back to indexTrack & Sprinting Warm-Up | Stuart McMillan & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Chapters
0:0 Introduction to Sprinting with Stu McMillan
0:37 Warm-Up Techniques: Skipping & Striding
2:37 Posture & Body Mechanics in Sprinting
4:53 Dynamic Mobility & Coordination Drills
6:23 Spinal Movement & Shoulder Blade Exercises
9:21 Advanced Warm-Up: Combining Hip & Spine Movements
12:16 Dynamic Mobility: Skipping & Lunging
13:23 Expressive Sprinting vs. Jogging
13:54 Backwards Walk Technique
14:9 Skipping with Big Arms
14:29 Dribble Steps & Wide Feet
15:12 Karaoke Exercise Tips
15:35 Backwards Skipping
15:56 Leg Swing Exercises
17:50 Eagle & Scorpion Exercises
18:31 Combining Techniques for Strides
20:23 Foot & Hip Connection
22:5 Final Strides & Expressiveness
23:28 Conclusion
00:00:00.000 |
I'm here at beautiful Malibu High School and I'm with the one and only Stu McMillan who is a 00:00:18.820 |
sprints coach and is considered one of the premier sprints coaches in the world. He's highly revered, 00:00:25.120 |
he's highly sought after because he's the man with the knowledge about how to sprint better 00:00:29.060 |
and faster and he has a lot of knowledge about running in general and today I want to learn 00:00:33.620 |
how to actually sprint properly. Perfect, let's do it. All right, first of all, we're not going to go 00:00:38.440 |
for a jog. Sprinters are not joggers. It's a very, very different gait pattern. We don't jog at all. 00:00:45.200 |
The way in which we warm up typically is we skip and stride. So we sprint, but really, really slowly 00:00:51.000 |
and skipping is a gait pattern that is very, very similar to sprinting. So if you think about what 00:00:56.120 |
happens when you skip, there's stiffness at the ankle, at the knee and the hip, and there's a 00:01:00.680 |
systemic stiffness and they coordinate together to keep you tall and bouncy. When you jog, you kind of 00:01:06.840 |
roll through your ankle, you roll through your knee, and you just kind of push your way around the track or 00:01:10.760 |
push your way around the grass. So we're going to skip instead. It'll just look like this. So the legs stay 00:01:16.680 |
straight, allow the arms just to bounce back and forth. So a couple of differences between kind of 00:01:24.520 |
jogging and running fast or striding or sprinting. You said you want to kind of learn how to stride. So 00:01:31.560 |
that's the right terminology because really we're not going to sprint. Sprinting is something that very, 00:01:37.940 |
very few people can actually do. We can get into the science behind that, but you can stride. 00:01:42.520 |
And the difference is really striding kind of happens in front of the center mass. Everything's 00:01:48.040 |
out here. We're jogging and running kind of happened back here behind the center. So when we do this, 00:01:54.000 |
we're going to do a stride right now. Really slow, like jogging speed, but think about it happening 00:01:59.260 |
in front of the center mass. So all you're going to be thinking about is pulling your thighs forward 00:02:03.420 |
and jogging in front. Okay. Don't reach out or anything. It just, it'll kind of look like this 00:02:08.120 |
if I do it in front of you. Just that, just bringing your thigh in front and not leaving the foot behind 00:02:15.820 |
you. So do I want to think about a little bit like instead of a high knee, it's a low knee. It's a low 00:02:19.860 |
knee. The only cue is pull the thigh forward and be flat on the ground. And I'll tell you why flat on 00:02:25.120 |
the ground in a minute. Okay. Just like this. 00:02:27.040 |
Yeah. You got it now. Yeah. It took you a few steps. So you're there. You're there now. 00:02:33.920 |
I had to get my arms into it for it to start happening. Yeah. So one of the other big differences 00:02:39.860 |
between running and sprinting is the postural considerations. Posture and jogging and running 00:02:45.500 |
is kind of closed. Everything's down here. It's very, very efficient. Sprinting is really expressive. 00:02:50.920 |
It's very tall where you're using your entire body. Jogging is kind of a lower body activity. 00:02:56.120 |
