hey what's up everyone morey croson here from the performance lab of California and I wanted to do
another breakdown for you today again we're putting a big focus on middle distance as the
district Track Club Clinic is vast approaching is going to be this weekend Sunday it's gonna
be this Sunday and so if you're in the East Coast area of Maryland anywhere like that go
ahead and check that out yeah so in the break down here we'll just go and hop right into it
the what I want to do is show me or what my my very rudimentary running form looks like
in comparison to mo farah and what his running form looks like and really put a big focus on the
the the part of the the actual running phase is called the swing phase and that's the time
that your foot is spent off the ground the non-weight-bearing phase of the run so we can
see it's there would be this leg right here on this one and maybe or that one floor from Ofer
we're kind of zoomed in here I went for a while to try to figure out what would would be the best
time to actually you know get a mo farah angle and this looks like it's a pretty good one that's in
terms of being able to get the side there's a lot of different views that we get but this is
one of the best ones that we actually get from his side angle and and there's and it's uh with
about four laps left here in the 5,000 meter run so let's go going up right into the analysis so
one of the big things that stands out to me is one word we could see that the actual stride and I'm
gonna go back a little bit here the actual stride when he pushes off how much better he gets into
extension and his full overall leg right so I'm a little bit tighter in my hamstrings I'm not gonna
get I don't get into his much full extension and then there's different parts of the actual swing
phase that are important right and so what those are just to break them down real quick and that
says swing phase I know I have terrible writing it smacks knee flexion it's max hip flexion
and it's knee extension right and then it ends on foot contact but that's when we initially get into
the stance phase which would be when your foot is actually on the ground is that's when foot
contact starts so that's when we're out of Swing phases once we get into foot contact but the knee
extension happens right before foot contact so I think it's important part to put down so if we
watch me here we can see where my neck my max knee flexion is which is it probably about right there
in terms of how high I get my heel kind of up to my butt and and what I'm doing as I'm beginning
my hip flexion right so my knee doesn't get into much more range other than and this right here
in comparison to what we see with Mo Farah where his max knee flexion I know you can't see it great
here but it's probably just like that so I'm gonna try to zoom in a little bit more so you could see
his leg is like that where my leg is like that right so a very very significant difference in
terms of angle of the actual leg when we're talking about max knee flexion now this is
something that I see very very commonly within top runners right top middle distance or long distance
runners that they do a very very good job of is they create a lot of max knee flexion during their
swing phase okay and this is something that is a little bit easier for I know myself to do when I'm
going into a top-end speed run what I'm trying to run as fast as I can but as I'm trying to just do
more of an endurance type of run now I don't do a good as good of a job getting my heel up to my
butt and my actual running it and a lot of that has to do because of you know what I'm assuming
to be it's tightness in the quads and also some some weakness in my upper hamstring in comparison
to what like Momo fara would have somebody that's a really good distance runner here's another step
here where you could see how much more overall deflection he's achieving in each one of his steps
and you could see the further back that we go you get a little bit better angle and how close he
gets that helo up to his but now the next part is gonna be going into max hip flexion so now we're
gonna go we'll go with Mo Farah first so this would probably be max hip flexion here how high
he gets that that leg up right and so now we'll go into my net Mac max hip flexion boom good should
do that here didn't mean to clear it okay and so you can see the difference in really the angles
of the shins and that's what we're it's really important here is you know when you're going into
that max flicks hip flexion you want to be able to have a similar angle that you do to your back
leg at least that's what a lot of those top middle distance runners have so you can see where mine is
right and in that do it mine it is kind of there right and then we're in comparison to what my max
hip flexion angle is which is more here so I'm a little bit more upright with that shin at my max
hip flexion angle angle better send him back to Mo Farah where he's very very even with his back
leg in comparison to his front shin angle which is going to allow him to get overall a more set
himself up for landing underneath himself a little bit better so we'll see me where I go into knee
extension and I'll land a little bit more in front of myself here right so this is where I go into so
I'm in max hip flexion and then I go into knee knee extension there very very little in terms
of what I get knee extension where then we'll see mo farah much better job of getting the extension
there right you could see how far out his leg is in front of him and how straight his leg is in
front of them right where I'm still staying stuck and angled and the point of this video too is just
to show you know I figured night I better show some some rudimentary running right somebody that
is not very experienced that isn't competing at a high at a Olympic level it isn't able to you know
run with some of these style sprinters because a lot you know the reality is there's a lot
more people that are going to be in my shoes in comparison to one of the best long-distance runner
of all time and his shoes right so to see what he does very very well you know he does a great job
of getting into a very good angle within his shins when he's in that max hip flexion angle and then
he does a great job of getting full extension when he when he gets when he transitioned in a
knee extension so now when he transitions to foot contact he's able to land with his foot a lot more
underneath him I mean you could also see how his overall force is now granted I'm on a treadmill
so in a curve treadmill cell using the credit the curve treadmill you have to put a little bit more
force in pushing backwards so that's going to you know make it a little bit more difficult for me
but still you could just see the difference and and it's a great learning tool anyway where you
could see what he's pulling himself underneath and when he lands he does a great job of one landing
with his foot right underneath him but also going into a large amount of the knee flexion right
bending of the knee and almost allows himself to go downwards right so you could see his overall
height look where he's at here and then as he lands watch him sink down see that see how high
he is and then he really sinks down really really low so he does a great job of absorbing his forces
energy is going downwards here or you could see me and again this is something that we really try
to teach a lot more of the you know sprinters is that you want to make your cycle much more
like this right because we're what we're working on trying to to move the bodies classes can over
