Running Mechanics
Running Mechanics: Are you optimizing for efficiency or power?
Sprinters are Inefficient: If you want to know what an inefficient runner looks like, watch a sprinter run at 5-minute mile pace. If you are used to watching the smoothness of a runner like Nick Willis, the sprinter’s mechanics don’t look pretty. There’s a stiffness about them as they run slow. Their arms are awkwardly…
Read MoreHow to Sprint: A Breakdown of the Biomechanics of Running
What’s the correct way to run? How do you improve form? How should distance runners sprint? These questions and more are the subject of this 10 minute long breakdown of two middle-distance runners I coach. If you ever had any questions on how to sprint correctly, this video should serve as a helpful introduction to…
Read MoreForm: How It Feels Is More Important than How it Looks
“How did it feel?” It was an endless process. Run a 100-meter stride, walk back and hear this question repeated over and over. These weren’t the words of some uninformed coach or parent trying to fake their way through coaching, they were spoken by Tom Tellez. And when Tom speaks, there’s a reason for the…
Read MoreUnderstanding the Mechanics of Fatigue
When we think of fatigue, we generally think of burning muscles, lactic acid building up, and several other descriptors that have rightly or wrongly entered the lingo of endurance athletes and coaches over the years. In essence though, fatigue is all about slowing down, or preventing that from happening. From a coaching standpoint we often…
Read MoreWhat do Orthotics and shoes actually do? Looking at data from a professional runner
Often times in research we focus on norms. We look at the average effect of different interventions and then apply them to everybody. In this way, as a whole we get what the effects are for most people. By doing this, sometimes we miss the individual effects. So in today’s first blog of 2013, I…
Read MoreThe Sole of the Shoe: Looking at inside the midsole
The sole of the shoe: With this whole barefoot/minimalist/running mechanics thing exploding right now, one fo the more productive outcomes in science is the realization that the body is smarter than we give it credit for. All those old biomechanical models that presented the body as rigid mechanical body don’t quite accurately reflect what’s going…
Read MoreHigh Speed Video from the Stanford Payton Jordan Invite
I was down in Palo Alto this weekend for Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invite. While I was there, I took some quick high speed video (210fps) of several of the races. Below you’ll see video from the fast heats of the Women’s 5k, the Women’s 1500m, and the men’s 1500m (heat 1 and 2). Enjoy! Women’s…
Read MoreThe most important information you will ever read about Running Form: Passive vs. Active
It might seem like I’m being overly dramatic with the title, but the following two concepts are critical for understanding running form, or even human movement in general. With the rise in popularity of running form and the increase in running form guru’s that accompanies that, I it was a good time to share what…
Read More180 isn’t a magic number- Stride Rate and what it means
Speed= Stride Rate X Stride length It’s simple. It warrants repeating. Through in Ground contact in and you’ve got a nice model….But I digress… There have been a recent surge in articles and blogs in regards to stride rate. It seemed to start with Jay Dicharry’s blog on stride rate and impact forces. Which led…
Read MoreUnderstanding Stride Rate and Stride Length
Speed= Stride length X Stride frequency This simple equation is a staple in sprinting and biomechanics material. It simply means that to see a change in speed you’ve either got to increase the ground you cover (stride length) or increase your turnover (stride frequency) or some combination of the two. The bottom line is that…
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