Creating Ground Force When Sprinting

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Hey, what's up everyone? Morey Croson here from The Performance Lab in California, and today we're going to go over creating ground force in each one of your steps in order to run the— as fast as you possibly can in order to really maximize your running. Uh, before I get too much into it though, I do want to say we have a free mechanics course PDF that you can click down below. That will be an excellent resource for any athletes that are looking to improve their overall running mechanics and get a better understanding of what causes certain types of injuries, what makes it so you can— what are the main parts of the sprint that are the easiest things to correct or the most difficult things to correct, and really give a lot, a lot of detail about running in general and how you can improve it. So again, it's a free PDF. It's down below. Really recommend you guys downloading it and checking that out. So with that being said, we'll go ahead and get started within the breakdown. Big thing that I would say about being able to generate force is obviously there's two main parts of the actual force production time period, right? There's two different times where you're really generating a lot. And one of that is when you're going to be at this max extension, right? When that foot's up in front of you and being able to create this pull And when you're able to create this pull, this is where you're really able to contact the ground with a lot of force, right? And then from there, it's all— it's about kind of absorbing it, keeping a somewhat straight position within the leg. And then the next big time that you're able to generate force is when you're going to push off. And what are some of the big things that come into pushing off is being able to get a triple extension within the knee, getting into getting the triple extension between the ankle, knee, and hip, but also being able to maximize how much range of motion you have in the lower spine. You can't really see the lower spine here, but maximize the overall range through the lower spine, through that hip, through the knee, and through the ankle. It's gonna be a little bit different for everybody, right? So there's gonna be a maybe 30-degree hip extension that's gonna be happening here, where another person might be 35.. And, and so for everyone, there's a different— just depending on your height, where there's different levers of when you're generating force off the ground here that would change. But still, you know, being able to understand and maximize that is going to be very, very important, being able to improve your speed. But this is another key time period where you're generating a lot of force off the ground. Now, this is not what they're referring to when we talk about— when there's like curves and grass, they talk about the amount of force that you know, like a Usain Bolt type generates into the ground, or really, you know, top sprinters generate into the ground. This isn't that time period. The time period that that is, is here, which is when you're really driving that foot forward and through. But in order to get to this, you have to be very good at pushing off that, the back leg, because what happens when you push off this back leg with a lot of force, now you can generate enough power to get that foot up through and out in front. Right, it's all about being able to push off here and being able to get the range to be able to get that foot all the way through as quickly as you can to make it so you have plenty of space between the ground and your foot to be able to generate that downward force. This is really the force you're talking about when, when they impact the ground. And really what you want to be able to maximize is how much force you're generating into the ground right here. Now, when you're creating this force, the big mistake that I see is people are going and they're trying to press that force down like that, right? You don't want to be pressing downwards with the force. Yeah, I could show you from the other angle. It'll be probably a little bit better. So you don't want to be generating force down like this. Okay, that ends up being a negative thing. You don't want to be, be generating too much force that way. You want to be, be really making it so it's a nice leg cycle, so you can maintain your overall height and make it so you're able to cycle all the way through nicely. Wait till we get going here a little bit more. There we go. So now you can see that the, the force is this way, right, trying to keep that toe up. So this wants to be the force production angle. It doesn't want to be downward. So now that makes it so you can have an increased amount of force into the ground and also an increased amount of time, like, to turn over. Okay, so what ends up happening is if you press straight down, now it takes too much time for you to actually get your foot back off the ground to turn over. So now when you press off, this foot will get too far back behind you, right? So now you don't have the opportunity to drive it back forward and through. If you're going and you're cycling here and you're pulling down here, now that the amount of time that your foot will spend on the ground will just be, you know, a couple hundredths difference. That ends up always being the thing that I talk to athletes about is it's just, you know, it's the difference between one hundredth a lot of times or two hundredths, a blink of an eye is the difference between when, you know, if you miss that little window of when you're pushing off, it could significantly impact how well you're able to, you know, maximize your overall turnover and how well you're able to generate force into the ground. Effectively. So, you know, really getting into the biomechanics is essential in order to maximize your run. This is, you know, me running, and this is how I've been able to improve my running, is by actually looking to see what are some of the areas that I can, you know, better understand, better improve in order to make it so I run faster. So, you know, I even do it in my running to make it so I can reach higher speeds. And now I've actually been able to break the 20-mile-an-hour mark, which is You know, huge. I started about 17 and now I'm up over 20. So, you know, you could definitely, by improving your biomechanics, make it so you can run faster. You just have to get a, you know, put a big focus on it. All right. As always, guys, thanks for watching these videos. Hopefully this helps in making it so you can create a little bit more force production. Again, it's not about creating force downwards into the ground. It's about being able to, you know, how— yeah, you want to be able to put a lot of force in the ground, but you also want to be able to, you know, cycle that leg through and be able to maximize the turnover. In order to, you know, maximize that force. And there's two main points of the sprint where you're going to be putting great force in the ground— that initial kind of foot contact time. That's really what, what they're talking about when their guys are creating a lot of force in the ground. But then you also need to be able to create a lot of force when you're pushing off, um, in order to cycle that leg back through. All right, um, and you guys, if you want to— if you want to check out some of our speed programs, we— I also have a link there below. Um, or even if you want to just set up a call with me and, you know, go over some of your goals and areas that you can improve or would like to improve within your run, you could set up a call with me in the link below as well. All right, thanks for watching these videos and we'll talk soon.

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