Part 5 of 18
🧠 Introduction
For years, the focus for most athletes was almost entirely on:
👉 glutes
👉 hamstrings
👉 quads
👉 calves
For many athletes, that list becomes almost synonymous with speed itself.
Want to run faster?
👉 train these muscles
And for a long time, that seems to make sense.
Then something interesting happens.
Athletes begin discovering there may be more contributors to speed than they originally realized.
The previous article introduced one example:
👉 the hip flexors
But that realization raises yet another question.
💥 Are there even more parts of the body contributing to speed too?
👀 The Arms Are Easy To Overlook
One body part shows up in every sprint.
One body part becomes increasingly aggressive as speed rises.
And yet it is often treated as little more than a supporting actor.
👉 the arms
In fact, many athletes assume the arms are:
👉 mainly there for balance
👉 mainly there for stability
👉 mainly there to counterbalance the legs
👉 mainly there to help coordinate movement
👉 mainly there to help with rhythm
👉 mostly along for the ride
👉 and not major contributors to speed
And honestly, it’s not hard to understand why.
Most athletes don’t arrive at those conclusions randomly.
They arrive at them by watching people run, reading articles, listening to coaches, watching videos, and hearing the same explanations repeated over and over again.
And after hearing those explanations long enough, the role of the arms can begin to appear very passive.
👉 mainly there to help manage movement
👉 mainly there to help balance movement
👉 mainly there to react to what the legs are doing
But is this a fair explanation of their role?
Or, is there more to the story?
👀 The Arms Appear To Work Against Each Other
Think about what you normally see when you watch someone sprint.
👉 one arm moving forward
👉 one arm moving backward
At first glance, it almost looks like the arms are working against each other.
One goes this way.
One goes that way.
So it’s easy to conclude:
👉 they cancel each other out
👉 they aren’t contributing very much
👉 they’re mostly there for balance
And honestly…
that’s a reasonable conclusion if all you’re looking at is the side view.
But there’s a problem.
If the arms were truly working against each other…
one arm would constantly be trying to undo what the other arm is doing.
And if that’s the case…
💥 what’s the point?
Why would the body spend energy creating a movement only to immediately cancel it out again?
That doesn’t sound like a system designed for speed.
At the very least, it raises an interesting question.
👉 Are the arms really working against each other?
Or does it only appear that way?
👀 The Arms Appear To Work Against The Legs
The second reason many athletes underestimate the arms is just as common.
When people watch someone sprint, they often notice something that appears obvious.
👉 the right arm moves forward while the right leg moves backward
👉 the left arm moves forward while the left leg moves backward
From the side view, the arms appear to move opposite the legs.
And because of that, many athletes conclude:
👉 the arms are simply balancing the legs
👉 the arms are reacting to the legs
👉 the legs are doing the important work while the arms help manage the movement
Again, it’s not hard to understand why people arrive at that conclusion.
The side view seems to support it.
But there may be a problem.
Just because two body parts appear to move opposite one another…
doesn’t automatically tell us what role they are playing.
In fact, it may only tell us what the movement looks like from a particular angle.
💥 And that’s where many explanations stop.
👀 The Arms Are Often Described As A Counterbalance System
There’s another explanation many athletes encounter as they learn more about sprinting.
The idea goes something like this:
👉 the legs create force
👉 the hips and pelvis rotate
👉 the arms rotate in the opposite direction
👉 helping counterbalance the movement
At first glance, that explanation seems reasonable.
And because of that, many athletes come away with a similar conclusion.
👉 the arms are mainly reacting to what the lower body is doing
👉 the arms are there to manage movement
👉 the arms are not major contributors themselves
This is a commonly held belief.
In fact, you’ll find some version of this explanation throughout coaching articles, videos, and sprint discussions.
And because it is repeated so often, many athletes accept it without ever questioning the conclusion that follows.
👉 the arms counterbalance the lower body
👉 therefore the arms are mostly reactive
👉 therefore the arms are not major contributors
💥 That conclusion is far less certain than many athletes have been led to believe.
It does, however, help explain why so many athletes view the arms as passive participants rather than active contributors.
⚠️ Are We Even Comparing The Same Things?
