My son's 1st EVER 40 yard dash.

Axl_sued_me

Axl_sued_me

Starter
My son was invited to the Football University Combine in KC this weekend. He has never been timed on a 40yd dash before until this day. He's 14, in 8th grade and ran a 5.10 (HH) and a 5.16 (HH).

What I'm asking for is if anyone knows how to critique, his stance, his form,...etc. We both believe that he could have done better. 5.00 or possibly 4.9. Take a look and any feedback is much appreciated.


 
You might consider having him start in a 3 point stance with the other arm back so when he takes the first step out of the blocks he can drive the trailing arm hard forward to start forward momentum. Track sprinters have the advantage of coming out of blocks so they use 4 point stance. Run with open hand, bringing each hand to ear level while pumping straight forward, never with a side to side motion. Watch slow motion video of world class sprinters to see a visual.


 
Watch the NFL combine video. They have been well coached on this stuff.

I think form is important. When running keep head still, keep form at the end he leans forward - not sure if that's best. Think baseball player who thinks they will reach first base quicker by diving head first.

 
If it is handheld, they don't start the timer until the first movement. So being in a 3-point like someone mentioned above, have him lean forward, to the point where he is almost about to fall. That way he is already falling forward when he starts running. Also helps to prevent him from standing straight up at the start.

If there is an electronic 40 with a sensor pad at the start, that starts your time when your down hand releases from the pad, try to keep your hand on there for as long as possible. If you release your hand too early, the time will start before you've actually started running. Some people have actually taken a full step before lifting their hand to start the timer. I will say it was 8 years ago the last time I ran an electronic 40 so they may have changed it now. But that is what they told us then.

 
Many of you likely know better than I do but for football players, isn't one of the big helping critiques something along the lines of keep your head down and driving forward until you reach top speed?

I swear I heard some form of that when watching some of those pre-combine shows that follows a player during their training for the combine.

You can definitely see it in both videos. In the first when your son is going head to head as soon as he leaves the start he is spotting the finish, whereas the other kid is at the first set of cones (what, 20 yards?) before he looks up. The video of the olympians shows the same thing in the last 35s of the video, they are 20 - 30 meters down the track before even looking up. If i remember right, this keeps the driving posture of the acceleration motion, allowing you to get deeper into those (relatively) shorter acceleration steps for a greater push. I am sure someone would say there is some aerodynamic advantage to that too.

 
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