Sprinting is a total body activity. So think about boxing. So if you were to hit a heavy bag as hard 00:03:02.820 |
as you can, you're going to squeeze your wrist and hold your wrist as stiff as you can and squeeze 00:03:08.300 |
your fist as tight as you can. Because if you hit it, there's a lot of forces there. In fact, 00:03:13.360 |
the peak forces when you hit a heavy bag is upwards of five times body weight. It's actually the same 00:03:19.340 |
is what they are when you're sprinting. You wouldn't hit a heavy bag like this. So you shouldn't 00:03:24.160 |
really sprint with a really, really relaxed ankle as well. So the way I try to teach them how to 00:03:29.840 |
impact the ground is to be as stiff as you can, as if you're hitting a heavy bag over and over and over 00:03:34.860 |
again. So when we're doing the skip now, I want you to be really stiff through the ankle, really tall 00:03:42.620 |
and really expressive through the entire body. So just there, stiff, stiff. So you can feel if you, 00:03:48.340 |
you might be able to hear the pop of my feet. Relax your arms. There you go. 00:03:54.540 |
Right. As soon as I get my arms into it, it's okay to kind of catch some air. 00:04:01.440 |
Yes. Perfect. I'll just walk on back. Think about landing flat footed. Flat foot. So you hear that 00:04:08.140 |
little pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. So remember, jogging is back here. Sprinting is in front. 00:04:21.180 |
Pull the thighs forward, pull them forward, pull them forward, pull them forward. 00:04:25.700 |
So let's skip again. So we're going to skip down to the 00:04:31.140 |
chair. Okay. Find a little bit more height and a little bit more pop. 00:04:35.220 |
And again, really expressive posture. Okay. Just think about expressing yourself. You're up here, 00:04:40.240 |
allow your shoulders to bounce and to rock and to roll a little bit. 00:04:43.620 |
Come here, your feet. Hop. There you go. There you go. 00:04:53.680 |
We'll walk on back. So we'll typically do that 00:04:57.220 |
eight times for about 15, 20 minutes rather than jogging. 00:05:03.520 |
So do you recommend not jogging before a sprint workout, actually? 00:05:09.480 |
I recommend, if anything, and this is the last one we're going to do here is just, 00:05:14.380 |
you know, this in front of you. That's difficult for many people. That's a different 00:05:17.740 |
and a difficult coordination pattern. Everybody can skip. 00:05:22.400 |
So I recommend skipping. What I would do rather than, you know, rather than jogging prior to a sprint 00:05:28.460 |
practice is skip, walk, skip, walk, skip, walk, until you're at a point where you think, okay, 00:05:33.660 |
I can run a bit faster now. Do a couple faster runs and then get into it. That's how I would do it. 00:05:40.560 |
Stiff ankle, pulling a thigh in front, relax the arms, good posture, very expressive, okay? 00:05:48.960 |
Pull in front, pull in front, pull in front, and the knee can start coming up a little bit higher now as well. 00:05:58.340 |
Now, when we actually start sprinting, it'll just be that, but it'll be a bigger range of motion. 00:06:08.260 |
Like, what that is called now is called a dribble. So it's really a truncated range of motion sprint. 00:06:14.260 |
So if you take the full sprint and you just put it in half, that's kind of what we just did there. It's called a dribble. 00:06:20.580 |
Sprinting, as I said, is a whole body activity. 00:06:22.660 |
The spine probably being, if not the most important part of that, one of the most important part of it. 00:06:30.100 |
So we have to get some movement of the spine. 00:06:32.020 |
So if you think about sprinting, the hips oscillate and they undulate. 00:06:35.780 |
They come forward and back and they go up and down. 00:06:37.460 |
And the shoulders counter-oscillate and counter-undulate. 00:06:42.500 |
And then you have this spine that rotates, laterally flexes, and extends and flexes 00:06:48.740 |
to basically counteract all these forces that are going on in the shoulder and the hips. 00:06:55.700 |
All right, so the ability for the shoulder blade to glide up and down the ribcage. 00:07:01.860 |