a short period of time so it's not going to be as efficient for a long period of time it's gonna be
more geared up for long for for short term speed right and so by really pulling my leg back here
I'm gonna be able to maximize my speed that much more okay so you can see I'm pulling back so when
I'm touching I'm not getting into as much I'm not sinking down as much and I my leg is much more of
a force of pulling my leg back where Hayes is a lot more on pushing himself down which just allows
himself to really get a lot of overall vertical force when he's pushing off where I'm gonna go and
not get as much overall vertical force when I'm pushing off I'm going to be going and extending
and then getting a little bit more of a horizontal force now in both short-term sprinting or fast
sprinting and long-term sprinting this seems to be a lot more overall efficient in being able
to maximize speed okay so if I'm by me getting a little bit too horizontal I'm really negatively
working for both short distance as well as for long distance and the reason that you know I'm
not pushing off as well as well or getting more horizontal is because I'm transitioning into
more of a long-distance run right so when you go long-distance now you're gonna have a longer foot
contact time you're gonna have a longer stride distance or sorry longer transition times times
to adopt the ground right and so by me having a longer foot contact time but really landing in a
similar position with my foot underneath me now all of my additional foot contact time happens
with my leg back behind me so I'm not used to from here pushing off and getting I'm not you first of
all I'm not used to pushing off in this position you know generally I'm I try to make it so my push
off happens as soon as my foot crosses back behind my hip when it comes to short distance running
so by me being so far back behind that's gonna limit my ability to get my foot up and my heel
up which makes it so I don't get into as good of a knee flexion angle where he does a great job of
transitioning here pushing off that back leg and having that foot so far back behind him but still
having the time to be able to get his heel all the way up to his button that just because he does
such a great job being able to push off the ground and getting at that vertical force right look at
how well he sinks in he absorbs his load and then he pushes off very very well so he's getting very
very good vertical force allows plenty of time to be able to cycle that leg get that heel up to his
butt get to a very very good knee flexion angle and then be able to push back off and continue
a high force of a or or a high stride frequency over all right so we could look at that again he
lands he does a very good job of landing with his foot fairly well underneath him right his foots
all the way out here and it's maybe six inches eight inches off the ground but he pulls his leg
bends his knee to make it so he lands that's where he actually lands up boom with his foot
underneath them they're really really good landing and then from there transitions goes into a pretty
good amount of knee flexion transitions pushes off much more effectively than I do look at where he's
pushing off he's pushing off with his leg when his foot is right behind his butt which which is
what I was going to talking about before so he's pushing off getting through that full extension
and thereby getting going through that full extension getting a lot of vertical force now he
could pull that foot all the way back up going to get in a very good max in the knee flexion there
okay now because he's getting into such good knee flexion now he could also get into a really good
angle for when he gets into max hip flexion boom so now we're looking at his comparison from this
leg and that leg both very good angles now when he goes into max in the extension boom now he's in a
really good position to be able to maximize his stride length right because he's fully extending
that knee and then landing right back underneath it just such a beautiful cycle where you know you
again you could see me where I do a pretty good job of getting my knee up but my comparison of my
angles with my shins right this shin is much more vertical where this one's much more horizontal
okay and then when I go into my next max in the extension I really don't get full knee extension
I don't get my leg out under as far in front of me so now I'm not going to be able to pick up as
much stride length and then when I land I'll land with my foot a little bit more out in front of me
right and I'm not spending as much time through my absorption phase and then when I begin my
push off you see right here is really where I should beginning to push off and getting more
more vertical and my run and make it so now I can have a little bit more of an efficient turn over
but I'm really not doing a very good job getting good very good efficient turn over on my left side
is even worse in terms of how I get my foot so I'd really don't get a good knee flexion angle at all
on my on the left side so you know we talked about each one of my steps you know why is Mo Farah able
to you know maintain a you know somewhere between like a 420 and 430 mile over such a long period of
time it's because he's able to maximize efficiency right I can maybe run you know one mile right now
at about 5:30 right and that's just because I'm not nearly as efficient my body isn't built for it
as well you could see how much the indifference of the anatomy is I'm a lot thicker and through here
riding my the lot thicker my obviously my upper body where mo Farah's definitely a lot more set
up for an endurance run which is important as well right if you're talking about what's going
to maximize overall results we also got to talk about you know what is your your body fat ratio
how much you know body fat do you have overall because that's going to be very very important
when it comes to overall performance if you're looking more like me and you want to be able to
get times like him you're gonna have to end up figuring out how you from a nutrition standpoint
you're gonna have to look more like him and you know have that that lameness and you know ability
to you have a lot more lean muscle right we'll be able to work a lot more aerobic Lee where
I'm working a lot more in my ATP and anaerobic zone so there's a lot of science there's a lot
of differences that go into this but you know big point of the the video really wants to be
about the swing phase right all that time spent off of the ground the foots been off the ground
what is happening when you know when we're going into those max knee flexion angles max hip flexion
angles and the extension phase all right hope this makes sense for you guys if you have any
questions we'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have you can go ahead reach out to
me we have a lot of different programs we have two breakdowns for you guys we have a lot of
different material that we we do for people that are looking to get faster middle distance short
distances will primarily focusing on right now so if you have any questions 40-yard dash and a lot
of you guys are getting into the offseason so you might be looking to get your top and speed that
much faster and you know we'll be able to help you a lot more with that so if you guys have any
questions let us know and we'll look forward to talking to you soon hey what's up everyone morey
croson here don't forget to subscribe below to get weekly videos about running running mechanics
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