Running is a Vertical Jump 

This is one of the best explanatory videos of running I’ve ever seen on RU-vid, thank you! 🙂

Kettlebell swing guys = Quads, glutes, hamstrings and calf. Awesome explanation bro!

Finally, I understand why weight lifting and fast paced HIIT workouts shaved a minute a mile off for me, with less running. I guess it's time to add some of that back into my routine.

So many techniques and books I’ve read but this is the best video on improving running in general. Awesome video.

I doubted this video at first then everything really started making sense. Really helps quantify running.

Feel yourself in the air, a glider, at each jump. No hurrying to the landing in your mind. No trying to feel forward push. Feel the feeling that, "I am jumping, I am flying." By accident you will also be running forward, but not be heel striking; you will be floating up in your jumps for enough time for your other foot to land mid foot. Jump higher than needed for each step, and with time, after getting used to the feeling of becoming airborne with each step, you will fine tune your jumps up to just the right height needed for the stride length that day. Your arm swings will help gain altitude with each jump. Pushing is for walking; jumping is for running.

That’s is so helpful, I even read a book on Pace and it definitely confirms what you said! Thanks!!!! I’m going to do that next run !

I have been avoiding the "toe push off" for about 15 years. Had to do this as I got older. Kept me going until now, at least, age is 72.

I've been thinking about this for a few days. To jump, you need toe off. So to run, you lean forward, lift your leg, and toe off. Ryan Flagtery, coach of NFL players, and Olympians says he can calculate your 40 to 10k time with 99% accuracy based on your "Force Number.". He initially calculated this with a force measuring treadmill & weight, but found the trap bar lift correlates exactly. The person with the highest ever recorded Force Number is Husain Bolt. This is all about how strongly you can push off and your weight ... strength to weight ratio. Jumping is toe off, not levitation.

I wonder how this relates to the advice I was given: not to push off of the ground when I run, but just pick up my heels quicker, leading to shorter and quicker strides, utilizing larger muscle groups to do the same action, so my legs fatigue less quickly.

Thank you.thorough explaination.

Great video that I’ve ever watched. Some RU-vid coaches say that we have to push off or push back horizontally to move forward. I did try the push-back in my 10k race yesterday, and the result was terrible. I was exhausted very early and I ran a whole race like a zombie, pace 4’:15”, very slow for 10k. Thank you very much for a great video!

This great stuff, deep explanations. This is the kind of stuff that is great to finally be able to comprehend with a good breakdown, that begins to finally make sense, and affect not just the basics of the training plan, but my entire mindset and approach to running. Thank you!

Fun and very complex topic. I think the trick for a coach is to cue the mechanics without having the athletes overthink it. The foot and ankle complex is also critical: where the rubber meets the road.

Excellent video.

It’s pretty simple; if you do dead lifts with shoes on and never engaging your toes, you’ll work your quads but if you did the same dead lifts barefoot and forcibly curling your toes you would eventually be forced to engage your glutes!! 🤓

This video helps me a lot in my running! Thanks

Thanks for explaining the mechanics of running. Running is a vertical jump while falling forward. When I run at speed >6 mph, it does feel like skipping on the leg. By this reasoning, skipping and jumping jacks should serve as good drills for running. There may be another component of motion: the backward-upward kicking of the foot then swaying it forward while the leg is curled. It generates a net forward momentum. The swaying is asymmetrical backward and forward, like rowing with a paddle. The fast runners kick high backward.

Always great videos and explanations 🙌 I follow your videos and put a lot of stuff in my running training , thank you for your work 🙌 Next level is talking about the rotation that’s happening while you « jump »with one foot 😃 That’s almost why you are doing your example with two feet 👣 because with one foot you have to rotate to keep your balance and strength. When you Alternate the foot, you need to use your hips. So you have to had the rotation in the explanation. If you start with your foot, it supinate on landing and pronate when you put weights on it. That way, the metatarsals are the last part of the foot to touch the ground. 👍 The tibia and femur have to internally rotate when going in extension, while your other femur have to externally rotate to flex (hip/knee ) so your hip can move…and your sacrum,lower back and obliques can be active without being rigid 😃 That way you can breathe easily because your diaphragm is in good position relative to your pelvic floor. (Rib cage relative to pelvis.) …this is more difficult to explain 🤪 but I am sure that you can figure it out 🙌 Continue your great work. Nb: my explanation is not perfect… it’s just to add ideas and it is more complex than just jumping while leaning forward ☺️

Brilliant.

