Touchdown and Takeoff: The Two Hardest Contacts in Track

Sprinting is a rhythm of similar contacts. Hurdling and jumping are not. In both events there is one contact per cycle that has to absorb a landing and produce a push at the same time, and it is the contact that decides whether the race or the jump holds together.

The hurdle touchdown

Coming off a barrier you land with the trail leg still recovering and the center of mass ahead of the foot. There is no time to gather. The touchdown foot must be stiff and active, land close to under the hip and re-accelerate immediately — which is why hurdlers who collapse at the ankle lose a tenth per barrier late in a race.

• Drill touchdown with 5-step and 3-step rhythm runs over lowered barriers, chasing consistent contact times rather than fast splits.
• Count touchdowns as speed volume. They are, and feet keep the tally either way.
• Attack barrier eight in practice the way you will need to in a race — fatigue changes mechanics, not intent.

The jump takeoff

A long, triple or high jump takeoff has to convert an entire approach in roughly a tenth of a second. Everything about that plant rewards a rigid, resilient interface: a platform that gives way sideways or vertically bleeds off approach speed as heat in soft tissue instead of height and distance.

It took more than twice the force to displace a person standing on Springsoles.

Volume is the quiet variable

Hurdlers and jumpers accumulate hundreds of hard contacts per week on a hard synthetic surface, most of them in practice. Cutting shock on every rep is not about comfort — it is about arriving at the championship meet with Achilles, shins and feet that still have snap in them.

Springsoles are 3/32 of an inch thick, so they fit inside spikes without touching pin angle, and they sit on top of the sewn-in footbed a spike will not let you remove. Four U.S. patents, made in the USA, $29.95 a pair.