Why Your Start Might Be Better Than You Think

DEEP DIVE

Watch any sprint race and you'll see it happen. One runner explodes out of the blocks and leads the field through the first five meters. Another runner looks slower off the line, somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Most people watching would say the first runner had the better start.

They'd probably be wrong.

The problem is we judge starts by the wrong metric. Position at five meters tells you almost nothing about who actually executed the best start. What matters is speed at thirty meters.

A runner can be ahead early and still have performed a poor start if they've already stopped accelerating. Meanwhile, a sprinter in the middle of the pack who's still building speed has set themselves up to win.

The start isn't a race to see who can cover the first few meters fastest. It's an acceleration phase where the goal is reaching the highest possible speed before transitioning to upright running.

Most sprinters cut this phase short. They pop up too quickly, start running before they've finished accelerating, and leave speed on the track.

The solution comes down to understanding what your body needs to do to accelerate maximally out of the blocks.

When you stay low with your center of gravity projected well in front of your supporting feet, physics works in your favor. Your body has to accelerate forward or you'd topple over. That forward lean creates a rotational imbalance that demands acceleration to maintain balance.

The further your weight extends ahead of your feet, the greater the acceleration required to stay upright. This isn't comfortable. It requires serious quad strength and mental discipline. But it's what forces your body to build real speed.

Coming upright too early removes this advantage. Once your feet are closer to being under your center of gravity, the acceleration demand drops off. You're now just running, not accelerating.

Think about pushing a stalled car. You crouch behind it with your weight forward and legs driving from behind. You don't stand up and start running alongside it after the first push. You stay in that driving position, pushing hard, until the car has real momentum.

The same principle applies coming out of blocks.

Your front block push is the strongest forward thrust your body receives during the entire race. Don't cut it short by rushing to get your foot off the pedal. Push hard. Get full extension from that leg.

Keep your head down. You don't need to see the finish line yet. Look at where you are now, not where you'll be later. Raising your head encourages your whole torso to rise, which kills the acceleration advantage you're working to maintain.

For those first eight to ten strides, think "pushing" rather than "running." Your feet should be driving the track backward while your body stays projected forward. Each step gradually brings you more upright as your speed builds, but the rise should be slow and controlled.

This approach might mean you're not leading at the five-meter mark. That's fine. What matters is whether you're still building speed at twenty or thirty meters while the runner who "won" the first five meters has already plateaued.

Position in the first few strides is largely irrelevant if you haven't built the speed to carry through the race. The runner with the best start is the one who reaches the highest speed during the acceleration phase, regardless of where they are on the track at any given moment during that phase.

This requires a mindset shift. Stop judging your starts by early position. Start judging them by whether you're still accelerating strongly while maintaining good form through that drive phase.

The next time you feel like you're behind out of the blocks, ask yourself: am I still building speed? If the answer is yes, your start might be better than you think.