Feel yourself in the air, a glider, at each jump. No hurrying to the landing in your mind. No trying to feel forward push. Feel the feeling that, "I am jumping, I am flying." By accident you will also be running forward, but not be heel striking; you will be floating up in your jumps for enough time for your other foot to land mid foot. Jump higher than needed for each step, and with time, after getting used to the feeling of becoming airborne with each step, you will fine tune your jumps up to just the right height needed for the stride length that day. Your arm swings will help gain altitude with each jump. Pushing is for walking; jumping is for running.
Don’t jump higher than you need for each step. No, don’t do that. You actually don’t need to try to push off harder or jump higher. Simply by an ever so slightly lean forward, you naturally will go faster until your legs can’t produce enough power, at which point you were at a maximum speed. It’s just about producing force into the ground quicker. And strength, power, employ metric training is a great way to do that.
I've watched 100s of videos on running technique. This is by far the best explanation. Watch it to save yourself from injury and enjoy running success.
Finally, I understand why weight lifting and fast paced HIIT workouts shaved a minute a mile off for me, with less running. I guess it's time to add some of that back into my routine.
@immortal5812 You don't know my needs. I can only refer you to the fastest people in history, their coaches, and what the top performers do. I know what we were taught and how we performed. What I teach and how they perform. I wouldn't go at it without weights unless I was middle-aged and just trying to stay in shape.
I've been thinking about this for a few days. To jump, you need toe off. So to run, you lean forward, lift your leg, and toe off. Ryan Flagtery, coach of NFL players, and Olympians says he can calculate your 40 to 10k time with 99% accuracy based on your "Force Number.". He initially calculated this with a force measuring treadmill & weight, but found the trap bar lift correlates exactly. The person with the highest ever recorded Force Number is Husain Bolt. This is all about how strongly you can push off and your weight ... strength to weight ratio. Jumping is toe off, not levitation.
Yup. It's about power. Running speed is a measure of how much power you put in to the ground. But "PUSHING" off with your toes implies that you're pushing forward off of the ground, laterally. That's 100% untrue. The force is VERTICAL. Straight up and down completely. The forward momentum in running is due to falling forward, but your legs simple produce a vertical force. This is why you can run over ice if you have good form. The force is vertical.
Thanks for sharing this. Eye opening. And here I thought that power was the better metric (power = force * velocity). Of course, force is sitting there in plain sight. I have just been listening to coaches who de-emphasize lifting for a number of reasons. Flaherty’s reliance on data appears to cut through the fog and debate. Now to keep safety in mind. The risks of spinal loading are to be taken seriously.
Hey bro, love the videos!! Quick question, will sprint training twice a week increase or maintain my jumping ability with age? Can I cut out jump rope for this? Thank you in advance for all the value that you provide!
Great video that I’ve ever watched. Some TH-cam coaches say that we have to push off or push back horizontally to move forward. I did try the push-back in my 10k race yesterday, and the result was terrible. I was exhausted very early and I ran a whole race like a zombie, pace 4’:15”, very slow for 10k. Thank you very much for a great video!
Wow it makes total sense that acceleration comes from "falling". In marching band, hard drill moves require you to accelerate from rest to 100 instantly, but a common tendency is people will lean into the move early to start the acceleration earlier on a demanding move. Undesirable but we can't break physics. So my understanding now is that we are falling but catching ourselves our legs and jumping up to stay upright, the more vertical force you can produce means the less time it takes for foot to contact ground so you can go faster right? And the reason we don't infinitely accelerate like sonic the hedgehog bc we can't produce enough force in short enough time with legs. I've dealt with calf soleus achilles overuse in the past and today I thought about generating more vertical force while walking with my quads, kind of like stomping the ground, I felt the impact much more balanced between my achilles and knees. Thank you for this insightful video!
Always great videos and explanations 🙌 I follow your videos and put a lot of stuff in my running training , thank you for your work 🙌 Next level is talking about the rotation that’s happening while you « jump »with one foot 😃 That’s almost why you are doing your example with two feet 👣 because with one foot you have to rotate to keep your balance and strength. When you Alternate the foot, you need to use your hips. So you have to had the rotation in the explanation. If you start with your foot, it supinate on landing and pronate when you put weights on it. That way, the metatarsals are the last part of the foot to touch the ground. 👍 The tibia and femur have to internally rotate when going in extension, while your other femur have to externally rotate to flex (hip/knee ) so your hip can move…and your sacrum,lower back and obliques can be active without being rigid 😃 That way you can breathe easily because your diaphragm is in good position relative to your pelvic floor. (Rib cage relative to pelvis.) …this is more difficult to explain 🤪 but I am sure that you can figure it out 🙌 Continue your great work. Nb: my explanation is not perfect… it’s just to add ideas and it is more complex than just jumping while leaning forward ☺️
I wonder how this relates to the advice I was given: not to push off of the ground when I run, but just pick up my heels quicker, leading to shorter and quicker strides, utilizing larger muscle groups to do the same action, so my legs fatigue less quickly.
The picking up your heels quicker comment, is a comment I don't understand. How would that even work. Try standing on one leg (which is what happens during running when you land and push off - that's why it is running and not fast walking) and just pull your heel without pushing off first and see how that propulses you forward. It obviously won't, you will just fall. The only reason you can pull your heel while running is because your center of mass is already moving upwards. The force generation to move it upwards has already happend. If you manage to generate this force very efficiently (in the shortest amount of time possible as close under your center of mass as possible), your heel will come of the ground more quickly. So in my opinion, the heel comming quickly of the ground is a result of good running form.
@@bertvanhoofstat7700 I believe the idea is that pushing off with your toes uses calves while picking heels up (pulling your foot backwards) uses hamstrings, giving calves more time for recovery. It can propel you because there is weight on your foot and therefore your shoe has traction. It won't just slip from under you. I don't think it's meant to contribute significantly to propulsion, I do think it's more about sparing calves and transferring more work to hamstrings.
Thanks for explaining the mechanics of running. Running is a vertical jump while falling forward. When I run at speed >6 mph, it does feel like skipping on the leg. By this reasoning, skipping and jumping jacks should serve as good drills for running. There may be another component of motion: the backward-upward kicking of the foot then swaying it forward while the leg is curled. It generates a net forward momentum. The swaying is asymmetrical backward and forward, like rowing with a paddle. The fast runners kick high backward.
Spot on Kenneth! Yes it's a vertical jump with forward momentum. It's hard to conceptualize at first, but it's essential to understand if you want to improve stride mechanics. Yes skipping and jumping jacks are good plyometric drills for sure. If your goal is to increase elastic return and muscle stiffness (which is a good thing). The swinging leg does NOT create a net forward momentum. Recall that "with every action is an equal and opposite reaction". So there is an equivalent backward motion with the opposite hip. You can't throw yourself forward, you instead just fall forward and catch yourself. Fast runners kick up high on their carry-through because when the leg is far back (like it is when running very fast) it takes less energy to swing the leg forward with a very bent knee. It's just physics. like a pendulum. a pendulum will swing faster if you pull the mass up towards the center. So pulling the foot closer to the center just costs less energy to flex the hip. Awesome observation. Thank you for the great post!
@@runelitecoach Interesting point about how high leg carry-through means swinging the leg forward uses less energy, or happens faster, like what happens with a pendulum.
@@runelitecoachswinging the leg forward does induce an equal and opposite reaction. That’s why the foot that is planted on the ground needs to be planted on the ground. So, if your planted foot stays put (as it should, this is why runners wear spikes), the swinging of the leg up does indeed aid in forward momentum. This is why sprinters spend time training hip flexor strength and power specifically. Faster leg drive is faster sprinting. It’s why sprinting and jogging usually look very different for most people
Do you think runners who lean forward at the waist or shoulders may be lacking ankle flexibility? Just a thought. I have a bunch of patients who can't seem to stand up straight to run and this video made me think of that. Just curious if you have any insight. Thanks. Great video.
That’s possible. But not likely. The ankle mobility required to just run at an easy pace isn’t great. We’re talking just a few degrees of lean for a slow jog. But you did say that your patients had trouble standing straight, in that case it’s still not their ankles if STANDING straight is an issue. More likely an issue along the spine somewhere or possibly hips
I had to give up the toe push off about 14 years ago, in late 50's. Ok, impossible but had to work more oon upper leg strength. Basically no longer a racer except for a couple of trail races. Had to tske the long view. 72 now and hanging in there and even slower. Knee issues, psoas syndrome.
This info was super helpful 👏 I'm trying to figure out why some taller ironman runners like Sam laidlow and jan frodeno look like they're running upright
This great stuff, deep explanations. This is the kind of stuff that is great to finally be able to comprehend with a good breakdown, that begins to finally make sense, and affect not just the basics of the training plan, but my entire mindset and approach to running. Thank you!
Welcome. So glad you liked it. If you like the tips in these videos, you’ll love the Run Elite book. If you get it, let me know and I’ll put you in the thank you credit role on our next videos.
Dude has great form, but I'd shave that beard off, I mean why young people wanna look like 90 years old? Also, I'm betting that just by saving it off you can get few sec per mile faster.. :)))
Some of what he was trying to say makes sense, but there is toe off and the lean in max velocity sprinting isn't a high component as in Acceleration. Wfhen the top sprinters of all time there is some lean but not much. Toe off is definitely happening though it has to take place in order for fast sprinting. When he does his little jumps in you can see the toe off to propel him up.
Exactly. The toe off propels you “up” Sprinters do lean more than distance runners. You can’t run fast without leaning forward. It is the one metric that is cause and effect with running. Granted the lean is slight. We’re not talking a 20 degree lean here. It’s always a moderate lean And yes lean is big during acceleration because you MUST lean forward in order to accelerate. But it’s a bit artificial. If a runner were to stand still and then jog slowly, progress to a run, and then a sprint they would be leaning ever so more at each phase
Thing is someone that may not know may misinterpret that to mean something extreme. I think there is a great deal of toe off while sprinting. Your video says DON'T PUSH OFF WITH YOUR TOES that will be confusing to some. The last thing to leave the ground is your toes which means there is toe off to help get off the ground. The force production is correct and the small vertical jump is correct. There can be some misleading info that's all I was saying
Ha ha, I hear you boss. Yes, don’t try to extend your stride. As your muscles become stronger, and more powerful, your stride will extended because of the additional ground covered, and your leg may extend more, but putting your leg out in front of you is not a good idea.
This was the answer I was looking for! I could only run faster by increasing my cadence (200+) and I know this isn't proper. I need more strength! Thank you
I didn't know you existed, explaining the jump that is running. New: Do plyometric jump training to improve ability to jump fast and varying jump heights. Jump rope for endurance in fast twitch activation.
When I get calf injuries, I can still skip and jump rope but not run. Biomechanics of the foot plant and the kinetic chain seem to be the process for this common, painful, run-stopping problem.. Any thoughts that are in keeping with this discussion?
It could be that you’re engaging your soleus more when you’re running, and your Gastro more when you’re more upright with a straighter knee. So the issue might be in your soleus It could also be that when you’re running your starting from a Dorsiflexed position, So in short, this is likely a biome mechanical thing. Both are evaluating you in person I can’t say exactly.
This info is incomplete. Should explain the angle in the knees changing with speed and with the lenght of stride plus the height of heel motion. Plus the work of hands. Plus breathing with the diaphragm.
From that point of view, most videos are incomplete. The purpose of these videos is to focus on one thing, explain it, and do the rest on another video. otherwise people complain that videos are too long, or too confusing. I do have longer for videos as well. And a full free webinar, and an extensive training course that covers all the bases. This is one single TH-cam video.
Fun and very complex topic. I think the trick for a coach is to cue the mechanics without having the athletes overthink it. The foot and ankle complex is also critical: where the rubber meets the road.
Excellent explanation, well done. But why is also the gluteus maximus often mentioned as a very important muscle group for running? Also involved in vertical jump?
