First video I have taken in 7 years. I think I’ve lost a bit of my analytical eye after this long layoff. Any analysis on running form, etc. will be appreciated.
http://www.detallesdeco.com.ar/alexnsept22.mov
Some stills from the video :
My 2nd step :
4th step :
7th step :
9th step :
Working link to the video posted.
your head seems to pop up quite quickly during your transition so this could make you jolt up a bit, slowing you down. Also your arm action seems cut short, more so when your into your running towards the end. If you watch it, your knees seem to be dropping a tad in relation to your forward arm motion.
If maybe you take your time with the run a bit more and work on getting your hand up to around your eyeline/shoulder height, this could help bring out your stride.
Hope this helps.
keep elbow at 90 degree
Also I think that the majority of your starting mecanics flaws, happen because of the surface. If you were to execute the perfect technique on that kind of surface, chance are good that u injure a psoas.
You lift youself up to fast, that might very well be a surface issue too.
There are several mechanical issues in the video. As stated by adonail, most if not all of your mechanical issues are related to your inability to maintain a 90 degree angle at the elbows. If you sort that out, then everything else should fall into place.
Work on a RELAXED arm swing standing in front of a mirror. Then do some sub maximal starts. Try to hold the 90 degree angle in a relaxed but fast manner.
It would be great to see a video after making these changes.
http://www.inno-sport.net/Chris%20Korfist.htm
Re: sprinters symptoms and solutions. Trail leg not fully extending due to weak hamstrings. kelly baggett wrote some stuff on this too, i’ll try and find it. it might just be in one of his books though.
I can’t say I agree with very much of the info provided on this link. You could get yourself into MAJOR trouble following this info. I would recommend downloading “key Concepts” if you want an idea of proper running mechanics.
Take this with a grain of salt. Does anyone else think that not keeping the elbow at 90 degrees during the drive is a good thing?
To keep things simple, it looks like a lead arm issue. The transition for rear arm extension to forward flexion is all off. You need to make it a short lever and not a long one like you are doing. It needs to fold up more and come closer to your face.
Thanks for the input, indeed I was seeing something wrong with the arm action, in particular early on opening up too much at the back and then once running my arm not coming up enough when forward. For starters I’ll try the arm swings in front of a mirror to see if I can get the correct movement there. I’m evidently going to have to dig up old posts on arm action to see what I can do to fix this. I’m also thinking there might be a flexibility issue in the shoulder area.
You’re also right about popping up, hadn’t caught that. That might be a strength issue. I might be trying to accelerate the same distance and same way as when I was lifting 400lbs. deep squat/500 half squat years ago (I don’t think I can lift 150 right now). Sp I might be hitting some type of wall by trying to accelerate too long.
Once I’m out of my acceleration, I’m getting good triple extension, but it looks like I’m “pushing out of the back”, or is this poor hip height, leading to pushing out the back? Is this a mechanical or strength issue? (ie chicken and egg scenario - hip height is poor because strength is not in place?) Should I be looking to push more up rather then back? Or focusing on strength and that should take care of that problem?
Wow. Seems I’ve got a lot to work.
You are making this thing way too complicated. Go back to sprint with spikes on a track and focus on your arms, film yourself and show us.
Looking about 1 meter in front of you Is a good starting point during the acceleration. Lift slowly, try to hold It for as long as you can. If you can’t see other sprinter, your in front lol.
MacSprint is on to something.
Aln,
I think its great that you posted your running for everyone to look at. It can be a difficult thing to do as you then need to wade through the comments.
= your falling start is decent but without using your arms you will not be able to take advantage of any of your existing strengths.
Are you doing arm pulls routinely? How are your push-ups? These are questions you need to ask yourself because both exercises allow greater upper body strength.
I would strongly advise watching people known to run fast whether its footage online of the best sprinters in the world or purchasing a download such as the GPP. I like the way this video shows the arm action and also the exercises you need to do to put yourself in the correct position to run properly without too much analysis on your part or anyone in case you do not have a coach.
I suffered a great deal from not using my arms when I first started running. The key reason for me was I was very weak in the upper body as so many female athletes are.
Comments made via one of the links provided by hemann were confusing to me.
" those drills get lost in competition, meaning that when the nervous system takes over, all of those drills cannot be used because they did not really strengthen the nervous system to move properly."
" those drills" = referred to in this link are critical to do routinely. I am not going to get into the why’s etc… suffice to say drills are cornerstone to sprinting and it appears to me the basics might be overlooked in this persons approach and you might think about enhancing your knowledge via some of the moderators on this site and or products.
I love the format you posted the video, press the pause button and move the locator and you can slowmo as much as you like.
I see legs crossing, if the video was from the front the footplant would be on the same plane with both feet. When you start to accelerate the knee faces out, dragging the heel under the body and the toes face out. If you want to fix suggest you slow down and run with one foot either side of the lane line, It will feel strange to start with but with the arm repositioning I think you will progress further and faster.
An easy fix for the arms is to stand beside a mirror and put the arm in the front position, note where the hand is. Now put the arm in the rear position, note where the hand is.
All that you have to do is move the hand from front to rear. It is physically impossible to move the hand to the same position every time without the other parts of the limb being in the same position as well. That is how I used to do it when I was a coach.