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:
- Arm action in sprinting
- Arm action in sprinting: Is this product crap?
- Stealing Second & Third Base: Secret are in the hands
- 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
Jimson Lee
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the video info is spot on. thanks for sharing this with your readers. My fitness & track Coach continually tells us to ‘run with her Arms’. i’m goin to share this video with them so that they can now…& fully comprehend what & why the Coach corrects our arm action. This has made improve my M40 time from between 11.8 & 12.0 last season to 11.3 this season thus far. There is still so much to learn from Athletics as a whole even though i only started 3 years ago.
People, don’t forget to: listen to your Coaches, your instincts, your learning…, your health, and your body. Age will take care of itself. Remember, “we are only a machine, that needs regular oiling”.
Brilliant video Jimson. Though i have never met you nor Kenta; You & Kenta Bell have been a special book of resource to me.
Thanks Manny. One day, I will organize a mega-conference with all the top coaches, just like the one we had at SFU last weekend (Meeting of the minds workshop). But I know it is more important to ask question and apply what you know (i.e. do a practical exercise), and not simply listening and taking notes.