The ins and outs of competition sprinting: culture and technique

Since uni finished last month running has taken over my life to an even greater extent than it did previously. As well as that, I haven’t blogged in several months, so I’m going to write a bit about competition sprinting, the culture that surrounds it and what makes it so difficult.

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The warm-up room at a major competition has a peculiar atmosphere. There’s never enough space, and the athletes whizz around the room like high-energy particles in a canister. A hundred or more fast, powerful, highly-trained and most importantly high-focused young men and women hop, sprint, skip and bound across the centre of the room in only a semi-organised mess. Fittingly, perhaps, the unspoken one-way rule goes most frequently unheard by the runners that warm up wearing over-ear headphones – Beats by Dre are endemic in the sprinting world – to block everyone out. The most interesting are the javelin throwers, who gracefully side-step/leap across the room, trailing arm carrying an imaginary javelin and the other held at shoulder height, flexing at the elbow with each stride. I realised with some excitement after a few moments observation that it looks like they are playing enormous imaginary violins while dancing across the warm up area. And there are always a few athletes at the side that perform arcane warm-up gyrations and contortions to no obvious end, loosening muscles that I didn’t even know existed. If the athlete in question is particularly talented, it’s hard not to ask yourself what they know that you don’t, but it’s best just to get on with it.

Trying to assess the opposition in the warm-up area is a mug’s game, anyway. Bulging muscles, an intense stare and a dropped-hip swagger – the sprinter’s prowl, I call it – are by no means indications of speed. Nor is the rapid through-the-teeth exhalations produced by runners over the first half-dozen strides or so of a maximum effort push out. It sounds impressive, but when you realise it a) has no performance benefit, b) only distracts you from the fact that they are not moving particularly quickly, and c) makes them sound like a burst balloon, it is suddenly less intimidating. It’s incredibly satisfying to beat these types. The temptation is always there to turn your warm-up into a performance of machismo, but the real talents, the guys capable of medalling, don’t bother with this because their performances speak for themselves, so why should I? If I sound critical it’s because psychology is a crucial aspect as sprinting: it’s easy to feel daunted by shows of power, so it’s essential to be able identify them and to filter them out in order to boost self-confidence. It has reached the point that a warm up is the only time I feel bulletproof; I might not be able to beat everybody, but I will never feel intimidated, no matter how much macho posturing goes on.  

Sprinters take themselves very seriously. Go on twitter and find a few sprinters’ profiles: many of them add their event of choice onto their handle, and their bio will often describe them specifically as a sprinter. For the most part these guys and girls are amateurs – talented and dedicated, probably, but still amateurs. I can’t imagine any non-paid footballers identify first and foremost as centre-mids, or false-nines - ‘@AndrewMcIntyreNo9 Up and coming trequartista for the Lion & Stag Inn, onesie enthusiast #teamnike #believe #livethedream Location: in the hole’ – but it’s understandable. Runners that make the top 100 on the powerof10 rankings (www.powerof10.info – a fantastic website) would be able to earn a living if they were equally ranked in, say, football or rugby. It follows that they would want people to know that they are serious sportsmen, even if they there’s no money in it. For what it’s worth, by my estimations I would be plying my trade somewhere in League 2 if I were as good at football as I am at running.

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A 100m sprint may last less than eleven seconds, but a serious amount of preparation and skill goes into a well-executed sprint. No one ever believes me when I say I am useless over any distance above 400m, and that from 5k and beyond, I am probably below average: we just don't have that kind of fitness. However, that is not to say sprinting does not require fitness; rather, it requires a very specific type of fitness. The event itself is over in a flash, but the warm-up lasts around forty minutes, sometimes longer, and it has to be executed with a high intensity and precision. To your averagely fit guy, this may well constitute a full work out, but sprinters have to be fit enough to work their way through a sequence of demanding exercises and short sprints while being able to go into the race with a minimum of fatigue.

Oh how I envy distance runners. Their event requires incredible levels of stamina and mental strength, but at least the basic movement is uncomplicated. They have time to think, time to relax, and time to fall into a rhythm. On the other hand, executing a sprint is complicated. Like, it’s a really tricky thing to do, with a knotty contradiction between staying relaxed – the key is keeping your face wobbly – while running at maximum effort. It takes an extraordinary amount of self-control to pull this off. Perhaps the hardest thing to learn is that 100m is actually quite a long way. Maximum output, even amongst elite sprinters, is less than ten seconds. It’s about four or five, and the key is distributing this effort across the distance for maximum effect. This means taking time to accelerate properly. The temptation to get up straight as soon as possible and go for it as hard as possible is strong, but it has to be resisted. The key to running 100m is moving through the phases efficiently, without rushing them.

The first phase is the sweep phases, which comprises the first 3-5 strides – the ‘sweep’ comes from the necessity of keeping your feet as close to the ground as possible in order to minimise leg-swing time. There’s a common misconception that Bolt is both a bad starter and poor technically. A complete myth. His sweep is precise and powerful, which is especially impressive given his stature. Dem hip flexors. Check it.

Following the sweep phase is the drive phase, which lasts from about 5m to 35m. Sprinters are often told to stay low, but this advice is slightly disingenuous in that makes it sound it like staying low is an active process, which is not the case. A properly executed start mechanic will keep the body angle low until it rises of its own accord; done right and this will be between thirty and forty metres, depending on the maturity of the athlete. Less powerful athletes will have a shorter drive phase because less acceleration can be wrung from their muscles. This is really fucking difficult to do because a combination of adrenaline and the runners around you storming ahead throws you very easily into panic mode, which will scramble efforts to stay relaxed and in control. I’m not sure I’ve ever got this right, although fortunately the closest I’ve come also happened to be the Hampshire Countyfinal. I was way back at 60m, but I’d executed properly which allowed me to reach top speed and I clawed my way back. I set a massive PB of 10.80 and got a bronze medal against the odds.

The final phase is maintaining speed. Apparently, and I’m not 100% on this, but when you see an athlete pull away from the field it is usually that they are maintaining their speed properly while imperfect sprint mechanics of their rivals see them decelerate marginally. I’m not sure this holds for the likes of Bolt: he’s just faster. One good example is this race between Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre, Justin Gatlin and Kim Collins. Lemaitre is one of my idols since he is the only top-class sprinter who resembles myself – tall, skinny, my age and white. Anyway, while it looks like Lemaitre hauls Gatlin in through higher top-end speed, really it is Gatlin who imperfectly maintains technique: the pressure from Lemaitre coming through made him tighten up horribly, while Lemaitre remained relaxed right through to the finish. It was a similar story for Collins, who saw his big lead gained from an unreal start wiped out in moments because he too tightened up in the last 30. It goes to show that the assumption I often hear that the start is the most important thing is not true. It is important, yes, but more important than being in the lead at 40m is setting up your final 60m.