Ants Top 5 tips on running fundamentals

Alignment

• Keep good posture from the ground up.
• Keep your body and limbs vertical to cut through air/ wind resistance.
• Foot plant, ankle stability, knee drive straight and upper body/ head still.
• Arm drive at right angles with relaxed shoulders and neck. Hands can come slightly across to midline for natural arms rotation.
• “Imagine a cord from the top of the head, through the middle of the body, allowing only slight inward rotation on knee drive and arm action”.

Lean

• When in full velocity, hold a 6-7 degree lean from shoulder to ankle joints.
• There needs to be optimal forward lean to gain momentum and drive in a direction.
• When starting, the acceleration phase requires the lean to be greater, with the upper body lower over the legs as they gain traction to push down and back to gain leg speed to propel forward.
• Feet may plant slightly wider in acceleration and arm drive is strong on pull and push motion.

Midfoot

• Each foot strike should be off the mid foot, under the ball of the toes where maximum traction and spring off can occur. This needs to be a plyometric action where each mid foot plants, drives off and recovers fast.
• Strong, straight ankle stability is important for efficient ground/ foot interaction.
• “Avoid over striding which causes heel strike, with each foot being too long on the ground, slow to recover next stride”.

Cadence

• Cadence is “King” in running technique and in gaining speed.
• Leg rotational speed is the focus – Knee drive just under parallel to the ground.
• Front leg plants foot under body with knee tracking on top of lead foot.
• On front leg recovery, the heel lifts to the height of the other legs back of knee. This stops lag and drag out the back of the body, which wastes energy and speed.
• “Imagine the leg action on a bike on a small cog spinning legs fast”

Motivation

• Believe you are fast and be mindful of putting these fundamentals together.
• Also recruit and train up those fast twitch muscle fibres with appropriate drills.
• “Run tall, over the top of the ground and feel the ability the change gears with speed changes”

Acceleration & Max Velocity Analysis

Thanks to Steve Lester SandC Director at Saxons Sports for providing this acceleration and max velocity analysis images so you can review your own running techniques and increase your speed.