“I’m not fast, but I like to pretend I’m online.”
Okay, I’m a little fast.
Well, I mean, as far as 49-year-olds who are about 25 years removed from playing any competitive sport, I’m lightning fast.
Besides, baldness increases aerodynamics right?
Truth be told: as a strength and conditioning coach it is not I oblige I’m winning the 100m at the Olympics to talk about it. Admittedly I should be able to perform mechanical sprints or sprints without looking like a one-legged pirate, or worse yet… popping a hamstring.
But I don’t have to be a world-class sprinter myself to coach or teach others to be able to do it. At the end of the day, it’s about the ability to break traffic down into more manageable parts and more importantly, having the ability to get your athletes into better positions (to express speed or power or whatever).
via GIPHY
And when it comes to getting people into better positions – especially in terms of linear acceleration, to steal a train from famous coach Lee Taft“we don’t have to get too fancy with our toolbox.”
Which begs the question: What is Linear Acceleration?
Good question.
I’ll tell you what it isn’t….sprint/top speed.
Sprint/Top speed = more vertical posture.
Acceleration = more leaning forward or torso.
When training (linear) acceleration, it’s important to respect that the idea here is to produce a lot of force quickly. However, this force will be even greater in terms of foot contact time compared to top speed.
Linear acceleration requires things to start and the center of mass to move. It is different from top speed.
- We need to generate a lot of power down and away
- We also need an extremely long arm action, which is then coordinated with the same side leg and high knee action. All of this achieves a leg ROM that then allows the athlete to generate as much force as is needed to complete the push-off to enter the next stride.
It sounds a lot – and complicated – but I assure you, it’s not. This does not mean, of course, that attention to detail is not required. If it were easy, everyone would be a defiant Usain Bolt in a game of Duck-Duck-Goose.
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But there are some easy and smart strategies with the format EXTERNAL CONDITION which will help achieve all of the above.
Linear acceleration troubleshooting
To repeat: linear acceleration is not the same as terminal velocity. First and foremost, acceleration is what we work on startup speed which implies different joint angles and positions.
1) I already mentioned above that top speed requires more vertical stance and acceleration involves more forward trunk pitch.
Therefore, a major mistake that many athletes make out of the gate is, well, poor starting position. Thus:
This is where I start too upright and my hips (and shoulders) are too far back. Not a favorable position for producing horizontal force.
Ideally, we’d like to start with a more staggered stance with the hips in front of the push off (this will make it easier to gain momentum and move the mass), which implies a more inclined torso. Also, we want the shoulders to be in front of the hips
2) More aggressive arm action
On acceleration the rear side should be long, the front side short. The rear is what counts in acceleration. The front side becomes more important at top speed.
Lee Taft hammers this point home again and again throughout CSAC course.
To this end, a common mistake made is that people are not aggressive enough with their hand action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpzkwBgZoVc
You’ll notice that my back arm “stays short” and as a result both my arms and legs are unsteady.
A nice external cue to use here is to tell the athlete to be more aggressive with “THROW YOUR HANDS BACK.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v193yEgzjs
Looks sexier, right?
And then the more aggressive movement of the arm “pushes” a more aggressive forward movement of the knee… with little additional cueing.
But what if all this yet not having the desired effect?
His Magical World External impression
A brilliant corrective strategy I ‘stole’ from Lee is to give the athlete a target to shoot for. This is external indication at its best.
External hint it takes into account what the body is doing in space and indicates direction, intention and action.
The fix in this case would be to place a med ball – or whatever: cone, obstacle, Ewok action figure – a few meters away from the athlete’s starting position. The athlete must then explode, “HUNT HIS SHOULDERS,” and overcome the object in one step.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51B3WnDCq6w
As you can see, this immediately incorporates a better arm action. Better arm action reflects greater leg action, which then produces more horizontal displacement.
Giving the athlete a target or something to shoot/aim for (EXTERNAL CUEING) will “correct” the mechanisms of acceleration without too much fluff.
Adding the target prompts the athlete to push harder into the ground and then physics takes over.
