Arm Action in SprintingFEBRUARY 5, 2014 BY JIMSON LEE1 COMMENT

Ever notice the arm action in the 200m curve is different than on the straightaway?  And

how it slightly differed compared to the last 40 meters of the 100 meters?

This brings up the topic of arm action in sprinting.

Famous Canadian Track Coach Geoff Gowan would say, “You run with your arms on

your legs”.

To study arm mechanics properly, you really need 2 video cameras from 2 different

angles – one from the front and one from the side.

Arm Action Basics

It doesn’t take a lot of arm strength to maintain form for proper arm angles.  Bench

Press and body weight exercises will generally suffice.

Your arm strokes from the shoulders, thus your hands play a vital role in maintaining the

balance.

The hand comes up to face level in front, and you pull down (not back) from there,

usually from the elbows or even the hands.

I remember another Coach teaching us to make a circle with your thumb & first finger

(like the Rodney Dangerfield expression “A-okay”), or as if you are grasping an empty

roll of toilet paper, and as you run, you should see “through the hole”.  While this may

work for youth athletes to teach basic fundamentals, it doesn’t work for elite speeds of

10m/s or greater.

When we teach youth sprinters, we use simplistic numbers such as 90 degrees (or right

angles) on the front-swing, and 90 degrees on the “down-swing”.   I purposely don’t use

the words “back-swing”.  With good arm mechanics, the “PULL” action is down and not

back.  Why?  Because with leg mechanics, you are pulling down, not back.  That’s my

logic.

Elite athletes arm angles differ slightly with ~85 degrees in front-swing to ~95 to 100

degrees on the down-swing.  The opening up of the elbow will come naturally as your

top speed increases.  You can’t help it.

The “Arm Bone is connected to the Hip Bone” song

The arms will come towards, but not cross, the mid line thus initiating the shoulder

rotation required to compensate for the slight counter-rotation of the hip.

You need a view from above to see this properly.  I am going to use Wallace

Spearmon’s 200m Olympic final in Beijing, since they had nice overhead photos from

the Bird Nest Stadium.  In the example below, the red line marks the plane for the

shoulders, and the green lines marks the hips.

The difference between slight counter-rotation of the hip and no counter-rotation (i.e

hips locked, square plane) is about 3-4 cm.  It’s not much, but coupled that with about

30 strides in a full upright position (on a 100m sprint), and we are talking a gain of

almost 1 full meter. Charlie Francis used to say, “How would you like to gain a free

meter in the 100m?”

In my opinion, one example of hip over-rotation would be Cathy Freeman of Australia.  If

you take a look at her side view, you’ll see a very open and extended arm, and hence

slight over-rotation of the shoulder which leads to a slight over-rotation of the hip.  But it

works for her, so why change it.  I am merely using her as an example as I feel her

counter-rotation of the hip seems visually excessive.  Also, her body anatomy may find

this optimal.

One of the reasons you want optimal arm swings is to maintain proper hip rotation. 

Arms too close to the torso in the front-swing may limit hip rotation.  If it is too open,

then that may change the center of balance, and in effect, change your frequency

pattern.