![]() ![]() ![]() So, apply that idea to the blocks, to set position. Why? Because the downhill effect makes you run faster, just like, when you sprint down an actual hill, the speed you generate will continue to carry you once you reach the bottom and transition back to flat land. Then when they come off the hurdle and return to sprinting, they feel like they are running faster coming off the hurdle than they were going into it. In the hurdling motion, I urge my athletes to push off the back leg with force, put themselves in a position where they are looking down on the hurdle. And that’s exactly the effect I like for my athletes to create when going over hurdles. With the back leg raised high, your momentum is so forward that you feel like you’re about to run down a hill. And to me, this raising of the back leg serves this purpose. But I’ve always wondered if there were a way to ensure that the athlete can’t pop up. For the longest, I’ve always instructed athletes to avoid popping up out of the blocks, and I’ve heard and observed other coaches urging the same thing to their athletes. When you raise the back leg, that motion creates a forward “tilt,” if you will. If you raise the butt, you may come up very high, but not necessarily very forward, so there will still be the danger of “popping up” – of coming up too high when you leave the blocks, as opposed to driving out low, with a lot of forward momentum. Also, it is essential to emphasize raising the back leg, not the butt. ![]() If the knee locks, it will have to unlock, causing the foot to stay glued to the pedal when the gun goes off. The most important thing to do in order to create forward momentum in the starting blocks is to raise the back leg as high as possible, but without locking the knee. So, here’s what I’ve come up with in the past couple months: The start has never been the part of the race that I’ve been most adept at coaching, but as I continue to embrace this idea that forward momentum is paramount to generating speed and maintaining it, this philosophy has helped me to develop a clearer grasp on the principles that make for an effective start. I would like to take that point one step further in this article by arguing that forward momentum must begin even prior to taking the first step. In an article from early April of this year titled “Forward Lean,” I argued the importance of maintaining a deep forward lean throughout hurdle clearance, and of continuing to stay forward while sprinting between the hurdles. ![]()
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