When you accelerate, your body leans forward so your push can point back into the ground. The lean should be one long line from your ankle through your hips and shoulders to your ears, not a fold at the waist. It is steepest on the first steps out of a start and rises a little every step until you are running nearly upright.
Lean as one line
As each push finishes, line up your ankle, knee, hip, shoulder and ear. Coaches look for an imaginary straight line from the ankle to the ears during acceleration, with the ankle, knee and hip on that same line at the end of the push.
one long, firm line from the ground to your head.
Out of a crouched or block start, expect that line to sit at roughly 40 to 45 degrees to the ground. Coaching guidance varies by athlete: stronger, shorter athletes may sit a little lower. Treat it as a rough picture, not a number to chase. In one study, elite sprinters actually held a more upright trunk than sub-elite sprinters over the first four steps.
Let the lean come from where your foot lands and how you push, not from tipping your chest down. Land at or slightly behind your hips. In a study of 41 students, the direction of their push closely tracked how far forward they leaned at toe-off, and the faster accelerators got their lean by planting the foot further back or staying on the ground a little longer. The authors concluded the push should be well aimed, not just as big as possible.
your weight ahead of your feet, as if you'd fall without the next step.
Don't bend at the waist
Push up and out along the line so your hips travel with your shoulders. If you don't, your hips stay back and you end up bent over at the waist, which coaches see as wasted effort and lost speed.
hips high and moving forward, not trailing behind you.
Keep your head in line with your trunk the whole way. A common fault in younger athletes is the body standing up while the head stays tucked down. As your body rises, your head rises with it.
Let the lean decrease
Raise your hips and shoulders a little with every step. The lean should fade gradually over many steps, not in one moment. In trained sprinters over 60 m, the trunk was still getting more upright around the 16th step.
climbing a gentle ramp, not stepping up a stair.
At top speed, run nearly upright with only a small forward tilt. One coaching manual puts the running angle at about 5 to 7 degrees at maximum velocity. Leaning much more than that at top speed is a different fault from the acceleration lean.
Accelerating from a jog, as in team sports, drop into the lean over your first few steps instead of staying tall. In 47 recreationally active adults speeding up from a run, a shift from upright to more forward trunk lean in the first steps went with faster acceleration.
Feel it
Your weight sits ahead of your feet, so the first steps can feel like you're about to fall. That feeling is normal; fast, hard pushes are what keep you up. Your body feels like one firm line from ankle to ear, your hips stay high, and every step brings your hips and shoulders a little higher. If you feel folded at the middle with your hips behind you, or you suddenly feel tall after two steps, the line has broken.
Fix-its
- You bend at the waist Your hips are staying back. Push up and out along the line until your ankle, knee and hip line up at the end of each push, and keep your hips moving forward with your shoulders.
- Your body stands up but your head stays down Keep your head in line with your trunk. The head should rise with the body, not stay tucked while the chest lifts.
- You lean so far you stumble Your feet are landing too far behind you, which makes you too horizontal to stay balanced. Land at or slightly behind your hips and let the push set the angle. A deeper lean isn't the goal in itself.
- Your foot reaches out in front of your hips A foot landing ahead of the hip breaks the line and makes you pull yourself forward with the hamstrings. Keep the swing shin roughly parallel to your body angle so the foot comes down under or just behind you.
- You stay upright when you accelerate from a jog Drop into a forward lean over the first two or three steps, from the ankles, then rise again as you build speed.
Drill
- Falling starts: stand tall, lean forward as one straight line from the ankles until you overbalance, then sprint out 10 to 20 m. Focus only on keeping the line and rising each step.
- Standing starts: lean slightly forward with one arm forward and one back, then accelerate 10 to 20 m, letting the lean build from your first pushes.
- Short accelerations from a crouched or 3-point start: 10 to 50 m at full effort, 2 to 7 minutes rest, 100 to 300 m in total per session. A newer athlete might run 20 m with 2 minutes rest. End the session when speed or technique drops, and leave about 48 hours before the next hard sprint session.
- Film from the side with slow motion (120 fps or more), phone at about hip height and several metres back. Pause at each toe-off: check for a straight line from ankle to ear, hips not trailing, and the line getting a little more upright every step.
- Warm up fully first, including easy build-up runs. Stop if you feel a sharp pull in the back of the thigh.
Sources
- ALTIS (Kormis, presenting Chidi Enyia) — Coach Chidi Enyia on Acceleration Development (2015)
- Surf Life Saving SA — Beach Sprinting Coaching Manual, 5th Edition
- Kugler & Janshen — Body position determines propulsive forces in accelerated running, J Biomech (2010)
- Donaldson, Bayne & Bezodis — A comparison of trunk and shank angles between elite and sub-elite sprinters during sprint acceleration, ISBS Proceedings (2020)
- Nagahara, Matsubayashi, Matsuo & Zushi — Kinematics of transition during human accelerated sprinting, Biology Open (2014)
- Jakeman, Clothier & Gupta — Transition from upright to greater forward lean posture predicts faster acceleration during the run-to-sprint transition, Gait & Posture (2023)
- Haugen, Seiler, Sandbakk & Tønnessen — The Training and Development of Elite Sprint Performance, Sports Medicine – Open (2019)
Last checked 2026-10-26.