Today I'm going to discuss how to improve stride length. Stride length means increasing the distance between each step during a sprint. If the stride length increases, then a person will travel faster using the same amount of steps.

Specifically, I'm going to talk about:

1. Reaching with the toes

2. Pushing the ground

3. Testing your feets

REACHING WITH THE TOEs

One comman mistake we see with sprinters is over planter flexion, where they point their toes in an attempt to lengthen their strides.

This reduce the power they can generate from the ground and increases the risk of injury. 

For example, one athlete I have seen was overreaching with his toes, which caused him to strike the ground early and led to over-striding. 

Over-striding means a person lands far ahead of their centre of mass, which causes their body to slow down faster. Also, this puts stress on his hamstrings because he instead of striking the ground, the athlete needs to "Pull"  at the ground with their leg.

In an attempt to increase stride length, avoid excessive plantar flexion, in other words, avoid reaching with the toes because it will do more harm than good.

Instead of extending your strides by pointing your toes down, focus landing with a heel closer to the ground and stiff ankles.

PUNCHING THE GROUND

One way to think about sprinting is to compare it to boxing. Just like a boxer makes  strong fist and punches to deliver maximum force... Sprinters need to strike the ground with stiff ankles and feet to generate powerful force into the ground.

If you punch with a soft wrist, you risk hurting youself, and it's the same with sprinting....

Sprinting with weak ankles can lead to shin splints, calf strains, and ankle injuries. Train the muscles surrounding your ankles so that you can develop a strong, stiff foot, just like you'd punch with a strong fist.

One way to do this is through toe curls using a cable machine. Perform toe curls by hooking the cable machine into the toes and pointing the toe towards the knee to strengthen the tibialis.

The tiabilis is the muscle group that helps "stiffen" the foot as it leaves the ground, in preparation for the next foot strike.

Toe curls with a cable machine train a small group of muscles so they are best trained with low weight, and high reps such as 15 reps of 3 sets.

TESTING YOUR FEET

The next questions is how do you know if you have weak feet?

One way is to simply ask yourself are you someone who runs on your toes, struggles with top speed, or is dealing with shin splits, achilies pain, joint pain, calf pain, or foot pain?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions there's a possibility you are landing with soft ankles. Two is for you to analyze your video while running at top speed and see if your foot is spending too much time on the ground.

A clear indication of this is your leg takes too-long to recover and looks like this upon initial ground contact.

The third way and arguably the most objective is to get your RSI score. This measures your ability to absorb and then rapidly produce maximum forces.

There are various ways to get your RSI score. One method would be to perform 10 consecutive squat jumps with the hands on the waist. Then you get the average height and ground contact time of the 5 best jumps and divide them to get your RSI.

Based on your RSI score, you can compare yourself to standard numbers, or with your teammates to see where you rank