Last week I suddenly realised that on the front-swing I try to hold the hands in a fixed manner, which leads to tense arms, leading to tense shoulders, leading to tension down the spine, leading to tight hips, leading to tense quadriceps etc…
By just letting the hands go wherever they want to my shoulders are free to move again, knee-drive is not wanting anymore and last but not least my runs are now predictable.
To think it was right there in front of me all the time…
is this correct? hands should not be fixed/tensed?
What I did was the following:
Stand in front of a mirror and use your arms like when sprinting.
First do it with your hands fixed, then do it without concentrating on the hands at all, letting them go wherever they want to.
For me the second method relaxes both the shoulders and the jaw substantially.
Tension can’t be good for a sprinter anyway, and it has to start somewhere.
Have to be careful with that technique as you waste energy on the backswing. (Hands flopping at the backside of the movement) I would videotape yourself sprinting with both techniques and time yourself as well.
Cheers,
Chris
My hands flap on the backswing anyway and every technique that significantly increases hip-height must be good.
Besides i’m not really doing anything new, just getting rid of a bad habit that probably stems from watching to many video-clips of well-known sprinters.
I will have myself videotaped this friday though.
The danger with flapping your hands is that you might open up the angle at the elbow too much during the backswing and lose the “elastic” return from the shoulder (when the torso is straight and the elbow is close to 90d, when the arm swings back you get a pre-stretch)
Kenny Mac suggested holding a cracker gently between your thumb and index finger of each hand as you sprint. If you’re too tight, they’ll crumble. That’s a good idea.
And make sure the guy running behind you has the cheese slices ready to serve. How about Triscuits, would they work? They’re a little harder to crumble than say a Ritz cracker.
Of course, it makes it easier to find your way back to the starting line (just follow the crumbs). 
If these are Canadian athletes, you can be sure they won’t break the crackers- they’ll be needing them for dinner after (by the way, Triscuits chafe)
I heard the East Germans used melba toast.
Isn’t that a bit racist. 
The video-clip will tell.
I must add that I only do this consciously for the first step, but can feel it take action for a few more. At top-speed the only thing I feel is that the shoulders are more active and that the hips travel in a straight line, not being able to rise or fall.
Besides the knitted gloves I wear treathen to come off…
That is funny!