Why Do Sprinters Always Have Such Chiseled Backs?
If you've ever watched a sprinter train shirtless on a hot summer day...
A shocking detail about his physique that will undoubtedly catch your attention...
Is how chiseled his back muscles are.
Your first thought of course, is that he built that back in the gym...
But the more sprinters you look at, the more you'll notice how surprisingly consistent this phenomenon is.
What's more...their backs, while thick and muscular, are always still lean and attractive...
And never excessively wide like the backs that often result from bodybuilding.
So what's going on here exactly? Well in this post, I'm going to share with you exactly how this happens.
So here we go. First up...
Building the Lower Back
At the start of a sprint...
Where the goal is to accelerate as quickly as possible from a stand-still.
The body pushes from a 45° forward lean...
In order to use the downward force of gravity to help propel them forward.
The challenge here though, is that in order to sustain this angle without popping up or falling down...
The lower back must work over time to stabilize the torso, and prevent it from collapsing forward.
In addition, each time the sprinter strikes the ground, the body essentially compresses like a spring...
And the strength of the lower back, in (cooperation with the glutes)...
Is one of the main determining factors on how fast and powerful that spring is able to pop back up.
Up next...
Building the Mid Back
Once the sprinter has accelerated to around 70% of his top speed...
And the forward lean is no longer present...
Speed is now determined by this new upright posture of running, where the mechanics are entirely different.
Here, as the legs extend after pushing off the ground...
You can see how there is a noticeable backward curve in the spine, centered at the midback.
This happens in order to angle the hips to push further behind the body.
And it's the reason your chest feels like it wants to collapse forward after a hard sprint.
However, the challenge to assuming this posture efficiently...
Is that it requires a lot of conscious control of the mid back muscles.
Ideally, you should be able to contract the midback muscles while standing, without even having to move.
By developing this level of coordination...
It's not hard to imagine how this area of the back could become well defined in very little time at all.
Up next...
Building the Upper Back
The final segment of the back....
Which is probably the one you're most curious about...
The upper back is built, simply put, as a result of controlling the movement of the arms through the shoulder rotation.
You see, with sprinting...
A common analogy you hear is that the rear arm swing should feel a lot like driving a nail into a wall behind you...
With a single swing of the hammer.
You're not just swinging it back. You're punching it back.
Now picture doing that for a second...
And imagine how hard it would be to generate that much power from this awkward angle.
It’s extremely difficult actually, since outside of sprinting, there is really no other movement that resembles it.
And since there is no equivalent in the gym…it develops the upper back in a way that no other exercise really can.
And the stronger the sprinter's upper back...
The faster, and the further behind his body he will be able to punch that arm...
And the faster he will run as a result.
And that my friends...
Is the final reason that explains the puzzle behind why sprinters have such impressively strong backs.
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