Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 112, November 2018 | Page 21

OUT OF
THE By BOX
Norrie Williamson
Brought to you by B4 Play Products
EFFICIENCY IMPROVES PERFORMANCE
Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Usain Bolt and Eluid Kipchoge… four of the world’s greatest athletes, each with an identifying
characteristic that makes them stand out from the crowd. Of course, these are not the only athletes that will align with
the message of this article, but they are amongst the most successful in their events.
L
ewis, who won nine Olympic and eight
World Championship gold medals,
was dominant in the 100m, 200m,
long jump and 4x100m relay events from
1979 to 1996. Any follower of the sport
would easily recognise his running style with
straight, out-stretched hands working like
knives. He was followed by Johnson, whose
stiff upright running posture, and short
staccato steps with high cadence defied
the conventional wisdom that favoured
long, high-knee strides. Johnson proved his
point, however, with four Olympic and eight
World Championship golds, and in 1996 he
became the only athlete to win gold in both
the 200m and 400m at an Olympics. His
style was all about short, fast, swift ‘drives’
backward to push the body forward.
The point is that in distance running there
are diminishing returns from physiological
training, whereas the two greatest areas
of potential are belief/psychology and
efficiency. When Kipchoge ran 2:00:23 in
the contrived environment of the Nike Sub-2
Project in Italy, he proved to himself that
his body could handle going under two
hours. It is simply about getting the correct
conditions on the correct day. But it also
highlighted the importance of efficiency of
style, and if you do an internet search of
historical footage of Kipchoge, you will see
the evolution of a running style that has
been honed to a close-arm action, forefoot
striking and backward driving cycle that now
maintains good body position throughout a
two-hour 42km effort.
Without question the most impactful track athlete of recent times has been Bolt,
with eight Olympic and 11 World Championship gold medals. Once again, his
style was distinct, with his 6 foot 5 inch frame honed to move in the most efficient
fashion. Slow motion footage of the Jamaican in full flight shows him almost
floating above the ground, with his legs out-stretched and ‘cycling’ between a
spike powered pull from ahead to a longer drive behind, and feet seeming to just
touch the ground to maintain momentum. Bolt was said to have had scoliosis of
the spine in his early years, but worked on that to reduce the imbalances, and his
more symmetrical style led to faster times. Thus a slow motion view of his style in Berlin shares the same principles of Bolt’s
running, except there is little forward strike. The foot touches the ground just
slightly ahead of the centre of gravity and the high knee, then drives back to propel
the body forward. The high ‘bum-kicking’ fold of the leg makes for a short lever,
which can then turn over at a high cadence to allow for the next propulsive stride.
The arms drive behind but are kept close, fast and aligned to shoulder and chest
(perhaps the most obvious progression of his style) to minimise any over-striding.
Finally, the position is all held together by the strength of core and enhanced by the
shoe design which promotes a forward lean and rearward drive.
APPLIED TO MARATHONS PROOF IN THE RESULTS
But these are all short distance events, where hundredths, if not thousandths of
a second can split gold from silver, and years are spent honing style. Meanwhile,
the myth still exists that changing style is either a mistake, or unachievable, for
distance runners. The reality is that in the early years of running, taking minutes off
the world record distances was relatively easy, which meant improvements could
be achieved through physiological improvement. Efficiency is now a massively decisive factor in long distance running, just as it was
in the progression of sprint distances, and middle distances. Put into perspective,
Kipchoge’s marathon improvement equates to a two-second improvement over
1500m, or eight seconds over 5000m, where fine-tuning efficiency has been proven
to pay dividends. The take-home message here is that improvement is achievable
by every runner, but it’s not going to be honed by simply stacking up the distance in
training. Improvement will be through efficiency, first by dropping distance and then
reducing imbalances, building core strength and developing a more efficient style with
improvements in proprioception, cadence and greater ground contact force per stride.
Thus the marathon World Record dropped by 10 minutes in the decade from
1950 to 1960. However, it dropped just 28 seconds between 1970 and 1980,
and despite it being a highly competitive and financially rewarding era, only two
minutes were shaved off the record in the 11 years from 2003 to 2014. Then last
month Kipchoge slashed 78 seconds from the record in Berlin, taking it down to
2:01:39.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norrie has represented Scotland, Great Britain and South
Africa in ultra-distance running and triathlon, and he is an IAAF-accredited coach
and course measurer. You can read more from him at www.coachnorrie.co.za.
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