So remember where the shoulders are doing this and the shoulder blades are going 00:07:07.460 |
If you see people who don't do this well, what you see is the torso just stacked and square, 00:07:12.900 |
and the arms are sort of doing this, and the shoulder blades not moving. 00:07:17.620 |
Like the ones who really look efficient and athletic, it looks like this, right? 00:07:29.380 |
So we sink all the way in, protract the scapula. 00:07:36.660 |
I'm going to sink in, come forward, drop all the way down, almost to the ground. 00:07:46.260 |
Squeeze, push up, and then push your scapulas away from the ribcage on the way up. 00:07:55.700 |
We'll do three where you go super slow, and then three where you just flow through it pretty quickly. 00:07:59.540 |
Trying to create the same shapes that you're doing when you're doing them slow. 00:08:08.260 |
We're going to be in a side plank position here. 00:08:12.900 |
You're going to take the free arm, rotate under as we rotate, and drop that shoulder down 00:08:17.860 |
to that fist to here, and then rotate all the way back up. 00:08:21.860 |
So this is an exercise just for this shoulder, really. 00:08:24.980 |
Rotate all the way under, all the way back up, and then reach up. 00:08:41.140 |
So we're going to go in a tall kneeling position. 00:08:51.540 |
Try to get your entire foot on the ground, and it's not open. 00:09:10.740 |
Don't lose the tension on the leg that's pushing into the ground. 00:09:21.460 |
So we're going to go into a half kneeling position. 00:09:24.980 |
So 90 degrees on the front, 90 degrees on the back. 00:09:27.300 |
From this position here, we're going to posteriorly rotate the pelvis. 00:09:34.340 |
We rotate to that side and then rotate back towards that back foot. 00:09:39.380 |
So you're here, side bend, rotate back, hold for three seconds, and then come back out of it. 00:09:49.220 |
So now we're combining some of the patterns of the spine. 00:09:52.100 |
See if you remember the spine flexes, extends, lateral reflexes, and rotates. 00:09:57.620 |
And we're kind of doing all of the things here except for the flexion. 00:10:04.740 |
So this is kind of what it looks like when you're sprinting. 00:10:12.420 |
You have lateral flexion and extension of the spine all at the same time. 00:10:19.860 |
So we try to coordinate and even combine some of these rotational stuff, 00:10:25.780 |
what's called the spinal engine patterns, with this hip extension pattern. 00:10:31.300 |
So we're going to take it off the ground and go into a split squat position. 00:10:34.180 |
We're actually going to hold this for 30 seconds. 00:10:37.780 |
A little bit of internal rotation with the front foot. 00:10:40.900 |
The back foot is going to be, if you're hip width there, just go straight back and then out 00:10:50.260 |
Drop into a lunge, where the front foot is directly on top of the laces of the front foot. 00:11:00.020 |
And then from this position now, we're going to pull the front heel towards the back foot. 00:11:05.860 |
So actively, you should feel now your hamstring engaging. 00:11:12.900 |
You might be able to start, you might feel yourself starting to shake a little bit. 00:11:16.900 |
From this position now, we're going to rotate. 00:11:32.340 |
Can you suck your pelvis back underneath you a little bit more? 00:11:49.220 |
So again, we're kind of just combining the important kind of secondary moving patterns in sprinting. 00:11:55.620 |
The ability to extend the hip and the ability to move the spine. 00:12:00.980 |
And start pulling and just sink yourself into it. 00:12:16.260 |
This is what we call the dynamic mobility portion of the warm-up now. 00:12:21.700 |
And every third step, we're going to drop into a lunge. 00:12:25.140 |
So skip, skip, drop, up, reach, skip, skip, drop, up, reach. 00:12:35.300 |
Again, we're working on that hip extension pattern. 00:12:37.460 |
Everything we do from the warm-up is really trying to get better access or gain better access to hip extension. 00:12:52.180 |
In this portion of the warm-up, we try to move the body in three planes, 00:12:56.420 |
three velocities, and three types of range of motion. 00:13:02.660 |
