I was working on 10m block starts today and a friend of mine who was calling my starts told me I wasn’t stepping out far enough on my first step out with my trailing leg. He mentioned that once your blocks are setup (mine about 2 foot back on front and 3 on back) that you should put a piece of tape on the ground 4 steps forward from your back leg. Reaching that point or further was one indicator of a good start in his opinion.
He said my problem was that I wasn’t leaning over far enough in my ‘on your marks’ position. So I leaned more forward on the next start, came straight up in set, and came out much further on my first step and it(the 10m) felt much quicker. This worked well for my next few starts as well. Is this 4 step rule something other people use as a good start indicator or will it lead to too much emphasis on producing force in the blocks and not moving quickly enough? Does anyone else use something similar or different while working on starts? Thanks
wow, thats old school, u never want to have a big forward in the set position. if u have done all the work in gpp and spp/speed/strength work the first step length should just be natural.