How to sprint

[gymrat]

Hello everypony! I know exactly none of you, but hope that I can help anyone interested in improving their own personal health and fitness in anyway I can.

Now, many people would ask "gymrat, why would I ever want to sprint? I'm not fast, haven't run in 10 million years, I heard that sprinting is bad for my knees, and distance running is both easier and better for me."

And to that I say, "You want to sprint because sprinting will help you lose weight, have better posture and more energy, improve cardiovascular health, and gain some muscle if you are skinny."

(I am not knocking on distance running by any means. I have run both cross country and track and field and thoroughly enjoyed both.")

With all of the benefits of sprinting, one might wonder why you don't see many average Joe's at the track everyday busting out 400 meter repeats (that's 1 lap on an outdoor track).

There are a myriad of reasons why sprinting is unpopular, but it mostly comes down to the fact that sprinting is hard.

But this is not a reason to avoid sprinting. I argue that sprinting can teach you how to push and better yourself. You can discover that the limits you thought were holding you back are much farther off than you every expected, and become a healthier, stronger, faster person through sprinting.

Before you start any workout, you need to warm up. And sprinting is no exception. You can find a variety of warm ups and workouts for sprinting, but I'll just give you all the one my team uses. We do five different running drills that help our running form and build a base of cardiovascular fitness. We do each drill for 50 meter sets and we repeat each drill for four sets. Take about 10-20 seconds of break after completing each 50 meter set of a drill. I warn you, the drills look silly. Almost as silly as Pinkie Pie. But my coach, who ran in the 1992 Olympics, seems to think that they work, and I trust his judgement. Without further ado:

1) High knees:

The video explains it pretty well.
2) Straight-leg bounding:

This drill is less familiar to people, and I couldn't find a better video, so I'll elaborate a bit. Straight-leg bounding is a drill that warms up the hamstrings and glutes, which are very important for sprinting. The drill is pretty simple: try to bound forwards with straight legs. Focus on pulling the ground underneath you rather than reaching out further. Make sure that you swing your arms and point your toes up towards the sky. Land on the ball of your foot and pull the ground.
3) A-skips:

Once again, this video explains the drill well. Only thing I would add is to raise the leg like in a high knee and keep it there. This will help strengthen your hip flexor and rienforce the proper running stride.
4) B-skips:

B-skips are pretty much A-skips but you extend your leg after raising it during the high knee phase instead of driving it into the ground right away.
5) Karaoke:

This guy does his drills really well. Make sure you get that knee high up. We only do this drill two times for each side, rather than four like the other drills.

This should be enough of a workout for many people who are starting out sprinting. That is fine! Try to do this everyday or every other day until you feel comfortable with it. You can also start some of the other drill described later in this post.

Now it is time to learn how to sprint properly. Proper sprint technique not only makes you faster and less tired when you run, it also prevents muscle imbalances and injuries from occurring.

So how do you sprint? There are two different techniques in any sprint: the acceleration phase and the sprinting phase. We'll start with the from the ground acceleration, like you see in the 100, 200 and 400 meter dashes. From a technique point of view, the start is by far the hardest part of a sprint. Keep that in mind as you slog through the next section of this post.



That is Asafa Powell's start. He has possibly the greatest start and acceleration of any sprinter in the world today. Let's examine his start, shall we?

1) He uses blocks and spikes, which most of you won't want to invest in. But foot and hand placement is still important. Put your lead leg about 1 shoe length (that's your running shoe buddy) behind your starting line. Place your back leg far enough back that your back knee lines up with your lead foot when you are kneeling, like in the first 5 seconds of the video. You can make slight adjustments to account for your unique biomechanics. Your hands should be right up against the line, turned sideways. You should be on your fingertips, with about 20% of your weight on your hands. This is called the "mark" position. Remember it well, because you will start most sprints from this position

2) Right before he starts, he gets his butt really high up in the air. Really really really high. Before you take off, you but should be above your head. He also leans really far forward on his fingertips. About 60-70% of your weight should be on your arms and fingers just before you start. This is intentional. The forward lean give you the perfect position to drive into the ground and accelerate. His lead leg forms about a 90 degree angle at the knee, and his back leg forms around a 120-130 degree angle. If your "mark" position is correct and you get your butt high enough, and you lean forward enough, these angles should form pretty naturally. This position, the "set" position, should only be held for a second or two before you start your sprint.

