Sprint speed comes from foot placement and timing, not stomping. At max velocity, landing flat-footed pre-stretches the calf to trigger a reflex that shortens ground contact. Applying force horizontally when the knee hits 90 degrees, like a slingshot, makes sprinting feel effortless.
Chapters
We're gonna talk now about how the foot contacts the ground in a whole sprint race. In the beginning of the race, when the body posts up at 45 degrees with the ground, whether you're sprinting or if you're a football athlete having a 3-point start to run your 40 yards, or a baseball athlete having a standing start to run your 60 yards, regardless, great acceleration mechanics, great acceleration posture is to have a total body lean with the ground about 45 degrees. Now, as you're pushing down and back, your forefoot will contact the ground as the body's steep with the ground, but as the body starts rising 'til the body gets completely upright. At that moment, you're gonna have a flat-footed contact with the ground. How does that work? If you watch world-class sprinters and play, uh, their, their movement frame by frame, not at the acceleration, the start, at the max velocity phase, once their body is 90 degrees, completely upright with the ground— this is top-end mechanics, max velocity mechanics— their heel will barely miss the ground They will land flat-footed, putting their lower legs, their Achilles tendon, soleus muscles, gastrocnemius muscles, their calves on a pre-stretch, and immediately getting a stretch reflex, the foot will roll from flat-footed up, up to the forefoot to be able to take advantage of the elasticity of the lower leg muscles, landing on a stretch position and immediately getting the stretch reflex having more power coming off of the ground, that will allow them to spend less time on the ground and, and thus will be able to attain better mechanics leaving the ground. Because if in the max velocity phase, if your sprinter, hurdler lands on the, on the toes or on the forefoot, because of the forces of gravity, their heel will sink down anyway, and they're going to end up landing flat anyway on the ground and having the stretch reflex. That's something that will have to happen. Now the problem is the time that they will spend from the moment of landing on the forefoot till the heel sinks down and come up, they spend so much time on the ground, their ground contact will be too long. And a great feature of the fastest sprinters on the planet is to spend less time on the ground, having a shorter ground contact. So what we're teaching you right now, having the great dorsiflexion at the max velocity phase, heel barely misses the ground, landing flat Now you're landing while the calf is on a pre-stretch, you get the stretch reflex, very quick power, very quick impulse off of the ground, very short ground contact time that will allow your sprinter to deliver more power shorter time, which is a big feature, a very, very high feature of the fastest people on the planet.
So when running track and field, we always talk about applying force down to the ground And so someone may think like, "Oh, why don't I just stomp all the way down to the track?" Applying force in track and field is learning how to apply that force, how long to apply that force, and how to use it with the body. So we can stomp our way down the track, but then we end up collapsing. We end up losing our posture. Applying force down to the ground It's about timing and it's about strength. Learning when to put my limb down to the ground, when to pick it up, that's when you develop through the multiple drills that you do 11 months out of the year. How I learned how to apply force, I guess you don't think about it. You go through the drills and you let the drills develop that reaction. When you do it right, just like in the race, it just becomes easy. You feel— for me, I'm an elastic runner, meaning I'm not as powerful, but I can apply force. I'm very springy, I guess. And so for me, I just feel like I'm bouncing well, fluidly, all the way down the track. That's when I know I'm doing it well.
It's easiest when you think of like a hammer. If you were to get a hammer in your hand, pull it back, and, you know, slam down, that's the same type of force that you have to have with your leg. When your knee comes up to that 90 degrees, you need to be slamming and not necessarily like stomping, but applying force so that when you hit the ground and your foot's flat and you have the right position, that you're able to put that force and move it in a horizontal velocity. Applying force, and when it kind of really clicked for me was I didn't know how to control it. I got to a point where I was kind of in the backyard and having all this stuff in the wrong position. And when I actually corrected it and fixed it, I almost didn't know what to do with myself. It was almost like a slingshot and it kind of felt like, whoa, what did I just do right there? And that was kind of my moment where I said, I see what you mean by applying force in the right direction. It makes it easier. You don't have to work so hard, and then you just start moving, and then you're fast, and you get better results just like that.
