PELVIC POSITION: FASTER SPRINTING & AVOIDING INJURY

An analysis of pelvic position and posture differences between competitive sprinters and team sport athletes to improve speed and prevent injury.

👉 POSTURE & PELVIC POSITION Yesterday we shared a video of two different athletes: a competitive sprinter and a team sport athlete. One of the several stand out differences you'll have noticed was posture and pelvic position. In today's video, note the competitive sprinter with a posture that’s upright and a pelvis that’s relatively neutral (i.e. not anteriorly tilted). The team sport athlete in comparison has a posture that’s leaning forward, with some pelvic collapse and an anterior pelvic tilt (i.e. the hips are pointing down). 🚨 There’s a top-down cause and effect to this: The posture and pelvic position in the sprinter allows for less backside thigh swing. In other words, after toe-off, because the competitive sprinter has an upright posture and neutral pelvis, the thigh doesn’t swing that far behind the body – what has been called ‘backside mechanics.’ In comparison, in the team sport athlete, the upper body posture and the anterior pelvic tilt cause the thighs to swing way back behind the body in a big looping backside swing of the foot – this is not a good thing. 🚨 Now look at the frontside lift (i.e. the knee lift or thigh lift in front of the body): The competitive sprinter – because of good posture, pelvic position, and limited back side swing – can accomplish more frontside lift – greater knee lift in front of the body. Whereas the team sport athlete with the big backside swing cannot get the thigh up far in front of the body. 🚨Finally - note the groundstrike The competitive sprinter attacks the ground from above from the high knee position; the sprinter attacks down towards the ground, whereas the team sport athlete, again because of the cascade of events that starts with posture, pelvic position, and backside mechanics, ends up casting out. 🚫 For the team sport athlete, this creates a passive landing that’s almost reactive for the ground. This is not only bad for performance but also puts the team sport athlete in this case (or these types of mechanics), at a much greater risk of injury, especially soft-tissue injury such as hamstring, hip flexors, and groin pulls. --- LEARN MORE: ▶️ Need for Speed NSCA Approved Course: loom.ly/qD5f6rE ▶️ Free Ebook: The ALTIS Gamespeed Model: loom.ly/tfq7Wm8 #speed #needforspeed #gamespeed #sprinting