The Gluteus maximus extends the hip, which is required for running, and for jumping. The only other way to move forward would be to use only your calves and knees, which wouldn't work out so well. The glutes are one of, if not THE, most important muscle groups for jumping and running. Imagine trying to jump without moving your hips...it wouldn't work so well, so yes the glutes are very important Thanks
A couple of things I wanted to point out. Firstly, if running is a vertical jump, why shouldn’t you push of with your toes anyways? I mean, you do push off with your toes in a vertical jump too, so I don’t really see the logic there. Secondly, if everything you explain in the video is true, and I think it is, then it’s actually impossible to run just by pushing of with the toes, you are going to be leaning forward you want it or not, otherwise you wouldn’t be even moving, so what’s the point of stating something that you can’t even avoid doing? Also, wouldn’t it be more correct to say that running is a series of unilateral broad jumps? Since a broad jump is basically a vertical jump with a lean, but then again the leaning part seems to be what actually makes the difference when running.
A broad jump still uses exclusively vertical force when you contract your leg. That’s why Runners take a running start in order to gain horizontal, momentum, and the faster they run the further they will jump, provided that they also provide a maximal vertical force on takeoff. In regards to your comment about jumping straight up, Sure you’re engaging your toes, but in the vertical direction. It’s the same when you run. Most people think that you’re literally pushing horizontally off the ground, which is under and was most of the point of this video.
@@matriaxpunkYou have to eliminate the parts to understand; if you had no toes, you would fall over but pushing horizontal with your toes would only encourage not telegraphing your landing thus pushing off on your toes continually and then having to forcibly land on your heels promoting ‘heel toe’ step; what I believe he advocates for is, yes your toes are your landing stabilizers but not your stride propulsion, ergo your stride propulsion is your lean_ wash, rinse repeat but keep your toes curled at ALL TIMEZ!! 🤓
Yea I think dude still gave me a lot of perspective on running, but a vertical jump with a lean is not vertical. Once you lean it seems like my vertical jump turns into a horizontal push of the ground. I also thought that you jump higher if you yous your toes.
@@CalebArcherMuayThai The poster goes about all too quick but if you judge by his comparative analogies, running down hill or uphill, those are the key comparatives; if you run uphill you lean but in timing ⏱ with your vertical jump, your toes only stabilize your landing and vertical, wash rinse repeat, same with your downhill run, which he indicates, and the physics don’t lie, you can only jump higher while you run down hill, if you even dare to lunge forward, you’re doomed, let alone push off with your toes 🤷♂️🎁
Actually, anyone who has run on a cinder track in the rain knows that you DO push backward with your feet (through hip extension and subsequent flexion of the knee during the swing phase). That's why your butt, the backs of your legs, and the back of your sweatshirt are covered with dirt when you get home.
Hmm because that mud on your back had to travel UP from the ground right? Sounds vertical And shaking mud off of your foot when it’s behind you has nothing to do with force you out in to the ground. Sorry man your debunk has been debunked
@@runelitecoach Oh please. Show me a world-class sprinter who has no butt. You can't, of course. Top sprinters are fast because they extend powerfully from the hips and push the ground behind them. That's why they're always pulling their hamstrings. For example, watch a video of Letsile Tebogo, the gold medallist in the 200 meters in Paris. You'll see that once he's out of his drive phase, his torso is perfectly erect; there's no forward lean whatsoever. So he gets all his forward movement from powerful hip extension. Sure, there's SOME vertical displacement, but he's not trying to win the high jump.
The net, whole-body, leaning part, only applies during initial acceleration. Once up to steady pace, you are, modulo the tiniest amount of air resistance at distance running speeds for non cheetahs, literally just bouncing straight up and down. While letting existing momentum conservation carry you forward undisturbed. In fact: The harder you try to push off horizontally behind you to run faster, the more you overstride in front of you, until the braking momentum from the overstride; again modulo air resistance; exactly cancels out the acceleration momentum from the horizontal push off. Were it not so, you would, in fact, be accelerating. Not maintaining steady state. But, but... can't everyone see that runners are, in fact, leaning forward? Yes, they can. Runners do. At the ankles, and hips. But also, crucially, they are leaning backwards at the knees. The latter exactly compensating for the formers, wrt center of mass vs center of support (midfoot) placement. Runners do this for biomechanical reasons. Not solid-body physics reasons: People are not stiff, straight logs with pistons moving straight in and out at the bottom. Instead, they are segmented stick figures: A collection of levers stacked on top of each other, with flexible joints at their join-points. And with muscles and tendons powering and controlling how those levers move in relation to eachother. If one is standing straight up with no lean anywhere, one can not jump straight up (even trying to just use calves, will shift center of support forward from midfoot, causing one to fall backward). Instead: In order to jump vertically, your body's levers have to do some folding. The way joints are arranged, this is done by leaning forward at the ankle, stretching calves and achilles. While leaning backwards at the knee, stretching quads and patellar tendons. And by leaning forward at the hips, stretching hamstrings and glutes and erectors. Sum total: You are being compressed vertically. But, again crucially, only vertically. There is no net lean from center of ground-support to center of mass. Just a vertical lowering of center of mass. By way of levers being bent backwards and forwards such that net center-of-mass dislocation is zero horizontally, but downwards vertically. Then: Muscle power input, and tendon stretch rebound effects, reverses, and supercompensates, for this vertical compression. Such that you jump. Straight up. Then (Remember you are already moving forward, hence carrying forward momentum): This purely vertical jump does not affect horizontal momentum. Hence your forward momentum, and hence speed, remains undisturbed by your vertical jump. Resulting in your existing forward momentum, despite you just jumping straight up, still landing ahead of where you were when you jumped. Such that you continue forward at the same steady pace. Despite putting in no net forward, just vertical, power. When you see some runners leaning more than others, it's mostly at the hip. People's individual differences in tendon attachments, limb length proportions, distribution of mass across the body, differing power in different muscles and elasticity of tendons etc., means some benefit more than others from a greater forward lean. Unusually long calves in relation to upper body, can require greater bend at hips, in order to fully stretch and utilize ankle/achilles stretch reflexes, for example. But, biomechanics aside, the gist is: Efficient steady state running at distance running paces, consists of bouncing up and down vertically, with as little horizontal power input as possible. Any forward power put in is, simply as a result of momentum conservation, necessarily negated by an opposite and equal amount of rearward power. In run-speak: The harder you try to push of backwards on takeoff, the more you will, guaranteed, overstride-hence-brake on landing. None of which contributes to neither efficiency nor freedom from injury.
Runners aren’t leaning backward at the knee. The knee doesn’t even hyperextend. It flexes. We lean forward at the ankles, correct. I agree completely that the force is vertical not horizontal. Most like to argue that and glad to hear you understand the biomechanics. Thanks for watching
@@runelitecoach When you flex at the knee, you lean backwards..... It's easy to experience on skis in skiboots. In non-locked-down footwear, you'll compensate by increased forward lean at the ankle, in order not to fall backwards. I forgot to include a fourth "joint." More of a virtual joint than an anatomic one. But still a pivot: The one at your foot. Runners also "lean backwards" at the ball of the foot. In order to make use of the achilles and calf, in practice: The net center of force applied to the ground is not exactly at the static middle of the foot, as if your leg terminated at a mathematical point. But rather slightly ahead. (Complicating visuals is that force may; often does, and most often probably should; start being applied behind the midfoot, then as your center of mass moves forward and the ankle extends, the part of the foot applying force to the ground shifts forward. But regardless, it nets out to somewhere in front of the midfoot.) So, for completeness: You compress vertically as a four-section accordion bellow. Foot and thigh leaning backwards, calf and upper body leaning forwards. Or, arranged by pivot/joint instead of limb: Foot and knee lean backwards, ankle and hip lean forwards. Then the bellow decompresses and springs back. Straight up.
I have just started to teach myself how to sprint - I do a lot of calisthenics but was disappointed to find out my 40 yard dash was 5.90.. Been watching a lot of videos on technique but noone explains WHY it's important to not bend over at the hips and why it is important to have high knees and to "punch" the ground.. This video finally quenched my thirst for understanding. Thank you!
I see what you're saying. And your recommendations to train strength followed by power sound totally sensible and useful. Furthermore, cueing runners to think upwards rather than forward might well help them improve form and performance. But I'm still puzzled by theoretical aspects. From empirical observation, if there's no horizontal force component, why is it faster to sprint in spikes? Friction should play no role at all, it should be just as fast to run on ice as on a track, and improved grip by using spikes should also make no difference. From a physics point of view, for a mass to move in a direction, there *must* be a force applied in that direction. So even to "just lean", i.e. move the c. of g. forward, there must be a horizontal component of force initiating the lean, presumably supplied by some combination of muscle contractions. Then there's the equal and opposite force that has to exist c.f. Newton's laws of motion, which would be where friction enters the equation. So even without deliberately pushing backwards, for forward motion to happen, there must be horizontal forces *somewhere* in the system. Am I wrong? Can a mass really accelerate in a direction without any component of force in that direction?
Good question. You FALL forward and you don’t hit the ground because you put your foot under you. You only move forward because you’re falling forward on a pendulum. When the pendulum swings forward because you have learned forward and are in contact with the ground, you move forward. Think of this. You can run in place and jump up and down straight. To move forward the thing that changes is simply that you lean forward and fall forward. If you had a skyscraper standing still and you blew out one side of the bottom it would also FALL on a rotation and the top of would land many many feet away from the base. It didn’t produce a horizontal force. It just fell forward on a pendulum Sprinters wear spikes in large part because they use blocks and start fully leaned forward before they have accumulated any speed. Distance runners don’t need spikes.
@@runelitecoach I totally get what you're saying about dropping forward and then getting one's feet underneath. The bit I'm getting at is that the "falling forward" stage requires a horizontal input of some kind. If one just lets oneself fall, one winds up in a heap vertically downward. The lean forward is where the horizontal component is introduced. Must admit bodies are complicated because of the interplay of muscles, so I can't exactly place all the vectors involved. The skyscraper with its bottom blown out: I would have to think through that carefully but there are rotational forces which resolve into vertical and horizontal components, and then there are the shear and tensile strengths of the material which would control exactly how it falls...Pendulums are definitely not one dimensional, you've brought back dim memories of simple harmonic motion in maths class... Anyway, I would be *very* interested if any actual physicists could explain forward movement without any component of horizontal force. I'm just a geophysicist so my study subjects don't move that fast... But thank you for your time and you've certainly given me something to think about.
I wonder if the leaning is why quadriped animals (essentially leaning 90 degrees) are mostly faster than us. All jokes aside, does this mean I should actually have my torso pointing into the ground like 3-5 degrees during the lean instead of straight ahead like most people say with running form?
You must lean forward so your center of mass is in front of your base of support, otherwise you’ll just stand there. The lean CAN come from anywhere but SHOULD ideally come from your ankle. So yes your torso is slightly turned toward the ground. But it’s so slight that you barely notice. It’s just enough so that you’re falling over forward.
6:05 Do we actually jump though? I feel like I don't jump when I run but rather I extend my hips and lift my feet up, zero pushing down, zero jump. To jump you need to apply force to the ground but I'm not sure maybe I do jump it just feels like I lift my legs and put them back down, sort of pulling the ground away from me. Also isn't it mostly our glutes that we use not our calves and feet? Our glutes are biggest strongest muscles which fatigue the least. Most people do get injured from the horizontal forces of running, that's why if you run barefoot you avoid those horizontal forces which tear up your foots skin
Yes it’s a jump that’s why there’s a vertical oscillation. You are indeed pushing in to the ground. That’s why you hit the ground with a multiple of your body weight which can easily be measured with a force plate
So would you say trying to ,,hit” the ground when ur in the air is a wrong cue? Should we just wait till we land on the ground and then push up, most coaches say put ur feet down aggressively
Trying to hit the ground while you’re in the air doesn’t seem to make sense. You’d have to wait until your foot is able to contact the ground. I mean you can use whatever queue you want, whatever works for you, as long as you’re landing, close to your center of mass, you’ll be good
@@runelitecoach yea thanks it always confused me like how am I supposed to ,,hit” the ground aggressively while I’m in the air it seems to stop me each stride instead of propelling me forward you have to wait till you land idk what these coaches are thinking
If you jump with the lean then it is not a vertical jump anymore - you apply force to the ground under the leaning angle. Also, if running is jumping then you should consider running without moving legs back and forth. I'd like to see how can it be done. Moreover, you can do you racewalking without really "vertical jumping" (as claimed impossible in this video). In this case, you apply force to the ground using the torque generated by the leg glute. In this case, the counter-torque should be applied to the core to avoid toppling back. This is what you do moving another leg in the opposite direction, i.e. forward (and generating angular momentum in it).
