Hey guys it's Dr. JP and today we're going to take a look at Noah Lyles
running the 200-meter race! Noah Lyles is emerging as one of the fastest sprinters
in the world and has definitely made an impact this year!
He's the youngest U.S. athlete to run both a sub 10 to 100 meter and a sub
20 200 meter. This is also the first 200 meter race we will be analyzing here ,so
I'm pretty excited to get into this analysis! The clip we will be analyzing
takes place during the 200-meter race of the Diamond League in Shanghai 2017. Here,
he runs a 200 meter in 19.90 seconds. This is an incredible
time but his personal best is 19.65 seconds. Unfortunately, I
could not find a good clip during that specific race, so this is the best we got
to analyze his form. Also, let's keep in mind that the clip we are looking at is
taking place at the end of the race, so there may be some deceleration occurring
compared to the beginning and middle part of the race. Anyway, back to
analyzing this clip, we will start by looking at stride length and stride
frequency. In this race, he presents with a step length of about 2.39 meters. For
his stature, he actually has a pretty decent step length. This is a reflection
of his mobility and high power generated from his legs; however, when comparing
this to other elite 200-meter sprinters, this value does not stick out as much.
Now, he shines a bit more on his ability to take steps. In this clip, he presents
with a step rate of 252 steps per minute. This is incredibly quick, especially
being measured at the end of the race. Now, let's take a closer look at
different aspects of his form as he runs to see what attributes to his high force
generation and great step rate. First, let's take a look at the landing. As you
can see, he lands on his forefoot. This is pretty common as landing around this
area allows for quicker foot turnover compared to the mid foot and rear foot
area, leading to quicker times. What is more interesting to look at, which can
impact step rate, is where the foot lands in relation to the body, specifically the
center of mass. As you can see, during foot contact, Lyle's foot lands very close
to where his center of mass should be. The closer the foot lands to it, the
shorter the running cycle is, which leads to faster turnover. Moving on let's take
a look at the foot as it moves from contact on the ground to pushing
off the ground. Now, what I'm actually paying attention to is the hip movement.
As you can see, he presents with great forward and back side movement of those
hips. Doing so allows him to really improve his step length, without it
significantly impacting step rate, leading to faster times. Now, one of the other
interesting things to look at as he runs is vertical oscillation, which is
basically amount of bounce he has as he runs. Now, there will always be vertical
movement when running, but staying low to the ground really maximize the forces
applied in a forward direction as well as reducing stress on the joints.
Looking at Lyles, you can see there is very minimal vertical oscillation as he
runs. One of the reasons for this can be a reflection of being a more hip
dominant runner, but the main cause is most likely due to his quick step rate
as I mentioned earlier. Usually, the higher the separate the decreased
vertical oscillation one has during running as well as decreased likelihood
of injury. Now, taking a look at the whole body you can see that it is slightly tilted
forward at an angle of 21 degrees. This slight forward tilt aids an improved
momentum forward and improved positioning for maximal output from the hip
extensors. Now, this should not be confused with forward bending of the
trunk. The trunk itself is actually pretty upright... honestly, it may seem like
he has excessive arching in the back, but it may be exaggerated from this view due
to the rotation occurring at the body. Keeping the trunk upright allows for
better positioning to breathe, ability to stabilize the trunk, and also improved
utilization of the hip muscles for force output. Now, let's try to look at the body
a bit more from the front. Unfortunately, during this race, there was no actual
frontal footage, so this angle is the best we got. What we we are looking for is
symmetry of movement. Based off this run, he seems to maintain symmetrical
movement from both sides of the body during this segment of the race. Let's go
back to this view as now we're going to take a look at shoulder mobility. As you
can see, he presents with great shoulder mobility with no real compensations to
get that backside swing of the arms. This larger movement of the arms is more
typically seen in sprinters as one of the purposes for this arm swing are to
counteract the high rotational forces produced from the legs during sprinting
to stabilize the body to maintain a relatively straight path when running.
Finally, moving up to the head, there is nothing really unique going on here. He's
got great focus and maintains a neutral position as he runs.
Doing so reduces load on the head to make it easier for the neck muscles
to maintain it relatively stabilized during running. I use the term "relatively"
because natural running does come with some head movement... maybe not so much
with forward and backward movement, but rather the side-to-side movement of the
head as the body shifts its weight from one side to the other... And that's it for
the quick analysis on Noah Lyles. I hope you guys enjoyed the video! If you did,
I'd love if you subscribe or follow me for future content! For next week, I will
be sharing a running analysis based on one of my followers/subscribers. It
will be pretty interesting as some of you may relate to that runner and will
find ways to apply that information to your own running... so stay tuned! Anyway as
always, THANK YOU FOR WATCHING!!!!