests that he is average in every respect as an elite sprinter BUT he is the only 100m sprinter at that time that could accelerate ALL THE WAY to 85-90m. The other finalists (Seville 99) accelerated to 50-60m then SPENT a massive 3.5 secs approx, decelerating. Mo on the other hand decelerated for only 0.1 secs!!!. His reaction time, initial acceleration, acceleration constant (his was weaker than the other finalists) and final velocity was comparable to the other finalists to be fair he he was .5m/s faster than the average, BUT he had a longer acceleration and minimal deceleration phase. This I suppose, backs Charlie’s view that the acceleration for the 100m is the crucial feature, and that for the very best, anaerobic glycolysis plays a minimal part in the 100m. What I want to know is how the hell do you train to accelerate to ALMOST 90m then have a deceleration phase of 1/10th of a second?
It has (at least 
) two sides. You’ll simply accelerate longer, if you’re able to run faster (are capable of higher top speed).
If there would be an athlete who could run 13 m/s he would surely take quite long to reach top speed. On the other hand you should still try to reach top speed as fast (as early in the race) as possible. But there is a limit to it and I would not expect an athlete to reach 12 m/s before teaching the 50m mark.
It’s always interesting to compare sprinters like 11.00, 10.50, 10.00, 9.80. How do their races differ, what are the qualities that make the faster one faster…
An 11 secs sprinter might not go much over 10 m/s, but reach top speed probably before 40m.
So he’ll decelerate for more than halft the race, only because he can’t run 11 m/s or faster…
So I guess there is no straight answer to this question, but: train to get faster 
What is perlpexing is the fact that the study suggests (I find this suspect) that Mo’s top speed is not appreciably greater than other elite sprinters in that particular race, as far I know he has never been able to reach a max speed phase of 12 m/s maybe he has but it has not been recorded officially. To my knowledge there are no statistical analysis suggesting that he has been comparable to Ben or Carl in the top speed department. He has achieved 11.7.11.89 m/s but no faster. Yet his acceleration is prolonged, after that phase he does not hit 12 m/s but circa 11.5+ m/s which is still doable for your “average” elite sprinter, so having a prolonged acceleration on Mo’s case does not end with a spectacular top speed phase of 12/ms. Of course 11.88m/s is still outstadning but not exceptional in the realm of elite sprinters… it is at best above average to good. Ben and Carl are still the kings especially when the surface is taken inot consideration…
I can’t say I’m an expert here, but it certainly seems to me - partially based on my own experiences too – that there might be a difference between reaching top speed as fast as possible in the objective sense and in the subjective sense. Frankly, I think many sprinters at intermediate levels fail to reach their potential top speed due to too much effort in the beginning of the race, thus they “settle” for what they perceive as their top speed too early because of unnecessary high tension levels they have been building up. The feeling of ‘this is the best speed I can reach’ can partially be attributed to “screwing up” a little bit, being something of an illusion – a self fulfilling prophecy if you like. In such a context it’s not difficult to imagine one feels like literally hitting a wall when acceleration ends (base level tension has progressed beyond recovery).
Not only do top sprinters have the capacity to reach higher top speeds but they also have better abilities to come as near to their potential than intermediate sprinters, especially in competitive situations.
It’s my impression that when we hear top sprinters talking about the drive phase, progressive build, delayed acceleration or whatever, it’s often misunderstood as something like ‘holding back’, when I think ‘not forcing’ might illustrate the feeling better – kind of like “riding the wave” instead of “pushing thorough” or “quick” versus “force” (as CF has pointed out, I think). Hence I’m somewhat vary of the TRYING aspect of reaching top speed as fast as possible, especially if verbal cues connotes to ‘struggling’ in a inexperienced athlete.
Interesting post, and from personal experience I would be inclined to agree somewhat. I often feel better when warming up and doing a fast stride, where I feel I’m holding back slightly, and just working on sound technique. A hard sensation to describe.
Mo never went faster than .84 that I’e seen, so hewasn’t accelerating to that far in the race at max. I’d suggest he was accelerating to ,84 at max but could maintain that for more segments.
so his speed maintainence as opposed to his acceleration was a big factor in his success?
Yes, Ben did have faster individual segments than those in Seoul BUT when you put it all together with a maximal start, it’s hard to say if it’s really sub-max in the race itself. Relaxation is the key to an optimal combination of segments for a given day.