Nope. Sorry. The force you apply is perpendicular to the ground. It’s a vertical force while moving forward. The torque you’re talking about is in the body. The force applied to the ground is vertical. Your torque force doesn’t make you run. It moves your limbs. But unless you push in to the ground you won’t go anywhere. And that push is… straight in to the ground opposite the normal force
@@runelitecoach but... our bodies still obey the laws of mechanics. When we start motion, our bodies must endure acceleration according to the 2nd law of Newton. Acceleration is caused by an uncompensated force, which defines the direction of the resulting velocity of the body. Thus, if only vertical forces were applied to us, we would be only able to move vertically as well. This is how mechanics works and we can't just step it over. All objects around us obey that, so we are in the good company here. However, while we run steadily with a constant speed, the first law of Newton can be applied to our bodies, meaning that total forces and torques applied to us is zero. If we pump out the air, there will be no horizontal forces between us and the environment anymore. This is the situation, when the force model presented by you holds.
Vertical force is applied to the ground. You move forward because you’re falling forward on a pendulum because your foot is connected to the ground. A skyscraper could fall over and land two hundred feet away from where it was. And it was only downward force. It was simply in a pendulum attached to the ground
No, running is NOT strictly a "muscular event." The cardiovascular system also plays a critical role (of course). That's why training increases your cardiac stroke volume and max VO2, for example.
…of course it’s not “only” a muscular event. But it’s first and foremost a muscular event. The metabolic systems simply fuel the working muscles. You could say it’s a weather event too because in a tornado you fly up. But that’s ridiculous because it’s clearly not the most important aspect. Sorry man your debunk was debunked
@@runelitecoach "The metabolic systems simply fuel the working muscles." Exactly. And without fuel, the muscles are fairly useless. So it's actually aerobic metabolism that's "first and foremost" in distance running. But of course biomechanical efficiency and power are important for fast distance running.
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@@runelitecoach Do you know what I have to to avoid the Sludge, I have to play-it at 2.0 SPEED; if I don’t, I can’t keep-up. I have no problem with your content; it’s “fine-tuned” to my affinity!! 🤓
Yes. But that’s literally the “faster” you can run, ie sprint. But since any distance run can be a percentage of sprint speed it helps most distances. That’s why long jumpers are also good sprinters.
When I run at my 100% the last 100 meters after my run I feel a massive weight over my legs, the force doesnt come from the horizontal axe but vertical, definitely vertical.
Why do all these TH-cam track coaches say to sprint with your body upright 90 degrees to the ground? All of em. You're the only one I've seen who says to lean forward. Running upright didn't make sense to me, so I Googled "running physics" and of course you're right. Can't even walk without shifting your body mass forward. Then I found that Usain Bolt had an 18 degree average forward lean during his record breaking 9.58 sec 100M. Geez. Subbed.
It’s not possible to sprint, or even run with your body 90° to the ground. If your body is 90° to the ground you are standing upright. In order to move forward, you have to fall forward and lean has to come from somewhere. It’s not physically possible to be at 90° to the ground.
@@runelitecoach thank you for taking the time to read my comment! I have a question following up this discussion. Is it fair to say that leaning causes acceleration, and if you were to stay perfectly 90 degrees to the ground mid-run you would succumb to air resistance and breaking forces (due to imperfect technique) and come to a stop? And that during normal running, we are in a balanced state of leaning forward to counteract breaking forces and air resistance, and not leaning to maintain the current velocity? This is super fascinating, I can definitely use this knowledge to get back into training and hopefully injury free!
If you think that’s crazy, imagine what your high school science teacher would tell you about friction, and how leaning forward and producing vertical thrust in a frictionless environment would put you flat on your face on the ground. Friction is micro walls. Leverage via friction is what generates horizontal thrust. Without friction and horizontal thrust, you would slip and fall on your face. Cars don’t acquire horizontal motion by leaning or through vertical thrust. They acquire it through friction that produces forward thrust. I’m a trained sprinter. This TH-camr doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Good stuff and all makes sense. I have seen some Kneesovertoes videos where they highly recommend nordics and have several athletes whose sprint times improved significantly when they added nordics into their weight lifting in addition to squats, calf raises, and Romanian dead lifts. Thoughts?
Running is mostly quads calves and glutes all of which fire to raise the body vertically from flexed to extended. That’s why they’re the biggest muscles in the body, to walk and run
As a physicist, please let me add my view. The analogy of running on ice is a little bit misleading. Say the ice has no friction at all, you would have to start with some speed or momentum gained on a different surface. With good form you could continue on the ice, but you would slow down because of air resistance that you cannot compensate. That resistance is also there when running on a road, meaning you must apply some forward thrust continually in order not to lose speed. How do you do that? Imagine balancing a cardboard strip on your fingertip. If you want to move it forward, you must pull your finger backwards a bit, then follow its motion. If there were no air resistance, you could keep the stick moving endlessly by remaining vertically under it. But WITH air resistance your force must take a different angle. It must point forward a bit, while remaining behind the centre of gravity. The same applies to running. It means you are not exactly pushing downwards (as in parallel to gravity), but a little backwards as well. The counter force arrow goes from your point of ground contact to your centre of gravity, which must be slightly in front to be able to create that forward thrust. Hence the jump is not exactly vertical. It must be a little forward as well, or else you couldn't make up for air resistance. You are trying to push your centre of mass forward and upward. This means you must adapt your running form to the prevailing air resistance, which is influenced by your speed and sometimes quite a lot by wind. It also means that your running form on a treadmill is different, as you don't need to compensate anything. All your effort can go into the 100% vertical jump. That makes treadmill running a little easier. No surprise my heart rate is about 5-8 beats lower and I can run farther. The title of the video should therefore be Running on a Treadmill is a Vertical Jump.
Good points. I’ll reply to a couple of them here. Running on ice has minimal friction, but of course there is still some friction. If we truly had a zero friction model, then we wouldn’t be able to move much at all. So running on ice is a perfect analogy. Of course we require some friction to actually be able to stand up Without instantly falling over. But the fact that one can run on ice highlights that Running) is a vertical force not a horizontal force. The example you made about holding a stick of cardboard, that’s a very good analogy, thank you for that. And just as in order to get the cardboard to move forward, you would have to pull the center of mass out from under it, with Running you simply lean forward every so slightly at the ankles. Yes, that requires friction between your foot and the ground, but it is ever so slight. It’s only the amount of friction needed to lean forward perhaps a centimeter. But even with that cardboard strip, they would either fall flat over or to keep it pitched at a small degree. The cardboard would have to either grow wheels, or grow legs. The analogy for a runner is obviously to grow legs. And what would those legs do? They would provide a vertical force, otherwise the cardboard would be laying flat on its belly almost immediately But we’re not talking about circular cows in a vacuum. You know that saying? Of course I’m not saying that there is no friction whatsoever involved or that there is no horizontal force whatsoever involved. But the vast majority, virtually all of the force is vertical horizontal motion comes from , falling due to the force of gravity on a pendulum, being that our foot is anchored to the ground in contact with the ground. That’s it.
@@runelitecoach Sorry I need to contradict your idea of having to have some ground friction on ice to be able to stay vertical, when moving or not. You can stand on grass without making use of friction and not fall over. When standing or running on ice with zero friction and zero air resistance all you need to do is keep your centre of mass right over your ground contact area. As there is no force pushing you over, you won't fall. If air resistance or wind comes into play, we need to look at where it occurs on your body. The air stream pushes on every square inch exposed to it, and because our body is not exactly box shaped, the resulting force is most likely not aligned with our centre of mass, causing our body to tilt around it and fall. To counteract that, we would need some ground friction, and move our centre of mass slightly outside of our contact area (forward if more wind is caught by the upper body, but backwards if more wind is caught by the lower body). Going back on land, the amount of leaning required to compensate wind effects is exactly the same, and therefore the amount of compensatory force by pushing backwards (and not only upwards) is exactly the same. Your point that it is very little is absolutely correct and that is the core news of the video. But it is not zero, and therefore the jump is not precisely vertical. What I do when running is try to develop a feeling of my jump being right "through my centre of mass". So I am pressing straight against it. Anything else would disturb my balance, need compensatory movements and therefore be less efficient. The angle required to do so depends on three factors: the slope of the terrain, the wind resistance, and my intention to change my speed. That means my running form changes all the time but not my feeling.
IMO you can find more efficiency if you push off with your foot by switching activation of muscle groups which is important if you're a long distance runner.
I hear what you’re saying, but the logic doesn’t add up. I mean you could do a bicep curl, while you’re running and recruit different muscles, but it doesn’t mean it’ll help you’re running. Pushing off with your toes is not advantageous. Do not trying to muscle through anything, like running in the sand. If you wanna go faster, you simply lean forward every so slightly more, and therefore your required to produce force into the ground more quickly.
Running is a vertical sport, not a horizontal one. You can practice running on the same exact spot on a treadmill. You either run using elastic recoil and optimise stride length without pushing proactively, or you'll have to extend your leg and push off.
I mean relative to laying flat he’s “almost straight up”. But he’s leaned forward for sure. If you try to stand straight upright and run (go try it now) you won’t move anywhere. You can’t move forward unless you learn forward. Not possible
@runelitecoach you can literally lean backward and still move forward if you have strong stabilizer muscles. The acceleration of running comes from increases in horizontal forces (friction) between your shoe and the ground. You go faster when wearing light, grippy shoes, not from shoes with more vertical cushion/spring.
ok, but the existence of running spikes is a counterpoint to your argument that running is only a vertical jump. Spikes would serve no purpose on a vertical motion. I get your point, but I believe there's also a horizontal vector, not just the vertical vector in running. Displacement wouldn't be possible without friction, and vertical motion only requires what's called normal force, or ground reaction force
Spikes are used for sprinters out of the blocks because they start horizontally. They make no difference for distance runners provided that it’s good conditions on the surface.
@@runelitecoach spikes are also used in the 5000, and they don't start on blocks. As I said, you also need friction for traction, otherwise you wouldn't move. On ice, there's less friction (but not zero), that's why it's harder to run on ice, but not impossible, again, because there's friction, and friction leads to traction
I'd put it that running is a vertical jump with the ground moving. In fact this is exactly what it is on a treadmill, and the mechanics are (almost) exactly the same in a moving inertial frame. I say 'almost' because air resistance changes it slightly: it means the jump has to be slightly tilted forwards (which gravity is vertical the combination of gravity and the much smaller force of air resistance is slightly tilted). And hills are very similar - the perpendicular to the ground being rotated while keeping gravity the same is identical to the ground staying flat and the direction of gravity being rotated. If you know what air resistance is, you can work out the equivalent slope. For emphasis when moving at constant speed on the flat, the (small) lean is solely to cope with air resistance. Otherwise a lean causes acceleration. which you want to _change_ speed but not to maintain speed.
The ground doesn’t move when you go out for a run. Running) is a vertical jump with a forward lean, where your falling forward due to gravity on a pendulum.
