Run faster with proper sprinting posture and technique. In order to maximize speed you have to be able to apply maximum force to the ground. This post addresses some of the biggest mistakes made by sprinters and coaches (i.e. staying low and breaking at the waist). In it, I show you based on the teachings of coach Karim Abdel Wahab how to develop proper posture (the hard post) and demonstrate one of the first sprinting drills to achieve this. Finally, you can read Olympian Jeremy Dodson´s insight into developing proper posture and the hard post to maximize speed.

We´re going to start with addressing posture. We talked about posture, mechanics and rhythm. The posture that we´re going to preach in sprinting, we´re going to call it the hard post. Out of the blocks, we´re going to post up to assemble the hard post. And we hold that hard post as it ascends gradually till it becomes perpendicular with the ground, forming a 90º angle with the ground once that athlete becomes upright, and we´re going to push through it all the way to the finish line.

Assisted Hard Post

You´re just going to do a basic drill where you get done down in your standing start stance, heel to toe relationship. Feet are shoulder width. You´re going to post up at your partner to assemble the hard post. Your whole body is on one line. We´ll call it triple extension (the hard post). We don´t want to be broken at the waist. We call it “bubble butt”. We don´t have any bubble butt. Push your hips forward. Everything is in one line and you´re going to start marching slow, pushing down and back, as you come up gradually. And once you come up, you´re pushing down through the track all the way down through the finish line.

Tip: Don´t break at the waist

Do it again. You´re going to start a little bit steeper. Keep pushing down and back. You´re going to come up gradually, and you´re going to push as you come up all the way down to the finish line.

Some coaches ask their athletes to stay low. This is the biggest wrong cue you can use in sprinting. The moment you ask your athlete to stay low, that moment they´re going to break at the waist. And if they break at the waist, they´re going to be running in the backyard, meaning they’re not really put in a position where they can push the ground the correct way and produce force.

Tip: Don´t tell athletes to stay low

Running in the backyard means:

• Athlete broken at waist → Causing loss of hard post
• Foot comes back too far → Reduces ability to apply force to ground

Jeremy Dodson´s Insight

Jeremy Dodson PR:

• 100M 10.27
• 200M 20.07

The hard post and posture go to learning how to move the body that we’ve been given. A cheetah runs that way because of their spine and their structure. We’ve been given this posture, these leg limbs and these shin bones. As human beings, we have to learn how to use what we’ve been given. So when we use the hard post and the posture, it’s learn how to be efficient with what we’ve been given and learn how to use our strength maximally and efficiently.

And so developing that posture, I’ve really focused on drills. When I’m in drills, a lot of people warm up and see drills as just a time to get the body loose before the real workout. But yet in reality, the moment you take that warm up jog, that’s when the workout starts. So you learn.  I’m focusing on how I strike the ground, how my body is bouncing correctly, what’s out of place, what’s not in place…

I go to drills. I’m focusing on the purpose of the drill, whether it’s to step down, stay up tall, moving forward… And within those drills, that’s how I learned to progress it towards high speed training.

Bibliographic references:

• Outperform. (2018). Proper Sprinting Technique – Posture [Video file]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/3FOTIPJJb5Y?si=sKvnIMsv3ORC-IAH