How to Run Faster (with your Arms)

I never get tired listening to Tom Tellez, Clyde Hart, John Smith, Dan Pfaff or Loren Seagrave. Sure, they may be old school USATF material, but I always, and I mean always, come out with several new ideas and a few “a-ha” moments.

I’ve watched hundreds of hours of film, both elite sprinters as well as younger College athletes, and it’s amazing to watch the differences in arm action and biomechanics.   Heck, even *my* technique isn’t great, and the reasons are simple.

Sprinting is a multi-planar motion, with 3 different vector planes involved (sagittal, frontal and transverse, also known as lateral, coronal and horizontal planes, depending on your kinetics background)

So with everyone’s body being different, you are trying to balance and optimize your running strides.  Remember Newton’s third law of motion:

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

There is no absolute correct way of using your arms, but there is an optimal one for your body type.  Especially those unfortunate to have with different leg lengths.

Finally, it’s not only the arms, just like orange juice isn’t just for breakfast anymore.  The hands play an integral part of the whole motion.

How to Run Faster (with your Arms)

There are several articles on arm action here on the Blog… everything from the Jamaican Sprint Success to Adarian Barr’s instructional video below:

1. Arm action in sprinting
2. Arm action in sprinting: Is this product crap?
3. Stealing Second & Third Base: Secret are in the hands
4. Arm Action: Work together, not pump up & down!

Here’s another one for the series.  It’s 5 min video from Tom Tellez from his complete online 7.5 hour video course with Dan Pfaff from the Track and Field Legends seminar.  It also covers Sprints, Hurdles, Throws and Jumps too.

Here’s the video on YouTube:

For more information, go to Track and Field Legends.com