Newtonian physics is the same in any inertial frame - i.e. what matters is the _relative_ movement of the ground to you (whether it is a treadmill band or the road). The net force on an object (the runner) moving at constant speed is zero (Newton's laws). That is why if there were no air resistance, at constant speed the jumping is vertical in the sense that the (vector average) force exerted on the ground is vertical, to balance the vertical force due to gravity. Air resistance adds a (typically small) horizontal force, so the total force (gravity + air resistance) is tilted slightly, and to run at constant speed requires a similar opposing force on the ground - a forward lean, so the average force on the ground is tilted a little. Any more forward lean causes acceleration. Regarding the treadmill being the same except for air resistance, a similar example (with added air resistance!) is running down a train that is moving the same (constant) speed in the opposite direction (the floor of the train takes the place of the belt of the treadmill). To the runner, it's the same as if the train is standing still, and the same as running on the ground, despite the train moving in a way that means you are stationary relative to the ground. Discussions like this have made me feel like making a video on this (and the extension to running on hills and treadmill slopes). Your example of running on ice also merits analysis. Biophysics in general is fun!
Love that train analogy… makes sense of a subject which is hard for many to grasp. I’ll borrow it next time someone tries to tell me that running on a treadmill is completely different biomechanics compared to running off treadmill
Is it possible it's because there is snow attached to the shoe that you are then throwing up behind you? The foot still cycles and has things attached to it, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're swiping it back.
There’s also a rotational component to the snowshoes. They don’t necessarily have to be pushing off horizontally, but the simple rotation of the shoe would kick up Snow as well. The vast majority of the force put into the ground when you’re running, is vertical snowshoes or not
you shoud say running is more a vetical jump than a horizontal push. You still need traction between your feet and the ground to make you go forward.If there is no traction at all, you would fall flat on your face when you lean forward.
@@runelitecoachis that really true though? That doesn't make sense. It’s def more overall horizontal force otherwise you’de moving forward very slowly. I like how your suggestion challenges some preconceptions but I don’t understand the stance of it’s all vertical force since just not true. The same case is made by other coach for horizontal motion and using glutes a bit more and being less bouncy and there is truth in that from trying to incorporate it for a week now. I feel like it's a mix of both. Would be cool to have you and horizontal running TH-camr on a podcast or videos. Forgot his name - he’s all about push with the tush
Glutes extend the hip which is in alignment with a vertical jump. Hamstrings are more relevant for sprinters than distance runners because of the large range of motion and actively decelerating the leg during the front of the swing phase. For distance runners hamstring issues are rare unless they’re overstriding
Just a vertical. You only move horizontally because you’re falling forward. Your center of mass goes over your toes and therefore you fall forward, but the force that you place into the ground is vertical.
@@Amtcboy I actually cant blv he is trying to claim there is no horizontal forces applied or there is no "push". Have you ever tried to do a vertical jump without pushing through the ground? You wont jump very high.
The force is the same no matter the speed. Force will be determined by your body weight and how far you move. Force is the same over a mile for a given person regardless of the pace. Power increases will improve the time to cover said distance
I haven't heard it talked about but i bet the benefit of lots of slow miles is about developing foot placement awareness or something. if foot too far forward back left or right then all sorts of weird forces going through ur body and have to fight against each random one an off placed foot strike produced to then move you forward. The more slow km you do ur Practicing coordination all the muscles from ur neck down to coordinate where that foot lands relative to your centre of gravitity at that moment in time when the foot strikes and is loaded on the ground. more perfectlly just behind centre of gravity will have a lot less random forces to contend with that aren't directed forward. PS i said neck as its the heaviest thing furthest from ur feet. if move head a little like a cheatahs tail it moves the rest of you like a battle rope sort of wave to ur foot. Ok i'm talking my self into doing the Maffetone method with ur 8 second sprints every 5 to 10 minutes haha thank you. I have your book Run Elite"and the fitzgerald and Brad Hudson book on the wish list as well.
You could call that part of “running economy” in which case yes running more will improve running economy. But it’s about more than only footstrike. Although that’s certainly pretty important.
And as soon as you Lean forward, the jump isn't Vertical anymore. It's the horizontal Factor that determines the speed. The problem is that vertical and horizontal isn't a subjective thing. It's always relative to Earth. A Vertical has no horizontal factor. It mustn't have any horizontal movement.
To understand this better, you can run faster with stronger legs, too strong and you'll be hoping up just like when you run on the Moon. You go up and down on the Moon, not dashing on the surface like a cockroach. That's why running is vertical jump.
i like ur explanation how to move forward. i did heavy zercher carry marches for a few sessions and then ran up a hill and i got to the top like it was nothing!! i stopped looked behind me to confirm it was the hill i thought it was. always talking about my self hahah. I think bragging but also reminding my self to go back to things that were successful for me in the past. Also add heel on swiss ball upside down planks? so when lean forward then the swiss ball heel pull exercsie means have the muscles and coordination to bring me back to vertical sort of thing. that leaning whilst bringing my self up is the running??
Then might as well go down too, and back. No not using all your muscles help. That’s a waste of energy. And also you can’t use horizontal force. Not biomechanically possible or remotely efficient
Filthy casual here. But running is not a vertical jump. This description seems close to the Pose method. Sprinting might be a vertical jump off the blocks. More on that below. Pretty sure there's research indicating that Pose method is not more efficient method of running. Double check me on that one. IMHO - Running is similar to the cycling mantra "Pedal in circles. Not in squares". Running is circling your legs and pulling (contracting bicep femoris) your body ahead. Sprinting off the blocks is pure power of jumping to the next step. This differs from the gallop phase of running.
What? This doesn’t make sense. Running) is a vertical jump. The only time when running is not a vertical force. Is when coming off of the blocks. And you’re saying that coming off the blocks is the only time that it’s a vertical jump? That is completely backwards, that’s why blocks are angled forward. And the only reason this is done is because it minimizes the time it takes for an athlete to lean and fall forward. On blocks they’re already forward and so they can minimize that fall time and have a faster start.
@@runelitecoach "Vertical" in the sense of movement perpendicular to the surface that you are positioned on. Off the blocks, you're movement is perpendicular to the surface angle of the block. Jumping on regular ground (race track) is perpendicular to the surface on which you stand. Care to explain "Minimizes the time for an athlete to lean and fall forward"? Seems like the blocks allow the sprinter to propel themselves * horizontally *. Or at least a 45 degree angle to the track (and, again, 90 degrees to the angle of the block). If the sprinter applied as much force as they do in a vertical vector to the track, the sprinter would not move horizontally but they would certainly displace themselves vertically (as in a jump). Also note that "Running is a vertical jump" is conclusory, as a statement. Your video explained your theory. Though I disagree with your theory. Have any actual research to support your claim?
The only thing I would disagree with is that you have to train glutes for a more proficient vertical jump; quads are for strength but power generation of good jumpers is always in the glutes. As a matter fact the bigger your glutes in comparison to your thighs, that tapering of the body if you will generates natural whipping speed. A Glute, similar to shoulders in form and function; if your shoulders are small but your hands or forearms are bigger, will hurt your shoulders but the tapering effect of the larger shoulders as opposed to hands and forearms makes for speedier swimmers. But I digress; glutes are the roots of speed while quads are the bearers of “strength” as it were because of the whipping effect!! 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
Given that we’re comparing the same distance, force and time are the variables we can change. Of course it takes more force to cover a longer distance. Given “one mile” or “one meter” force and time are what we can train
10:25 “power=force/time”… “Running is vertical jumping with forward momentum”… “You cannot run without forward lean”… This was just too much bad physics for me! Whoever listen to this will fail their physics class! Yes, jumping is importance for running, but so is moving your legs back and forth quickly. Moving your legs back and forth maybe even more important. And yes, you can run without leaning forward, even with leaning backwards, just not very fast.
😆 You 100% cannot run leaning backward. Physics man. You can hinge back at your hips but your COG must be forward of your COM or you can’t move. If you lean backward you fall backward unless you push your hips “forward” Running is vertical jumping with forward momentum. Even a long jump in track is still a vertical jump with forward momentum. Assuming we’re not changing the distance, so for a given mile by definition power is work done over time. Just Google it
You can think of it mostly like that. Power is the amount of time it takes to apply the force to the ground. You can still run with low power but you need a big stride which is inefficient…but etc call its possible. For practicalities power is speed
It’s pretty simple; if you do dead lifts with shoes on and never engaging your toes, you’ll work your quads but if you did the same dead lifts barefoot and forcibly curling your toes you would eventually be forced to engage your glutes!! 🤓
A starting car also needs to lean to start and move center of mass? No, it needs to apply horizontal force. It is physics A runner can do it by pulling feet back.
No. A car doesn’t lean at all. A car uses and engine to produce torque and uses friction between the tire and the road to pull forward. A runner does not do this even in the slightest. It’s a falling forward then jumping on one foot to catch yourself before toppling over. In an elegant way of course. Completely different forces and method of movement.
@@runelitecoach how would the lean generate horizontal force? At speed, horizontal force is needed to compensate for air resistance and braking of landing. Similar to the car, a runner can generate torque with hip extensors and rotate over the contact point (foot)
This is one of the best explanatory videos of running I’ve ever seen on TH-cam, thank you! 🙂
Thank you. So glad you enjoyed. See you in the next video
This is so cool, thanks for the info!! 👏🏾🤘🏾⚡️
Wow! This is unbelievable! Out of all the videos I've watched, this one has completely transformed everything for me. I salute you for that!
So glad you enjoyed Evertongooncalves. I salute you for being open to learning
Feel yourself in the air, a glider, at each jump. No hurrying to the landing in your mind. No trying to feel forward push. Feel the feeling that, "I am jumping, I am flying." By accident you will also be running forward, but not be heel striking; you will be floating up in your jumps for enough time for your other foot to land mid foot.
Jump higher than needed for each step, and with time, after getting used to the feeling of becoming airborne with each step, you will fine tune your jumps up to just the right height needed for the stride length that day. Your arm swings will help gain altitude with each jump.
Pushing is for walking; jumping is for running.
Don’t jump higher than you need for each step. No, don’t do that.
You actually don’t need to try to push off harder or jump higher. Simply by an ever so slightly lean forward, you naturally will go faster until your legs can’t produce enough power, at which point you were at a maximum speed.
It’s just about producing force into the ground quicker. And strength, power, employ metric training is a great way to do that.
I have been avoiding the "toe push off" for about 15 years. Had to do this as I got older. Kept me going until now, at least, age is 72.
Great
I doubted this video at first then everything really started making sense. Really helps quantify running.
Thank you
What relevance does it have?
I've watched 100s of videos on running technique. This is by far the best explanation. Watch it to save yourself from injury and enjoy running success.
Amazing! So glad you enjoyed Paul
Thank you for this video and explanation! The best description of what running actually is!! I can’t wait to apply this to my future runs!🎉
Booya! Great job opening your mind and learning this counterintuitive fact
Finally, I understand why weight lifting and fast paced HIIT workouts shaved a minute a mile off for me, with less running. I guess it's time to add some of that back into my routine.
Yes!!
0⁰⁰0@@runelitecoach
If anyone (there are a lot) tells you to avoid weights or that weights don't help, smile and wall away. There is nothing anyone can say after that.
@@mistermyself1128You don’t need weights, hill sprints and uphill bounding are more running specific to your needs
@immortal5812 You don't know my needs. I can only refer you to the fastest people in history, their coaches, and what the top performers do. I know what we were taught and how we performed. What I teach and how they perform. I wouldn't go at it without weights unless I was middle-aged and just trying to stay in shape.
I've been thinking about this for a few days. To jump, you need toe off. So to run, you lean forward, lift your leg, and toe off. Ryan Flagtery, coach of NFL players, and Olympians says he can calculate your 40 to 10k time with 99% accuracy based on your "Force Number.". He initially calculated this with a force measuring treadmill & weight, but found the trap bar lift correlates exactly. The person with the highest ever recorded Force Number is Husain Bolt. This is all about how strongly you can push off and your weight ... strength to weight ratio. Jumping is toe off, not levitation.