Very informative explanation 🎉

Excellent explanation, well done. But why is also the gluteus maximus often mentioned as a very important muscle group for running? Also involved in vertical jump?

Good stuff and all makes sense. I have seen some Kneesovertoes videos where they highly recommend nordics and have several athletes whose sprint times improved significantly when they added nordics into their weight lifting in addition to squats, calf raises, and Romanian dead lifts. Thoughts?

Excellent

Liked and Subscribed (ALL) ...from Seoul, Korea

as someone trying to improve my 30m for spirts, this video was very insightful!

Thank you so much! You just made click on my head.... thanks!

I wonder if the leaning is why quadriped animals (essentially leaning 90 degrees) are mostly faster than us. All jokes aside, does this mean I should actually have my torso pointing into the ground like 3-5 degrees during the lean instead of straight ahead like most people say with running form?

Some of what he was trying to say makes sense, but there is toe off and the lean in max velocity sprinting isn't a high component as in Acceleration. Wfhen the top sprinters of all time there is some lean but not much. Toe off is definitely happening though it has to take place in order for fast sprinting. When he does his little jumps in you can see the toe off to propel him up.

Wow it makes total sense that acceleration comes from "falling". In marching band, hard drill moves require you to accelerate from rest to 100 instantly, but a common tendency is people will lean into the move early to start the acceleration earlier on a demanding move. Undesirable but we can't break physics. So my understanding now is that we are falling but catching ourselves our legs and jumping up to stay upright, the more vertical force you can produce means the less time it takes for foot to contact ground so you can go faster right? And the reason we don't infinitely accelerate like sonic the hedgehog bc we can't produce enough force in short enough time with legs. I've dealt with calf soleus achilles overuse in the past and today I thought about generating more vertical force while walking with my quads, kind of like stomping the ground, I felt the impact much more balanced between my achilles and knees. Thank you for this insightful video!

The net, whole-body, leaning part, only applies during initial acceleration. Once up to steady pace, you are, modulo the tiniest amount of air resistance at distance running speeds for non cheetahs, literally just bouncing straight up and down. While letting existing momentum conservation carry you forward undisturbed. In fact: The harder you try to push off horizontally behind you to run faster, the more you overstride in front of you, until the braking momentum from the overstride; again modulo air resistance; exactly cancels out the acceleration momentum from the horizontal push off. Were it not so, you would, in fact, be accelerating. Not maintaining steady state. But, but... can't everyone see that runners are, in fact, leaning forward? Yes, they can. Runners do. At the ankles, and hips. But also, crucially, they are leaning backwards at the knees. The latter exactly compensating for the formers, wrt center of mass vs center of support (midfoot) placement. Runners do this for biomechanical reasons. Not solid-body physics reasons: People are not stiff, straight logs with pistons moving straight in and out at the bottom. Instead, they are segmented stick figures: A collection of levers stacked on top of each other, with flexible joints at their join-points. And with muscles and tendons powering and controlling how those levers move in relation to eachother. If one is standing straight up with no lean anywhere, one can not jump straight up (even trying to just use calves, will shift center of support forward from midfoot, causing one to fall backward). Instead: In order to jump vertically, your body's levers have to do some folding. The way joints are arranged, this is done by leaning forward at the ankle, stretching calves and achilles. While leaning backwards at the knee, stretching quads and patellar tendons. And by leaning forward at the hips, stretching hamstrings and glutes and erectors. Sum total: You are being compressed vertically. But, again crucially, only vertically. There is no net lean from center of ground-support to center of mass. Just a vertical lowering of center of mass. By way of levers being bent backwards and forwards such that net center-of-mass dislocation is zero horizontally, but downwards vertically. Then: Muscle power input, and tendon stretch rebound effects, reverses, and supercompensates, for this vertical compression. Such that you jump. Straight up. Then (Remember you are already moving forward, hence carrying forward momentum): This purely vertical jump does not affect horizontal momentum. Hence your forward momentum, and hence speed, remains undisturbed by your vertical jump. Resulting in your existing forward momentum, despite you just jumping straight up, still landing ahead of where you were when you jumped. Such that you continue forward at the same steady pace. Despite putting in no net forward, just vertical, power. When you see some runners leaning more than others, it's mostly at the hip. People's individual differences in tendon attachments, limb length proportions, distribution of mass across the body, differing power in different muscles and elasticity of tendons etc., means some benefit more than others from a greater forward lean. Unusually long calves in relation to upper body, can require greater bend at hips, in order to fully stretch and utilize ankle/achilles stretch reflexes, for example. But, biomechanics aside, the gist is: Efficient steady state running at distance running paces, consists of bouncing up and down vertically, with as little horizontal power input as possible. Any forward power put in is, simply as a result of momentum conservation, necessarily negated by an opposite and equal amount of rearward power. In run-speak: The harder you try to push of backwards on takeoff, the more you will, guaranteed, overstride-hence-brake on landing. None of which contributes to neither efficiency nor freedom from injury.

