explosive legs but slow sprinter

[fanet]

Hi everyone,

I'm a 35-year old male and somehow I'm unable to sprint very fast. I can't measure my 100m time exactly but it is around 15 seconds at full effort with a standing start. I have never done sprint training before, but from what I've seen in some forums, some would consider breaking 15 easy for most people. While that's obviously far from the truth, I'm wondering why I'm not faster since I have a powerful lower body (both in terms of absolute strength and power) and in general I'm naturally much better at explosive exercises (other than sprinting) than endurance so I don't think it's an issue of fiber type distribution.

My standing vertical leap (with arm swing) is 62cm and my standing broad jump is 247cm, both of which (while far from exceptional) are considered "very good" according to the tables I found, despite the fact that I never trained for them specifically. My deadlift is 215 kg and my full squat is 180 kg at 90kg bodyweight. (I can also clean 100kg but there I'm limited by technique to get fast under the bar, even though I can still get the bar pretty high; in fact every weight I can clean, I can also power clean).

Given these figures it shouldn't be a matter of strength or explosiveness, right? I'm 172cm tall and a bit overweight, probably around 22% bodyfat, which obviously impacts my running but I don't think that's the whole story. I never played sports as a kid so I have no idea how fast I would have been when I was younger, but I've been quite active since my late twenties (mainly tennis and recently powerlifting).

I think it may have to do with technique and coordination, or perhaps with the tendons and/or reactive strength. I never seem to get my heel high when sprinting (even compared to casual runners I see at medium pace), and perhaps I'm slow at flexing the hip to lift my foot. Any ideas what the issue could be and how to improve my speed?

[sowilson]

do sprint training. There is a lot information on skill, plyometric, lifting, and general sprint training out there. You can look on Stack, USATF, and other sites for information on sprint training. Since competitive age groups for Track and Field exist in almost every discipline from 8yr to 90+ you should look for a T&F group to join and train with. A sprint coach would do you a lot of good.