4. Just before you take off, the left arm, bent at a 90-degree angle, will come up so that your hand is next to your hip (see photo on previous page).
5. Drive and aim the first step with your rear leg to land three feet (one yard) from your lead toe.
The result: my first trained 10-yard attempt clocked at 1.99 from a 2.07-second original, a 0.08 second improvement.
ADDING CORRECT ARM POSITION AND MOVEMENT.
I had placed most of my weight on my legs, resulting in a negative arm angle negative arm angle. In other words, the line from my fingertips to my shoulder pointed up and behind me. This is bad. It meant I had to pause and lift my arm before taking the first step.
To correct this, I attempted to have my shoulder slightly ahead of my fingers and replace replace my arms. In Joe"s words, I was to "leave the lead arm behind" and drive it backward instead of lifting it. I would naturally fall forward as I removed the third leg of the tripod, and driving the right arm back would help me drive my right leg forward. my arms. In Joe"s words, I was to "leave the lead arm behind" and drive it backward instead of lifting it. I would naturally fall forward as I removed the third leg of the tripod, and driving the right arm back would help me drive my right leg forward.
More weight forward, however, meant less sole contact with the ground, and my rear foot slipped both times I practiced this. The solution Joe suggested was Nike Vapors, which, unlike common cleats, have small teeth at the toe of the shoe. Stuck with my standard soccer booties, I hoped the new forward pressure would compensate for less traction.
It did: the next 10-yard attempt clocked at 1.91 from a 2.07 original-a 0.16 overall improvement.
FOCUSING ON SUSTAINED RUNNING POSITION AND FEWER STEPS.
Joe placed a string about three feet from my lead toe and prescribed the following:
1. From the start position, keep your head down but your eyes on the string, where you want your first step to land.
2. Ensure that your knee is ahead of your toes when you land that first step.
3. For the entire 10 yards, keep your chin tucked and your upper body ahead of your lower body.
4. Take the fewest steps possible (seven steps or fewer for my limb length), which will paradoxically feel slower due to more ground contact.
I took a breath. The checklist was getting long and the setup was taking correspondingly longer. When I pa.s.sed the 10-yard mark, it felt a lot slower.
It wasn"t: this fifth attempt clocked at 1.85 from a 2.07 original-a 0.22 overall improvement.
Now it was time to retest the 40-yard dash.
"Just Run Your 10"
"To transition to the 40, people forget all they learned in the 10. Just run your 10. Run the best 10 you can. Don"t worry about the rest but finish to the 40-yard line. But...run that 10 like it"s for Olympic gold."
That was it? Five 10-yard dash practice runs and less than 15 minutes of coaching?
I took one warm-up run at about 60% of max effort to shake out the cobwebs.
"Ready?" I asked Joe.
"Ready."
Then I hovered in the starting stance for what seemed like an eternity, making tiny adjustments, trying to keep the dozen or so points straight.
And I was off.
For the first time in a long time, I felt fast. I kept my head down and body forward as I blew past the 10-yard mark. I could sense I was nearing the 40-yard finish and looked up, at which point I felt a sharp pull. Before I could blink, I had pa.s.sed the 40 and was decelerating into a jog.
My right hamstring felt odd.
"Nice!" Joe yelled out from the start line, and I headed over.
"5.61 seconds." He showed me the reading on the hand-held receiver and smiled. "You"ve broken the gym record for a one session improvement. It was two-tenths of a second, and this is more than three-tenths of a second."
"My hamstring feels a little tight," I mentioned as I headed back to the starting line. Joe stopped and looked at me.
"In that case, we"re done for today."
He continued: "I"ve learned from experience-I"m older and wiser than I once was-that you stop when the hamstrings feel tight. That"s a sign of a pending tear."
"But it feels so tight. Shouldn"t I stretch it a bit?"
"No, that"s the biggest and most common mistake. It feels like it"s contracting, so people stretch it, but it"s already overstretched. You need ice and Hannah Montana."
Hannah Montana?
"Excuse me?"
"Ice and arnica montana."
