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Why you stand up too early out of the blocks

Standing up does not slow you down on the spot. It ends your acceleration early, and that is the part nobody feels.

Coaches describe this one the same way every time. The first two steps look right, something goes wrong in the middle, and by fifteen metres the athlete is running normally without ever really having accelerated.

What standing up early actually costs

Acceleration is a horizontal problem. Leaving the blocks, the body wants to be close to one long line from the back ankle through the hips to the head, and it wants to stay nearer that line than to upright for the first several steps. Coming upright does not brake the athlete on the spot. It ends the phase in which they can still push the ground backwards, so top speed arrives earlier and lower than it should have.

That is why it goes uncorrected for years. There is no moment that feels bad. The race just settles sooner than it needs to.

Where it comes from

• Block settings that sit the hips too high, so the first push is already going upwards.
• A first step that reaches out in front of the body. Anything landing ahead of the hips is a brake, and braking pulls the athlete upright.
• Eyes. The head follows the eyes and the trunk follows the head, so an athlete looking down the track at ten metres is standing up at four.
• Nothing to hold the position with. A trunk and hips that tire immediately will always default to the posture the athlete can actually maintain.

What the camera can tell you

In the Film Room, the block start is its own event and it reads the first six steps. It reports the drive-phase trunk lean and whether you stand up early, whether the hips climb instead of driving out, and back-leg extension at clearance.

The hips are the number worth having. An athlete can hold a convincing lean and still pop the hips up on every step, and from the side of the track at full speed nobody sees it. A hip trace across six steps is not a matter of opinion, and it is the same trace next Tuesday, which is what makes it useful for judging whether a change worked.

What to do on Tuesday

Wall drives with a three-count hold, because a position held still is a position that can be corrected. Falling starts into ten metres, because there is no way to pop upright out of a fall and stay on your feet. Sled or partner-resisted pushes, because resistance keeps the hips down without the athlete having to think about keeping them down. The app names these when the numbers say the position broke, but they are the standard remedies and they work whether or not anybody filmed anything.

One side-on camera sees posture and nothing else. It cannot see your block settings, where the feet are in the blocks, or whether the athlete pushes evenly with both legs. Those are still measured with a tape and watched from the front.

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