hey what's up everyone while he's sprinting i mean obviously one of the uh fastest um people
when he was when he was alive uh his two 200 meter sprint was uh this one he won uh world record with
he ran 19 193.32 um and the big thing that that's interesting with him is that he has this kind of
um upright posture almost like where he's he's leaning back okay and i think there's a couple
things that really stand out to him um to me when you you know talking about michael johnson i mean
one thing is when you look at him compared to the other people in the race i mean he's a lot
bigger of a person he has giant legs um and i think overall he has you know you can kind
of compare him to the rest of the field he has such an amazing core strength okay so his when
he's going into this this hyper extension it's really not a great thing to do where you can kind
of see it here where he's going in and his back is almost arching i wouldn't recommend that for
a lot of people just because again you don't have the core strength whatever he did when he was
um when he was working out when he was training when he was you know trying to be a sprinter
his core workouts had to be you know amazing there had to be some some really high quality
stuff that made everything work right just because not only was he able to
maintain such a high level while having that extension in the back but also because of how big
and strong his legs are so to be able to you know effectively control those legs with that that high
lumbar extension as well as you know be able to run in in such a high position both ended
up working out so well for him because of his abs have strength so if you're
more of an upright runner i would say you need to make sure you're building up that core in order
to maintain that and and continue to um to build off of it okay now off of that we'll go more into
really the the technique behind it all so one of the big reasons that he does the um the the
quicker steps and keeping that that upright position is it allows him to not allow his feet
to to not get under him right so one of the things that that a lot of times what happens to me when
i'm i'm working with kids is you know you start to be able to get those feet to run faster and be
quicker and what ends up happening then is is kids will have a hard time getting those knees through
and you know it ends up affecting their speed right because they're trying so hard to get their
their feet um going quickly that they almost you know run too fast for their their feet
to be able to catch up now i think the the big reason for that is because they have a slight
arch or forward leading the spine and not as as good of ability to get that that knee up and
through so you know something similar was probably happening to michael and what michael did is he
started to become a little bit more upright in his spine and that made it so then he was able to get
his feet through a lot quicker and and really effectively i mean you can see how well he just
goes right and when he pushes up too he doesn't let that that back foot get stuck behind him see
how he drives that heel right back up to his butt i mean that's you know elite level is how
well he's able to do that and then get his knee right back through and i can guarantee you that
if he had a slight forward lean in his spine he wouldn't be able to do that as effectively because
his you know body his upper body would start going too fast and his legs wouldn't be able to stay
underneath him so what the the real um advantage that he was able to get by keeping his spine up
was to be able to run and and keep that you know high efficiency in his steps that that heel comes
right back up to his butt it almost doesn't get stuck behind him at all and then he drives it
right back through he doesn't have a great knee drive but he doesn't spend very much time off
the ground i mean he's you know as soon as this leg pushes off the ground this one's coming right
back underneath he does a great job moving i mean when you watch him running it's full speed his
feet are moving very very quickly um and again the way to do that is to be able to maintain that that
upwards right spine position and he almost you know his center of gravity is almost backwards
in order to make it in the upper body in order to make it so then his lower body can can keep
everything you know keep the pendulum in balance because of how fast his his lower body is going so
you know that's that's really why he does that again i wouldn't really recommend it because
you just have to have such a high level of core strength in order to do this effectively um
and also hip strength i mean you just have to be very strong in that area in order to effectively
you know carry out this this sprinting technique so um you know i think the slight forward lean
is is a little bit better but you know i think trey von braun does a good job of also keeping
pretty upright posture so you know it can it can be effective to be able to keep upright and it
can also be effective where you come and um you know lean lean slightly slightly forward i think
you know sonny brown um the the canadian sprinter he or sorry the japanese printer he does you know
has a pretty pretty forward lean so he's on the opposite side of the spectrum so you know it could
really end up going going both ways um there's a uh there's a lot of discrepancy just based off of
you know how you are sprinter another thing that i'll touch on real quick right before the end and
one thing that he talks about you know michael johnson michael johnson also has a great um
library of videos that talk about sprint as well sprinting um he does a good job of really keeping
you know very still in the shoulders when you look at somebody like usain bolt sprint
he's going to be much more kind of rocking side to side i think he uses kind of that that lateral
movement in order to help him generate speed like what michael johnson does he's very very still
very very controlled in those shoulders and in that upper body and that makes it so then
you know he's not having very much wasted motion there again and that also goes in the
core strength i mean the guy had unbelievable core strength and that was really the center of
you know all of his success and man his his cycle is so pretty too especially on that left leg
i mean he does such a good job of driving that heel right up to his into his butt so as always
thanks for watching this video guys we're going to continue to break down speed mechanics continue
to help you out with this um if you have any questions send me an email morey m-o-r-e-y at your
performancelab.com also check out our membership we go into detail about spread mechanics we're
going to have a couple cool new videos coming out that's going to go more in detail about sprinting
mechanics how you could help your start how you can help your arm swing and then if you have want
to do a spree speed breakdown or want to work with this with in terms of um exercises let me know
and i would be happy to help you out always thanks for these watching videos and we will see you soon