I"d misheard him, of course. Arnica montana, not Hannah Montana, is also known as wolf"s bane. It"s a European flowering plant that contains a flavonoid called helenalin, which has made it popular among professional athletes for anti-inflammation.
DeFranco believed that, had I not pulled my hamstring, I would have reached between 5.51 and 5.53 that session and then dropped another one- to two-tenths after a week of additional training.
Lesson learned: keep your chin tucked and don"t look up. It pulls your torso upright and leads to striking with the heel, which can cause hamstring tears. The forces generated in the 40-yard dash are obscene. Keep in mind that DeFranco coaches athletes who can deadlift 600 pounds for repet.i.tions, and his advice to bodybuilders who want to develop their "hammies" is simple: Sprint.
I"d be getting back to sprinting, but the first order of business was ice and Hannah Montana. I needed to heal.
The next leg of my journey was going to require a h.e.l.l of a lot more than 40 yards.
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Is there anything I could have done to prevent my hamstring pull?
If there is one injury Joe understands, it is the hamstring pull. His pre-hab prescription was effectively threefold: 1. Train the natural glute-ham raise. Nothing in the weight room can mimic the demands of sprinting. The next best thing, though, is the natural glute-ham raise, which builds an incredible foundation of eccentric strength in the hamstring. This helps prevent pulls and tears during the foot-strike portion of sprinting, when the load is greatest. The a.s.shole demonstrates proper form here: Nothing in the weight room can mimic the demands of sprinting. The next best thing, though, is the natural glute-ham raise, which builds an incredible foundation of eccentric strength in the hamstring. This helps prevent pulls and tears during the foot-strike portion of sprinting, when the load is greatest. The a.s.shole demonstrates proper form here: www.fourhourbody.com/a.s.shole-demo.
According to Joe, athletes who can perform strict natural glute-ham raises rarely pull hamstrings. If you don"t have the equipment, a partner can hold your ankles for this movement, which is much harder than it looks. Start slow and keep your hands in front of your face to avoid plastering it on the floor. See the Sorinex machine, which I have at home, in the "Tools and Tricks."
2. Focus on hip extension strength. Forget leg curls and knee flexion, with the one exception of the glute-ham raise. Otherwise, you should focus on strong hip extension. To prevent pulls and increase sprint speed, focus on these movements: Forget leg curls and knee flexion, with the one exception of the glute-ham raise. Otherwise, you should focus on strong hip extension. To prevent pulls and increase sprint speed, focus on these movements:Reverse hyperextensions (reverse "hypers")Regular hyperextensionsKettlebell or dumbbell swingsSled dragging (train both upright posture and a 45-degree "acceleration" lean)Supine hip thrusts (see www.fourhourbody.com/hip) If you can"t do reverse hypers or a natural glute-ham raise, or if you lack the equipment, DeFranco and his acolytes recommend supine hip thrusts (see the video demo above), which can also be done with a barbell for added resistance (see my video with 415 pounds here: www.fourhourbody.com/hipthrusts).
I love this exercise. It is also the money move for quickly relieving back pain from too much time at the laptop. Random digression: as I write this at 1:45 A.M. A.M. in a hotel cafe in South Africa, I have just finished a nice set of supine hip thrusts between a couch and a coffee table. I am the only night owl here. in a hotel cafe in South Africa, I have just finished a nice set of supine hip thrusts between a couch and a coffee table. I am the only night owl here.
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Reverse hyper(extension) on a bench and Swiss ball. It"s easier than it looks.
A native Amaxhosa12 cleaning woman just stopped to look at me as if I had lobsters crawling out of my ears, so I told her that the waitress had promised me free water, but only if I did the s.e.xy booty dance. cleaning woman just stopped to look at me as if I had lobsters crawling out of my ears, so I told her that the waitress had promised me free water, but only if I did the s.e.xy booty dance.
She was not impressed.
3. Keep your hip flexors flexible. The most underrated way to improve stride length and prevent hamstring pulls is to (and this should sound familiar) keep your hip flexors flexible. See the hip flexor stretches in the last chapter. The most underrated way to improve stride length and prevent hamstring pulls is to (and this should sound familiar) keep your hip flexors flexible. See the hip flexor stretches in the last chapter.
