If you want to know how to run relaxed and faster, here's the idea: calm rhythm up top, aggressive down into the ground. The harder you try, the more you tense up, and the more you tense up, the slower you get. Relaxed doesn't mean floppy. It means your face, shoulders and upper back stay loose, so your legs can stay stiff and springy and give you the energy back.
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The harder you try, the slower you get
Running fast is a rhythm. It's not just general running. So the harder someone tries, the more they tense up. The more they tense up, the more they lose the rhythm and the timing that lets the legs move faster.
It's not about trying. It's about letting your feet react off the ground and timing it. If you're locked up through your upper back and middle and bracing the whole time, that takes away the rhythm, the flow and your ability to rotate. That's why the big players who are still quick are the ones who carry all that strength and have kept the rotation through the top half of their body.
Stiff is not the same as tense
This is the part most people mix up. A stiff, reactive leg returns energy. A tense, muscular leg absorbs it.
At top speed your foot is on the ground for around 90 to 100 milliseconds. There's no time to push with muscle. The force comes back through your tendons, which work like springs: they stretch when your foot lands and fire the energy straight back into the ground. When you're tense, that spring gets clamped. So the harder you try, the more energy leaks on every single contact. It's why the Mbappés of the game look like they're not even trying. More on that in ground contact time explained.
Bracing belongs under a bar
Bracing has its place. Under a bar, it stabilises your pelvis, your lower stomach and the middle of your back. That's exactly what you want when you squat.
The problem is what it does to the top half when it never switches off. If your upper back is constantly locked up from lifting heavy, you lose the ability to rotate smoothly and calmly. Then you take that same brace onto the track, and the rhythm is gone. See?
You see it in turns too. Watch Mbappé or Vinícius Júnior come out of a cut. Shoulders and hands stay really relaxed on the approach. They don't brace on the plant. On the exit, the first three strides are long and low. A tense player can't move smoothly in the air, the back leg doesn't come through cleanly, and he has to rotate himself across.
How to run relaxed and faster: watch Asafa Powell
Watch Asafa Powell in slow motion. It shows you exactly what stays calm and what doesn't.
The face. It's not fully relaxed towards the end of the race. That might just be the emotion of giving everything. And the face matters. When the face relaxes, the nervous system calms, and the big muscles of the legs, the hamstrings, calves and quads, let go of hidden bracing. In his case, it didn't hurt how he moved in the air or how he hit the ground.
The trunk. Minimal rotation through the upper spine. He's really stable from the middle of his body up.
The pelvis. He drives his foot straight down, and that comes from a neutral pelvis. He's not tipped forward. Because the pelvis stays level, the thigh comes up higher on its own.
The arm. His hand comes up to about nostril height, and the wrist is the main mover, not the elbow. The whip goes from the forearm to the wrist, timed with the whip of the leg.
The foot. It comes down really aggressively. He punches the ground, then comes off the toe cleanly, like a whip. The foot strikes down, then rolls through.
The bounce. Watch his body bounce off the ground. That constant bounce is stiffness. He isn't drifting left to right. There's stability but no force leak, so he gets way more back from the ground.
The rhythm starts calm and relaxed, then gathers momentum. Calm up top. Aggressive into the ground. That's world class.
What to actually do
A few things you can check on your own film, side on and from behind:
- ✓Face and jaw. Are you grimacing? Let the face go. That's where the calm starts.
- ✓Shoulders. Are they up near your ears? Drop them, and let the arm swing come from the wrist.
- ✓Upper back. Are you holding a brace from the gym? Save it for under the bar.
- ✓Contact. Is the foot punching down underneath you, or reaching out in front?
Then test it. Run one rep at full effort and one at what feels like 95%, loose and smooth. Film and time both. If the loose one is just as quick, or quicker, tension is costing you, right there on the clock. Does that make sense?
Running relaxed isn't a personality trait. It's a coordination problem, a nervous system problem, and that can be trained. At Ambition every session is timed and reviewed on film, so we can see whether the top half is calming down while the speed goes up.
If tension is costing you, that's the first thing we'll find.