Im kind of having a problem with overstriding and it causes me to pull my hamstring. How can i cut down my strides?
usually when people are overstriding it means that their foot placement is wrong during a sprint. your foot should land directly under your center of gravity ie right under your body. when your foot lands in front of u 2 things are happening one u are breaking or slowing your self down and two you are putting your leg in such a position that the leverages are weak. with your footing landing under your body your legs are in a position where your hamtrings are the strongest or atleast have the best levarage. when your foot is in fron of you it is away from your body and your hamstrings have to work harder ie strains and pulls. when done properly it will feel as if you are pushing the ground instead of pulling ourself down the track. in reality u still are pulling but because of the foot hitting the ground under the body and proper leg cycling (foot to but and ankle over the opposing legs knee). it will feel as if only an up and down motion is occuring (pushing).
good drills to do are butt kickers, butt kicker strides ( kick heal to but and quickly pull knee forward before heal has time to drop), and acratch drills ( standing with on hand on a wall or other support, knee raised and hip flexor flexed on given command strike the ground as you would in a stride, focus on the foot hitting the ground under your body).
I know i know, there´s a lot of discussion and speculation about landing foot just under the CG, but… it´s not correct think that when we land the foot in front of the CG we have more “space” to aply forces against the track pulling longer than just landing under CG ?
More “space” perhaps, but there is no benefit whatsoever, as you’ve already slowed yourself down (braking), the lever is far from ideal (dropping hips) and your hamstrings are stressed a lot (pulling vs. pushing).
You are looking for the shortest CT possible! At least after acceleration…
Hope this helps!
This means that the “ideal” while running at max speed, would be land right under your CG which is right under the torso ? When i saw MO´s strides, looks like he is landing about 2 to 3 inchs in front of your body ( torso ), same for Donovan.
Is this what you meant before, 2-3in?
Although this might seem ok, if you see MO in slow mo, you might be surprised -at top speed!
Look carefully vs. their hips more, rather vs. their torso… The higher the hips are maintained, the shorter the contact time and the less the distance between the landing and your C of M; that’s why top speed is perceived as an up and down action by these guys -not me, of course 
For them there is “always” a positive hip dispacement, i.e., upwards.
PS I might be biased on this issue… 
Thank you very much,
these clarifies my doubts.
I’ve been just watching video of Mo greene also and it appears he does land quite out in front of his COM…NOW…isn’t the REAL question whether or not your foot is moving in a backwards direction FASTER than the ground is passing underneath…just because the foot strikes out in front means nothing if its relative rearward velocity is greater than the ground itself…if the hip is pulling the foot through faster at impact and the elasticity
is raising the hip…that little extra might actually allow for greater force production…maybe he’s just so strong around the hip he can pull it off.
If you want to see hip height watch the London Super G from last summer. It’s like he has to step down to hit the track. His contact time is super short too.
Are you sure you are over striding? How is your knee lift? Do you feel like you are pushing or pulling when you are sprinting?
Look at your hipflexiblity and quad flexibility…
100% pushing !!
I can´t feel that i´m pulling the track,
it´s always a feeling of step over step no matering about the “ground contact”, so that´s is the problem, i´m kind of “tap-dancing” on the track, almost zero of traction.
This is exactly what happened to me.
I was wearing flats (with a raised heel e.g. long distance trainers/sneakers). I found that when I did tempo as my foot hit the ground i became aware of the heel making contact as well. My brain didn’t like the feedback and caused me to overstride to try and make contact only on ball of the foot with a more plantafexed foot (toes first). It lead to a slight hamstring pull.
My solution - Buy very padded cross country spikes without the pins screwed in. Brooks make some nice ones. Now no problems with overstriding.
I doubt this is relevant to you but it might be fore someone else.
you must post a video so we can help you.pulling a HS canbe caused by a number of numerous things.i could easily say its X and X is the solution but then i’d be talking complete BS
my question is how do you know you are overstriding??