There is one very, very important principle you must always know and remember in life and especially in football:
By breaking the body down into segments, you can see how they are connected. Each segment has its role in sprinting technique.
The head has two jobs; looking and breathing. It can’t help you run faster. In fact, it only slows you down. So just use it for looking and breathing.
The shoulders are for carrying your head and raising it. What that means is as you come out of your start, do not look up. Instead, let your shoulders do what they are naturally engineered to do-bring your head up as they properly rise.
For our purpose, we consider the elbow, its angle of bend and the fingers.
In the backswing the elbow may rise even with the shoulders with a 90-degree bend. On the front swing, the degree of bend ought to be close to slightly less than 45 degrees.
The hands on the front swing should aim towards (but not reach) the chin, they are relaxed and cupped. They should not bend back and forth at the wrist. Think of it similar to carrying an egg; if you bend you wrist back and forth, you’ll break it.
Consider the spine and shoulders when thinking about the torso. The reason for this is that sprint coaches like to refer to running tall in training. It is all about the spine is straight and the shoulders relaxed in their normal position.
Running tall does not means lifting or shrugging your shoulders or raising your chin.
When sprinting, the foot strike or landing is on the balls of your feet. There shouldn’t be any heel contact. And when the foot leaves the ground the heel swings through the glute. The heel can ultimately control the height of the knee, which brings the thigh almost parallel to the ground. This turnover will increase your speed and result in a faster 40 yard dash if done right.
