If you want to know how to start a sprint faster, here's the answer in one line: push, don't jump. Drive off the back leg, get the next foot down underneath you with urgency, and stop reaching out in front. Most slow starts aren't a strength problem. They're a coordination problem, which is your nervous system not putting you in the right position fast enough.
Watch: the video this post comes from
How to start a sprint faster: push, don't jump
Here's a real report from one of our assessments, a 14 year old. The report opens with one sentence that sums him up: he jumps when he should push.
On film, slowed right down, he lost 200 milliseconds lifting his front leg before he even started to push. Then his hips popped straight up, and over the first few strides he was running on the spot. His first 5 metres was 20% off the standard for his age. But by the back half of a 20 metre sprint, he was ahead of it.
So he could run. He couldn't start. And that's why the drills off the internet never fixed it: they couldn't pick out what the issue actually was. It looks like a technical problem. It isn't.
Football doesn't start from blocks
Most sprint sessions are straight line sprinting from a nice square start. But look at how football actually starts. Side on. Backtracking. On a diagonal while you're jockeying a player. Very few sessions train those.
From a side-on start, the back foot is the one that matters. You use that back foot to really push off. That force projects the body upwards and forwards, and it gives room for the next foot to come down. Here's the key: you don't just want that foot placed out in front of you. You want it landing right underneath you, slightly behind your centre of mass, while the force is still coming from the back leg.
What a lot of players do is only use the front leg to get going. The first foot lands out in front of their body and acts like a brake.
The switch
The position I want to see is the switch: one foot coming down while the other one is coming through, at the same time. Both legs interchanging, one going back, one coming forward. That is really important. It's a key to football speed.
Once the switch is happening, the next strides open up. You see the back leg reaching close to full hip extension as the toe leaves the ground, and the front leg coming down underneath your centre of mass. Does that make sense? Push behind, land underneath, repeat.
Why it's not a strength problem
Think about the AFL player who breaks away from a contest, stays up in a high hip position and can't drop into the next step. You see it in every sport, rugby league, AFL, even cricket and baseball. Everyone thinks it's a position problem. Mostly, it isn't. It's a neurological problem. The nervous system can't put him into that position at that speed, and he can't relax through the whole motion.
When you have that coordination and smoothness, your limbs actually feel easier to pick up, both when you're slowing down and when you're exiting through the gap. See that? It's not always structural. It's coordination.
Strength does matter for the very first stride. Out of a standing start, ground contact, which is how long your foot is on the ground, can be upwards of 200 milliseconds, so there's time to use the force you built in the gym. But every stride after gets shorter on the ground. By about the fifth or sixth stride you're down at 110 to 100 milliseconds, and what's making the speed there is reactivity. Strength is just holding your posture.
The cord drill
Here's a drill that works almost straight away. Tie a bungee cord around your waist, with a partner or a fence holding the other end, and start from a side-on position. Push off the back leg and sprint out.
Why a cord and not a sled? A sled is about pushing force down into the ground. A cord is pulling you backwards, so you have to work not to get pulled back. That makes the urgency automatic. The front leg coming through has to get underneath you as quickly as possible, or the cord wins. Nobody has to tell you to land under your hips. The cord teaches it.
Film it side on. Look for three things:
- ✓Does the first push come from the back leg, or does the front leg lift first?
- ✓Does the foot land underneath you, or out in front?
- ✓Do the hips stay low through the first few strides, or pop straight up?
Fix it in the right order
A slow start can come from the push, the landing, the hips, or the tension in the top half. They look similar from the sideline. On film at 240 frames a second they look completely different, and each one gets a different fix.
That's why every run we do is timed and filmed, and why the report sets a target for the first 5 metres against the standard for your age and the level above it. For the strength side of the first stride, read how to improve first step acceleration. For the top end that comes after, read how to increase top speed.
Find out which one is costing you, and fix that first.