Hey guys it's JP Gloria and today we're going to analyze the way Allyson Felix
runs!! She's an incredible sprinter who has won multiple Olympic and world
champion titles. She is also the only female to have ever won six gold Olympic
medals in track and field!! I am super excited to break down and analyze her
running and take a little peek on what makes her so fast!! As always let's start
with the foot and work our way up. If you look closely, she lands right around the
forefoot area. Landing around this area decreases amount of stress put on the
ankle joint and improves active push off from the leg muscles. Also when landing
on the forefoot, there's decreased distance required to roll over the foot
leading to slightly increased rate of steps...
aka cadence. Now, even though she lands this way foot landing is something you
should not force. It's usually best to let it happen naturally. Instead of
focusing on foot strike. What I'd usually rather focus on is where the foot lands
in relationship to the body center of mass. To make this more clear people
tend to bring more attention to this by focusing on where the foot lands in
relation to the hips. Now a typical cue is to focus on having the foot land
under the center of mass and that cue is not entirely true at all.. and it is a
mistake some people believe... even I made this mistake before as well! Through
research, what people have found is that unless you are accelerating... it is
basically impossible to land with your foot right under your own center of mass.
Let's use Allyson Felix as an example!!.. And as you can see, her foot lands just a
little bit in front of where the body's center of mass should be. Now as I
mentioned in previous videos, landing too far in front of the body is considered
over-striding, which causes a braking mechanism to
occur as the foot touches the ground, resulting in wasted energy and slower
speeds... however ,when you land just slightly in front of the center of mass,
it allows one to utilize elastic properties of the muscles by allowing us
to store energy in the tendon to aid in swinging the leg forward. Now, when
comparing Allyson's foot landing compared to previous long-distance
runners I've analyzed before... the foot is still slightly closer to the body center
of mass. By doing so, this technically helps reduce the time spent in stride..
leading to increased turnover, but in exchange the time spent on the ground is
so short that elasticity cannot be used as effectively. Basically you are
sacrificing efficiency for increased speed, which makes sense in this type of
race. Next, we will look at the knees. Now what sticks out too many people occurs in
this frame right here... which is amount of bending at the knee to the point where
it is basically right up against the butt. Now, the buck kick is something you
should not focus on during sprinting. Reason why is that when some people
focus on this, it tends to lead to applying too much force vertically.. sks
over pushing leading to decrease rate of steps. Also due to the leg having to go
from a fully bent position to an extended position, it also increases
chances of hamstring injury. Anyway, what you should focus on is knee positioning.
For example, take a look at when Allyson transitions from toe up phase to the
swing phase. Pay close attention to the knee and the thigh. As you can see,
instead of going backwards at this moment, the thigh knee knees start to go
forward instead. This is something typical in elite sprinters as it allows
for decreased time spent in the running cycle, allowing for increased step rate
and speed when running! Now, let's take a look at the hips...
specifically the pelvis. I mentioned before that some people tend to over
push to where the knee bend so much to where it's basically in line with the
butt. When people over push you also see more vertical displacement aka increased
bouncing. This is not the case for Allyson. Drawing a line across the pelvis, notice
how little vertical movement is going on as she runs. By doing so, she is
minimizing the amount of vertical movement... getting just enough of it for
the foot to clear the ground and really maximizing horizontal movement for
increased force directed forward. Now, let's move up to the trunk. Looking at
this frame.. first, I want to visualize this for you guys to see how aligned it
is. If you are not paying attention to the toe and focus on the body itself,
she actually maintains a pretty upright posture. I've gotten some messages that
forward lean is not good but I think those people misinterpreted what I meant.
I agree that forward trunk lean is not good, but what I am talking about is
forward leaning of the WHOLE BODY. Looking at this frame as a whole, you can
see that her trunk is upright and her whole body's tilted about 20 degrees.
This forward lean allows for improved momentum and puts the body in a slightly
better position to utilize the hip muscles as the foot pushes against the ground to
move forward. Now, let's take a look at the arms. As you can see, as Allyson runs...
most of the movement is coming from the shoulders. There is some rotation of the
arms occurring but not too much where the arms cross the mid-line of the body. I
don't really like to go into specifics with arm movement because of how much
variance there is across many elite runners... and they all basically work. As
long as the arm swing is used to counter the rotational forces of the legs, so the
runner can maintain a relatively straight path as they run... the main
purpose of this movement is completed. Finally, moving up to the head...again, I
don't see many unique things going on here compared to other elite runners,
which is never a bad thing! She actually keeps her head slightly stabilized as
she maintains it in a relatively neutral position as she runs this race. You never
really see it go back and forth in this view much at all. Keeping it in a
relatively neutral position helps engage the core and prevent excessive movement
from occurring in the upper body!... And that's a quick analysis on Allyson Felix
as she runs!! There are definitely much more things to talk about in her running
form, but I just wanted to give you guys a brief overview of her running starting
from the foot to the head. If you guys want to discuss other parts of her
running, feel free to leave a comment below! Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the
video. If you did and haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe and hit the bell
button to see more of my future videos!.. And as always... THANK YOU FOR WATCHING!!!!