Why does your sprinter's foot turn out when they run?
A side-on camera cannot see which way a foot points, and from where most coaches film, neither can you.
A parent or an assistant coach says the athlete's feet turn out when they run, like a duck, and asks what to do about it. It is a common enough observation that it deserves a proper answer, and the honest answer starts with where you were standing when you saw it.
What turnout actually is
Foot turnout is rotation of the foot away from the direction of travel, and it is usually driven higher up, at the hip, rather than at the ankle itself. Most sprinters who show it are not choosing to point their feet outward. A limited range of hip internal rotation, or simply the way an individual's hip sockets are built, leaves the leg swinging through on a slightly rotated path, and the foot follows the leg.
Why telling someone to point their toes forward rarely works
The foot is the last link in the chain, not the first one. An athlete who consciously rotates the foot straight without changing anything above it is usually just moving the twist somewhere else, into the knee or the shin, rather than removing it. That is a question for hip mobility and glute activation work, not a cue shouted from the infield, and if an athlete is also getting shin or knee soreness alongside the turnout, that combination is worth a conversation with a physio rather than a drill.
What to check before assuming it is a technique fault at all
- Whether it happens on both feet or just one. One-sided turnout points toward an individual asymmetry rather than a general running fault.
- Whether it is worse on a curve than on the straight, since running a bend changes hip mechanics on its own and can exaggerate a turnout that barely shows up in a straight sprint.
- Whether it changes with fatigue. Turnout that appears only late in a rep is a strength and control issue rather than a fixed pattern, and it trains differently.
Why the Film Room will not confirm or deny this one
The sprint analysis reports trunk lean against a 0 to 20 degree range, elbow angle against roughly 90 degrees, overstride, knee fold and extension, and ground contact time, flight time and cadence. There is no foot-rotation measure in that list, and there could not be one from the standard filming position. Turnout is a rotation around a vertical axis, and a side-on camera looks at the sagittal plane: from the side, a foot pointed straight and a foot turned out 20 degrees look the same width and land in the same place. The camera is not missing the answer. It is looking at a different question entirely.
To actually see foot turnout, film from directly behind or in front, with the athlete running toward or away from the camera rather than across it. A different angle answers a different question, and no amount of tracking on the original side-on clip will make it answer this one.
Time your next meet with the phones you already have
Timing, the Film Room and the speed gates are free forever. Publishing results to your own page starts at $59 a month.
Related
Why your sprinter's hips drop on one side
A hip that dips every time one particular foot lands is a stability fault, and it happens in the one plane a side-on camera cannot see.
Read →Why does your high jumper's plant foot never land in the same spot?
A side-on camera reads the vertical arc of a jump well and has no idea where the plant foot actually landed on the ground, which is usually the real question.
Read →Why doesn't my sprinter's knee come up in recovery?
A trailing recovery leg is a longer lever that takes longer to swing through, and the cause is rarely the knee itself.
Read →Try it: Sprint timer app: 40-yard dash and flying sprints with one phone