Let me give you the facts: For every step taken, I can reduce both the time spent on the ground and time it takes and athletes leg to travel through the air, making an athlete that much faster over any given distance. I can shorten ground time and air time by five thousands of a second each, thereby gaining one hundredth of a second per step.
Every time I tell an athlete or his parents this number, they look at me like I am the one losing my mind. They give me the classic face, as if to say, “No way is that beneficial,” or “Like that’s really going to matter”. If you understand that the more efficient you are, the faster you will move, then this concept is simple.
Let’s use the analogy of entering a bike race with athletes of the same level. Athlete A has flat tires. Athletes B has half-filled tires. Athlete C has tires filled to the optimal amount. Who wins? While we cannot guarantee any outcome with 100% certainty, Athlete C has the best chance to win. Why? Because Athlete C has equipment calibrated to the most advantageous settings.
If an average track athlete was to race Usain Bolt in a 100m dash, odds are in favor of Bolt. However, if he was forced to run on his heels, with his arms tied behind his back, the odds have shifted slightly in favor of the average athlete. Obviously, Bolt still has an advantage based upon his Anthropometrics, but without the ability to run with proper technique, his capacity for maximum velocity has been greatly diminished. The fact of the matter is, an athlete does not get to an elite level of speed with poor technique.
The most efficient athlete wins the race. We are talking about reducing the time on the ground, and reducing the amount of time the leg travels from toe off back to ground contact. Those are two things that can be practiced, can be taught, and can be learned. I use the ever so popular video game Guitar Hero as my next example. Guitar Hero 3 Starts you off on setting "Easy", first song and a classic at that is Slow Ride - Foghat You play through a list of progressively faster and more complicated songs. The game then brings you back to Slow Ride on a more challenging level. What does the game do, it adds in another button making the game a little more challenging. Your fingers are learning and practicing how to move faster, and you are becoming efficient. If you do not get a high enough score on a particular song you get kicked off stage, which means you retry. Eventually you are playing The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden on "Expert".
Unfortunately, we have limited control over the build of the athletes with whom we work, and chances are, our athletes do not match the body type of Usain Bolt. However, we can still dramatically improve the performance of athletes of any age and skill level by teaching technique. We can make any athlete more efficient, which translates into making any athlete faster. If you add Stability, Strength, and Power Development in there as well, you have a recipe for SUCCESS.
I mentioned earlier that by teaching proper ground contact techniques, an impact as little as 5 thousandths of a second in terms of ground contact time, and 5 thousandths of a second in terms of flight time, we can reduce each step by a hundredth of a second, which in a forty yard dash taking depending on skill level and age of the athlete could lead to a reduction of two tenths of a second. Think that is not a lot, check out this video of the same athlete initial and post testing blended on Dartfish after 24 sessions of training, showing a two tenths difference in speed.
3 month in during at 28 sessions in total
The efficiency I have been preaching about comes from the ankle being dorsiflexed prior to landing. The Gastrocnemius and Soleus are now stretched, if a force is applied in a backward direction and the foot contacting with what I referred to in the title as a "Credit Card Rule" which allows enough room for only a credit card to fit under the heel under the hell of the foot, the stretched muscle will not only produce a greater force, but shorten the amortization period and reduce the time spent on the ground. The less time an athlete spends on the ground the faster an athlete moves.
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