Yup. It's about power. Running speed is a measure of how much power you put in to the ground. But "PUSHING" off with your toes implies that you're pushing forward off of the ground, laterally. That's 100% untrue. The force is VERTICAL. Straight up and down completely. The forward momentum in running is due to falling forward, but your legs simple produce a vertical force. This is why you can run over ice if you have good form. The force is vertical.
Flaherty
Thanks for sharing this. Eye opening. And here I thought that power was the better metric (power = force * velocity). Of course, force is sitting there in plain sight. I have just been listening to coaches who de-emphasize lifting for a number of reasons. Flaherty’s reliance on data appears to cut through the fog and debate. Now to keep safety in mind. The risks of spinal loading are to be taken seriously.
bro said husain bolt
That’s is so helpful, I even read a book on Pace and it definitely confirms what you said! Thanks!!!!
I’m going to do that next run !
What’s the name of the book?
So many techniques and books I’ve read but this is the best video on improving running in general. Awesome video.
Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching
Hey bro, love the videos!! Quick question, will sprint training twice a week increase or maintain my jumping ability with age? Can I cut out jump rope for this?
Thank you in advance for all the value that you provide!
Sprinting is a form of jumping. So they will help each other. I’m not sure what your goals are though so it’s hard to guide you further.
Brilliant video, thanks. I’m a seasoned runner but at 55, still looking to build more speed and this advice is gold!! 💯🔥
Thanks Roshan keep up the running :)
Kettlebell swing guys = Quads, glutes, hamstrings and calf.
Awesome explanation bro!
Thanks Rodox
Great video that I’ve ever watched. Some TH-cam coaches say that we have to push off or push back horizontally to move forward. I did try the push-back in my 10k race yesterday, and the result was terrible. I was exhausted very early and I ran a whole race like a zombie, pace 4’:15”, very slow for 10k. Thank you very much for a great video!
Welcome 🤗
why would you try a technique change in a race?
4:15 is not very slow, stop being so elitist.
Wow it makes total sense that acceleration comes from "falling". In marching band, hard drill moves require you to accelerate from rest to 100 instantly, but a common tendency is people will lean into the move early to start the acceleration earlier on a demanding move. Undesirable but we can't break physics.
So my understanding now is that we are falling but catching ourselves our legs and jumping up to stay upright, the more vertical force you can produce means the less time it takes for foot to contact ground so you can go faster right? And the reason we don't infinitely accelerate like sonic the hedgehog bc we can't produce enough force in short enough time with legs.
I've dealt with calf soleus achilles overuse in the past and today I thought about generating more vertical force while walking with my quads, kind of like stomping the ground, I felt the impact much more balanced between my achilles and knees. Thank you for this insightful video!
Man. You listened very well. Yes you have a good grasp of this. Well said.
Always great videos and explanations 🙌
I follow your videos and put a lot of stuff in my running training , thank you for your work 🙌
Next level is talking about the rotation that’s happening while you « jump »with one foot 😃
That’s almost why you are doing your example with two feet 👣 because with one foot you have to rotate to keep your balance and strength.
When you Alternate the foot, you need to use your hips. So you have to had the rotation in the explanation.
If you start with your foot, it supinate on landing and pronate when you put weights on it. That way, the metatarsals are the last part of the foot to touch the ground. 👍
The tibia and femur have to internally rotate when going in extension, while your other femur have to externally rotate to flex (hip/knee ) so your hip can move…and your sacrum,lower back and obliques can be active without being rigid 😃
That way you can breathe easily because your diaphragm is in good position relative to your pelvic floor. (Rib cage relative to pelvis.)
…this is more difficult to explain 🤪 but I am sure that you can figure it out 🙌
Continue your great work.
Nb: my explanation is not perfect… it’s just to add ideas and it is more complex than just jumping while leaning forward ☺️
I wonder how this relates to the advice I was given: not to push off of the ground when I run, but just pick up my heels quicker, leading to shorter and quicker strides, utilizing larger muscle groups to do the same action, so my legs fatigue less quickly.
The picking up your heels quicker comment, is a comment I don't understand. How would that even work. Try standing on one leg (which is what happens during running when you land and push off - that's why it is running and not fast walking) and just pull your heel without pushing off first and see how that propulses you forward. It obviously won't, you will just fall. The only reason you can pull your heel while running is because your center of mass is already moving upwards. The force generation to move it upwards has already happend. If you manage to generate this force very efficiently (in the shortest amount of time possible as close under your center of mass as possible), your heel will come of the ground more quickly. So in my opinion, the heel comming quickly of the ground is a result of good running form.
@@bertvanhoofstat7700 I believe the idea is that pushing off with your toes uses calves while picking heels up (pulling your foot backwards) uses hamstrings, giving calves more time for recovery. It can propel you because there is weight on your foot and therefore your shoe has traction. It won't just slip from under you. I don't think it's meant to contribute significantly to propulsion, I do think it's more about sparing calves and transferring more work to hamstrings.
Thanks for explaining the mechanics of running. Running is a vertical jump while falling forward. When I run at speed >6 mph, it does feel like skipping on the leg. By this reasoning, skipping and jumping jacks should serve as good drills for running.
There may be another component of motion: the backward-upward kicking of the foot then swaying it forward while the leg is curled. It generates a net forward momentum. The swaying is asymmetrical backward and forward, like rowing with a paddle. The fast runners kick high backward.
Spot on Kenneth! Yes it's a vertical jump with forward momentum. It's hard to conceptualize at first, but it's essential to understand if you want to improve stride mechanics.
Yes skipping and jumping jacks are good plyometric drills for sure. If your goal is to increase elastic return and muscle stiffness (which is a good thing).
The swinging leg does NOT create a net forward momentum. Recall that "with every action is an equal and opposite reaction". So there is an equivalent backward motion with the opposite hip. You can't throw yourself forward, you instead just fall forward and catch yourself.
Fast runners kick up high on their carry-through because when the leg is far back (like it is when running very fast) it takes less energy to swing the leg forward with a very bent knee. It's just physics. like a pendulum. a pendulum will swing faster if you pull the mass up towards the center. So pulling the foot closer to the center just costs less energy to flex the hip.
Awesome observation. Thank you for the great post!
@@runelitecoach Interesting point about how high leg carry-through means swinging the leg forward uses less energy, or happens faster, like what happens with a pendulum.
@@runelitecoachswinging the leg forward does induce an equal and opposite reaction. That’s why the foot that is planted on the ground needs to be planted on the ground. So, if your planted foot stays put (as it should, this is why runners wear spikes), the swinging of the leg up does indeed aid in forward momentum. This is why sprinters spend time training hip flexor strength and power specifically. Faster leg drive is faster sprinting. It’s why sprinting and jogging usually look very different for most people
Love this , you earned my follow I appreciate your content.
Welcome aboard Christopher. So happy you enjoyed the content
Do you think runners who lean forward at the waist or shoulders may be lacking ankle flexibility? Just a thought. I have a bunch of patients who can't seem to stand up straight to run and this video made me think of that. Just curious if you have any insight. Thanks. Great video.
That’s possible. But not likely. The ankle mobility required to just run at an easy pace isn’t great. We’re talking just a few degrees of lean for a slow jog. But you did say that your patients had trouble standing straight, in that case it’s still not their ankles if STANDING straight is an issue. More likely an issue along the spine somewhere or possibly hips
I had to give up the toe push off about 14 years ago, in late 50's. Ok, impossible but had to work more oon upper leg strength. Basically no longer a racer except for a couple of trail races. Had to tske the long view. 72 now and hanging in there and even slower. Knee issues, psoas syndrome.
This info was super helpful 👏 I'm trying to figure out why some taller ironman runners like Sam laidlow and jan frodeno look like they're running upright
Good observation
This great stuff, deep explanations. This is the kind of stuff that is great to finally be able to comprehend with a good breakdown, that begins to finally make sense, and affect not just the basics of the training plan, but my entire mindset and approach to running. Thank you!
Welcome. So glad you liked it. If you like the tips in these videos, you’ll love the Run Elite book. If you get it, let me know and I’ll put you in the thank you credit role on our next videos.
Dude has great form, but I'd shave that beard off, I mean why young people wanna look like 90 years old? Also, I'm betting that just by saving it off you can get few sec per mile faster.. :)))
Thanks for that explanation. Never thought about it like that.
You bet! 👍🏼 yeah it counterintuitive huh?
Some of what he was trying to say makes sense, but there is toe off and the lean in max velocity sprinting isn't a high component as in Acceleration. Wfhen the top sprinters of all time there is some lean but not much. Toe off is definitely happening though it has to take place in order for fast sprinting. When he does his little jumps in you can see the toe off to propel him up.
Exactly. The toe off propels you “up”
Sprinters do lean more than distance runners. You can’t run fast without leaning forward. It is the one metric that is cause and effect with running. Granted the lean is slight. We’re not talking a 20 degree lean here. It’s always a moderate lean
And yes lean is big during acceleration because you MUST lean forward in order to accelerate. But it’s a bit artificial. If a runner were to stand still and then jog slowly, progress to a run, and then a sprint they would be leaning ever so more at each phase
Thing is someone that may not know may misinterpret that to mean something extreme. I think there is a great deal of toe off while sprinting. Your video says DON'T PUSH OFF WITH YOUR TOES that will be confusing to some. The last thing to leave the ground is your toes which means there is toe off to help get off the ground. The force production is correct and the small vertical jump is correct. There can be some misleading info that's all I was saying
Makes so much sense now, and explains why my attempts to go faster by extending my stride were so pitiful. 😂🤘🏾
Ha ha, I hear you boss. Yes, don’t try to extend your stride. As your muscles become stronger, and more powerful, your stride will extended because of the additional ground covered, and your leg may extend more, but putting your leg out in front of you is not a good idea.
Thank you, I'm gonna try this!
Have fun!
How do you know the surplus of strength required to train for power without getting injured? Great video by the way!
To increase stride length, do I lift up my forward knee or do I lift up the back heel?
This was the answer I was looking for! I could only run faster by increasing my cadence (200+) and I know this isn't proper. I need more strength! Thank you
I didn't know you existed, explaining the jump that is running.
New: Do plyometric jump training to improve ability to jump fast and varying jump heights. Jump rope for endurance in fast twitch activation.
Nice takeaways
0:14 is the best!
Haha. Agree 👍🏼
This video helps me a lot in my running! Thanks
Happy to help!
When I get calf injuries, I can still skip and jump rope but not run. Biomechanics of the foot plant and the kinetic chain seem to be the process for this common, painful, run-stopping problem.. Any thoughts that are in keeping with this discussion?
It could be that you’re engaging your soleus more when you’re running, and your Gastro more when you’re more upright with a straighter knee. So the issue might be in your soleus
It could also be that when you’re running your starting from a Dorsiflexed position,
So in short, this is likely a biome mechanical thing. Both are evaluating you in person I can’t say exactly.
Thank you.thorough explaination.
Glad it was helpful!
This info is incomplete. Should explain the angle in the knees changing with speed and with the lenght of stride plus the height of heel motion. Plus the work of hands. Plus breathing with the diaphragm.
From that point of view, most videos are incomplete. The purpose of these videos is to focus on one thing, explain it, and do the rest on another video. otherwise people complain that videos are too long, or too confusing. I do have longer for videos as well. And a full free webinar, and an extensive training course that covers all the bases. This is one single TH-cam video.
Fun and very complex topic. I think the trick for a coach is to cue the mechanics without having the athletes overthink it. The foot and ankle complex is also critical: where the rubber meets the road.
Excellent explanation, well done. But why is also the gluteus maximus often mentioned as a very important muscle group for running? Also involved in vertical jump?
The Gluteus maximus extends the hip, which is required for running, and for jumping. The only other way to move forward would be to use only your calves and knees, which wouldn't work out so well. The glutes are one of, if not THE, most important muscle groups for jumping and running.
Imagine trying to jump without moving your hips...it wouldn't work so well, so yes the glutes are very important
Thanks
Helpful. Thank you.
