 |
| Arbogast: This question has two components: Form and strength/quickness. |
| The form issue is helped by solid pressure against the rear foot pedal in the blocks. Many athletes relax that foot and drive solely off of the front leg. The back leg needs to be firmly pressed against the pedal to allow a quick start. |
| Form also is helped by a low, driving action. The most common fault for slow starters is "popping" vertical too fast, losing the drive phase out of the blocks. The first three to four strides are VERY horizontal in direction ... the athlete comes up to a vertical position (with a positive lean) only after this number of strides. |
| Also, a nice trick is to instruct the athlete to take a short first (and sometimes second) step. The sprint action only causes forward movement when the body is touching the ground at the point of drive contact -- the foot. So, getting the foot into a driving and pulling position quickly gets the legs turning over faster and prevents overstriding, which puts the foot in a "braking" position. |
| Lastly on form, keep the arms driving -- particularly DOWN. Fast arm turnover is what keeps fast leg turnover! |
| Now, onto strength and quickness. Conditioning for the start is helped by Olympic lifts, plyometrics and use of a sprint-harness. The core of any good start is Olympic lifts -- squats, power-cleans, etc. Lifting should be done explosively. Plyometrics (bounding and depth-jumping) will improve explosiveness throughout the range of motion. |
| Several outlets, some of which are on the Internet, offer resistance devices for training starts. These harnesses work by applying resistance to the major muscle groups throughout the start motion and are gaining a lot of respect internationally. Resisted-start training duplicates much of what can be done with lifts and plyos. |