Could you fix this problem?
By Athletes' Acceleration | July 28th, 2008
Coaches always want to know the perfect distance
to run in a workout or an interval.
How much is too much, too little or just right?
Well, when it comes to speed training the answer
to that question is easy.
The problem is that it’s the wrong question to ask.
Check out this video and I’ll show you why:
To your success,
Latif Thomas
------------------------------
Spread the Word:
digg this
del.icio.us
Technorati
Blogmemes
Ask Jeeves
Furl
Reddit
Rojo
Simpy
Spurl
Socialize It
Earthlink
Google
Netscape
Windows Live
Yahoo
------------------------------
This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Speed Training . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 28th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Foot strike is too far forward, should occur directly under or slightly behind the hips.
July 28th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
The athletes arm were crossing his body. Upon driving out he was not vigorously driving his arms. When reaching Max Vel. his he did not get any lift due to a slight but out posture.
July 28th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Runner was slightly off balance due to reaching too far forward in his step. His alignment was therefore off.
July 28th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Athlete is not stepping over the knee of the opposite leg. As a result his foot strike is in front of his hips and on his heel instead of under his hips on the balls of his feet.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
too big a heel kick
July 28th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Latif,
All the above are correct. He also started his run like a jumper and not a sprinter.
Tim Graf
July 28th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I think the arms are the biggest thing, but I also don’t like his straight up running style.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Overstriding and rotation in arm swing. Standing too tall while running
July 28th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Despite his outward apperance this athlete is lacking event specific strength. If you watch carefully you will see his head roll up with the froward drive of the lead leg. This causes his hip to arch up thereby causing a loss of a base for his planted foot to drive effectively into.
He also lack strength endurance in his hip flexors. even over 30 meters you can see a significant decrease in the height of the knee drive. He tries to compensate for this by having the leg starting from further back (excessive back side action) to create more momentum to make up for the lack of hip flexor strength. This of course means he has increasingly longer ground contact time making increasingly slower. This of course leads to the classic example of a footballler 100 vs a track 100.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
He has a powerful start, good drive into the ground. But, he starts decelerating a bit too soon, straightening his body and engaging backside mechanics
July 28th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Actually the athlete stepped with the knee under his hips and his step length with one time to leg length
July 29th, 2008 at 1:05 am
excessive backside mechanics… no forward lean at start — probably because of standing start. Arms seem to straighten too much on back stroke — but perhaps arm motion gets better after start. Seems to decelerate almost from start with decreasing knee lift as he get’s farther into run — no doubt due to legs getting trapped behind him.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:19 am
The most obvious fault to me was his
arms coming across his body problems
I have with my young sthletes
July 29th, 2008 at 9:08 am
iam just a daddy that would like to help my son get faster at running,his playing sport and i no that speed is a factor,iam trying to help him but i really dont no were to start , i was just born fast but his not,ill like to also help him build endurance. iam not a track expert so i cant tell about the video.
July 29th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
The first thing I noticed was his arms swinging across the chest (particularly his left arm). Second, he came to completely upright way early for a 30m run. Once upright his footstrike was out in front of him instead of underneath. His excessive backside mechanics were predominently in his right leg. This may be countering his left arm cross-swing causing him being off-balance that was mentioned.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
First things first was the start. Then as he began there was the issue of arm swing across his body, Also he has a shorter stride length on the left side meaning poor flexibility within the posterior chain.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
excessive back side action, foot strike not under center of gravity arm action could be improved head to far up fighting foward momentum
July 30th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Arms going slightly in front of body and bad backside mechanics causing him to step in front of the hips
July 30th, 2008 at 8:58 am
The first thing is the start, he jumped up at the start and he should be driving off foward and keeping low not up in the air.
and the other thing’s was his knee lift and his arms. he need to keep tall and hip up and that will help his knee lift.
C
July 30th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Question: What is this athletes’ major, glaring mechanical flaw?
The athletes’ arms were crossing his body and excessive swing action. Athlete is not stepping over the knee with the left side and not consistently on the right side either. Very little knee drive (down) after the step over. I agree with Joe F. that he has weak hip flexors (hamstrings & core too I bet).
