Flash:
I’m not on elitetrack. I don’t think it’s a question of following anyone’s teachings. It has more to do with what the correct technique feels like. How you get there might require different coaching cues for different people. You’d have to see how a particular athlete is running and know that person before you can settle on an appropriate cue. But no matter how you get there, the less time you spend on the ground, the less you’re going to feel the ground. I seem to recall Charlie mentioning a few times that as young sprinters get faster and begin to feel the ground less, sometimes they panic and try to push harder against the track to get back that feeling of power. That’s what you want to avoid. In one of his videos (I think it’s Vancouver 2002), he mentions Angella Issajenko walking over to him in tears after he had just timed her in a PB. When he asked her what was wrong, she said “I can’t feel my legs.” And Charlie replied, “That’s what it’s suppose to feel like.” After that, she was fine.
Think of weight lifting. When you first start, you might warm up with an empty bar (45lbs). Then you might load it to 95lbs. In the beginning, you feel a huge increase in load. Fast forward to when you can lift 300. At that point, you can barely tell the difference between an empty bar and 95lbs. In sprinting, you’re dealing with a relatively constant resistance (bodyweight). Therefore, as you become more powerful and faster, it will feel easier to propel that weight.
Wow that made a lot of sense Flash. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into writing this post. As you know being an athlete can be confusing as heck sometimes. I knew this made sense, but sometimes I just get confused about what really works and what doesn’t. Maybe a lot of what each of these coaches are teaching is the same, but they just have a different way of conveying it with their athletes.