Charlie’s spot on the mark. If you’re feeling like you are pushing back against the ground your ground contacts are too prolonged. Just forget about what the feet/ground contacts are doing: don’t even be aware of them. Just concentrate on relaxed, fluid movement. The most I feel during the best accelerations is a smooth, very relaxed, progressive rise (in angle of posture). No sensation of the application of power, no sensation of driving back hard against the ground, not even aware of what the feet are doing!
Charlie was suggesting to do the first run driving hard against the track as powerfully as you could, and the second run without the brain interdicting: just put the mind into neutral, don’t let it interfere, just stay relaxed in the shoulders/upper body, and accelerate out of there!
It occurs progressively during the acceleration up to the full action at top speed. If an athlete has a tendency to continue pushing against the ground throughout the acceleration, and/or has excessive rear-side mechanics, the stepping over cue (or stepping down feeling which I prefer) could be used to correct the problem.
this is something my coach gave me, i will only list a few key points regarding the lower body in the drive phase, acc phase, finish phase:
DRIVE PHASE:
legs fully extended rear leg pushes off the track with toes, drive leg forward with a high knee action with knee pointed forward, heal strike towards rearend drive leg forward toes up land on ball of foot pull ground toward you.
ACC PHASE:
smooth transition from drive phase
high tall action
FINISH PHASE:
high knee action
leg action fast and light as if running on hot surface
Cues that are used … PUSH, PUSH, PUSH and Imagine pushing the ground behind you. Things to correct, quick steps and elongated strides. Ground Contact Time has to be long enough to initiate a proper amount of force to generate a sufficient impulse. Stride Rate should be submaximal and stride length should be increasing each step
Step down to the ground - We should apply force away from the direction that we want to move. To move forward we push backward, backward we push forward, to go left we push right, and right we push left. A lot of coaches tell athletes to lift their knees when they run but they are missing half of the movement equation. Half of running is lifting the leg up the other half is stepping back down to the ground. Speed is a result of stepping down to the ground with greater force. I cue athletes by telling them simply “step down and push away.”
Just be mindful that: what is actually physically occurring during a sprint; what sensations the athlete feels whilst doing it, and; what the athlete does in another element of training to achieve that end technical result may all be very different.
(Just occurred to me that this is a thread for advice from senior members: sorry if I’m posting inappropriately)
Pretty much: stepping down is a sensation that is felt when the posture/mechanics are correct and the hips are high. It is felt because there is sufficient distance for the foot to descend (in a vertical sense - from the raised stepping over position) because of the height of the hips (and appropriate mechanics). In reality, the foot is moving in an arc, however as the speed increases, the horizontal component becomes so quick that it is no longer perceived. When doing B skips or B running, the circular element of the downward action can be felt. At higher and higher speeds, the more vertical the sensation becomes until it almost feels as though you are jogging up and down on the spot (but floating high above the track). Stepping down sets so many technical elements up (hip height, recovery, front side mechanics - all interrelated): I think the beauty of the cue is that so many technical aspects are in place when it is correctly felt.
Speed is a result of stepping down to the ground with greater force. I cue athletes by telling them simply "step down and push away.
Interesting thought: I’d say that the greater the sensation of stepping down at top speed, the less the sensation of greater force. I wouldn’t tell athletes to push away when stepping down at top speed: I wouldn’t get them thinking about the foot contact at all!