Exercises to Improve Your Sprinting & Running | Stuart McMillan & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | what are some ways of doing exercises in the gym that can potentially facilitate our ability to move

00:00:09.760 | better outside of the gym first let's look at the kinetics of sprinting sprinting is only really

00:00:15.880 | truly about four things how much force you apply in the ground how fast can you apply it the

00:00:22.120 | direction in which you apply it and how heavy you are and it's just those four things how much force

00:00:27.900 | how fast which direction what is your mass so we need to yeah force is important we have to be able

00:00:35.540 | to apply a certain level of force but there's a threshold to this everyone says there's a big

00:00:40.200 | question and has been for a long time how much strength quote-unquote is enough in sprinting

00:00:46.360 | well enough is it's the same question that we ask we should ask in every task there's a rate of

00:00:52.900 | diminishing returns on all of these capacities that we need that we require is spending an extra few

00:00:59.800 | years trying to get an extra five kilos to your power clean or an extra 25 pounds to your back squat

00:01:07.560 | as effective as a means to get faster than it would be if you say you start skipping maybe do some more

00:01:14.260 | explosive work actually start sprinting a little bit more so there's always this um from a programming

00:01:20.100 | perspective is understanding where the athlete is what they require what they've got where they are

00:01:25.920 | in the rate of diminishing returns on each of those capacities so first we have to understand that

00:01:29.620 | um let me zoom out just a little bit i coach andre andre degrasse as we talked about andre when i

00:01:36.940 | started coaching him in 2015 could barely squat his body weight eight months later he's three-time

00:01:42.840 | olympic medalist eight months later he was one and a half years into his sprinting career

00:01:48.460 | he'd sprinted for 18 months he had three olympic medals in the sprints the 100 the 200 and the four

00:01:55.540 | by one he could barely squat his body weight he could clean 60 kilos so 135 pounds he definitely couldn't

00:02:04.520 | bench a plate and a half he might have had 145 pound plate uh bench yeah maybe super weak but on the other

00:02:14.040 | end of the spectrum this is the example that everyone gives you've got ben johnson famously ben johnson did

00:02:21.720 | the 600 pound squat a couple of days prior to winning in the tokyo olympics in 1988 running 979 obviously that

00:02:31.240 | was thereafter taken away after he tested positive so you've gone on one end of the spectrum somebody

00:02:36.920 | like ben johnson who applies incredibly incredible amounts of force and on the other end you've got

00:02:44.120 | somebody like andre degrasse who doesn't apply relatively any force but does it really really fast

00:02:50.520 | so this gives you like an understanding of the spectrum of capacities and abilities that humans have

00:02:58.280 | to do a task in an almost infinite number of ways so to get to your question it depends on who you are

00:03:06.200 | and what you're good at and why you're good at it there's not one way when you've got a ben johnson who

00:03:11.560 | can apply incredible amounts of forces and that's one of the reasons why he's fast on the other end of

00:03:15.640 | the spectrum you've got andre degrasse who's weaker than most high school girls who's incredible fat

00:03:20.760 | incredibly fast where does that leave us that just tells us okay there's many different ways to do this

00:03:26.200 | which is great it's cool that gives us again some freedom to better ask the questions about what it

00:03:32.200 | is that makes you andrew really good like you apply a lot of force okay let's lean into that let's try to

00:03:38.200 | improve your speed by try to maximize your force but what are you limited by okay you're having trouble

00:03:45.080 | getting off the ground you're not super reactive or reflexive so we have to work some things into your

00:03:50.600 | program that's going to make you a little bit more reactive or reflexive so maybe we'll do some jump

00:03:55.640 | squats maybe we'll do some hurdle hops maybe we'll do some more skipping maybe maybe we feel like okay

00:04:00.920 | you've reached the rate of diminishing returns on your force capacity you don't need to squat four plates

00:04:07.240 | if you squat 385 is going from 385 to 405 gonna make you any faster no not at all so let's keep you at 385 and

00:04:14.920 | we'll just do some other things so first and foremost it's respecting the individuality of all things and

00:04:21.560 | understanding that there's not one way in which i can tell you do this because this is what he did and

00:04:27.880 | that's what's going to work for you now there is as i said before there's non-negotiables and there's rules to things

00:04:34.920 | so sprinting is how you transmit that force into the track in a really fast period of time in the

00:04:44.120 | right direction so the transmission of force is typically more important than the magnitude of

00:04:49.400 | the force and at least at the elite end at least at the adult end so transmission of force means

00:04:58.360 | how the the amount of force that you put into the ground how do you use it to propel yourself forward so

