Read on Twitter
Ok, let& #39;s talk speed. First, the tools of the trade. You need to have a consistent distance and accurate timing to know if you& #39;re improving. Sprinting without measuring is like going to the gym and never knowing what& #39;s on the bar.
Today& #39;s workout was some form drills and some fly 10s (15 yard run in to a timed 10 yards; going until my time drops off 5%). To develop max velocity, you need to be moving at 95% or better of your max, hence the 5% drop off.
Going until a certain drop off in performance rather than a specific set and rep scheme is a kind of autoregulation. My best time for that day can depend on a lot of factors (physical/mental/emotional fatigue, nutrition, etc.) so every workout needs adjustment.
Last workout I got 8 reps in, today I only got 3. Some of my best times have been when I wasn& #39;t feeling great. Feelings are subjective, but the clock never lies.
Here are my favorite form drills with the disclaimer I am not a perfect model of form (yet).
Booms
BoomBooms
BoomBoomBooms (are you seeing the pattern yet?)
These are not skips, the goal is to work on the timing of relaxation into an aggressive foot strike with the ground and the scissoring of your legs in the air. Don& #39;t do indoors/upstairs unless you hate your neighbors. It should be aggressive, it should be loud.
Prime times/straight(-ish) leg bounds
Prime times work on swing leg retraction (when you& #39;re sprinting your leg should swing backwards -- negative velocity -- right before touch down). It& #39;s a similar feeling to how you kick the ground when riding a scooter.
In the stance phase of sprinting you should have a slight knee bend with cocontraction of the hamstring and quad, so they& #39;re not straightest leg bounds, but legs as straight as they should be when sprinting.
If you look at the best sprinters they& #39;re actually somewhat "squatted" in the stance phase. The squatted-ness increases with the level of chaos and change of direction needed in your sport e.g. ultimate, soccer, football, etc..
Wickets/mini-hurdles (at touch down I need to work on my swing leg knee being even or in front of the stance leg)
Wickets give you a target to hit to get you striking the ground close to under your center of mass and feedback if you have excessive backside mechanics (i.e. kicking the wickets over).
Here& #39;s some homemade wickets with some 1/2" PVC. The long pieces are 18" and the short ones are 4".
Last drill, kneeling starts (my second step could be farther back, behind my center of mass).
For acceleration we want to get our shins as close to parallel to the ground as possible. Our shins are the vector showing where the force we& #39;re putting into the ground is going. In acceleration we want this as horizontal as possible.
Normally, we are dropping into this position from above and it& #39;s very easy to pop out too early. It& #39;s especially easy to do this if you are doing falling starts and are too afraid of face planting.
If you watch someone with this problem you& #39;ll notice a brief gap between the first and second step because they have too much air time. A good accelerator has minimal air time in the first couple steps; if you& #39;re not on the ground you can& #39;t accelerate.
With kneeling starts, you& #39;re coming up from the bottom. The earliest you can push forward and start sprinting is the ideal shin angle. Anything earlier and you probably won& #39;t be able to get up.
Anything too late and it should feel clumsy. Video review is a great tool until you start nailing down what good feels like. Just don& #39;t have automatic backup on taking slowmo video when you& #39;re unknowingly near your data cap.
Once you start looking for the shin drop, you& #39;ll see it everywhere. Check out the Men& #39;s 100m final from Beijing in 2008. Look at all those shins drop!
Beware, watching how sprinters move won& #39;t be 1:1 because they& #39;re coming out of blocks in a four point stance, but check out Christian Coleman& #39;s start when running a 4.12 40 in cleats.
This clip of ochocinco was the first to make me think "hmmm" when everyone else was talking about triple extension and big arms for starts. Are those things as important or is the true KPI the shin drop?
Other stuff: what I have above my head in some of those videos is a water bag. It has ~10 pounds of water in it. The weight isn& #39;t important, what& #39;s important is that it has room to slosh around.
We play ultimate on solid ground with the instability happening up above. In training we need to teach our body to be able to put force into the ground while dealing with the instability above and that& #39;s what water bags are great for.
If you don& #39;t want to purchase a water bag, the next best thing you can do with any of the drills above or other drills you like doing is doing it with no arms. When running your arms are used to counter balance non translational movement of your legs so that you move forward.
If you take away your arms for balancing, your body must learn to move your hips and legs better. If you or a loved one swing your arms side to side like rocking a baby when running, try doing some no arm runs.
Variations to make other park goers think "WTF?": arms straight up, arms straight out to the side, arms together in front, hug in front, hands clasped behind, etc. Anything to switch up the stimulus and challenge yourself. Nobody gets better just going through the motions.
If you& #39;re interested in a free sprinting form assessment I& #39;m looking for some practice, so send a video of you from the side starting, from the side at max velocity, and from head on at max velocity. If you can& #39;t submit today, just DM to my account @conradn86.