I didn't know you existed, explaining the jump that is running. New: Do plyometric jump training to improve ability to jump fast and varying jump heights. Jump rope for endurance in fast twitch activation.

This info is incomplete. Should explain the angle in the knees changing with speed and with the lenght of stride plus the height of heel motion. Plus the work of hands. Plus breathing with the diaphragm.

I see what you're saying. And your recommendations to train strength followed by power sound totally sensible and useful. Furthermore, cueing runners to think upwards rather than forward might well help them improve form and performance. But I'm still puzzled by theoretical aspects. From empirical observation, if there's no horizontal force component, why is it faster to sprint in spikes? Friction should play no role at all, it should be just as fast to run on ice as on a track, and improved grip by using spikes should also make no difference. From a physics point of view, for a mass to move in a direction, there *must* be a force applied in that direction. So even to "just lean", i.e. move the c. of g. forward, there must be a horizontal component of force initiating the lean, presumably supplied by some combination of muscle contractions. Then there's the equal and opposite force that has to exist c.f. Newton's laws of motion, which would be where friction enters the equation. So even without deliberately pushing backwards, for forward motion to happen, there must be horizontal forces *somewhere* in the system. Am I wrong? Can a mass really accelerate in a direction without any component of force in that direction?

I haven't heard it talked about but i bet the benefit of lots of slow miles is about developing foot placement awareness or something. if foot too far forward back left or right then all sorts of weird forces going through ur body and have to fight against each random one an off placed foot strike produced to then move you forward. The more slow km you do ur Practicing coordination all the muscles from ur neck down to coordinate where that foot lands relative to your centre of gravitity at that moment in time when the foot strikes and is loaded on the ground. more perfectlly just behind centre of gravity will have a lot less random forces to contend with that aren't directed forward. PS i said neck as its the heaviest thing furthest from ur feet. if move head a little like a cheatahs tail it moves the rest of you like a battle rope sort of wave to ur foot. Ok i'm talking my self into doing the Maffetone method with ur 8 second sprints every 5 to 10 minutes haha thank you. I have your book Run Elite"and the fitzgerald and Brad Hudson book on the wish list as well.

IMO you can find more efficiency if you push off with your foot by switching activation of muscle groups which is important if you're a long distance runner.

Am I right in saying that the bigger and more explosive your jump is, the faster you can run?

Bolt is almost straight with slight lean up once he hits full speed

So would you say trying to ,,hit” the ground when ur in the air is a wrong cue? Should we just wait till we land on the ground and then push up, most coaches say put ur feet down aggressively

A couple of things I wanted to point out. Firstly, if running is a vertical jump, why shouldn’t you push of with your toes anyways? I mean, you do push off with your toes in a vertical jump too, so I don’t really see the logic there. Secondly, if everything you explain in the video is true, and I think it is, then it’s actually impossible to run just by pushing of with the toes, you are going to be leaning forward you want it or not, otherwise you wouldn’t be even moving, so what’s the point of stating something that you can’t even avoid doing? Also, wouldn’t it be more correct to say that running is a series of unilateral broad jumps? Since a broad jump is basically a vertical jump with a lean, but then again the leaning part seems to be what actually makes the difference when running.