3) The first steps. Here is where it starts to get complicated. If you watch the video, you will notice that Powell stays very close to the ground during this first step. In fact, he stays as close to the ground as he can for the first 30 meters of the race. This is because leaning forward is the optimal position to accelerate. To do this, you need to focus of a few things:

a) Explode out of your set position! drive your back knee up and your lead leg down into the ground as quick as you can. Be very aggressive on this first step. You may stumble and fall a bit. That's fine. You'll get better with practice.

b) Get your arms up! For every other time that you run, you want to keep your arms bent about 90 degrees, and you hands moving from your hip to your chest if you are running, hip to chin if you are sprinting. Not during the acceleration. If you watch Powell's start, you will see a really gigantic arm swing. Mimic that. After the first step, your arms should travel from your eye level to just behind your hips for the next four or five steps.

c) Push into the ground! I really can't stress this point enough. You must push into the ground very forcefully to accelerate quickly. Think of driving your feet down and behind you. You should put enough power into the ground that you stay leaning forward to the ground for as long as possible. This is what makes a great acceleration.

d) Lift you knees! Pretty self-explanatory, but very important. lifting the knees will help you put the most force into the ground and accelerate the best.

e) Look at the ground. Keeping your eyes on the ground will keep your body leaning forward, helping your acceleration.

f) Lean from the ground, not your waist. This is the last part of the acceleration. You should be leaning from the ground, not your hips and back. You back should be flat. You should be able to draw a line from your head through your shoulders through your hips through your extended leg to the ground.

That about covers the acceleration technique. Whew! Luckily enough, the rest of sprinting technique is a breeze compared to that.

You will find that during the acceleration, your body naturally wants to come upright and begin running normally. Fight that for as long as possible during the acceleration phase of your sprint, but once your body becomes upright, it's time to shift over to sprinting mode. This pretty much covers the transition from acceleration to sprint. Just delay it for as long as you can. It will happen naturally.

Finally you are upright and sprinting. You're almost there! Sprinting technique is pretty simple.

1) RUN ON THE BALLS OF YOUR FEET! I cannot stress this enough. The ball of your foot should contact the ground first when sprinting, NEVER your heel. That is asking for a Achilles tendon, knees, hip and lower back injury all in one. I once heel-struck during a race in order to slow down for a hand-off. I almost tore my Achilles tendon with one stride. Seriously. Don't heel strike while sprinting. (To be fair, I was going all out and in racing spikes which made the injury worse. Nonetheless, DON'T HEEL STRIKE!)

2) Keep your arms moving front to back without crossing your body. They should be bent about 90 degrees and your hands should move from your chin to where your pocket would be in jeans.

3) Get your knees up. Lift your knees so they are around parallel to the ground. When all else fails, remember to lift your knees.

4) Pick your feet up off of the ground quickly. The longer your feet stay on the ground, the slower you are going to run. Pick your feet up off of the ground quickly after they touch.

5) Dorsiflex your foot. This means that you should point your toe to the sky as your foot travels through the air, and bring it down so that you land on the ball of your foot just as you land. Don't point your toes at the ground at all times like a dancer. This is called platarflexion, and can cause tight calves, Achilles tendonitis, shin splints, and knee pain.

6) Eyes forward. Don't let your head droop, but down look up at the sky.

7) Run tall. Don't hunch over, but don't lean back. You should have good posture as you sprint.

8) Breathe. You'd be surprised how many people forget this one.

And that is it for this post. I'll come back later and add the following sections: some sprinting workouts, other exercises to help running, and sprinting form drills.

--gymrat

[triplecrown]

The problem with sprints is that if people here do not have a good base, they aren't going to be able to start off with sprints of any kind. For any distance, you need to be able to feel easy running a couple miles. Interval training has been shown to increase fitness in many ways and it is probably the best place for unfit bronies to start.

[Commander Hurricane]

Balls of your feet :/ I'm way to heavy footed when I run, our school's trainer was also an all-American track athlete and he'd always tell me I'm too heavy footed, I need to work n that :/

[gymrat]

triplecrown

That's fair enough. I am going to add more to the post later that describes how to build into sprinting a bit more. Typing that out all at once was a bit much after a day of physics homework and essay writing.

My team does have a method of building completely new runner's into sprinting. Our warm up itself is about 15-20 minutes of near constant motion that helps build a decent base of cardiovascular fitness and reinforces proper running form. We then go into running drills and acceleration practice that serve to teach the right way of running. I think that this method will build a decent base and teach people how to sprint well, even if they have no prior sprinting experience. I'll add to the first post tomorrow.

