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Earlier in the year, I posted an article about the controversial “Jamaican” toe-scrape toe-drag technique on the second step. It’s not limited to Jamaicans now.
This article is guest blogged by movement specialist and Track and Field coach Adarian Barr of Next Level Athletics and Fitness. He can be reached at adarian@tijako.com.
His other contributing article was Staying Low on a 40 Yard Dash or 100 Meter Start.
The Toe Drag Makes You Faster?
Toe drag out of a block start is becoming more and more common amongst elite sprinters. Examples include Usain Bolt on the second step, Justin Gatlin on the first two steps, Asafa Powell on the first two steps, and Lolo Jones who has recently switched from a drag on the 3rd step to the first two steps.
Here is Asafa Powell’s video on YouTube:
As a sprinter develops, they are taught to drive out of the blocks with both legs, but maybe we should be taking a note or two from the block start of a swimmer. Swimmer’s drive off of one leg and never bring a knee through. This means that they create enough explosive power with one leg that the other leg becomes irrelevant. Instead of bringing one knee through like sprinters, swimmers drive the body forward off of one leg leaving leg leg suspended behind them.
When regarding sprinters, the toe drag can work to a runners advantage just as much as a swimmer’s start can work to their advantage. Driving off of one leg and leaving one leg behind you creates the same explosion that swimmers have already perfected. Toe drag creates tremendous power and explosion as the glutes contract over a longer period of time allowing the sprinter to achieve maximum force application. In addition, dragging the toe also drives the hips down the track setting up a pattern to create maximum horizontal velocity.
Here is Lolo Jones video (embedding is disabled, so you have to go to YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eDxam6SMjs
Another added bonus of toe drag is that your feet stay low to the ground creating less braking action. Due to the fact that the athlete’s hips are driving horizontally with their feet remaining close to the ground, the athlete is able to stay low as they don’t have to raise their body up to bring the back leg through. In order for the toe drag start to work for the athlete, the athlete must alter their arm swing from a back and forth action to a side to side action as the shoulders get involved to create torque.
According to theorists, the most important benefit that can come of dragging the toe is the inevitable ability to create greater top end speed. After seeing some of the world’s most elite sprinters successfully execute the toe drag, it is safe to say that dragging your toe does indeed make the block start faster.
About the Author
Adarian Barr (movement specialist, trainer, and track and field coach) of Next Level Athletics and Fitness has been teaching this sprint start to his athletes with great success.
Want to learn more? Contact us at adarian@tijako.com
Complex Meets Simple 2012 Instantly better Track and Field Clinic.
Dec 15, 2012 at Merritt College, from 1 to 5 pm.
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Jimson Lee
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I thought she was injured or something because it looked so unnatural in the semi-final.
She wasn’t 100%. She didn’t do this in the final. I believe this is residual problems from her tethered spinal chord issue.
She did it back in 2008 so it is not from her spinal issues.
I teach it to all my athletes, jumpers, sprinters and hurdlers. They love it. In the jumps is sets up the take off and in the triple jump it sets up the second phase. So it is not just for sprint starts.
Toe drag is a result of being able to apply the type of force to produce low enough angles to do it and then keeping an extremely low heel recovery (not even all elites can and I think teaching toe drag purposefully (and usually artificially) to a bunch of subelites is foolish). Further no good sprinter drives off of one leg in the blocks. I’ve never seen any biomech data to support that and even swimmers added a rear block of sorts to make better use of the back leg. I view the toe drag very similar to Mo Greene’s head down in the 90s… you ended up with a bunch of copycats screwing up sprinters trying to copy something from an elite that most athletes shouldn’t be doing. When I saw the semi for 100 hurdles it was obvious that Lolo was border line stumbling to the first hurdle and she doesn’t normally look like that to hurdle 1 (she has a lot of work to do from behind in the semi after this supposedly revolutionary start (note the forced rotation to the right from literally catching her foot on the ground and she’s about 5th at hurdle 1). One of the single biggest diseases I fight coaching track is people shooting low or leaving a head low and resultingly having to step laterally or end up with a forced rushed shin angle progression to avoid losing balance. Additionally, their lack of vertical forces early (bolt and Powell both usually have good vertical forces early, particularly Bolt) usually show up later as they give ground to their comtemporaries in maxv and speed endurance.
“To maximize the distance of entry from the starting block, it is essential to push from both legs and pull with both arms. To optimize these limbs, the following set-up is essential”
http://www.swimmingscience.net/2011/11/omega-track-start-tragedies-part-ii.html
I say BULL! She had the worst start of anyone in her heat! If she’d really exploded out of the blocks, she might have qualified for the finals. It looked like she was concentrating on the toe drag so much, she forgot to run!
