Sprinting - How Can I Run Faster?
In the majority of field sports, the victor is usually the athlete who can get from A to B in the shortest time possible. Being able to get to the ball before your opponent, getting into position quicker, making a 40 yard defensive run to win back possession, all critical moments in a game. These are the moments that can decide whether you're on the winning or losing side, I know which side I'd prefer to be on. Understanding how different factors can affect your overall speed is crucial for developing an effective training programme.
The second most important thing to understand is that there are vast difference between elite level sprinters and field sports athletes. Think about the amount of times that you will reach top end speeds? The likelihood is that you probably won't, and if you do, it will probably be because someone made a mistake on the pitch and you're bustin' your ass to try and recover for them. Everybody remember the time Cristiano Ronaldo raced a Spanish sprinter and was quicker than him around slalom poles? Is Ronaldo quicker than the sprinter? No he's not. But is he more efficient at accelerating, decelerating quickly and then accelerating again? Absolutely yes, and it's what makes him one of the best athletes in the world. Anyways, the point is, that instead of looking at top end speed improvement, the majority of your focus should be in the acceleration phase of sprinting. Everything less than 40m should become your sole focus. Anything outside of that would be a waste of precious training time to produce meaningful improvements in your specific sport. Accelerating, decelerating and changing direction is what will determine your success in your chosen sport. Not becoming a world class elite sprinter.
Now that that little introduction is out of the way, we can get into the meat of the dish. What factors affect our ability to accelerate quickly, what can we affect and what can't we?
The second most important thing to understand is that there are vast difference between elite level sprinters and field sports athletes. Think about the amount of times that you will reach top end speeds? The likelihood is that you probably won't, and if you do, it will probably be because someone made a mistake on the pitch and you're bustin' your ass to try and recover for them. Everybody remember the time Cristiano Ronaldo raced a Spanish sprinter and was quicker than him around slalom poles? Is Ronaldo quicker than the sprinter? No he's not. But is he more efficient at accelerating, decelerating quickly and then accelerating again? Absolutely yes, and it's what makes him one of the best athletes in the world. Anyways, the point is, that instead of looking at top end speed improvement, the majority of your focus should be in the acceleration phase of sprinting. Everything less than 40m should become your sole focus. Anything outside of that would be a waste of precious training time to produce meaningful improvements in your specific sport. Accelerating, decelerating and changing direction is what will determine your success in your chosen sport. Not becoming a world class elite sprinter.
Now that that little introduction is out of the way, we can get into the meat of the dish. What factors affect our ability to accelerate quickly, what can we affect and what can't we?
TECHNIQUE
Always difficult to figure out which aspect of sprinting comes first, but technique just about gets the nod every time. The truth is, most people DO NOT know how to sprint properly, unless they've been involved in athletics from a young age. Lack of fundamental movement skills , lack of free play in sports and more homework have all contributed to this. The other side of the coin is bad cueing from coaches (which for the most part isn't their fault). Things like "get your knees up" , "get on your toes" , "fast feet" etc. These do relatively little to work on the key aspects of helping athletes run faster. Without writing too much, I'll briefly go over what makes good technique.
- Posture = Neutral spine, forward leaning to allow yourself to put as much force into the ground as possible and in the right direction. The forward lean creates positive shin angles which allow you to propel yourself forward.
- Triple Extension = Ankle, knee & hip all extend fully. Powerful triple extension is a product of intent to push as much force into the ground and to move in the right direction. Without full triple extension , we are losing vital seconds.
- Hands = Relaxed, open palms, aggressive swing working in sync with leg movements. Whether or not leg action follows arm action or vice versa is up for debate. But if we focus on both, we're in good shape.
- Hip & Knee & Toe = Hip to 90 degrees , same as knee , toe pointed up towards the ceiling. Hip & knee angles allow us to forcefully use the hip extensors (glutes and hamstrings) to generate speed. Keeping the toe up (foot dorsiflexed) keep the calf-achilles complex poised to react positively with the ground again resulting in a powerful striking action on each step.
