Everything Speed Part 3

Everything Speed · Part 3 of 7

Scoring from second on a single, going first to third, running down a ball in the gap: these are top-speed plays. Once an athlete is upright, the rules change. Pushing harder stops working, and spending less time on the ground takes over.

What it looks like

Upright sprinting has a different checklist than acceleration (cues adapted from @hansensprint):

• A slight forward lean, with the hips tall.
• The stance leg doesn’t fully lock out at toe-off.
• The knees pass each other before the foot lands.
• The foot is pulled up, then points just before touchdown.
• The landing leg stays firm so the hip doesn’t collapse.

Faster athletes push in less time

ALTIS put together hypothetical speed profiles for a 5’10”, 180 lb athlete. A team-sport athlete at about 9 meters per second spends roughly 0.110 seconds on the ground. A world-class sprinter at 12 meters per second spends about 0.083 seconds.

The force barely changes, from about 2.1 to 2.4 times bodyweight. The time is what changes. Fast athletes put the same force into the ground much more quickly.

Grab the ground

Coaches often cue athletes to “attack” the ground from above. The idea is that the foot should already be moving back when it lands, which shortens ground contact.

Frans Bosch would add a caution: too many cues can make athletes reach for positions instead of finding them. Wickets and mini-hurdles let athletes find good mechanics without being talked into them.

Strike stiff, spring forward

The moment the foot strikes the ground at top speed, the glute max fires hard. It works as a primary hip extensor, driving the hip back, and as a stabilizer, holding the hip and pelvis steady under huge impact forces. That combination is what lets the body absorb the hit and turn it into horizontal and vertical push in about a tenth of a second.

The glutes get plenty of help from elastic energy. Every muscle and tendon has some stiffness, meaning resistance to being stretched. When we walk, muscles don’t contract very hard, so stiffness stays low and the tissue simply stretches and recoils. When we sprint, the contraction gets much harder, stiffness climbs, and the muscles and tendons capture the energy of each impact and give it right back, like a spring. That’s the stretch-shortening cycle.

The research lines up with this. Dorn and colleagues (2012) found that as running speed climbs toward a full sprint, more of the work shifts to the big hip muscles. And trained sprinters reach higher top speeds than team-sport athletes partly because of shorter ground contacts and higher leg stiffness.

The takeaway: strong glutes matter at top speed, but so does stiffness. Train both with heavy hip extension work, plus bounds, pogos, and true max-speed sprints that teach the body to strike stiff.

Use it or lose it

Vladimir Issurin’s work on training residuals shows that max speed fades fastest of all qualities, within about 5 days (give or take 3) without exposure. Strength and aerobic fitness last closer to a month.

That’s why athletes need to touch top speed every 4 to 5 days, even in-season.

Sources: @hansensprint; ALTIS; Dorn et al. 2012; Frans Bosch; Vladimir Issurin, training residuals; Fred Duncan.