You know, I am a high school track coach, and there is no way I would teach this start to sub-elites. First, watching Lolo, I agree with Thorkell and Matt. In his commentary for her semi, Ato Bolden said, “She got a good start,” and I was screaming at the TV, “Are you kidding me? She tripped!” Either the start is not one she should be using (and the physics of it still escape me…regardless of everything else, you’re still dragging a toe on the ground. Isn’t drag something we try to avoid in our sprinters at all costs?) or it doesn’t work. It also seems really chancy. Take Lolo…you are on the razor’s edge of tripping every time you start. I agree with Matt that teaching this to sub-elites (maybe even most elites) is like trying to get them to run with Michael Johnson’s form, or Mo Green’s head position. I wouldn’t want to do what Merritt’s coach did in changing his start foot after the guy had had success the other way. Obviously, elite coaches know how to do some things I don’t. Otherwise, I would be in London right now celebrating with my medalists. It takes a special set of skills (not to mention special athletes) to coach these kind of very advanced techniques. I wouldn’t do it unless you REALLY know what your doing, all ego aside. If you know that much, you probably should be coaching elites.
I think the toe drag keeps the hips in a more optimal position for pushing than if the foot is lifted higher and then pushes down – almost a cue for hip driven running right from the blocks by keeping them engaged. I think that is contrary to what is considered the norm for the start – that a big squat is gonna blast you out there for the first bit. I presume hip-driven running is also something that sub-elites can’t be taught due to strength deficit when compared to elites (never mind from the blocks)? Everytime is see the Jamaican runners at the bigger meets I could swear that the area where their hamstrings join their hip are getting bigger.
So glad to find this article…I noticed Jones’ pronounced toe drag in the semis and, like others, thought it may be related to her spinal problems.
I agree with the aforementioned comments against the toe drag. Most evident I think is in the graphic at the start where she gets absolutely crushed to the first hurdle by Sally Pearson, who doesn’t use the toe drag. If anything, I feel as though the toe drag should be a product rather than a cause. If your body position on the start and the forces that you’re generating incline you to toe drag, I commend you, since you need some pretty amazing strength to be able to. On the other hand, it’s possible to toe drag if your body is in a piked position, which is why I don’t think it should be taught, especially to lower level athletes, as others have said. There are so many more important things to work on that you should have perfected (as Sally Pearson seems to have) before this even comes into play.
I hope dragging the foot is incidental and not done on purpose because the dragging breaks momentum, and so does side to side arm swing
I don’t understand why you would want to toe drag. Its not something I would teach my kids to do. If anything I would look to Ben Johnson’s start its so explosive ( I know he used steroids to build strength) and in the latter stages of his run in to competition at Seoul 88′ he had a huge advantage on those he competed with. I don’t see this from the toe drag. If it does give you high end speed to your race, I think that there would need to be a whole lot more research and evidence for me to suggest to my athletes to use it. Its clear Sally Person is a much faster starter than Jones in your sample video and if Jones back end speed was to be faster it wasn’t fast enough to help her win. Its a huge sacrifice to make in my opinion.
I’m adding my name to the list against this. I remember watching Ben Johnson run, and as his Lats got bigger, his arm swing became a more side to side motion.
Sure enough – local high school sprinters mimicked the motion, thinking it was all they needed to become faster.
Reminds me of overhearing a youngster as he was watching a middle distance race, the comment was ‘ I gotta get me a pair of those spikes – they make you fast’
I’m sure that someone will fall flat on their face while attempting this, and not just the so called ‘sub-elite’
Oh this is going to be the Next Big Thing. Fit sprint spikes with small nylon rollers topside of the toes.
I’ve only recently been introduced to the “toe drag”, but from what I’ve seen it doesn’t appear to be much faster. After watching the video of Asafa Powell’s starts he appears to generate a large amount of lateral force which pushes him close to the edge of his lane (best seen during the front-on shots of his starts at 0:35, 1:00, and 1:24) – this seems like a waste of energy and counter productive. I admit that I don’t fully understand the theory, but at this stage of my understanding it seems biomechanically disadvatageous and slower.
toe drag takes thing completely off point …..its technically bad mechanics fullstop… anybody can see on video that toe dragging just doesnt improve a sprinters start …….in fact it looks to be doing the direct opposite ….. i think with powell it has to have been a habitual thing , that probably should have been coached out of him !… as for gatlin (well lets not use him as an example ,peds etc0
The comparison to swimming is incredibly dumb.
First and foremost some swimmers do drive off of two legs, not all used the staggered start.
Beyond that, swimmers don’t NEED to drive the knee through since they aren’t switching to support on the (previously) back leg. They are diving face first into the water and beginning a combination of arm motion with kicking.
If a sprinter didn’t bring his back leg through, he’d fall down.
Which is the real reason it’s an idiotic comparison. Now, if sprinters were going off of one leg onto their stomach and then swimming on the tarmac….
Lyle