You're welcome! ☺️
A couple of things I wanted to point out. Firstly, if running is a vertical jump, why shouldn’t you push of with your toes anyways? I mean, you do push off with your toes in a vertical jump too, so I don’t really see the logic there. Secondly, if everything you explain in the video is true, and I think it is, then it’s actually impossible to run just by pushing of with the toes, you are going to be leaning forward you want it or not, otherwise you wouldn’t be even moving, so what’s the point of stating something that you can’t even avoid doing? Also, wouldn’t it be more correct to say that running is a series of unilateral broad jumps? Since a broad jump is basically a vertical jump with a lean, but then again the leaning part seems to be what actually makes the difference when running.
A broad jump still uses exclusively vertical force when you contract your leg. That’s why Runners take a running start in order to gain horizontal, momentum, and the faster they run the further they will jump, provided that they also provide a maximal vertical force on takeoff. In regards to your comment about jumping straight up, Sure you’re engaging your toes, but in the vertical direction. It’s the same when you run. Most people think that you’re literally pushing horizontally off the ground, which is under and was most of the point of this video.
@@runelitecoach got it, thanks!
@@matriaxpunkYou have to eliminate the parts to understand; if you had no toes, you would fall over but pushing horizontal with your toes would only encourage not telegraphing your landing thus pushing off on your toes continually and then having to forcibly land on your heels promoting ‘heel toe’ step; what I believe he advocates for is, yes your toes are your landing stabilizers but not your stride propulsion, ergo your stride propulsion is your lean_ wash, rinse repeat but keep your toes curled at ALL TIMEZ!! 🤓
Yea I think dude still gave me a lot of perspective on running, but a vertical jump with a lean is not vertical. Once you lean it seems like my vertical jump turns into a horizontal push of the ground. I also thought that you jump higher if you yous your toes.
@@CalebArcherMuayThai The poster goes about all too quick but if you judge by his comparative analogies, running down hill or uphill, those are the key comparatives; if you run uphill you lean but in timing ⏱ with your vertical jump, your toes only stabilize your landing and vertical, wash rinse repeat, same with your downhill run, which he indicates, and the physics don’t lie, you can only jump higher while you run down hill, if you even dare to lunge forward, you’re doomed, let alone push off with your toes 🤷♂️🎁
Great video! The explanation of vertical jumps and running power is spot on. Thanks for breaking it down so well. #RunElite
Welcome Oax! Glad you enjoyed
Actually, anyone who has run on a cinder track in the rain knows that you DO push backward with your feet (through hip extension and subsequent flexion of the knee during the swing phase). That's why your butt, the backs of your legs, and the back of your sweatshirt are covered with dirt when you get home.
Hmm because that mud on your back had to travel UP from the ground right? Sounds vertical
And shaking mud off of your foot when it’s behind you has nothing to do with force you out in to the ground. Sorry man your debunk has been debunked
@@runelitecoach Oh please. Show me a world-class sprinter who has no butt. You can't, of course. Top sprinters are fast because they extend powerfully from the hips and push the ground behind them. That's why they're always pulling their hamstrings. For example, watch a video of Letsile Tebogo, the gold medallist in the 200 meters in Paris. You'll see that once he's out of his drive phase, his torso is perfectly erect; there's no forward lean whatsoever. So he gets all his forward movement from powerful hip extension. Sure, there's SOME vertical displacement, but he's not trying to win the high jump.
I'm confused. To generate more power, do I tense my leg muscles when landing mid-foot?
The net, whole-body, leaning part, only applies during initial acceleration. Once up to steady pace, you are, modulo the tiniest amount of air resistance at distance running speeds for non cheetahs, literally just bouncing straight up and down. While letting existing momentum conservation carry you forward undisturbed.
In fact: The harder you try to push off horizontally behind you to run faster, the more you overstride in front of you, until the braking momentum from the overstride; again modulo air resistance; exactly cancels out the acceleration momentum from the horizontal push off. Were it not so, you would, in fact, be accelerating. Not maintaining steady state.
But, but... can't everyone see that runners are, in fact, leaning forward?
Yes, they can. Runners do. At the ankles, and hips. But also, crucially, they are leaning backwards at the knees. The latter exactly compensating for the formers, wrt center of mass vs center of support (midfoot) placement.
Runners do this for biomechanical reasons. Not solid-body physics reasons: People are not stiff, straight logs with pistons moving straight in and out at the bottom. Instead, they are segmented stick figures: A collection of levers stacked on top of each other, with flexible joints at their join-points. And with muscles and tendons powering and controlling how those levers move in relation to eachother.
If one is standing straight up with no lean anywhere, one can not jump straight up (even trying to just use calves, will shift center of support forward from midfoot, causing one to fall backward). Instead: In order to jump vertically, your body's levers have to do some folding. The way joints are arranged, this is done by leaning forward at the ankle, stretching calves and achilles. While leaning backwards at the knee, stretching quads and patellar tendons. And by leaning forward at the hips, stretching hamstrings and glutes and erectors. Sum total: You are being compressed vertically. But, again crucially, only vertically. There is no net lean from center of ground-support to center of mass. Just a vertical lowering of center of mass. By way of levers being bent backwards and forwards such that net center-of-mass dislocation is zero horizontally, but downwards vertically.
Then: Muscle power input, and tendon stretch rebound effects, reverses, and supercompensates, for this vertical compression. Such that you jump. Straight up. Then (Remember you are already moving forward, hence carrying forward momentum): This purely vertical jump does not affect horizontal momentum. Hence your forward momentum, and hence speed, remains undisturbed by your vertical jump. Resulting in your existing forward momentum, despite you just jumping straight up, still landing ahead of where you were when you jumped. Such that you continue forward at the same steady pace. Despite putting in no net forward, just vertical, power.
When you see some runners leaning more than others, it's mostly at the hip. People's individual differences in tendon attachments, limb length proportions, distribution of mass across the body, differing power in different muscles and elasticity of tendons etc., means some benefit more than others from a greater forward lean. Unusually long calves in relation to upper body, can require greater bend at hips, in order to fully stretch and utilize ankle/achilles stretch reflexes, for example.
But, biomechanics aside, the gist is: Efficient steady state running at distance running paces, consists of bouncing up and down vertically, with as little horizontal power input as possible. Any forward power put in is, simply as a result of momentum conservation, necessarily negated by an opposite and equal amount of rearward power. In run-speak: The harder you try to push of backwards on takeoff, the more you will, guaranteed, overstride-hence-brake on landing. None of which contributes to neither efficiency nor freedom from injury.
Runners aren’t leaning backward at the knee. The knee doesn’t even hyperextend. It flexes. We lean forward at the ankles, correct. I agree completely that the force is vertical not horizontal. Most like to argue that and glad to hear you understand the biomechanics. Thanks for watching
@@runelitecoach When you flex at the knee, you lean backwards..... It's easy to experience on skis in skiboots. In non-locked-down footwear, you'll compensate by increased forward lean at the ankle, in order not to fall backwards.
I forgot to include a fourth "joint." More of a virtual joint than an anatomic one. But still a pivot: The one at your foot. Runners also "lean backwards" at the ball of the foot. In order to make use of the achilles and calf, in practice: The net center of force applied to the ground is not exactly at the static middle of the foot, as if your leg terminated at a mathematical point. But rather slightly ahead. (Complicating visuals is that force may; often does, and most often probably should; start being applied behind the midfoot, then as your center of mass moves forward and the ankle extends, the part of the foot applying force to the ground shifts forward. But regardless, it nets out to somewhere in front of the midfoot.)
So, for completeness: You compress vertically as a four-section accordion bellow. Foot and thigh leaning backwards, calf and upper body leaning forwards. Or, arranged by pivot/joint instead of limb: Foot and knee lean backwards, ankle and hip lean forwards. Then the bellow decompresses and springs back. Straight up.
I have just started to teach myself how to sprint - I do a lot of calisthenics but was disappointed to find out my 40 yard dash was 5.90..
Been watching a lot of videos on technique but noone explains WHY it's important to not bend over at the hips and why it is important to have high knees and to "punch" the ground..
This video finally quenched my thirst for understanding. Thank you!
Doing the Wall Run drill Helps my Forward Lean.
Awesome
I see what you're saying. And your recommendations to train strength followed by power sound totally sensible and useful. Furthermore, cueing runners to think upwards rather than forward might well help them improve form and performance.
But I'm still puzzled by theoretical aspects. From empirical observation, if there's no horizontal force component, why is it faster to sprint in spikes? Friction should play no role at all, it should be just as fast to run on ice as on a track, and improved grip by using spikes should also make no difference.
From a physics point of view, for a mass to move in a direction, there *must* be a force applied in that direction. So even to "just lean", i.e. move the c. of g. forward, there must be a horizontal component of force initiating the lean, presumably supplied by some combination of muscle contractions. Then there's the equal and opposite force that has to exist c.f. Newton's laws of motion, which would be where friction enters the equation. So even without deliberately pushing backwards, for forward motion to happen, there must be horizontal forces *somewhere* in the system.
Am I wrong? Can a mass really accelerate in a direction without any component of force in that direction?
Good question. You FALL forward and you don’t hit the ground because you put your foot under you. You only move forward because you’re falling forward on a pendulum. When the pendulum swings forward because you have learned forward and are in contact with the ground, you move forward.
Think of this. You can run in place and jump up and down straight. To move forward the thing that changes is simply that you lean forward and fall forward.
If you had a skyscraper standing still and you blew out one side of the bottom it would also FALL on a rotation and the top of would land many many feet away from the base. It didn’t produce a horizontal force. It just fell forward on a pendulum
Sprinters wear spikes in large part because they use blocks and start fully leaned forward before they have accumulated any speed. Distance runners don’t need spikes.
@@runelitecoach I totally get what you're saying about dropping forward and then getting one's feet underneath.
The bit I'm getting at is that the "falling forward" stage requires a horizontal input of some kind. If one just lets oneself fall, one winds up in a heap vertically downward. The lean forward is where the horizontal component is introduced. Must admit bodies are complicated because of the interplay of muscles, so I can't exactly place all the vectors involved.
The skyscraper with its bottom blown out: I would have to think through that carefully but there are rotational forces which resolve into vertical and horizontal components, and then there are the shear and tensile strengths of the material which would control exactly how it falls...Pendulums are definitely not one dimensional, you've brought back dim memories of simple harmonic motion in maths class...
Anyway, I would be *very* interested if any actual physicists could explain forward movement without any component of horizontal force. I'm just a geophysicist so my study subjects don't move that fast...
But thank you for your time and you've certainly given me something to think about.
as someone trying to improve my 30m for spirts, this video was very insightful!
30m?! So short. That’s full ATP phosphocreatine system. And all about developing power with technique. Go get it!
Excellent video.
Very informative explanation 🎉
Glad it was helpful!
I wonder if the leaning is why quadriped animals (essentially leaning 90 degrees) are mostly faster than us. All jokes aside, does this mean I should actually have my torso pointing into the ground like 3-5 degrees during the lean instead of straight ahead like most people say with running form?
You must lean forward so your center of mass is in front of your base of support, otherwise you’ll just stand there. The lean CAN come from anywhere but SHOULD ideally come from your ankle. So yes your torso is slightly turned toward the ground. But it’s so slight that you barely notice. It’s just enough so that you’re falling over forward.