Really, I mean, we've got a lot of sort of lateral forces, rotational forces when we sprint. 00:13:06.180 |
So it's important that we just don't go straight, and we don't just go forward. 00:13:14.100 |
Everything that we do, think about being flat-footed on the ground. 00:13:17.220 |
So you're impacting the ground like you're punching it. 00:13:19.540 |
We're never here up on our toes and never down here on the heels. 00:13:22.980 |
So even on the shuffle, think about pulling the laces up towards the knees. 00:13:28.340 |
But if you remember, the difference between sprinting and jogging is the expressiveness 00:13:37.940 |
It's up here with big arms, opening up, and we'll come down to around where the pole is, 00:13:56.740 |
The heel's going to come to the butt, and then reach back behind you. 00:14:02.420 |
Keeping the foot fully dorsiflexed all the time. 00:14:09.940 |
This time, rather than just being here, it's going to be big arms. 00:14:15.380 |
No real rules about what you're doing with it. 00:14:28.180 |
And those little kind of dribble steps we did earlier. 00:15:01.780 |
So try to cover those five steps in like three meters. 00:15:12.820 |
So here's the issue with most people who are doing karaoke. 00:15:15.620 |
They just try and move their feet as fast as they can. 00:15:17.700 |
We're trying to get full extension on the foot that's coming back. 00:15:21.540 |
So external rotation here, internal rotation here, counter rotation of the spine. 00:15:35.060 |
First backwards one we did was just backwards walking. 00:15:54.660 |
I don't think you'll see a sprinter on the planet who doesn't do a linear and a lateral leg swing. 00:16:07.140 |
But we're just going to start off just swinging the other leg. 00:16:10.020 |
Trying to keep your pelvis kind of in place, but not locked. 00:16:19.380 |
And as you get comfortable, just allow it to swing. 00:16:22.100 |
And like I said, allow the pelvis to move just a little bit, but just not excessively. 00:16:28.420 |
Once we've done the other leg or done both legs, we're going to be up on one foot. 00:16:33.060 |
And we're going to go laterally through across the body now. 00:16:36.180 |
So we externally rotate when we come into adduction. 00:16:39.780 |
And we internally rotate when we come into adduction. 00:16:43.780 |
So the toe is basically pointing towards the outside of our body on each direction. 00:16:49.460 |
And there'll be a little bit of rotation on the stance foot. 00:16:56.020 |
And with a lot of swing, a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger. 00:17:04.100 |
I'd say somewhere between six and 12 is about good of the full swings. 00:17:08.740 |
Remember the difference between jogging and sprinting. 00:17:12.100 |
Posture and sprinting is very, very expressive. 00:17:36.900 |
So for me, that's all the way up right there. 00:17:48.660 |
Two more exercises that every sprinter on the planet does. 00:17:53.300 |
One's called an eagle and one's called a scorpion. 00:18:17.460 |
Flip over onto your other side when you feel like you've done enough. 00:18:22.660 |
And if you want to hang out there in that extended position for a second or two, 00:18:31.300 |
So we would typically now do a couple of strides. 00:18:34.340 |
So I want you to start off doing kind of the skips that we were doing before, which is low amplitude. 00:18:40.340 |
And we're just thinking about the impact of the ground. 00:18:43.220 |
So really stiff impact on the ground, really being kind of big and open. 00:18:47.060 |
And with each step, we're just going to get a little bit bigger, a little bit more expressive, 00:18:52.660 |
So by the end, the thigh is going to be up here. 00:19:01.460 |
We start pulling the other thigh up and getting a bit more height. 00:19:09.380 |
I don't really typically use percentages, but if you want a percentage of your, 00:19:12.580 |
if you were to go out and maximally run right now, this is like 50%. 00:19:17.620 |
And we'll go down to about where that garbage can is. 00:19:19.860 |
You know, when you, when you, when you cut this. 00:19:34.100 |
I want, I'm, I'm a big believer in beginner's mind. 00:19:37.540 |
