How to become a better runner
Despite being a natural action, running is actually a lost skill in humanity. Due to our society to become less and less sedentary, we slowly started to lose our running technique.
Learning how to properly move your body while running is extremely important.
Here I will try to help you to improve your running technique as much as I can without being close to you with a few techniques that are being use when coaching young athletes for sprints.
Pulling you up
While running, imagine that some helium balloons are pulling you up. If you manage to strongly believe it, it will cause your body to straighten up and you will be able to run taller. Running taller is an essential point in sprinting. You want your foot to be close or aligned with your hips while making contact with the ground.
The Scooter
Now imagine that you’re on a scooter or kick bike and you want to gain as much speed as possible. So you push the ground with your front feet and not with your heel. It is very important that your front feet make contact with the ground instead of your heel as that would be needed as a break. The front foot will always be useful for speed and explosiveness as it uses way more muscle parts in your legs, hips and glutes than the heels.
Avoid the pendulum legs
Because you want your feet to land close or aligned to your hips, you don’t want to run like a marathoner. Long distance runner use a recovery method on each stride. After their foot lose contact with the ground, they let their leg go further behind them to recover more. It uses less energy but creates less force which is not what you want while sprinting.
Always bring your heels to your glutes and push them back to the ground quickly. Doing this movement uses force as well as gravity, which will be very helpful. Especially because gravity is the main element you are fighting against when you’re trying to gain speed while running.
Avoid burning your feet
Now imagine that you are running on a hot sandy beach, and your feet are burning. You want to gain the water as quick as possible and you most importantly want to touch the ground as little as possible. By doing that your feet will spend way less time in contact with the ground. That part is very important when sprinting because we want to reduce the time we spend in contact with the ground. If you want to push it a little bit further, imagine that you are running on lava. It should be very efficient if you manage to believe in your own lie.
Don’t break the eggs
This exercise can be done through your imagination as well as a real life experience. If you hold raw eggs in your hand while trying to run a 100 or a 200 m sprint. You will have to hold the eggs softly enough not to break them. The goal is to keep your hands, arms and shoulders nice and relaxed. You can imagine that you are holding eggs while running, but you can also really hold raw eggs or even crisps in your hand while running. After a couple of tries you should be able to sprint at your maximum speed without breaking any of them.
You are ready
You now have 5 ways to improve your sprint technique. The goal is to be able to mix every technique I gave you every time you’re sprinting. Quickly those feelings should become natural and your overall technique will become way better.
As soon as you feel ready to train consistently and with a real coach, head over to a coaching session or send me an email. I will be pleased to help you to become the fastest human you can be !
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