6:05 Do we actually jump though? I feel like I don't jump when I run but rather I extend my hips and lift my feet up, zero pushing down, zero jump. To jump you need to apply force to the ground but I'm not sure maybe I do jump it just feels like I lift my legs and put them back down, sort of pulling the ground away from me. Also isn't it mostly our glutes that we use not our calves and feet? Our glutes are biggest strongest muscles which fatigue the least. Most people do get injured from the horizontal forces of running, that's why if you run barefoot you avoid those horizontal forces which tear up your foots skin
Yes it’s a jump that’s why there’s a vertical oscillation. You are indeed pushing in to the ground. That’s why you hit the ground with a multiple of your body weight which can easily be measured with a force plate
So would you say trying to ,,hit” the ground when ur in the air is a wrong cue? Should we just wait till we land on the ground and then push up, most coaches say put ur feet down aggressively
Trying to hit the ground while you’re in the air doesn’t seem to make sense. You’d have to wait until your foot is able to contact the ground. I mean you can use whatever queue you want, whatever works for you, as long as you’re landing, close to your center of mass, you’ll be good
@@runelitecoach yea thanks it always confused me like how am I supposed to ,,hit” the ground aggressively while I’m in the air it seems to stop me each stride instead of propelling me forward you have to wait till you land idk what these coaches are thinking
If you jump with the lean then it is not a vertical jump anymore - you apply force to the ground under the leaning angle. Also, if running is jumping then you should consider running without moving legs back and forth. I'd like to see how can it be done.
Moreover, you can do you racewalking without really "vertical jumping" (as claimed impossible in this video). In this case, you apply force to the ground using the torque generated by the leg glute. In this case, the counter-torque should be applied to the core to avoid toppling back. This is what you do moving another leg in the opposite direction, i.e. forward (and generating angular momentum in it).
Nope. Sorry. The force you apply is perpendicular to the ground. It’s a vertical force while moving forward. The torque you’re talking about is in the body. The force applied to the ground is vertical. Your torque force doesn’t make you run. It moves your limbs. But unless you push in to the ground you won’t go anywhere. And that push is… straight in to the ground opposite the normal force
@@runelitecoach but... our bodies still obey the laws of mechanics. When we start motion, our bodies must endure acceleration according to the 2nd law of Newton. Acceleration is caused by an uncompensated force, which defines the direction of the resulting velocity of the body. Thus, if only vertical forces were applied to us, we would be only able to move vertically as well. This is how mechanics works and we can't just step it over. All objects around us obey that, so we are in the good company here.
However, while we run steadily with a constant speed, the first law of Newton can be applied to our bodies, meaning that total forces and torques applied to us is zero. If we pump out the air, there will be no horizontal forces between us and the environment anymore. This is the situation, when the force model presented by you holds.
Vertical force is applied to the ground. You move forward because you’re falling forward on a pendulum because your foot is connected to the ground.
A skyscraper could fall over and land two hundred feet away from where it was. And it was only downward force. It was simply in a pendulum attached to the ground
No, running is NOT strictly a "muscular event." The cardiovascular system also plays a critical role (of course). That's why training increases your cardiac stroke volume and max VO2, for example.
…of course it’s not “only” a muscular event. But it’s first and foremost a muscular event. The metabolic systems simply fuel the working muscles. You could say it’s a weather event too because in a tornado you fly up. But that’s ridiculous because it’s clearly not the most important aspect. Sorry man your debunk was debunked
@@runelitecoach "The metabolic systems simply fuel the working muscles."
Exactly. And without fuel, the muscles are fairly useless. So it's actually aerobic metabolism that's "first and foremost" in distance running. But of course biomechanical efficiency and power are important for fast distance running.
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Whoa! This is an amazing message. Look at that a perfect pair! Thanks for the feedback katnip
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Am I right in saying that the bigger and more explosive your jump is, the faster you can run?
Yes. But that’s literally the “faster” you can run, ie sprint. But since any distance run can be a percentage of sprint speed it helps most distances. That’s why long jumpers are also good sprinters.
Thx for the tipps, i do the superman running now with my arms forward.
Go Superman!
Excellent
Thank you 🙏
Brilliant.
Thank you
When I run at my 100% the last 100 meters after my run I feel a massive weight over my legs, the force doesnt come from the horizontal axe but vertical, definitely vertical.
Sweet.
Why do all these TH-cam track coaches say to sprint with your body upright 90 degrees to the ground? All of em. You're the only one I've seen who says to lean forward. Running upright didn't make sense to me, so I Googled "running physics" and of course you're right. Can't even walk without shifting your body mass forward. Then I found that Usain Bolt had an 18 degree average forward lean during his record breaking 9.58 sec 100M. Geez. Subbed.
It’s not possible to sprint, or even run with your body 90° to the ground. If your body is 90° to the ground you are standing upright. In order to move forward, you have to fall forward and lean has to come from somewhere. It’s not physically possible to be at 90° to the ground.
@@runelitecoach thank you for taking the time to read my comment! I have a question following up this discussion. Is it fair to say that leaning causes acceleration, and if you were to stay perfectly 90 degrees to the ground mid-run you would succumb to air resistance and breaking forces (due to imperfect technique) and come to a stop? And that during normal running, we are in a balanced state of leaning forward to counteract breaking forces and air resistance, and not leaning to maintain the current velocity?
This is super fascinating, I can definitely use this knowledge to get back into training and hopefully injury free!
If you think that’s crazy, imagine what your high school science teacher would tell you about friction, and how leaning forward and producing vertical thrust in a frictionless environment would put you flat on your face on the ground.
Friction is micro walls. Leverage via friction is what generates horizontal thrust. Without friction and horizontal thrust, you would slip and fall on your face.
Cars don’t acquire horizontal motion by leaning or through vertical thrust. They acquire it through friction that produces forward thrust.
I’m a trained sprinter. This TH-camr doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Thank you so much!
You just made click on my head.... thanks!
Haha. Glad it helped
Good stuff and all makes sense. I have seen some Kneesovertoes videos where they highly recommend nordics and have several athletes whose sprint times improved significantly when they added nordics into their weight lifting in addition to squats, calf raises, and Romanian dead lifts. Thoughts?
Efficient running will use your gluteus medius, hamstring, calves.
The quads will be more solicited uphill and downhill.
Running is mostly quads calves and glutes all of which fire to raise the body vertically from flexed to extended. That’s why they’re the biggest muscles in the body, to walk and run
As a physicist, please let me add my view. The analogy of running on ice is a little bit misleading. Say the ice has no friction at all, you would have to start with some speed or momentum gained on a different surface. With good form you could continue on the ice, but you would slow down because of air resistance that you cannot compensate. That resistance is also there when running on a road, meaning you must apply some forward thrust continually in order not to lose speed. How do you do that?
Imagine balancing a cardboard strip on your fingertip. If you want to move it forward, you must pull your finger backwards a bit, then follow its motion. If there were no air resistance, you could keep the stick moving endlessly by remaining vertically under it. But WITH air resistance your force must take a different angle. It must point forward a bit, while remaining behind the centre of gravity.
The same applies to running. It means you are not exactly pushing downwards (as in parallel to gravity), but a little backwards as well. The counter force arrow goes from your point of ground contact to your centre of gravity, which must be slightly in front to be able to create that forward thrust. Hence the jump is not exactly vertical. It must be a little forward as well, or else you couldn't make up for air resistance. You are trying to push your centre of mass forward and upward.
This means you must adapt your running form to the prevailing air resistance, which is influenced by your speed and sometimes quite a lot by wind. It also means that your running form on a treadmill is different, as you don't need to compensate anything. All your effort can go into the 100% vertical jump. That makes treadmill running a little easier. No surprise my heart rate is about 5-8 beats lower and I can run farther.
The title of the video should therefore be Running on a Treadmill is a Vertical Jump.
Good points. I’ll reply to a couple of them here. Running on ice has minimal friction, but of course there is still some friction. If we truly had a zero friction model, then we wouldn’t be able to move much at all. So running on ice is a perfect analogy. Of course we require some friction to actually be able to stand up Without instantly falling over. But the fact that one can run on ice highlights that Running) is a vertical force not a horizontal force.
The example you made about holding a stick of cardboard, that’s a very good analogy, thank you for that. And just as in order to get the cardboard to move forward, you would have to pull the center of mass out from under it, with Running you simply lean forward every so slightly at the ankles. Yes, that requires friction between your foot and the ground, but it is ever so slight. It’s only the amount of friction needed to lean forward perhaps a centimeter. But even with that cardboard strip, they would either fall flat over or to keep it pitched at a small degree. The cardboard would have to either grow wheels, or grow legs. The analogy for a runner is obviously to grow legs. And what would those legs do? They would provide a vertical force, otherwise the cardboard would be laying flat on its belly almost immediately
But we’re not talking about circular cows in a vacuum. You know that saying? Of course I’m not saying that there is no friction whatsoever involved or that there is no horizontal force whatsoever involved. But the vast majority, virtually all of the force is vertical horizontal motion comes from , falling due to the force of gravity on a pendulum, being that our foot is anchored to the ground in contact with the ground. That’s it.
@@runelitecoach Sorry I need to contradict your idea of having to have some ground friction on ice to be able to stay vertical, when moving or not. You can stand on grass without making use of friction and not fall over. When standing or running on ice with zero friction and zero air resistance all you need to do is keep your centre of mass right over your ground contact area. As there is no force pushing you over, you won't fall. If air resistance or wind comes into play, we need to look at where it occurs on your body. The air stream pushes on every square inch exposed to it, and because our body is not exactly box shaped, the resulting force is most likely not aligned with our centre of mass, causing our body to tilt around it and fall. To counteract that, we would need some ground friction, and move our centre of mass slightly outside of our contact area (forward if more wind is caught by the upper body, but backwards if more wind is caught by the lower body).
Going back on land, the amount of leaning required to compensate wind effects is exactly the same, and therefore the amount of compensatory force by pushing backwards (and not only upwards) is exactly the same. Your point that it is very little is absolutely correct and that is the core news of the video. But it is not zero, and therefore the jump is not precisely vertical.
What I do when running is try to develop a feeling of my jump being right "through my centre of mass". So I am pressing straight against it. Anything else would disturb my balance, need compensatory movements and therefore be less efficient. The angle required to do so depends on three factors: the slope of the terrain, the wind resistance, and my intention to change my speed. That means my running form changes all the time but not my feeling.
IMO you can find more efficiency if you push off with your foot by switching activation of muscle groups which is important if you're a long distance runner.
I hear what you’re saying, but the logic doesn’t add up. I mean you could do a bicep curl, while you’re running and recruit different muscles, but it doesn’t mean it’ll help you’re running. Pushing off with your toes is not advantageous. Do not trying to muscle through anything, like running in the sand. If you wanna go faster, you simply lean forward every so slightly more, and therefore your required to produce force into the ground more quickly.
Of course you push with your toes at some points
In a movie you would definitely be the conspiracist who was right all along.. thanks for the useful videos!
Haha 🤣 that’s awesome.
Running is a vertical sport, not a horizontal one.
You can practice running on the same exact spot on a treadmill.
You either run using elastic recoil and optimise stride length without pushing proactively, or you'll have to extend your leg and push off.
Yes running is a vertical sport.
Bolt is almost straight with slight lean up once he hits full speed
I mean relative to laying flat he’s “almost straight up”. But he’s leaned forward for sure. If you try to stand straight upright and run (go try it now) you won’t move anywhere. You can’t move forward unless you learn forward. Not possible
@runelitecoach you can literally lean backward and still move forward if you have strong stabilizer muscles. The acceleration of running comes from increases in horizontal forces (friction) between your shoe and the ground. You go faster when wearing light, grippy shoes, not from shoes with more vertical cushion/spring.
ok, but the existence of running spikes is a counterpoint to your argument that running is only a vertical jump. Spikes would serve no purpose on a vertical motion. I get your point, but I believe there's also a horizontal vector, not just the vertical vector in running.
Displacement wouldn't be possible without friction, and vertical motion only requires what's called normal force, or ground reaction force
Spikes are used for sprinters out of the blocks because they start horizontally. They make no difference for distance runners provided that it’s good conditions on the surface.
@@runelitecoach spikes are also used in the 5000, and they don't start on blocks. As I said, you also need friction for traction, otherwise you wouldn't move. On ice, there's less friction (but not zero), that's why it's harder to run on ice, but not impossible, again, because there's friction, and friction leads to traction
I've read about this on ChiRunning books
Danny Dreyer and I live in the same town
I'd put it that running is a vertical jump with the ground moving. In fact this is exactly what it is on a treadmill, and the mechanics are (almost) exactly the same in a moving inertial frame. I say 'almost' because air resistance changes it slightly: it means the jump has to be slightly tilted forwards (which gravity is vertical the combination of gravity and the much smaller force of air resistance is slightly tilted). And hills are very similar - the perpendicular to the ground being rotated while keeping gravity the same is identical to the ground staying flat and the direction of gravity being rotated. If you know what air resistance is, you can work out the equivalent slope.
