Title: Sprinting Technique: The Key To Increasing Your Speed - Track & Field News
Headings: Sprinting Technique: The Key To Increasing Your Speed
Track Coach
Sprinting Technique: The Key To Increasing Your Speed
By Liam Coultman, The Speed Project
Elements Of A 100m Sprint
Acceleration And Maximum Velocity
Ground contact during accelerative sprinting
Maximum velocity sprinting
The stride cycle
Factors affecting technique
Relaxation
Posture
Simple way to improve your posture and strength
Arm movement
Stride length
Starts
Exercises to Improve Your Sprinting Technique
Sled striding
Hill running
Sprint form checklist and reminders
Upper body
Lower body
Perfecting Your Sprint Start
How To Start
Dominant Leg
Block Spacing
Hand Placement
Reacting To The Gun
How To Execute

Content: At this stage it is no longer possible for the athlete to continue accelerating. The focus switches to trying to maintain maximum velocity through sound technique, which will help limit the rate at which deceleration occurs during the remainder of the race. Deceleration cannot be avoided, however the degree at which an athlete decelerates will ultimately have an impact on one’s overall sprinting performance. The most elite sprinters can hold their maximum velocity longer as they have a reduced amount of fatigue affecting their central nervous system and typically decelerate around the last 20m of the 100m. Ground contact during accelerative sprinting
For faster sprint times it is important to limit the amount of time that your foot spends in contact with the ground during each stride. This is why sprinters run on the balls of their feet and sprinting spikes all have the spikes positioned on the forefoot. Force production is another important aspect to generate speed when making contact with the ground. The greater the force you apply into the ground, the greater return of impulse production, which creates greater speed. Longer foot-to-ground contact times will allow for greater force generation and impulse production. So an athlete should limit ground contact times but also have long ground contact times to generate a greater force?