When your hip flexors are tight, it creates constant tension and a constant pull on the hamstrings, which is a recipe for tears.
Tight hip flexors also prevent you from reaching full stride length. Upon extending your leg back into the turf, the stretch-reflex in your hip flexors causes them to contract prematurely and pull your leg back up. People with tight hip flexors take short, choppy steps when they run. Sometimes they look fast due to a high stride rate, but Joe calls it "going nowhere fast" because they are not covering any real ground.
Stretch those sons-a-b.i.t.c.hes.
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So what happened with Hannah Montana?
I had used topical arnica before, and it had worked well.
This time, I was taking Boiron Arnica Montana 30C pellets, an oral version that was the only option at the closest GNC. I started at five pellets, six times a day-twice the recommended dose. Risk of overdose? Not likely.
"30C," which I looked up that evening, tells you all you need to know.
This consumable version of arnica, unlike the creams I"d used in the past, was a homeopathic homeopathic remedy. Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, pioneered the field of homeopathy in 1796, if the term "pioneer" can be applied to alternative "medicine" founded on concepts like ma.s.s dilution and beatings with horse-hair implements: remedy. Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, pioneered the field of homeopathy in 1796, if the term "pioneer" can be applied to alternative "medicine" founded on concepts like ma.s.s dilution and beatings with horse-hair implements:
Homeopaths use a process called "dynamisation" or "potentisation" whereby a substance is diluted with alcohol or distilled water and then vigorously shaken by ten hard strikes against an elastic body in a process called "succussion."...Hahnemann believed that the process of succussion activated the vital energy of the diluted substance.
Riiiight.
Back to 30C. 30C indicates a 1060 dilution, the dilution most recommended by Hahnemann. 30C would require giving 2 billion doses per second to 6 billion people for 4 billion years to deliver a single molecule of the original material to any one person. Put another way, if I diluted one-third of a drop of liquid into all the water on earth, it would produce a remedy with a concentration of about 13C, more than twice the "strength" of our 30C arnica. dilution, the dilution most recommended by Hahnemann. 30C would require giving 2 billion doses per second to 6 billion people for 4 billion years to deliver a single molecule of the original material to any one person. Put another way, if I diluted one-third of a drop of liquid into all the water on earth, it would produce a remedy with a concentration of about 13C, more than twice the "strength" of our 30C arnica.
Most homeopathic remedies in liquid are indistinguishable from water and don"t contain a single molecule of active medicine.
I found this particularly bothersome. Bothersome because I appeared to heal faster using oral 30C arnica.
There are a few potential explanations: HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES WORK AS ADVERTISED.
The water actually retains some "essential property" of the original substance because of the beatings and shakings. I give this a 0% probability. It violates the most basic laws of science and makes my head hurt.
THE PLACEBO EFFECT.
I didn"t realize it was a homeopathic remedy until after four or five doses, and I had been told it could reduce pain by up to 50% in 24 hours. Placebo is strong stuff. People can become intoxicated from alcohol placebos, and "placebo" knee surgeries for osteoarthritis, where incisions are made but nothing is repaired, can produce results that rival the real deal. This explanation gets my vote. Now, if I could just forget what I read on the label, I could repeat it next time.
REGRESSION TOWARD THE MEAN.
Imagine you catch a cold or get the flu. It"s going to get worse and worse, then better and better until you are back to normal. The severity of symptoms, as is true with many injuries, will look something like a bell curve.
The bottom flat line, representing normalcy, is the mean mean. When are you most likely to try the quackiest s.h.i.t you can get your hands on? That miracle duck extract Aunt Susie swears by when not talking about crystals? Naturally, when your symptoms are the worst and nothing seems to help. This is the very top of the bell curve, at the peak of the roller coaster before you head back down. Naturally heading back down is regression toward the mean regression toward the mean.
If you are a fallible human, as we all are, you might misattribute getting better to the duck extract, but it was just coincidental timing. The body had healed itself, as could be predicted from the bell curvelike timeline of symptoms. This is a very common mistake, even among smart people.
