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How to stop overstriding when you sprint

Reaching in front of your hips brakes every single step. Here is how to see it on video and what actually fixes it.

Overstriding is the most common fault in sprinting and the most commonly misdiagnosed, because the advice attached to it is usually wrong. Athletes are told to take longer strides, so they reach, and reaching is the problem.

What it costs

If the foot lands ahead of the hips, the ground pushes back along the leg towards the athlete. Every contact is a small brake applied at exactly the moment the athlete is trying to accelerate. It does not feel like braking. It feels like working hard and going nowhere, which is why athletes respond by reaching further.

How to see it

Film side-on and step to the frame where the foot first touches the track. Draw a vertical line down from the hip. If the foot is clearly in front of that line, the athlete is overstriding. StatLap reports this as the distance the foot lands ahead of the hips, expressed as a share of leg length, so you can compare it across sessions rather than arguing about a still frame.

What fixes it

• A-march, then A-skip. Both teach the foot to come down under the hip instead of swinging out in front of it.
• Wall drill, holding the position. No speed to hide behind, so the strike point is the only thing to think about.
• A small increase in cadence. Stride length that comes from reaching is not stride length worth having.

The cue that works better than any of these is simply stepping down rather than out. Longer strides are a result of pushing harder behind you, never of placing the foot further ahead.

One caveat worth stating: at the very start of a race, out of the blocks, the mechanics are different and a foot landing behind the hips is what you want. Judge acceleration and top speed separately.

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