I do kick out stuff behind me. This is quite evident with snowshoe running where there’s a rooster tail behind me.

I guess shorter/faster Ground Contact Time (GCT) is the key message here

When I run at my 100% the last 100 meters after my run I feel a massive weight over my legs, the force doesnt come from the horizontal axe but vertical, definitely vertical.

I'd put it that running is a vertical jump with the ground moving. In fact this is exactly what it is on a treadmill, and the mechanics are (almost) exactly the same in a moving inertial frame. I say 'almost' because air resistance changes it slightly: it means the jump has to be slightly tilted forwards (which gravity is vertical the combination of gravity and the much smaller force of air resistance is slightly tilted). And hills are very similar - the perpendicular to the ground being rotated while keeping gravity the same is identical to the ground staying flat and the direction of gravity being rotated. If you know what air resistance is, you can work out the equivalent slope. For emphasis when moving at constant speed on the flat, the (small) lean is solely to cope with air resistance. Otherwise a lean causes acceleration. which you want to _change_ speed but not to maintain speed.

Bravo.Ma difficile farlo capire anche a tanti "allenatori"

I like your channel because you have cool-music; but most of all, believe or not, I’m kind of Adhd, so the speed with which you deliver your messages actually captures my attention, rather than dripping every concept out a bottle of ketchup mixed in with sand, it’s so quick, I can conceptualize-it in pictures or video in my mind rather than try to put it in word sentences where it loses its meaning. If you were ever wondering 🥇was it worth it, did you get through to it, you did to me🎖🎖

Why do all these RU-vid track coaches say to sprint with your body upright 90 degrees to the ground? All of em. You're the only one I've seen who says to lean forward. Running upright didn't make sense to me, so I Googled "running physics" and of course you're right. Can't even walk without shifting your body mass forward. Then I found that Usain Bolt had an 18 degree average forward lean during his record breaking 9.58 sec 100M. Geez. Subbed.

8:04 that means the faster you run the further out in front of you your foot has to land, otherwise you wont have enough time to apply full force.

I talked to a 24min 5k runner, 6'4, 100kg guy. said his physio said do calf raises with his toes hanging over the front edge of a plank of wood.

Look at Pose Method...

Running has both horizontal and vertical that makes it best😂😂

So power is speed?

As a physicist, please let me add my view. The analogy of running on ice is a little bit misleading. Say the ice has no friction at all, you would have to start with some speed or momentum gained on a different surface. With good form you could continue on the ice, but you would slow down because of air resistance that you cannot compensate. That resistance is also there when running on a road, meaning you must apply some forward thrust continually in order not to lose speed. How do you do that? Imagine balancing a cardboard strip on your fingertip. If you want to move it forward, you must pull your finger backwards a bit, then follow its motion. If there were no air resistance, you could keep the stick moving endlessly by remaining vertically under it. But WITH air resistance your force must take a different angle. It must point forward a bit, while remaining behind the centre of gravity. The same applies to running. It means you are not exactly pushing downwards (as in parallel to gravity), but a little backwards as well. The counter force arrow goes from your point of ground contact to your centre of gravity, which must be slightly in front to be able to create that forward thrust. Hence the jump is not exactly vertical. It must be a little forward as well, or else you couldn't make up for air resistance. You are trying to push your centre of mass forward and upward. This means you must adapt your running form to the prevailing air resistance, which is influenced by your speed and sometimes quite a lot by wind. It also means that your running form on a treadmill is different, as you don't need to compensate anything. All your effort can go into the 100% vertical jump. That makes treadmill running a little easier. No surprise my heart rate is about 5-8 beats lower and I can run farther. The title of the video should therefore be Running on a Treadmill is a Vertical Jump.

claw the floor, but if it's a jump then why not push off?