But I respect your opinion. I realize now that most of the sprinters are able to jog around 2 miles fairly easily from the get-go, so I understand your point of view. I still think it is useful to have a guide to sprinting and other types of exercise, so that anyone who is interested can pursue them.

[skwiziks]

Nov 4, 2012 20:27:53 GMT -5 Commander Hurricane said:

Balls of your feet :/ I'm way to heavy footed when I run, our school's trainer was also an all-American track athlete and he'd always tell me I'm too heavy footed, I need to work n that :/

Start walking heel to toe but move your ankle such that the outer portions of your foot roll along the ground. Progressively move faster and faster until you can do it while running.

Also it helps with walking quietly.

[Commander Hurricane]

Nov 4, 2012 20:32:17 GMT -5 skwiziks said:

Nov 4, 2012 20:27:53 GMT -5 Commander Hurricane said:

Balls of your feet :/ I'm way to heavy footed when I run, our school's trainer was also an all-American track athlete and he'd always tell me I'm too heavy footed, I need to work n that :/

Start walking heel to toe but move your ankle such that the outer portions of your foot roll along the ground. Progressively move faster and faster until you can do it while running.

Also it helps with walking quietly.

Thanks a lot! I'm going to definitely try to remember that ^^ Also yea I need to work on walking quietly, I swear Aussies on the other side of the world can hear me walking :/

[gymrat]

Nov 4, 2012 20:27:53 GMT -5 Commander Hurricane said:

Balls of your feet :/ I'm way to heavy footed when I run, our school's trainer was also an all-American track athlete and he'd always tell me I'm too heavy footed, I need to work n that :/

skwiziks gave some solid advice, but I just wanted to add that when you run, you should focus on dorsifelxion while you run. I forgot to mention this in the first post, but I added it there and I'll elaborate here.

Dorsiflexion means pointing your toe up towards the sky while you run. You want to engage the calf right before your foot touches the ground to land on the ball of your foot. It may seem counter intuitive to point your foot up when you are trying to avoid landing on your heel, but dorsiflexion will help keep your footfalls quieter, which generally means less impact and stress on your joints. The drill skwiziks posted is great for working on proper dorsiflexion.

[Commander Hurricane]

Nov 4, 2012 21:05:00 GMT -5 gymrat said:

Nov 4, 2012 20:27:53 GMT -5 Commander Hurricane said:

Balls of your feet :/ I'm way to heavy footed when I run, our school's trainer was also an all-American track athlete and he'd always tell me I'm too heavy footed, I need to work n that :/

skwiziks gave some solid advice, but I just wanted to add that when you run, you should focus on dorsifelxion while you run. I forgot to mention this in the first post, but I added it there and I'll elaborate here.

Dorsiflexion means pointing your toe up towards the sky while you run. You want to engage the calf right before your foot touches the ground to land on the ball of your foot. It may seem counter intuitive to point your foot up when you are trying to avoid landing on your heel, but dorsiflexion will help keep your footfalls quieter, which generally means less impact and stress on your joints. The drill skwiziks posted is great for working on proper dorsiflexion.

Okay dorsiflexion got it, now is that only for running, or for walking too?

(P.S. Side note: There should be a pokemon named dorsiflexion, I'm just saying :

[gymrat]

Eh, don't focus on dorsiflexion when walking. A more neutral foot position is best. Even for distance running you should focus on it too much. as you get faster you need to dorsiflex more.

You should still land on the ball of your foot for distance runs. However, you should not be landing on the ball of your foot when you walk. Heel-to-toe is fine when walking.

To lay out some more terms (and a possible evolution of the pokemon dorsiflexion) the opposite of dorsiflexion is called plantarflexion. It is pretty much pointing your toe downwards, like a ballerina on his/ her tiptoes. You should only plantarflex when you push off of the ground, and you will never have to focus on it. It occurs naturally as you shift your center of mass forward.

Many people neglect dorsiflexion however, which is why it is important to bring up.

[djkbrony]

Great Post gymrat! I couldn't have said it better myself, that was an incredibly accurate depiction of most sprint events!

[Kirby Krackle]

Can you recommend any sprinting exercises for the heavier guys? I am very pear shaped and I'm not very limber, am I going to hurt myself starting off with sprinting or should I work on my cardio by jogging and then start sprinting at a later date?

[gymrat]

You can do the warm up drill I posted as a cardio type workout that will help you lose weight while simultaneously teaching your body how to sprint well for starters.

I'm going to add a few other for drills and exercises that you can do, some easier, some harder. Check back in a day or two, and the guide should be finished!