00:05:04.360 | what are the types of exercises that maybe what would what would you think about if i said this

00:05:09.320 | is a force transmission exercise rather than say a force magnitude exercise is that something that

00:05:15.080 | appeals to you yeah jump squat comes to mind you know um jump squat comes to mind um any kind of uh

00:05:24.840 | like push clap push-ups um you know the ability to like yep double clap or you know or more um

00:05:34.280 | yes that's what comes to mind that's pretty accurate olympic lifts is one is one that where

00:05:39.000 | a lot of people would say yes olympic lift that's kind of what we're doing with like a clean you're

00:05:42.520 | kind of yeah i'm not in i don't do olympic lifts but from what i understand i you know they're they're

00:05:47.560 | pushing off the ground to get get the bar up yeah it's it's essentially can we apply high forces

00:05:54.760 | fast over a long period of time so that's kind of we do we spend a lot of time looking at those

00:06:01.000 | types of exercises sled work uh we don't do any sled work i'll be all about we could get back to that if

00:06:06.280 | you know sled work for elite sprinter we don't we do resisted acceleration work so we'll sprint we'll do

00:06:12.360 | some specific strength work where we're pulling uh you know probably in excess of 10 to 15 kilos

00:06:19.960 | you know so 20 to 30 pounds ish do you use the parachute that was a big thing a few years back

00:06:24.440 | remember that when i like the parachute i used the parachute 20 years ago absolutely we don't know

00:06:28.360 | we we uh we actually have a we have a piece of equipment called the power cord we use that i use

00:06:33.480 | that that's really good spring-loaded and the 1080 sprint which is this uh incredible piece of

00:06:38.200 | equipment that we use that we can really dial in the resistance down to like you know a half a kilo

00:06:43.800 | that's it's beautiful so we use that but that's for different reasons so the you talked about the weight

00:06:48.520 | room in in the in the um the population of athletes i work with maximum strength is at the rate of

00:06:56.840 | diminishing returns already we don't spend almost any time working on that at a lower level of

00:07:03.800 | population maybe if you're high school kid or if you're in your 20s when you're not super or if you're

00:07:09.000 | super weak just by increasing your force capacity so your ability to apply force you will get faster

00:07:16.200 | because remember what the calculation is amount of force how fast direction and body mass so it is

00:07:22.840 | important it just becomes less and less and less important the faster you get so it's and then it

00:07:29.640 | becomes when it's less important when the ability to produce a high magnitude of force isn't important

00:07:35.400 | what is important so then we're starting to looking at plyometric things and probably most specifically i'm

00:07:41.320 | looking at specific isometric stuff in the weight room so let's look at the position in which we're

00:07:48.680 | applying in excess of five times our body weight and that's when the foot is directly underneath the

00:07:54.440 | center mass the foot is flat on the ground there's about a 15 degree knee bend and there's about a

00:08:02.680 | five to ten degree hip bend so if you can you think of think about that position so we're pushing up against

00:08:09.640 | in a movable bar or holding a very very heavy bar on one leg with as heavy as we can or as hard as we can

00:08:17.800 | for somewhere between three to five seconds times three to four repetitions and we'll do like three sets of

00:08:24.520 | that that's alex notero's work he's one of the the premier researchers in what's called run specific

00:08:30.440 | isometric strength training so it's getting strong in really specific positions to the task that you're

00:08:37.880 | trying to become better at so that's that's the primary one for me is that position where the foot

00:08:43.480 | is directly underneath the center mass there's a little bit of a knee bend there's a little bit of

00:08:46.760 | a hip bend and we do a lot of isometric work right there that's that's and then i and this is my bias i do

00:08:55.800 | nothing bilateral at all you mean parallel stance parallel stance nothing except occasionally if it

00:09:05.080 | is an issue you know with neural drive or whatever i'll do some uh trap bar deadlifts so some parallel

00:09:11.000 | stance trap bar deadlifts because i think it's a great exercise i think that's difficult to do with

00:09:15.320 | a staggered stance it's very difficult to do with a uh a single leg stance but you can load up some pretty

00:09:22.520 | good weight on a parallel stance trap bar deadlift and yeah i feel pretty good and you you get a good

00:09:27.640 | feeling out of that it's not necessarily to be um be able to apply or generate more force it's more

00:09:34.840 | about sort of neural drive than it is for anything else everything every single other thing that we do

00:09:39.480 | is in a staggered stance heel to toe or kickstand which is kind of the same same sort of thing just a

00:09:45.240 | different terminology or split stance or a stance where the front foot is elevated or the rear foot is

