What is the Drive Phase in Sprinting?

Published: Wed, 01/15/14

Success in Track & Field... and Life

SpeedEndurance.com

In This Issue...

• What is the Drive Phase in Sprinting?

• What the heck are Isorobic Ropes?

• Best of Dec 2013

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What is the Drive Phase in Sprinting?

Greetings,

If you are a sprint coach like me, you know the only way to get your athletes faster is greater specific force during ground contact, and getting your legs in the best biomechanical position before each step.

There are books on How to Use Starting Blocks (hey, I wrote one) and books on teaching Max Velocity.

But the Drive Phase is a black hole missing in the coaching books.

So what is the Drive Phase in Sprinting? Please don’t answer “keeping the head down”, or “staying low”… it’s a lot more complicated than that!

And more importantly, how do you train the drive phase?

Coach Adarian Barr, the Assistant Track Coach at the University of North Carolina in Pembroke, attempts to answer this question.

Click here for Part 1.

Click here for Part 2.

And he’s not finished, so stay tuned for Part 3. Unfortunately, all the great comments are spread among the various Social Media sites, so we can’t pool them together for a collective discussion.

What the heck are Isorobic Ropes?

With all the latest gadgets in Technology, sometimes basic tools is all you need to improve. Tools like free weights, sleds, and isorobic ropes. I get a few emails a month from readers asking about isorobic ropes because the late Charlie Francis mentioned them on his seminars.

For those who follow the NASA space programs, you might remember the success of Exergenies being used by Astronauts. In short, the device works by tiring a muscle with isometric contraction and then moving the muscle isotonically through a complete range of motion with constant speed and resistance. It’s also a great tool used for speedwork by doing drills with them. Finally, they have a harness with a quick release ripcord that you’ve seen in track practices and training camps.

I asked Jim Warren of Exergenie what he could do for my readers, and he offered a $40 coupon code (use the code TRAINER at checkout) as well as free shipping to the USA. iPhone and Android Apps are great, but nothing beats old-fashioned tools and workouts.

http://www.exergenie.com/