All of these are excellently demonstrated by John Ryan above.
LEARNING THE A-SKIP IS GOING TO BE A KEY PART OF YOUR DEVELOPMENT - KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THE SPEED PROGRESSION PROGRAMME COMING OUT SOON!
RELATIVE STRENGTH
Despite the pushback from the coaching purists who think you shouldn't lift weights, there's no escaping physics. The world of physics is governed by forces and the direction of these forces and sports performance is no different. If you can apply a lot of force into the ground, at a faster rate, in the right direction, repeatedly, you are on the right track to being in the ball park of being a faster athlete.
Relative strength (RS) is more important than absolute strength in these cases. There comes a time where getting stronger doesn't necessarily transfer over to being faster. This is where relative strength is key. For example, athlete you can squat 200kg @ 90kg of bodyweight has a RS of 2.2, whereas an athlete who can squat 200kg @ 75kg of bodyweight has a RS of 2.6. As a rough guide, getting your RS to around 2.5X BW is an excellent marker to aim for. It shouldn't be your only target but somewhere in that range is fantastic. It's a difficult area to try and cover in a short paragraph because there are so many other factors that come into play like rate of force development, training age and quality of coaching as well.
In short, having a high relative strength will more often than not lend itself to being faster!
Relative strength (RS) is more important than absolute strength in these cases. There comes a time where getting stronger doesn't necessarily transfer over to being faster. This is where relative strength is key. For example, athlete you can squat 200kg @ 90kg of bodyweight has a RS of 2.2, whereas an athlete who can squat 200kg @ 75kg of bodyweight has a RS of 2.6. As a rough guide, getting your RS to around 2.5X BW is an excellent marker to aim for. It shouldn't be your only target but somewhere in that range is fantastic. It's a difficult area to try and cover in a short paragraph because there are so many other factors that come into play like rate of force development, training age and quality of coaching as well.
In short, having a high relative strength will more often than not lend itself to being faster!
BODY COMPOSITION
This one speaks for itself really. Both from a lean muscle tissue and body fat perspective. Having more LMT is going to give you a greater propensity to produce force (which we already spoke about being a good thing). Fat itself does nothing to contribute to movement and therefore having less of it is a good thing. We still need a certain amount for health reasons but having a higher body fat % and wanting to be fast don't always go hand in hand.
If being fast is a primary goal for you and your carrying a little extra body fat, then dial down on your nutrition for a while and shed the extra bit of body fat. Long term it puts you in a fantastic position because while your losing body fat, training in the gym and getting stronger, you essentially attack both ends of the relative strength equation. It's a win-win situation. Although it is about carefully planning when to do this sort of calorie deficit period as you can't expect to keep performance levels high if you are in a period of energy/calorie restriction.
If being fast is a primary goal for you and your carrying a little extra body fat, then dial down on your nutrition for a while and shed the extra bit of body fat. Long term it puts you in a fantastic position because while your losing body fat, training in the gym and getting stronger, you essentially attack both ends of the relative strength equation. It's a win-win situation. Although it is about carefully planning when to do this sort of calorie deficit period as you can't expect to keep performance levels high if you are in a period of energy/calorie restriction.
DARA COSTELLOE IS THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF HAVING A LOW BODY FAT% AND A HIGH RELATIVE STRENGTH = FASTER ATHLETE
TAKE HOME MESSAGE
While there are certainly more factors that come into play when developing faster athletes, these are the few that you have control over yourself as an athlete. You can go to the gym and get stronger, you can focus on your nutrition and improve your body composition & you can get outside and practice your technique. Your development as an athlete for the other ~160 hours per week where you are not involved in structured training is your responsibility. My hope is to arm you with the tools to be able to bear that responsibility and train effectively in your own time and improve yourself as an athlete. Hopefully this sheds some light on a little piece of the jigsaw when it comes to being a faster athlete.
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