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Which foot goes in front in the starting blocks?

The popular rules of thumb contradict each other, which is why the only answer worth trusting is a timed one.

Every new sprinter asks this the first day the blocks come out, and most of them get an answer delivered with complete confidence. The trouble is that two coaches on the same track will often give opposite answers with the same confidence, and both will tell you it is about the stronger leg.

Why the rules of thumb disagree

The usual advice is to put the stronger leg in the front pedal. That sounds settled until you ask what stronger means. Some coaches mean the leg the athlete kicks a ball with. Others mean the leg they jump off, which is often the other one, because a right-footed kicker plants the left foot beside the ball and tends to jump off that side too. Same rule, two meanings, two opposite setups.

The other common test is to push the athlete gently from behind and watch which foot steps out to catch them. Ask around and you will hear that this foot belongs in the back pedal, because it is their natural first step, and you will hear just as firmly that it belongs in the front. Both versions survive because both sound reasonable.

What each pedal actually does

The two legs do different jobs. The rear leg pushes briefly and leaves the block first, so its job is getting the first step moving quickly. The front leg stays in contact longer and pushes all the way through to extension, which is where the larger share of the push comes from. That is the reasoning behind putting the more powerful leg in front, and it is sound as far as it goes.

What it leaves out is that most young athletes are not dramatically stronger on one side, and that a sprinter who feels awkward in a setup moves awkwardly in it, whatever the theory says. For a lot of beginners the gap between the two setups is small enough that coordination decides it rather than strength.

Settle it with a clock

The reliable way to choose is to time both. It takes one session and it swaps an argument for a number.

• Mark ten metres from the start line. That covers the push, the first steps and the start of the drive, and it is short enough that fitness barely comes into it.
• Keep every block setting the same between the two setups: the same distances from the line, just swapped between the left and right pedals. The foot should be the only thing that changes.
• Alternate the setups rather than doing all of one and then all of the other, so the warm-up and any tiredness are shared out evenly.
• Take several starts in each with full rest, and compare the typical time for each setup rather than the single best one.

StatLap times this with two phones. The start phone listens for the gun, or a clap, and the finish phone watches a line you set at ten metres. Nobody presses a button at either end, which matters here, because the difference you are looking for may be a few hundredths of a second and a stopwatch cannot see a few hundredths. The time includes the athlete's reaction, and that is fine for this purpose. If one setup makes them slower to move, that is part of the answer.

The catch with experienced sprinters

A sprinter who has started one way for three seasons will nearly always test faster that way, because thousands of practice starts are built into the result. One morning cannot tell you whether the other setup would be better after a month of getting used to it. So read the test differently for them. An unfamiliar setup that is already slightly faster on the first day is a strong signal. One that is slightly slower tells you almost nothing. For a beginner there is no habit to protect: time both and take the faster.

What the camera adds

A clock tells you which setup is faster. Why the other one is slower is a question for the camera. The Film Room's block start setting reads the first six steps from a side-on clip and reports the drive-phase trunk lean, whether the hips climb instead of driving out, and the knee range, with a prompt to frame-step to the instant the front foot leaves the block and check that the back leg is straight. If one setup makes an athlete pop upright or lift the hips early, it tends to show up there, and that is often the fault worth fixing whichever foot ends up in front.

Neither the clock nor the clip knows which foot was in which pedal, so write it down next to every time as you go. A list of ten-metre times with no labels on them is a wasted morning.

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