00:09:50.920 | elevated so we'll do as as we as we've talked about quite a bit now find opportunities to get the knee

00:09:57.000 | behind the butt that's a really important position can we get stronger faster more control more repeatability

00:10:03.400 | and more range at that position one of the things i learned from you yesterday is um well let's i'll

00:10:09.080 | double click first on this um the staggered stance so this is one foot slightly in front of the other

00:10:14.840 | um i've been doing this with various lifts in the gym for a long time i would say the exception would

00:10:20.040 | be if i'm belt squatting or hack squatting i don't do that um but for everything else overhead presses um

00:10:27.080 | anything where my feet are in contact with the ground that is uh not on pull-ups and dips of course but

00:10:33.400 | um curls tricep extensions and i make sure to vary the stance so one foot is in front for one set one is in

00:10:39.160 | run for the sometimes even in the middle of the set i'll i'll switch them up after um and i found

00:10:44.120 | that to be tremendously helpful for building core stability and a number of other things

00:10:49.640 | um and it sounds like it might help running gate as well the other thing that you said yesterday that

00:10:55.160 | i think is really important i've not thought of before but now i'm doing is anytime you have a

00:10:59.240 | foot elevated in the gym to get onto the toe front foot can be flat yeah i think the ability to get off

00:11:05.560 | your first ray so for the big toe to bend and flex is really important so for me if i if that's

00:11:12.840 | important i'm going to search for opportunities to do that as often as i can so if i have an option to

00:11:18.760 | either flex the big toe or not then we're going to flex a big toe now if you can't and many athletes

00:11:25.240 | cannot you know there's a lot of athletes that just cannot extend to that big toe or some athletes

00:11:30.440 | have bunions and just can't get over it and that's okay we can go on to the top of the foot but it's

00:11:34.520 | not the not the end of the world but i look for opportunities like that like i look for

00:11:38.200 | opportunities to extend the hip how can i work hip extension exercises into everything i do how do i

00:11:45.480 | look at or do i look for full um full chain or full body force transmission exercises as much as i possibly

00:11:54.840 | can ideally from the left foot to the right hand and the right foot to the left hand so cross body so i'm

00:12:00.520 | looking for these long fascial chains like ways in which i can bring some function to the work that

00:12:07.720 | i'm doing in the weight room some level of transferability between the things that i do in

00:12:12.520 | the weight room and the things that we do on the track because frankly most of the things that we do

00:12:16.920 | in the weight room don't transfer to the track a squat doesn't really transfer it's a totally different

00:12:21.400 | exercise performed a totally different way at a totally different time totally different weights

00:12:26.200 | so the transference is very very far it's very it's not very nebulous so i'm looking for ways in

00:12:32.760 | which we can find a way to transfer the capacities that we are building in the weight room directly to

00:12:38.520 | the track and with respect to stretching i'm thinking again of yoga because this is where the probably

00:12:43.000 | the first time i've done this where one would lunge so front foot planted flat rear foot up on the big

00:12:50.040 | toe if possible the knee back of that rear foot um or rear leg excuse me back behind the butt and then

00:12:58.200 | the opposite arm raised above that's that fascial um sling that cuts across from you know in anatomy

00:13:05.800 | nomenclature contralateral across the midline um and then essentially trying to learn to feel that um

00:13:12.840 | line that goes all the way from one's big toe that's planting back across up the leg across the

00:13:20.040 | the pelvis up the body and shoulder to the opposite tips of finger 100 and it's it's if uh if i can add to

00:13:26.120 | that stretch um this is something that i really love kelly about you know he's he's so much on i

00:13:34.280 | need you to be in control of your body there is a way to do this but then it's up to you to find out a

00:13:41.160 | better way for you specifically so you've done a great job of outlining what the stretch looks like

00:13:45.960 | now what can i do with my body to actually make this better do i rotate to one side do i side bend to

00:13:51.720 | one side do i flex the hand as well as as well as doing this because this will be a better stretch

00:13:57.800 | than that so palm parallel to the to the ceiling 100 of the raised hand correct if i push the knee back

00:14:04.280 | and try to push the heel on the ground and actually contract if i rotate my pelvis underneath me

00:14:09.560 | posteriorly like you know do a a pelvic tilt underneath me well will that increase it so it's always this

00:14:15.880 | exploratory process there is a right way to do things but you are an individual we're all unique

00:14:22.360 | snowflakes right we're all move in different ways and it's up to us to explore all of our uniqueness

Exercises to Improve Your Sprinting & Running | Stuart McMillan & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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