Why Most Athletes Are Braking With Every Stride — And How to Fix It

Published: 16 April 2026 · 6-minute read · Sprint Mechanics

If you have ever watched a young athlete sprint and thought "they look like they're working so hard but not going that fast" — you are probably watching overstriding. It is one of the most common and most costly mechanical errors in youth sport, and it affects athletes in Birmingham, across the West Midlands, and at every level from grassroots football to county athletics.

The good news: it is measurable, correctable, and the results of fixing it show up on the stopwatch fast.

What Is Overstriding?

Overstriding happens when an athlete's foot lands too far in front of their centre of mass. Instead of producing forward momentum, each foot strike creates a braking force — a moment where the ground pushes backwards against the direction of travel. This is exactly what you do not want in sprint training Birmingham athletes take seriously.

Think of it like trying to run while dragging a parachute behind you. The harder you push, the more you slow yourself down. Many athletes compensate by working harder, which makes them look effortful but not fast.

How We Measure Braking Forces at EPP

At Elite Player Performance, we use Photon Sports high-speed cameras to capture sprint mechanics frame-by-frame. We measure ground contact time, foot strike position relative to the hip, and the resulting force vectors produced with every step.

In our data from over 300 athletes tested at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, overstriding affects more than 65% of youth athletes in their first assessment. It is not a talent problem — it is a coaching and feedback problem. Most athletes have never been shown what an efficient foot strike actually looks like.

The Three Signs Your Athlete Is Overstriding

• Long ground contact time — if your athlete sounds heavy-footed when they sprint, their foot is spending too long on the ground
• Reaching with the toe — the foot extends forward and lands on the heel, creating a braking impulse
• Backward body lean — the athlete sits into their hips rather than driving forward

None of these are visible to the naked eye at full sprint speed. That is why sprint testing in Birmingham using technology matters — what looks fine at walking pace is dramatically different at maximal velocity.

The Fix: Three Drills That Work

1. Wall Drills

Wall drives teach the athlete to push down and back into the ground rather than reaching forward. Stand facing a wall at arm's length, lean in at 45 degrees, and drive alternating knees up with a pawing action. Done correctly, the foot should land directly under the hip.

2. A-Skip With Emphasis

The A-skip is a staple of sprint training for good reason. The emphasis here is on the "pop" — the rapid ground contact and push. The foot should touch the ground beneath the body, not in front of it. We use this drill in every SAQ Speed Clinic session at EPP.

3. Assisted Sprints

Running with a slight downhill gradient or elastic assistance allows the athlete to experience correct mechanics at higher speeds. The nervous system learns what efficient feels like, and that pattern transfers to unassisted sprinting over time.

Why This Matters for Sport Performance in Birmingham

In football, overstriding is the difference between winning a 50-50 ball and being a step behind. In rugby, it determines whether a winger reaches the corner or gets caught. In athletics, it can be the margin between a final place and a new personal best.

At EPP, we have seen athletes reduce their 30-metre sprint time by an average of 0.18 seconds after correcting overstriding mechanics in an 8-week programme. For context, in youth football that is the difference between making the ball and missing it by a full yard.

Sprint training Birmingham athletes receive at EPP is built around exactly this kind of mechanical correction — identifying the issue through data, prescribing the right drills, and tracking improvement through retesting.

When to Retest

We recommend retesting every 8–12 weeks. Sprint mechanics change as an athlete's body grows, as they gain strength, and as their coordination develops. A single assessment gives you a baseline. Sequential assessments show you the trajectory — and that is when performance coaching in the West Midlands starts to produce compounding results.