Tim Ferriss has talked about this for years and he borrowed it from other people and I'm borrowing 00:19:41.620 |
it from him and I don't want to appear like I know what I'm doing. 00:19:54.740 |
I don't think you move from this motion, this position. 00:20:01.860 |
So the hips oscillate and the undulate and the shoulders are the same. 00:20:05.460 |
You should feel the shoulders sort of bouncing, rocking and rolling a little bit. 00:20:09.460 |
Oh, no, it's, it's more than okay if they move a little bit, a hundred percent. 00:20:23.300 |
The connection between how you're applying force into the ground and what you're doing 00:20:27.220 |
as you project your center mass into space is everything in sprinting. 00:20:33.540 |
We'll just kind of just go into a drinking bird position, which is kind of a half RDL where 00:20:39.140 |
it's, it's this thigh is back and the torso, there should be a straight line here between 00:20:45.380 |
You can bend that back leg if you want to, but it doesn't, you don't need to straight line 00:20:53.620 |
Full range of motion will be all the way down there. 00:20:58.260 |
You're going to swing it up and you'll be in this position. 00:21:02.900 |
Now this position up here, this is basically the top position of a sprint. 00:21:06.260 |
So you'll see Andrew here that the foot should direct be directly underneath the knee or the 00:21:11.700 |
lace is directly underneath the knee and the knee, the height of that should be about where 00:21:15.860 |
the belly button is depending upon how mobile you are. 00:21:21.380 |
Some sprinters are super mobile on the way up there. 00:21:23.620 |
Rob's actually doing a pretty good job right there. 00:21:36.660 |
Not gripping with the planted foot with the toes. 00:21:44.340 |
And when you come to the top, sorry, I should have looked. 00:21:46.340 |
When I come to the top, my standing tall, open it up. 00:21:53.460 |
I'm going to finish up onto the toe of the stance leg. 00:22:06.660 |
If the last ones are 50%, these ones are 60%. 00:22:10.580 |
So when we're just thinking about pulling forward and stepping over the opposite knee. 00:22:13.780 |
So pulling the thigh forward and stepping over the opposite knee. 00:22:17.300 |
And Andrew, you're also thinking about keeping that upper body loose. 00:22:32.500 |
The other thing with jogging, jogging is a lot of horizontal force. 00:22:37.940 |
Where sprinting is almost 100% vertical force. 00:22:43.780 |
We have this conversation every day when I'm coaching athletes. 00:22:58.660 |
Where, you know, so many of the other things, as you said, we're just not doing that. 00:23:06.340 |
But you're just going to be a little bit more vertical. 00:23:08.100 |
Just think about up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. 00:23:10.580 |
Once you've got some forward momentum, just think vertical. 00:23:14.980 |
That is a lot better than what I was thinking it might be. 00:23:24.180 |
If I had that picture in my mind of what you're going to be able to do, I'd be really happy. 00:23:27.860 |
I hope people will try some of these things because it's a distinctly different sensation 00:23:34.020 |
than jogging or what I think of as sprinting, which we haven't really done today, right? 00:23:45.940 |
I was on a plane this morning and, you know, all that, I think the things that kind of open 00:23:50.580 |
up your lungs, but it's not the kind of like grinding effort, but I can tell it's cumulative. 00:23:56.980 |
After this, I could see like, yeah, it's a workout, even though it might just seem like 00:24:02.820 |
It's the most rhythmical, the most fluid, the most coordinated that are the best athletes, 00:24:09.700 |
It's the ones who have the most rhythm, most coordination. 00:24:17.700 |
And you notice, I hope my editing team will keep in some of the wobbles and errors in my mechanical ones 00:24:24.820 |
and my less mechanical ones, if they were there. 00:24:27.300 |
It's really good to, I think, to see that unless you're a natural, I suppose, 00:24:32.580 |
no one gets any form of exercise exactly right the first time and just to keep doing it. 00:24:39.380 |
Looking forward to our conversation tomorrow.