SOME UNEXPLAINED MECHANISM.
"Tis possible that there is some as-yet-unexplained mechanism through which homeopathy works. Some mechanism that science will eventually explain. Until something even remotely plausible comes along, though, I"ll do my best to scratch my psora psora (an itch "miasm" that Hahnemann felt caused epilepsy, cancer, and deafness) with at least one molecule of active substance. (an itch "miasm" that Hahnemann felt caused epilepsy, cancer, and deafness) with at least one molecule of active substance.
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TOOLS AND TRICKS.
DeFranco Training on Video (www.fourhourbody.com/defranco) These are the actual videos I took during our training day, in which DeFranco covers some of the more important dynamic warm-ups and stretches, in addition to sprint stance setup. These are the actual videos I took during our training day, in which DeFranco covers some of the more important dynamic warm-ups and stretches, in addition to sprint stance setup.
40-Yard Dash: Average Joe vs. Pro Athlete (www.fourhourbody.com/40yard) This is a clip of Rich Eisen, one of ESPN"s newscasters and "every man" representative, running the 40-yard dash against professional athletes in the NFL Combine. It"s hard to appreciate how fast NFL players are until you watch this. This is a clip of Rich Eisen, one of ESPN"s newscasters and "every man" representative, running the 40-yard dash against professional athletes in the NFL Combine. It"s hard to appreciate how fast NFL players are until you watch this.
Parisi Speed School (www.parisischool.com) Founded by Division I All-American javelin thrower Bill Parisi, this school has trained hundreds of professional athletes in increasing their speed. The Parisi NFL Combine program has produced more than 120 successful NFL draftees. Founded by Division I All-American javelin thrower Bill Parisi, this school has trained hundreds of professional athletes in increasing their speed. The Parisi NFL Combine program has produced more than 120 successful NFL draftees.
Sorinex Poor Man"s Glute-Ham Raise (www.fourhourbody.com/ghr) I first learned of this (relatively) inexpensive GHR machine from Parkour athletes. It"s a fraction of the cost of alternatives, small enough to be wheeled into a closet, and perfect for DeFranco"s favorite exercise for hamstring development. I first learned of this (relatively) inexpensive GHR machine from Parkour athletes. It"s a fraction of the cost of alternatives, small enough to be wheeled into a closet, and perfect for DeFranco"s favorite exercise for hamstring development.
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End of Chapter Notes 4. A common answer among those interviewed for this book. A common answer among those interviewed for this book.
5. Fewer still realize that when Ben"s gold medal was rescinded, it was pa.s.sed to our great American hero Carl Lewis, who tested positive for three banned stimulants (pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine) in the very same Olympics. Lewis was initially disqualified, but this decision was overturned with an appeal of "inadvertent use." In other words, he had consumed an herbal supplement but was unaware that it contained the stimulants. Not to imply a world-cla.s.s athlete knew what he was ingesting, but ephedrine plus testosterone was a favorite combination of sprinters throughout the 1980s, a decade often referred to as the "golden age" of steroid use in sports. In fact, four of the top five Olympic finishers of 100 meters in 1988 (right alongside Ben Johnson) had tested positive for banned drugs at some point in their careers. Fewer still realize that when Ben"s gold medal was rescinded, it was pa.s.sed to our great American hero Carl Lewis, who tested positive for three banned stimulants (pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine) in the very same Olympics. Lewis was initially disqualified, but this decision was overturned with an appeal of "inadvertent use." In other words, he had consumed an herbal supplement but was unaware that it contained the stimulants. Not to imply a world-cla.s.s athlete knew what he was ingesting, but ephedrine plus testosterone was a favorite combination of sprinters throughout the 1980s, a decade often referred to as the "golden age" of steroid use in sports. In fact, four of the top five Olympic finishers of 100 meters in 1988 (right alongside Ben Johnson) had tested positive for banned drugs at some point in their careers.
6. No amount of text can do the movements justice, but free video of each is available at No amount of text can do the movements justice, but free video of each is available at www.fourhourbody.com/defranco.