For emphasis when moving at constant speed on the flat, the (small) lean is solely to cope with air resistance. Otherwise a lean causes acceleration. which you want to _change_ speed but not to maintain speed.
The treadmill scenario really helps to conceptualize.
The ground doesn’t move when you go out for a run. Running) is a vertical jump with a forward lean, where your falling forward due to gravity on a pendulum.
Newtonian physics is the same in any inertial frame - i.e. what matters is the _relative_ movement of the ground to you (whether it is a treadmill band or the road). The net force on an object (the runner) moving at constant speed is zero (Newton's laws). That is why if there were no air resistance, at constant speed the jumping is vertical in the sense that the (vector average) force exerted on the ground is vertical, to balance the vertical force due to gravity.
Air resistance adds a (typically small) horizontal force, so the total force (gravity + air resistance) is tilted slightly, and to run at constant speed requires a similar opposing force on the ground - a forward lean, so the average force on the ground is tilted a little. Any more forward lean causes acceleration.
Regarding the treadmill being the same except for air resistance, a similar example (with added air resistance!) is running down a train that is moving the same (constant) speed in the opposite direction (the floor of the train takes the place of the belt of the treadmill). To the runner, it's the same as if the train is standing still, and the same as running on the ground, despite the train moving in a way that means you are stationary relative to the ground.
Discussions like this have made me feel like making a video on this (and the extension to running on hills and treadmill slopes). Your example of running on ice also merits analysis. Biophysics in general is fun!
Love that train analogy… makes sense of a subject which is hard for many to grasp. I’ll borrow it next time someone tries to tell me that running on a treadmill is completely different biomechanics compared to running off treadmill
@@gwm5415 Thanks!
I do kick out stuff behind me. This is quite evident with snowshoe running where there’s a rooster tail behind me.
Is it possible it's because there is snow attached to the shoe that you are then throwing up behind you? The foot still cycles and has things attached to it, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're swiping it back.
There’s also a rotational component to the snowshoes. They don’t necessarily have to be pushing off horizontally, but the simple rotation of the shoe would kick up Snow as well.
The vast majority of the force put into the ground when you’re running, is vertical snowshoes or not
Liked and Subscribed (ALL) ...from Seoul, Korea
gamsahabnida my friend. Welcome to the channel
@@runelitecoach Thanks and good try with the romanization of Korean.
you shoud say running is more a vetical jump than a horizontal push. You still need traction between your feet and the ground to make you go forward.If there is no traction at all, you would fall flat on your face when you lean forward.
Somewhat true. But with proper form you can run on ice. It’s almost exclusively a vertical force. Much more than a horizontal force
When running at a constant speed, the only force that needs to be countered by the tractive force is from air resistance.
@@runelitecoachis that really true though? That doesn't make sense. It’s def more overall horizontal force otherwise you’de moving forward very slowly. I like how your suggestion challenges some preconceptions but I don’t understand the stance of it’s all vertical force since just not true. The same case is made by other coach for horizontal motion and using glutes a bit more and being less bouncy and there is truth in that from trying to incorporate it for a week now. I feel like it's a mix of both. Would be cool to have you and horizontal running TH-camr on a podcast or videos. Forgot his name - he’s all about push with the tush
But hamstrings and glutes are the most important muscles when it comes to sprinting?
Glutes extend the hip which is in alignment with a vertical jump. Hamstrings are more relevant for sprinters than distance runners because of the large range of motion and actively decelerating the leg during the front of the swing phase. For distance runners hamstring issues are rare unless they’re overstriding
How do you jump 10mins / mile?
that’s the purpose of this video to explain that
Running has both horizontal and vertical that makes it best😂😂
Just a vertical. You only move horizontally because you’re falling forward. Your center of mass goes over your toes and therefore you fall forward, but the force that you place into the ground is vertical.
Running is a combination of forward and vertical movement, more horizontal than vertical.
“Jumping” is just a part of the running mechanics.
@@Amtcboy I actually cant blv he is trying to claim there is no horizontal forces applied or there is no "push". Have you ever tried to do a vertical jump without pushing through the ground? You wont jump very high.
@@DMGC529
Exactly.
Hitting quicker is actually more force since the acceleration is higher, and force = mass * acceleration
The force is the same no matter the speed. Force will be determined by your body weight and how far you move. Force is the same over a mile for a given person regardless of the pace. Power increases will improve the time to cover said distance
Bravo.Ma difficile farlo capire anche a tanti "allenatori"
Much appreciated
I haven't heard it talked about but i bet the benefit of lots of slow miles is about developing foot placement awareness or something. if foot too far forward back left or right then all sorts of weird forces going through ur body and have to fight against each random one an off placed foot strike produced to then move you forward. The more slow km you do ur Practicing coordination all the muscles from ur neck down to coordinate where that foot lands relative to your centre of gravitity at that moment in time when the foot strikes and is loaded on the ground. more perfectlly just behind centre of gravity will have a lot less random forces to contend with that aren't directed forward. PS i said neck as its the heaviest thing furthest from ur feet. if move head a little like a cheatahs tail it moves the rest of you like a battle rope sort of wave to ur foot.
Ok i'm talking my self into doing the Maffetone method with ur 8 second sprints every 5 to 10 minutes haha thank you. I have your book Run Elite"and the fitzgerald and Brad Hudson book on the wish list as well.
You could call that part of “running economy” in which case yes running more will improve running economy. But it’s about more than only footstrike. Although that’s certainly pretty important.
And as soon as you Lean forward, the jump isn't Vertical anymore.
It's the horizontal Factor that determines the speed.
The problem is that vertical and horizontal isn't a subjective thing. It's always relative to Earth. A Vertical has no horizontal factor. It mustn't have any horizontal movement.
I guess shorter/faster Ground Contact Time (GCT) is the key message here
To understand this better, you can run faster with stronger legs, too strong and you'll be hoping up just like when you run on the Moon. You go up and down on the Moon, not dashing on the surface like a cockroach. That's why running is vertical jump.
I talked to a 24min 5k runner, 6'4, 100kg guy. said his physio said do calf raises with his toes hanging over the front edge of a plank of wood.
i like ur explanation how to move forward. i did heavy zercher carry marches for a few sessions and then ran up a hill and i got to the top like it was nothing!! i stopped looked behind me to confirm it was the hill i thought it was. always talking about my self hahah. I think bragging but also reminding my self to go back to things that were successful for me in the past. Also add heel on swiss ball upside down planks? so when lean forward then the swiss ball heel pull exercsie means have the muscles and coordination to bring me back to vertical sort of thing. that leaning whilst bringing my self up is the running??
His heels hanging, right? Not toes. Yeah sure that is a helpful exercise. Go ahead and do it if you like. 👍🏼
Look at Pose Method...
Yup.
Why not both? Vertical plus horizontal. Using all your muscles would help.
Then might as well go down too, and back. No not using all your muscles help. That’s a waste of energy. And also you can’t use horizontal force. Not biomechanically possible or remotely efficient
claw the floor, but if it's a jump then why not push off?
Would you push off if you were jump roping? Yes but you push off UP. Same thing. It’s just not a horizontal push off
Filthy casual here. But running is not a vertical jump. This description seems close to the Pose method.
Sprinting might be a vertical jump off the blocks. More on that below.
Pretty sure there's research indicating that Pose method is not more efficient method of running. Double check me on that one.
IMHO - Running is similar to the cycling mantra "Pedal in circles. Not in squares". Running is circling your legs and pulling (contracting bicep femoris) your body ahead.
Sprinting off the blocks is pure power of jumping to the next step. This differs from the gallop phase of running.
What? This doesn’t make sense. Running) is a vertical jump. The only time when running is not a vertical force. Is when coming off of the blocks. And you’re saying that coming off the blocks is the only time that it’s a vertical jump? That is completely backwards, that’s why blocks are angled forward. And the only reason this is done is because it minimizes the time it takes for an athlete to lean and fall forward. On blocks they’re already forward and so they can minimize that fall time and have a faster start.
@@runelitecoach "Vertical" in the sense of movement perpendicular to the surface that you are positioned on. Off the blocks, you're movement is perpendicular to the surface angle of the block. Jumping on regular ground (race track) is perpendicular to the surface on which you stand.
Care to explain "Minimizes the time for an athlete to lean and fall forward"?
Seems like the blocks allow the sprinter to propel themselves * horizontally *. Or at least a 45 degree angle to the track (and, again, 90 degrees to the angle of the block).
If the sprinter applied as much force as they do in a vertical vector to the track, the sprinter would not move horizontally but they would certainly displace themselves vertically (as in a jump).
Also note that "Running is a vertical jump" is conclusory, as a statement. Your video explained your theory. Though I disagree with your theory.
Have any actual research to support your claim?
Sprinting is all about glutes and less hamstrings. Glutes, glutes, glutes.
Ok.
The only thing I would disagree with is that you have to train glutes for a more proficient vertical jump; quads are for strength but power generation of good jumpers is always in the glutes. As a matter fact the bigger your glutes in comparison to your thighs, that tapering of the body if you will generates natural whipping speed. A Glute, similar to shoulders in form and function; if your shoulders are small but your hands or forearms are bigger, will hurt your shoulders but the tapering effect of the larger shoulders as opposed to hands and forearms makes for speedier swimmers. But I digress; glutes are the roots of speed while quads are the bearers of “strength” as it were because of the whipping effect!! 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
That’s why the main strength training I recommend is a kettle bell swing. Glutes baby
Force x Displacement / Time.
Given that we’re comparing the same distance, force and time are the variables we can change. Of course it takes more force to cover a longer distance. Given “one mile” or “one meter” force and time are what we can train
10:25 “power=force/time”…
“Running is vertical jumping with forward momentum”…
“You cannot run without forward lean”…
This was just too much bad physics for me!
Whoever listen to this will fail their physics class!
Yes, jumping is importance for running, but so is moving your legs back and forth quickly. Moving your legs back and forth maybe even more important. And yes, you can run without leaning forward, even with leaning backwards, just not very fast.
😆 You 100% cannot run leaning backward. Physics man. You can hinge back at your hips but your COG must be forward of your COM or you can’t move. If you lean backward you fall backward unless you push your hips “forward”
Running is vertical jumping with forward momentum. Even a long jump in track is still a vertical jump with forward momentum.
Assuming we’re not changing the distance, so for a given mile by definition power is work done over time. Just Google it
Force = mass x acceleration.
Indeed
So power is speed?
You can think of it mostly like that. Power is the amount of time it takes to apply the force to the ground. You can still run with low power but you need a big stride which is inefficient…but etc call its possible. For practicalities power is speed
@@runelitecoach Thanks for clarifying!!
It’s pretty simple; if you do dead lifts with shoes on and never engaging your toes, you’ll work your quads but if you did the same dead lifts barefoot and forcibly curling your toes you would eventually be forced to engage your glutes!! 🤓
Cool
I just realised that running is not a vertical jump...... It's something else but I won't share it here....
Ok
A starting car also needs to lean to start and move center of mass? No, it needs to apply horizontal force. It is physics
A runner can do it by pulling feet back.
No. A car doesn’t lean at all. A car uses and engine to produce torque and uses friction between the tire and the road to pull forward. A runner does not do this even in the slightest. It’s a falling forward then jumping on one foot to catch yourself before toppling over. In an elegant way of course. Completely different forces and method of movement.
@@runelitecoach how would the lean generate horizontal force? At speed, horizontal force is needed to compensate for air resistance and braking of landing. Similar to the car, a runner can generate torque with hip extensors and rotate over the contact point (foot)