Right When Wrong

I received another email about the topic of running from Mike Boyle -

http://www.FunctionalStrengthCoach3.com 

http://www.OnlineBodyByBoyle.com -

and enjoyed it, even though I think he's wrong.

How to help an athlete run faster is a concern for any coach and/or parent of an athlete (would be athlete?).  In every game I watch my kids play, the athlete with the most speed generally makes the most impact - not always, but it evident what they say is true, "there is no substitute for speed." 

There is also no shortage of strongly held beliefs about running and how to run faster.  There are any number of tools designed for the purpose - ladders, dot drills, mini barricades, jump ropes, etc.  What's interesting is how little data there is to validate any particular method.  I consider this something of an indictment against exercise science.  How many years will take until they define what running is a devise a way to measure where it comes from and why? 

You don't need scientists in a university lab to figure out how to make people faster, though.  Barry Ross has impressive athletes, and he focuses on deadlifts (to the tune of 130 pound teen aged female athletes deadlifting over 400 pounds?!) and additional core training, and hard, short sprinting.  Louie Simmons reports he can take an accomplished collegiate football player and reduce the athlete's 40 yard sprint time with a combination of strength and power training and with no sprinting.  Obviously, Mike Boyle agrees with these two about where speed comes from:

It is not how fast the feet move, but rather how much force goes into the ground. This is basic action-reaction physics. Force into the ground equals forward motion. This is why the athletes with the best vertical jumps are most often the fastest. It comes down to force production. Often coaches will argue the vertical vs. horizontal argument and say the vertical jump doesn't correspond to horizontal speed, but years of data from the NFL Combine begs to differ.

The best solution to slow feet is to get stronger legs. Feet don't matter. Legs matter. Think about it this way: If you stand at the starting line and take a quick first step but fail to push with the back leg, you don't go anywhere. The reality is that a quick first step is actually the result of a powerful first push. We should change the buzzwords and start to say "that kid has a great first push." Lower body strength is the real cure for slow feet and the real key to speed and to agility. The essence of developing quick feet lies in single-leg strength and single-leg stability work… landing skills. If you cannot decelerate, you cannot accelerate, at least not more than once.

The reality is it comes down to horsepower and the nervous system, two areas that change slowly over time.

How do we develop speed, quickness and agility? Unfortunately, we need to do it the slow, old-fashioned way. You can play with ladders and bungee cords all you want, but that is like putting mag wheels on an Escort.

...development of speed, agility and quickness simply comes down to good training. We need to work on lower body strength and lower body power and we need to do it on one leg.

 

I subscribe more to the idea that speed comes from gravity, vice the idea that it comes from a leg propelling us forward, but will again note: there is a distinct lack of proof in this arena, which is why there's so much argument!  In the "speed comes from gravity" idea as advanced most notably by Dr. Nicholas Romanov (http://www.posetech.com/), running is the process of falling forward under the influence of gravity.  In this model, the ability to change support the fastest (support being the leg underneath you that prevents gravity from pulling you all the way down to the ground) will result in the fastest runner.  The ability to change support more rapidly seems to result from the ability to generate force against the ground - quickly.

The interesting thing, by the way, once you start looking at running this way, is how many ways you can interfere with the process of falling.  "As easy as falling off of a log?"  Yes, but not as simple. 

But suppose for a moment, that Mike Boyle and others are correct in the prescription for speed - suppose strength and power development is the "secret" to running, not because it allows one to propel oneself with a leg, but because he with the most ability to exert force can change legs faster, and therefore sustain a greater angle of body lean (to be clear, body lean is the angle between the point of support and the point where the center of gravity is found, meaning the "lean" will not be obvious; we're not talking about head and shoulders "leaning" ahead of the body like a tree falling), which would allow gravity to better accelerate the runner in question. 

If this bit of conjecture is true, then Boyle could right (about how to train) even though he is wrong (about why to train that way). 

Why do you care?  For one thing, it is true that the best runners run like Dr. Romanov prescribes, and this is a skill that can be taught.  You may not be able to transform yourself into Usain Bolt by "learning how to run" but you can run with less effort, more speed, and less destruction of your joints by running in way the body was designed to run.  From what I can tell in my fledgling efforts to do so, running with skill also feels very good.
(Minor edits December 5, 2011)