what's up everybody welcome to another episode of how to get faster today we are going to be doing the block start heavily requested I wasn't really going to do this because there's so many different elements to blocks and there are so many different ideas and Concepts that go into it but I was the just like hey I might as well do it my way if you guys like it great if you don't you know continue doing it the way that you've been doing it for everybody who's joining us please like subscribe comment we have a
great Community Center where we update you on everything that's happening guys if you don't see videos going up usually we've made a post in the community tab talking about why that's happening and we also get great ideas of what videos to do next this has actually been sponsored by a poll we've done in our community tab so if you want to have another idea of what video we should do next on how to get faster make sure you are checking out the community tab all right back to the blocks guys we have a beautiful pair
of blocks here you know they're a little Dusty I've had them for a little long now you know Omega was one of my sponsors and they were nice enough to give me a pair of blocks so I've used them from time to time anytime that I'm getting ready for a diamond League even got my name on it's kind of cute you know it's nice and all but what a good is a pair of blocks if you don't know how to use them first thing that we're going to talk about is actually how to find your
steps um I've been using this method since I was in high school again this is not perfect but there's a good Baseline of how to find it first of course you're going to find out what your front leg is and what your back leg is starting from the Baseline right here we're actually going to put our heel on the back side and count out from the Baseline now that's one step that's two steps we're going to end up doing three for the back that's three all right now as you great now that our great grounds
keeper is done mowing the long we can begin again all right again from the Baseline right here we're going to put our the back of our heel on the line we're going to count out three steps this is of course going to be for our back foot so that's one step this is two steps there's three now as you get more comfortable in finding what your uh your block setting is you can use your fingers or maybe you just like using a tape measur but I always like to use my spikes because that's the easiest
to do when you're in a tight situation so you know come out here and then what I'll do is I'll use two fingers because I know that two fingers is the distance between the third step and the block pad so I'll just put two fingers in there Jack why don't you come over here and get a look at this it's kind of hard to see from that far now come on all the way over here oh there you go so what you going two fingers scooch it up a little right there and that's about two
fingers give or take of course then I'm going to make sure that the back pad is on the second Notch now every block pad is different they all have different angles as long as you make sure that the back one is higher of an angle than the front one you're fine then we're going to move on to our front step again starting with the back heel that's one now'll place another one down that's two and we're going to move that one up right on the line again each block pad is different this usually this has
about a pinky width in between but it doesn't really matter it's not that big a deal going to secure the blocks in nice and tight there we go all right now we're going to get into the fun things we're going to actually get into the blocks everybody has their way of getting into blocks some people like to jump some people like to shake out their legs you know whatever squat down you know I have my whole routine but right now we're just going to get the blocks backing my feet up into the blocks making sure
that some part of my shoe or spike is touching the ground that is something that you know as you get higher and higher in the Sports World they will tell you that you need to do ah as you can see we're in the block then you got to start putting your hands down oh wow this track is hot it's burning my fingers hot okay we're going to woo that's hot taking me back to my old days when you aaou had to sprinkle water on the track to make sure you put your fingers on it got
all right now that we got our water down cuz the track is hot today we're going to go we going to back into it you're going to put your first foot in now when you put your back foot in you're going to want to actually load the block when I say that it means I want you to get that knee down into the angle and push into the block pad I don't want it to be passive I want you to push into there and lock that knee down when you bring your knee down I want
you to feel tension between your foot and the block pad like you could push off of it at any moment and you're going to do a slightly similar thing to the front pad it's just not going to be as strong because of course there's nothing to really uh lock it into on the ground really but you still should feel like you could push off the pad going to put your feet you put your hands down my bad you're going to be leaning forward now a lot of people will get caught up and leaning backwards like
this cuz it's comfortable it's comfortable back here we're not here to be comfortable here to be fast so you need to be on top or leaning in front of your your hands and the starting line and as we go into the set position these hands right here they should be locked and loaded there should be tension throughout this whole part of your body it should be going from your fingertips all the way up through your arms through your shoulders and a little bit through your back because that's how much tension here you're pushing through it's
not budging when you come up you're going to still pushing into the pads I want it to feel like you are trying to make sure that there is as much tension between the block pad and you and your glute so when you're coming up into your set position from your calf through your hamstring through your glutes that should all feel like you're pressing against something because you are pressing against this block pad when that gun goes off you're going to press against the block pad Propel yourself forward so again you're going to come up into
the set position now there is always a special area where the glutes come up and they need to be there's going to be a point where it's too low if it's too low your black your back is going to look flat so you don't want it to look like this and you're not going to get anywhere like that but you also don't want it to be too high you don't want to look like like this when you're in your set position there should be an angle between your leg right here in your glute should be
a what most coaches call a 45° angle going into the track and this leg should be bent if you have a straight leg like this when you go into your set position that is wrong you are not going to get any power from that leg that leg is basically just there because it wants to look cute if you think of your legs like a spring when does the spring jump up when it's just all straight or when you prush down on it and let go and it jumps into the air that is how you have
to think of the blocks and your legs and your body as you are coiling coiling yourself into these blocks so again you'll come in make sure that this is locked and loaded because you're pushing into the pad the back and you're keeping it there using your knee you're leaning forward on top or in for or forward over the line you go into set position and what I like to do is breathe in and as soon as the gun goes off you breathe out and guys that is the first part of the blocks I know it's
crazy that's just all the first things the first things before you take your final first step I'm only going to talk about the next three steps though now going into the next three steps because they are part of the blocks so the gun is going to go off you're going to be pushing against or better yet I'm not going to use the word push because that insinuates that it's something that's going to take longer than it needs to you're going to strike the back pad and as soon as you strike the back pad you're going
to strike the front pad and that's going to propel you forward you're going to take your first step and you want it to be powerful and I want to say long but that's my qword truly these are ke wordss you're going to have to find for yourself I don't know what the length is your coach is going to want and I don't know how quick or how far he's going to want you to go but whatever you find to be your keyword that is what you need to think about in your first step and your
second step and your third step so TR for me since I Am Naturally very fast with my turnover speed which is how fast I can put down and pick up my legs I have to think be patient so I'll come out and I have a very powerful and long patient step and then I'll come out and I'll do the second one now while I'm doing these again my shins are going to be very parallel to the track a lot of people might come out of the blocks I'm going to take a long jumping step you'll
think it needs to look like that but by doing that when you come out of that step look at where you're at your head's up your shoulders are up the rest of your body is up you know and as you look to the left and the right everybody else is going to be down here shoulders down the track head down the track momentum down the track Shin angles down the track when you've done that big jump your shin is up in the air it's going up into the air instead of down the track your shins
and your um ankle up in the air it's not helping it's the wrong energy you want everything going down the track and you don't need to be up tall until you're probably at 35 40 m down the track the last thing we're going to talk about is just the mental state again the start is the start does not have to be perfect it just has to be your best as long as you remember that you have to have good positions the rest will take care of itself you cannot have a good race with bad positions
you can only have good races with good positions and the your body will naturally start running faster all right everybody that's the block start I hope you've enjoyed it if you want to hear more stuff go check out our video on how to run the 100 and hopefully you'll be able to get some things beyond the first three steps on the blocks all right guys we'll see you next [Music] time
