How to improve your speed.

This article provides an overview of the essential techniques needed to enable an athlete to run faster.

Increasing the speed of any athlete means improving one or both of the following elements:

1. Increase the number of steps an athlete takes per second, that is, their cadence.

2. Improve the effectiveness of each contact with the ground.

Increased cadence is most easily improved by reducing the amount of recovery time between strides. This means reducing the time it takes to lift your foot off the ground and back down.

Athletes often compensate for their lack of knee lift by over-striding (taking longer steps past their center of gravity) or by pushing further back in an attempt to increase their power and thus length of stride. the stride.

The problems with these techniques are as follows:

Increases recovery time, which translates to a lower stride rate.

Increases the load on the hamstrings (increasing the risk of injury)

Decreases the rise of the knee as the hips sink to allow for a longer recovery time. This results in less powerful foot contact.

Now that we have identified the problem, how do we fix it? Ultimately, how do I run faster?

This can be identified by improving 7 areas

Ankle foot strike.

Athletes should aim to impact the ground with a foot that is moving backwards.

Dorsiflexion.

In order for the athlete to make an active foot strike and have quick ground contact, it is essential that the athlete maintain ankle dorsiflexion (keep the toes as close to the shin as possible). This pre-stretches the calf muscles and prepares them for a much faster and more elastic impact.

Arm swing.

The arm swing should involve the elbows swinging in front of the plane of the trunk. Not rocking them forward enough limits knee lift and results in more rear end mechanics to compensate.

Lean forward.

Athletes should aim to run with a ‘slight’ forward lean throughout the body.

Head position.

Athletes must keep their heads down and their heads still.

Running High.

Athletes need to be able to ‘run high’. This means holding the head up as if the head were tied to an imaginary rope and the whole body was pulling up.

To help these, it’s crucial to improve your core stability muscles (abs, hips, pelvis, and rear) to enable you to implement the technique needed to run faster.

Relaxation.

It is of the utmost importance that athletes develop a relaxed career. This means focusing on the muscles needed for running and disengaging the muscles that are not being used (for example, the muscles of the face, the muscles of the neck, and the tension of the shoulder muscles).

heel position.

The leg should be bent back during the recovery (not extended behind the body). Therefore, performing full kicks where the ankle comes out behind the body is incorrect and detrimental to proper running technique. When performing glute kicks, make sure the knee is forward when the foot is closest to the rear.