July 30th, 2008 at 11:16 am
1.) Reaching or over striding, 2.) excessive back kick, 3.) deminishing knee lift, 4.) Arms crossing body, 5.) tense at finish.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:35 am
He looks like an improved version of Eric Liddel
(Chariots of Fire)
arm swing across body and head tends to go back
July 30th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Many things. But what I notice the most is he decelerates in the run.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Charles and Joe F., great job! Pat and Latif use the “step-over-drive-down” ques, and it works because its a simpler way of strengthening an an athlete’s glutes and hip flexors without sounding like we’re going to have to do months of weight training in the gym to correct this.
If he’s going to college on a football scholarship, arm swing is really not that big a deal. If there’s time to correct it, fine, but depending on his position, he will rarely have to use “hip to cheek” arm action. That’s track! Just my 2 cents.
Peace
July 30th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
all of these comments are appreciated and latif is correct at bringing this instance to the forefront BUT we all deal with situations where we have athletes that are “track” kids who do fotball OR we have football kids that ask foe help from the track kids and it ALL goes back to the “strength” coach not knowing how things are to be integrated. we spend more time unraveling the rug that has been woven for us than is necessary but such is the beast. Sorry but that is the truth
July 30th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
As did most of your respondents, the arm swing across the body was the most obvious. He also appeared to be to far forward with his return to the ground and pretty much falls apart form wise; head back, knee lift is lost, arm swing does not travel full range which i feel caused an apparent deceleration in this short distance. I prefer every start to be a sprinters start and push my athletes to stay in the drive phase of a race as close to 30m as possible this kid comes up to soon and falls apart.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:35 am
Hi i have watched this video a few times some of the faults have been mentioned in other Coaches comments, my own personal veiws are this lads technique is not that bad main area I would focus on would be arm and leg mechanics. When I say Arm & Leg mechanics is the use of his arm getting more of a forwards drive as acrss the body also getting him to relax his shoulders next area I have concern with is knee lift with step over and drive down action this in its self will help correct some of this Athletes faults.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:13 am
The low leg recovery at the start assisted but two things became apparent to me as the young athletic moved into top speed: not stepping over the knee started a chain reaction of backside mechanics, reaching, head positioning; secondly arm mechanics would offset balance and therefore effect force application.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:56 am
The most glaring issue to me is the back swing.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:58 am
The most glaring issue to me is the back swing. “Excessive backside mechanics.”
July 31st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
The Obvious thing is that his knee lift is not good. If this is a Flying! 30 I am surprised that his recorded performances are so good. He slows down before the finish of the 30 metres too. I suspect Laif you got him to run slower on purpose, because the knee lift fault comes from lack of leg drive on his opposite leg. He lacks specific strength in his drive and needs some Strength and plyometric work. I believe some low rep High weight Long recovery Dead lifts should be looked at. The athletes Arm swing is not great and strength work here and some more core strengthening could be an advantage.
Regards.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:07 pm
flat footed landing on heels
July 31st, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Needs to drive out at a 45 degree angle and stay in this position MUCH further down the track. Standing straight up way too soon and is then reaching out in front for the ground.
Hill work required, horizontal to vertical work required. Barry above is bang on too with strength training to increase mass specific force.
He would be a great athlete to work with as he could improve in leaps and bounds… Punn intended!
July 31st, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I believe that this athlete has a lack of hamstring flexibility and possibly weak hip flexors. This is evident in his lack of knee drive in his stride. He has no knee lift after his initial acceleration, his arms could use some work, he wasn’t driving his elbows down and back which could have effected his knee drive or it may have been a result of his lack of knee drive.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:15 pm
not getting knee lift in drivelphase causing loss of power in acceleration or max velocity maintain after 60m. arms not 90 degrees also ear to pocket.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:07 am
This athletes acceleration is quite good. He seems to have alot of backside mechanics causing a longer heel recovery phase. This seems to restrict his knee lift and applied force to the ground and causes overstriding. It is difficult to see his exact leg motion with the baggy tracksuit pants. Needs to practice step over drive down.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
he’s reaching and a lot of but kicking
August 6th, 2008 at 7:32 am
[…] Could you fix this problem? […]
August 6th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
arm swing
foot placement not under hips
no enough knee lift
August 7th, 2008 at 3:41 am
Liked what Barry Roberts had to say, The application of force to the ground was weak. Runner lacked event specific Speed/strength. Could use some core work too. Alot of running mechanics can be corrected or easier to attain with the attention to the speed/strength. maybe add variable resistance to the deadlifts for a more explosive lift.