The other amazing thing is that marathon runners seem to be faster than I can sprint, and I really don't get how they maintain it. If I could just sprint that speed, I would be going pretty fast.
1) Foot strike to far in the front as in [1] and [2]. This mostly happens because people want to run fast, and therefore take longer steps. It is very counterproductive though. A longer steps lowers your center of gravity, and because the foot strikes the ground very far in front of the COG, you need to lift your COG before you can do the next step. This is visible in the video of the article as well. The amateurs have a much larger vertical movement of their heads and torsos than the Freeze.
2) Insufficient leg extension at the end of the ground contact as in [3] and [4]. There are two reasons for that. The first one is connected to the point above. If you keep the COG very low, you are forced to bend the hip and the knee while you move your torso over your foot. It's very hard to extend hip and knee after that, so many people just lift the leg instead of pushing all the way through. The second reason is mobility. Sitting all day shortens the hip flexor muscles (M. iliopsoas). Stretching them helps a lot.
Many of the people in the video are also starting quite fast and get considerably slower over the course of those 160m. Tiredness might be an important factor there.
[1] Bolt, foot strike: https://imgur.com/a/QOQaEX2
[2] Amateur, foot strike: https://imgur.com/a/Pmiijgx
[3] Bolt, leg extension: https://imgur.com/a/mRCq7uc
[4] Amateur, leg extension: https://imgur.com/a/cxzMkEi
it seems link [3] with Bolt's extension is broken
Ed Whitlock in his 80s:
https://mindmotionmatter.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ed-runn...
It’s more interesting because I sprint “properly”, but my brain just flipped when I started going further.
- practice barefoot occasionally, and pay attention to how your form changes. You’re more likely to just naturally land on your forefoot when you’ve no shoes on. Now try and maintain that when you put shoes on.
- move your legs faster. Seems simple and obvious, but most people when they try to run faster don’t actually move their legs faster. They extend their stride (more likely to increase heel strike) and try to drive more acceleration off each push. You’re training for power, not speed. Focus on a higher cadence, which will probably mean you need to make a conscious effort to take what feel like _smaller_ steps.
And make sure to ease yourself into it gradually. Easy to go into it full-pelt and do lasting damage to things like your Achilles and knees.
I would add that “barefoot” means, literally “barefoot”. I had convinced myself that “barefoot shoes” would be sufficiently the same because I was running outdoors and didn’t have the guts to do actual barefoot. I recently bought a new Assault AirRunner (curved motorless / manual treadmill) and run on it actually barefoot. The difference in my running form and sudden introduction of new muscle soreness makes clear how even barefoot shoes affect form.
Off-topic side note/rant: it is incredibly annoying how the Apple Watch becomes wildly inaccurate when on treadmills. GymKit has been out for years and has no - zero! - uptake among home treadmills and even shockingly low among commercial treadmills. And shame on Assault Fitness for creating an expensive, commercial level manual treadmills with an app that can see the data via Bluetooth from the treadmill, and failed to integrate HealthKit to sync the data. Wild decisions.
Apple falls to Garmin in two areas: battery life and software. Sleep affects recovery, so planting a watch on a charger every night is a non-starter. Garmin's performance analysis software is also years ahead of Apple's. Apple could fix both of those things but that would require investment which I'm not sure they are willing to make.
Well, maybe (though I highly doubt it is 1% of the runner market) but it is by far the biggest player in smart watches generally now, and they are quickly eroding the feature advantage gap with those other brands. And most of the users of the brands you mentioned are serious runners whereas the average person walking into a gym bought their smart watch for a broader set of reasons than a serious runner buying a Garmin. It would make sense for a manufacturer of equipment to appeal to the average person walking into a gym.
> Apple falls to Garmin in two areas: battery life and software. Sleep affects recovery, so planting a watch on a charger every night is a non-starter. Garmin's performance analysis software is also years ahead of Apple's. Apple could fix both of those things but that would require investment which I'm not sure they are willing to make.
I wear mine all night and get the sleep info. I plop it on the charger while I shower and eat breakfast and it is full by the time I am ready to start my day.
Honestly the only complaints I have with my Garmin is the best kind of complaint to have: they last so long. My previous forerunner I had for 12 years. This Fenix must be close to 5 already. I keep looking at these new ones and I just can’t justify it. Battery life is still many days, features are still great. It’s just an absolutely rock solid watch that doesn’t actually need to be upgraded. Which is ultimately why I chose a Garmin instead of an Apple Watch last time - I didn’t want another Apple device that might be on a 3 year upgrade cycle.
Squats, deadlifts, and cleans will help your explosive power a lot; for this, your probably want low reps, high weight, and long recoveries. If you can periodically go to a track and run 6-10x100m ‘all out’ w/ 4-5 mins rest, that would be good too.
For an example lifting plan: https://www.stack.com/a/sprinter-workout-program/
IMHO the biggest factor at being fast is training fast and understanding this is a multi-year effort not a quick fix. Odds are you will need to change slightly your foot strike pattern, this is a long term project, not something that's done in a month.
Good luck.