Do uphill sprints increase speed? I heard they actually make you slower.
uphill sprints are a means of resistance training as the hill being the resistance.hills will learn you how to push properly off the ground and get full TE(triple extension) from the ground up.if done properly with a half decent plan they will not degrade your speed but will enhance it.as with all resistance training whether its with hills or sleds etc when performing reps on the flat after such performances’ you will get the feeling of faster and more relaxed sprinting!
are they better than downhill sprints?
i would definitley do uphill rather than downhill.depends on the decline but my perference would be up.i find on downhills the foot will land to far ahead of the COG thus leading to serious breaking effect and also leading to reaching causing far too much pressure on the H/S.learn how to use the ground to propell yourself rather than running fast downhill.hope that helps
Isn’t it true, though, that after an uphill sprint session you should follow it with a couple of light strides on flat ground to keep yourself from closing your stride (b/c you have to close your stride to go uphill)?
400 you don’t have to cut your stride at all during hill runs as it happens completly naturally.if it happens naturally its fine but don’t try to cut or do somrthing like that.after hills i always would do some sort of sprinting on the flat.you get the sensation of more effortless movements but still feeling fast.
I know you don’t intentionally cut your stride, sorry for the misunderstanding, but I did read somewhere that your stride does naturally get cut running uphill and I think it was you or someone else that said you should do some sprints on level ground afterwards to help open stride back up.
its not a bad idea at all to do some run outs afterwards.just run the same and the SL will increase naturally.you wil notice ground contact will decrease and overall you will feel better
Question! Why would you want to have ground contact decrease?
As top speed increases, the hip height is also increased. That higher hip height leads to a smaller “contact patch” with the ground from the point of landing of the support leg ahead of BDC to the take-off behind BDC.
Sled is better that Uphill?
No. We’re just talking about the effect of raising hip height as it affects top speed, though for acceleration drills the sled can be combined with runs on the track in the same workout- ie 1 resisted followed by 3 or 4 unresisted runs.
Sorry, BDC?
“Bottom Dead Center”
coach-hare sorry for not replying earlier.CF has answered your question quite good.
you do not WANT to decrease GCT but this will happen after performing hillruns.you have to propell yourself up the hill by applying more force throughout the ground so your downtime will be more than when running on the flat.so in turn when returning to flat after hills this will happen naturally… try what i’m saying
expiereience because i have done it
Questions! How does this relate to the impulse, momentum theory? How can you best increase impule? It is said that force and time have an inverse relationship for impulse (meaning one goes at the expense of the other). How can you facilitate for bigger changes in momentum?
I am glad you said “you do not WANT to decrease GCT but this will happen after performing hillruns”. There are two ways of increasing impulse…more force, more time or a combination of both. A lot of coaches have their athletes pick their feet off of the ground prematurely by misunderstanding the impulse principle (big force, small time). The extension should cause ground contact to be broken at the end of the stroke. The longer the forces can work, the bigger the change you will have. Good athletes worry about not having enough time because things happen so quick. Contact time rapidly decreases as the body picks up speed because of the limited range through which the lever can travel.
Coachhare watch kids run.99% of kids will have the basic neccessities in place to develope into model sprinters but the question is why don’t they if track is their chosen sport??
my answer to this question is coaching and thought programmes laid down throughtout the athletes career by the means of coaches.i have seen many talented athletes with sound mechanics but still the coach would instruct to do this or that to enable more to happen when in fact the athlete should have been left alone to just run as everything was in place. what happens to that athlete is they start thinking and the more thoughts leads to more trouble.
keep sprinting as basic as possible.getting kids from an early age to think like so will have huge benefits in their futures.paralysis by analysis! sprinting is a natural movement but is ruined by overcomplications
My comment was about how Ground Contact time is reduced- not in reference to any effect of hills or acceleration work- this is a top speed phenominon. At top speed you do not TRY to decrease contact time (nor do you try to increase it either- the optimal response will be automatic). At top speed Ground contact times DO DECREASE as performance goes up for the reason I pointed out earlier- increased hip height.
CF has all the proper answers,learn from his replies.as with all things that get faster whether its a person running,even a bicycle tyre-as speed increase GCT will decrease no matter what.