The only thing I would disagree with is that you have to train glutes for a more proficient vertical jump; quads are for strength but power generation of good jumpers is always in the glutes. As a matter fact the bigger your glutes in comparison to your thighs, that tapering of the body if you will generates natural whipping speed. A Glute, similar to shoulders in form and function; if your shoulders are small but your hands or forearms are bigger, will hurt your shoulders but the tapering effect of the larger shoulders as opposed to hands and forearms makes for speedier swimmers. But I digress; glutes are the roots of speed while quads are the bearers of “strength” as it were because of the whipping effect!! 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓

you shoud say running is more a vetical jump than a horizontal push. You still need traction between your feet and the ground to make you go forward.If there is no traction at all, you would fall flat on your face when you lean forward.

To understand this better, you can run faster with stronger legs, too strong and you'll be hoping up just like when you run on the Moon. You go up and down on the Moon, not dashing on the surface like a cockroach. That's why running is vertical jump.

And as soon as you Lean forward, the jump isn't Vertical anymore. It's the horizontal Factor that determines the speed. The problem is that vertical and horizontal isn't a subjective thing. It's always relative to Earth. A Vertical has no horizontal factor. It mustn't have any horizontal movement.

Hitting quicker is actually more force since the acceleration is higher, and force = mass * acceleration

You should qualify your statements with Dr. Roger Kram's lab in Colorado. Just email him your video and ask for a comment. Read his papers on the biomechanics of running. This mode of locomotion has been researched quite well since the 1970's so there's little need to reinvent the wheel. :)

I just realised that running is not a vertical jump...... It's something else but I won't share it here....

Very interesting, having just watched another credible video that seems to say the opposite (link below). To partially reconcile, wouldn’t a vertical jump with lean actually result in a Horizontal vector which is the only cause of forward motion? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KYDGoNXc-qs.htmlsi=_iMZ68Q-e6CBIysq

So basically vertical jumping is an alternative of Running. 🤔

ok, but the existence of running spikes is a counterpoint to your argument that running is only a vertical jump. Spikes would serve no purpose on a vertical motion. I get your point, but I believe there's also a horizontal vector, not just the vertical vector in running. Displacement wouldn't be possible without friction, and vertical motion only requires what's called normal force, or ground reaction force

Filthy casual here. But running is not a vertical jump. This description seems close to the Pose method. Sprinting might be a vertical jump off the blocks. More on that below. Pretty sure there's research indicating that Pose method is not more efficient method of running. Double check me on that one. IMHO - Running is similar to the cycling mantra "Pedal in circles. Not in squares". Running is circling your legs and pulling (contracting bicep femoris) your body ahead. Sprinting off the blocks is pure power of jumping to the next step. This differs from the gallop phase of running.

A starting car also needs to lean to start and move center of mass? No, it needs to apply horizontal force. It is physics A runner can do it by pulling feet back.

Lema won boston and he run on his heel just run do not think

This is a very tricky and confusing subject. I am looking at sprinters, and I can't convey your theory to their technique. I am more convinced that they are 'pulling up' their legs, not 'jumping'. ru-vid.comqMzO9lL81Cw

Physics don't add up. Every time the foot comes down, momentum is lost

A jump is a vertical jump, maybe you meant to say a horizontal jump? 🤨

Really 😂

This is patently false. There are definitely some horizontal forces involved in running.

Try leaning backward😅🤣

I watched the whole video in hopes of it going somewhere, but i am really sorry to say u have no clue what u r talking about. Really no horizontal force just vertical? then how the hell do you stand up straight after leaning forward? and with that logic what's stopping you from reaching light speed? very disappointing video, i'm sorry

“Running is a vertical jump”. This is the most stupid argument that I have ever heard about running in my life. Don’t listen this guy and try to optimize even minimize your vertical oscillation and your running economy will get much better just by this. To know this you don’t need to be a genius. High school level of physics and biology knowledge should be enough. Everyone started to putting random bs on youtube just for increasing video views…

Get a life !

When I discover that technique, i was already suffering injury, so i couldn't practice very well. Am going to practice it again