I guess that fact that I am not relaxed and trying to actually feel so powerful in set ready to explode is forcing me to react slow. How about the eyes? What can I look at/whrre should I be looking to help with this?
Having my eyes closed is not an option.
and possibly tensing things up slightly. Trying to feel powerful may be influencing your technique (but as an athlete you don’t need to know about that!
). Focus on relaxation and smooth, flowing actions. Everything will fall into place.
I look down at the track in the position that results from having my head in line with my spine. Eyes not even really focused or taking in what they are seeing: the mind is too focused on relaxation and the lead arm movement!
Eye position and head may have been leading to the problem. If you look at the video my head (in set) is a bit higher than the 2 guys next to me.
I think if I realease the tension in my neck and let my head drop it may help.
I dont understand why your focusing so much on reaction, if you look frame by frame your reaction, is actually one of the faster in terms of actual movement, it looks like your the 2nd or 3rd fastest, your reaction is not your problem.
Reaction time is very rarely a major problem.
Look at the race in slow mo and you can notice a lot more than reaction time. Infact the winner of the race was near the last out of the blocks.
Up to the numbers in the lanes you have only taken 3 1/2 strides whereas the person in lane 2 who is significantly taller than you has taken 4 1/2 and from a quick scan the others all look to be around 4, but not below.
Your arms are at 180 degrees in the back part of the rotation.
Watch lane 2 and most of the other racers out in front for that matter, they are getting their legs underneath them, whereas you often strike out in front of your body.
You may want to look at these things first before you look at reaction time.
The winner of that race must of had a very bad reaction time for himself. In that race he ran a 7.07 I believe. He later went to NCAA’s and finished top 4. Can’t compare me to the majority of the rest of the field either regarding reaction time as they all are much slower than me. My bad reaction may have left me feeling behind which forced me to overstride to try and play catchup. This may be why my accel looks so messed up as well. But lets not ingnore the reaction as it could set up the early pasrts of the race in a negative way. Your other observation is 100% (feet landing in front (acually they’re underneath) of my body during accel. instead of behind. But again this may be because I felt like I had to play catchup. I know this is not the right thing to do. It also seems to be worse on one side.
I only read the first page of this thread, but I think I know what the problem is. According to your profile you ran for the Cortland Red Dragons 04-05. To be a short sprinter on a SUNYAC team those two years means you must have raced Tom O’Neill regularly. 4 seasons of competition with such a fast and handsome opponent have clearly had long term psychological effects which are affecting your training. 
Haha. How you been man? Long time no speak. Its good to see you’re still running. I’m glad somebody I know posts here. I’m coaching now so I’ll be here alot trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing.
On a serious note, as a guy who’s raced against you, I remember you being pretty jacked. Judging by that pic of your back you still are. If you could sacrifice some size/mass, without inhibiting strength, you may be able to decrease your contact time by improving your mass specific force. I didn’t read many of these responses, so my bad if you already discussed this in the thread. Just throwing ideas around.
Hahaha. My man!! Good to see you on here as well.
Check your Private Messages.
Oh man way too much worry about technical issues here. Just build a better engine man! The only thing I would mess with too much is your block settings and block exit. Knowing too much can be a bad thing when trying to analyze yourself.
As I have said before, get the engine of a world class guy and you won’t be worrying about where your eyes are pointed, what your reaction time is, etc.
BTW, the isorobic is nice but a pain to use sometimes (rope tangling, setup, etc).
Good advice and I would add concentrating on those first explosive 3 strides for now and move on from here.
It’s early in the season so clean up this area and things can be built from here.
MIKE NIKE
Knowing and doing aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Had a pretty good session today. Start felt better and times were faster thanx to some of the tips you guys gave me and I’m sure running on mondo as opposed to astro turf made a little bit of a difference.
Here were the times…
All FAT 1st reaction with SpeedTrap II
4x20 2.93 2.97 2.93 2.93
4x30 4.01 3.98 3.99 4.01
2x60 7.07 NT
Felt tired for 60 and max v. felt weak and felt weird in the hip flexors. Probably because I haven’t gone past 30 much yet this year aside from 1 week of 50’s for SSE.
Blocks were set at 19" and 32.5" old setting was 17" and 30-33.