Sprinting features some key elements in assessing what will make one faster and more resilient to injury:
One of the biggest pieces here is frontside mechanics and backside mechanics.
Front-side mechanics refers to everything happening with the legs in front of the body. Back-side mechanics refers to everything happening to the legs in back of the body.
This is important. Why?
Because there is a balance that does exist here. There is also over-coaching that attempts to restore that balance, but ends up making athletes slower.
The traditional paradigm in sprint training has been to maximize front side mechanics, and minimize back-side.
But this is a problem…
The problem is that the fastest athletes are not those who lift their knees the highest. There are world-champion track sprinters with lots of “back-side” travel of the legs behind the body. Check out the video of Noah Lyles below to see this back-side travel in action:
We also talk about injury in sprinting, and what constitutes good running form. This discussion (as with many things in life) tends to become instantly polarized by demonizing backside mechanics, and pumping up the need to maximize, or at least increase, the front-side travel.
The answer, as with all things, is somewhere in the middle, and it takes a good eye and a mind for holistic sprint mechanics to know how to really dial in on the balance of front and back-side mechanics in an athlete, to know whether or not to make changes, or leave well enough alone (or try to restore something natural and good that was coached out an athlete).