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INCORPORATE
SPRINTING TECHNIQUE INTO ALL OF YOUR
TEAM'S CONDITIONING AND RUNNING
written by Bill
Utsey, CAA, Greenville County Schools,
Greenville SC
 As
an athletic director for a very large
school district (14 high and 18 middle
schools), I get to see a lot of competitions
and practices. The one thing that always
gets my attention is the poor technique
that is displayed by athletes in all
the sports that require running and
sprinting. I even see this at track
meets! What is worse is that I see coaches
in practices having their charges run
sprints without any attention whatsoever
to proper technique. The objective of
this article is to get coaches to take
the time, and make teaching proper sprinting
a regular part of their practices in
the off-season, pre-season, and in-season.
Coaches miss a golden opportunity when
they do not take the time to teach their
players the proper technique of sprinting
or running full speed. Sprint training
takes very little time in a practice
or workout routine, and the results
that can be reaped are significant.
Baseball, softball, basketball, lacrosse,
soccer, football, and, of course, track
are all sports where running and sprinting
are what these athletes do for a large
portion of their sports. Of all the
motor skills they use, sprinting is
likely the skill they will use the most
during competition. This is not to mention
that speed of movement is arguably the
most important ingredient for success
in all of these sports mentioned above.
Why, then, do these coaches spend so
little time, if any, on teaching proper
sprinting technique?
As physical education professionals,
we know that with proper technique of
running, all the forces involved are
being used more efficiently and effectively
resulting in the following: forces directed
correctly into the ground resulting
in greater return for the energy expended,
faster movement with each stride, greater
stride length resulting in greater speed,
and greater stride frequency resulting
in greater speed. We also know that
the more you do a motor skill, the better
you will be at that skill.
How then does one incorporate teaching
sprinting and sprint training into his
practices without spending inordinate
amounts of time. This article proposes
the following suggestions:
- Get your players to run
on the ball of their feet!
If there is only one thing you do,
get your players to run on the balls
of their feet whenever they are sprinting,
be it a conditioning drill or moving
from one part of the field or court
to another. This is the single most
important part of sprinting. If you
want your players to run fast, then
think about the length of time lost
when their entire foot is being put
on the ground as compared to only
the ball of the foot. Without question,
this is the single most obvious flaw
that I see when watching athletes
sprint at practices and in competitions.
- Teach
your players the proper technique
of sprinting. Take the time
either in the off-season or the pre-season
to teach proper technique, demonstrate
proper technique, and use the part-whole
method to teach each part of correct
sprinting (arm movement, head position,
foot placement, body lean, etc.).
Some good online resources on sprinting
are:
- Use
the proven sprint training drills.
Sprint coaches and scientific research
have developed lots of drills that
are effective in teaching each part
of the correct sprinting technique.
Below is a suggested teaching progression
(from this, you can see the steps,
visit the websites above, and come
up with your own teaching progression):
- Start
with teaching your players how
to hold their hands (for instance,
"slightly cupped…like
holding a pin between your thumb
and forefinger") and the
proper bend in their elbows. Then
have them bring one hand/arm up
to the proper height in front
of their face and the other hand/arm
back to their hip (I call this,
"Tipping your hat and drawing
your gun"). Then have them switch
positions with their hands a few
times and then some continuous
arm movement in place for 30 or
more seconds. I suggest this be
done with the body standing, leaning
slightly forward with one foot
in front of the other.
- Next,
define "sprinting" to
your players as having to go fast
enough where only the balls of
their feet are touching the ground.
Then define for your students
a progression of varying speeds
of sprinting for the purpose of
doing practice or form sprinting
working on each part of correct
sprint technique. Examples:
- Half-Speed: Fast enough
so that only the balls of
the feet are touching the
ground and total mental focus
is on correct technique and/or
the part of sprinting your
are working on (Examples of
the 'parts' in correct sprinting
technique: arm movement, foot
placement, stride length,
foreleg extension, head setting
on shoulders and jaws flopping,
body lean, etc.).
- 3/4
Speed: A little faster than
half speed but with full mental
focus on the correct technique
of the part of sprinting you
are working on.
-
7/8 Speed: This is full speed
with all mental concentration
on technique.
-
Full Speed: This is full speed
with all mental concentration
on physical effort. No focus
on technique.
-
Pretty Running: This is the
whole of the sprinting technique…that
is, all the parts of correct
technique of sprinting at
one time. This is looking
as good as you can while sprinting.
After a period of time of
learning all the “parts”
of correct technique and our
players had them down, we
would do ¾ and 7/8
sprints of “Pretty Runs”
as a part of our sprint training
segment in our practices.
When
can you do sprint training?
After you do
your dynamic stretching is the perfect
time to start with your sprint training
drills. Before we got into our "form
running" drills, we always did
our lead-up sprint drills. These drills
are very common with track coaches and
consist of some of the following:
- High knees ("Pistons"):
This drill was done for 10 yards and
required full effort. This drill consisted
of driving the knees as high as possible
but only taking a 6" step each
time. To go 10 yards, one would be
taking some 60 steps or pistons (30
with each leg) to go 10 yards.
- Bounding
("Alternate leg speed hops"):
This is actually a plyometric. This
was done for at least 30 yards with
each step (actually a hop) driving
the knee high and leaping out as far
as possible, landing on the ball of
your foot and then exploding off the
landing foot and driving and leaping
out immediately with the other leg/foot.
- Drum
Major: This is quite difficult
to learn for young athletes. Therefore,
we would start out by having them
walk the drill at first and then work
into performing it full speed for
about 20 yards. It is similar to bounding.
In this drill the athlete will bring
the knee as high as possible, but
instead of leaping out as far as possible,
the foreleg is extended straight out
at the knee’s highest point
(like the Michigan State Drum Major),
land on the ball of his foot, and
then immediately explode with the
other leg/foot.
- Butt
Kicks: This is a common sprint
drill where the athlete takes very
quick steps but is trying to kick
his buttocks with his heels every
step (each step is quite short). We
do these for about 20 yards.
After these drills (about 5 minutes),
we would immediately go into our form
running drills as outlined above, starting
out with arm drills in place, then runs
beginning at half-speed, then 3/4, then
7/8. We rarely did full speed work.
We would do at least ten 30 to 40 yard
sprints and would sometimes do as many
as 40 sprints…all at lower speeds.
Ten form sprints usually took less than
five minutes. So, in ten minutes we
could accomplish a full sprint workout.
Throughout these form runs, our coaches
were stationed at appropriate points
along the way and were constantly yelling
out whatever part of correct technique
we were working on. During the in-season
sprint training periods, we usually
incorporated our plyometrics routines.
This made the period about 15 to 25
minutes in length, depending on how
many sprints we scheduled.
The other important thing we did was
that all of our conditioning at the
end of practice was done with a focus
on technique. Again, in conditioning
we would start out at lower speeds and
then work to faster speeds. However,
with conditioning as the main focus,
the sprints were longer and had shorter
rest intervals. We were constantly talking
technique to our players. Specific sprint
training was a twice per week thing
for us in the off-season, every day
in the pre-season, and once per week
during the season. This kind of emphasis
on sprinting technique sent a powerful,
subconscious message to our players,
"Speed was critically important
to your success."
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