Most athletes, coaches, trainers, and even experts have never consciously stopped to ask a simple question:
💥 Are the arms and legs actually operating under the same physical conditions?
Think about it.
Both arms are free to move.
👉 neither arm is attached to the ground
👉 both arms can move continuously
The legs are different.
At any given moment:
👉 one leg is moving freely through the air
👉 the other leg is NOT moving freely through the air
Instead:
👉 it is fixed, interacting with the ground
Those are not the same situation.
Yet many explanations talk about the arms and legs as though they are performing the same type of movement.
One system contains two freely moving arms.
The other contains:
👉 one freely moving leg
👉 one fixed leg interacting with the ground
Those are very different physical conditions.
And if the conditions are different…
it may not be reasonable to assume the movements serve identical purposes.
It may not be reasonable to assume they behave the same way.
And it may not be reasonable to assume the following conclusions are automatically true:
👉 the arms are mainly there for balance
👉 the arms are mainly there for stability
👉 the arms are mainly there to counterbalance the legs
👉 the arms are mainly there to help coordinate movement
👉 the arms are mainly there to help with rhythm
👉 the arms are mostly along for the ride
👉 the arms are not major contributors to speed
Because if the systems themselves are different…
💥 some of the conclusions we’ve drawn about the arms may deserve a second look.
At the very least, one thing becomes clear.
💥 The arms and legs cannot possibly behave in exactly the same way because they are not operating under the same physical conditions.
🤔 So What Role Are The Arms Actually Playing?
At this point, a different question begins to emerge.
If the arms are not simply cancelling each other out…
And if they are not simply reacting to the legs…
And if they are operating under different physical conditions altogether…
Then what exactly are they doing?
That’s an important question.
But it’s not the question we’re trying to answer today.
Today’s goal is much simpler.
💥 To determine whether the arms deserve more attention than most athletes give them.
And after everything you’ve seen so far, that answer is becoming difficult to ignore.
The arms:
👉 become increasingly aggressive as sprint speed rises
👉 show up in every sprint
👉 are often dismissed because of how they appear from the side
👉 are frequently described as reactive rather than contributive
👉 may be contributing more than most athletes realize
At the very least, one conclusion seems reasonable.
💥 The arms deserve a closer look.
⚠️ How Much Attention Have Your Arms Received?
Now think about your own training.
Over the last:
👉 week
👉 month
👉 six months
👉 year
How much time have you spent deliberately developing your arms for sprint speed?
Now compare that to the time you’ve spent developing:
👉 glutes
👉 hamstrings
👉 quads
👉 calves
For most athletes, the difference is enormous.
And that makes sense.
After all, why spend time training something you don’t believe contributes very much?
But what if that assumption is wrong?
What if the arms are contributing more than you’ve been led to believe?
💥 Suddenly the conversation changes.
Now this isn’t just about understanding sprinting.
👉 it’s about understanding your own training
👉 your own development
👉 your own speed
Because every contributor that gets overlooked becomes a missed opportunity for improvement.
💥 The Big Realization
Most athletes begin their speed journey believing the legs do almost everything.
Then they discover:
👉 the hip flexors matter
Now you’ve discovered something else.
👉 the arms may matter far more than most athletes realize.
The purpose of this article wasn’t to fully explain the role of the arms.
That comes later.
The purpose was to challenge the assumptions that cause athletes to overlook them in the first place.
Because once those assumptions begin to fall away, a different possibility appears.
💥 The arms may not be passive bystanders.
💥 They may not be along for the ride.
💥 They may not simply be reacting to the rest of the body.
They may be contributors.
And contributors deserve attention.
Contributors deserve development.
Contributors deserve training.
Because every overlooked contributor represents a potential opportunity for speed improvement.
And the interesting part?
👉 The arms aren’t the last overlooked contributor.
There’s still another major piece of the puzzle hiding in plain sight.
One that connects everything together.
And once you discover it, the entire sprint system starts looking very different.
🧭 Continue The Journey
So far you’ve discovered:
👉 the muscles responsible for pushing
👉 the muscles responsible for swinging
👉 the arms that may contribute more than most athletes realize
But there is still another major contributor hiding in plain sight.
One that sits right in the middle of everything.
