Part 6 of 18
🧠 Introduction
The last few articles have revealed something many athletes never realize.
Speed depends on more than just the muscles responsible for pushing into the ground.
In other words:
💥 speed depends on more than just the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves.
First, we learned about the importance of:
👉 the hip flexors
Then:
👉 the arms
But that raises another question.
💥 Are there even more contributors hiding in plain sight?
One contributor sits directly between the arms and legs.
One contributor is involved in every stride.
And one contributor most athletes rarely think about.
👉 the torso
👀 The Torso Is Easy To Ignore
Ask most athletes about sprint speed and they’ll usually talk about:
👉 the legs
👉 the hips
If they’re lucky, they might even talk about the arms.
But hardly anyone talks about the torso.
And that’s interesting.
Because the torso sits directly between all of them.
👉 the arms
👉 the hips
👉 the legs
Yet many athletes never consciously consider it as a contributor to speed.
Instead, the torso often gets treated as something much simpler.
👉 a connector
👉 a stabilizer
👉 something helping posture
👉 something helping balance
And on one level, that’s true.
The torso does connect everything.
But is that all it’s doing?
👀 Is The Torso Just A Connector?
Think about an oblique sit-up.
You might perform one repetition rotating to the left.
Then perform the next rotating to the right.
And continue alternating directions throughout the set.
Nobody performs that movement and thinks:
👉 my torso is just connecting my shoulders and hips
Instead, everyone recognizes something else.
👉 the torso is actively involved in creating and supporting the movement itself
The stronger the torso becomes, the easier it becomes to perform the movement aggressively.
The weaker the torso becomes, the harder it becomes to support the movement effectively.
Most athletes understand this immediately.
⚠️ Sprinting Requires Repeated Rotation
The reason the oblique sit-up example matters is simple.
Just as your torso rotates to the left during one repetition…
and then rotates to the right during the next…
the torso does something very similar during running.
Most athletes never think about it.
But every stride requires the torso to rotate.
👉 twisting one direction during one stride
👉 twisting the opposite direction during the next
👉 back and forth this goes
Not wildly.
Not loosely.
But aggressively and repeatedly.
Around the body’s central axis.
👉 the spinal column
The difference is that most athletes notice the rotation during an oblique sit-up.
They rarely notice it during sprinting.
Yet both movements depend on the torso repeatedly rotating and supporting that rotation.
And that raises an interesting question.
If the torso is repeatedly rotating under force…
why would it not need to be strong?
Why would it not need to be capable of supporting that movement repeatedly?
⚠️ Strong Rotation Requires A Strong Torso
Let’s stick with our oblique sit-up example a little longer.
This time, imagine trying to perform the movement with a weak, relaxed, or collapsing torso.
The movement immediately changes.
👉 less control
👉 less force
👉 less confidence
Why?
Because rotational movement depends on the torso being capable of supporting it.
The stronger and more organized the torso becomes…
the easier it becomes to repeatedly create and support rotational movement.
💥 Sprinting is no different.
Every stride requires the torso to repeatedly support rotation.
Every stride requires the torso to repeatedly organize movement.
Every stride requires the torso to repeatedly remain strong around the spinal column while the rest of the body is moving aggressively around it.
And that makes the torso much harder to dismiss as a passive bystander.
⚠️ A Weak Torso Can Leak Energy
Most athletes understand that sprinting requires force.
What many athletes never consider is what happens to that force once it’s created.
Imagine repeatedly rotating a system that isn’t strong enough to support the movement.
Eventually something starts to happen.
👉 movement becomes harder to support
👉 force becomes harder to organize
👉 energy begins to leak
Not because the athlete isn’t trying hard enough.
Not because the legs aren’t working hard enough.
But because the system responsible for supporting the movement isn’t capable of containing it effectively.
💥 A stronger rotational system leaks less energy than a weaker rotational system.
And if sprinting requires repeated rotation around the spinal column…
that raises an important question.
👉 How much speed can a torso leak away?
Most athletes assume getting faster is only about creating more force.
But what if speed also depends on how much force the system can support without leaking it away?
Because if the torso is repeatedly rotating during every stride…
and if that torso is not capable of strongly supporting that movement…
💥 some of the speed you’re trying to create may never fully show up.
👀 The Torso Sits In The Middle Of Everything
Think about where the torso is located.
Not at the end of the body.
Not off to one side.
Right in the middle.
The arms connect to it.
The hips connect to it.
The legs connect through it.
And every stride passes through it.
That doesn’t automatically mean the torso creates speed.
But it does make one thing difficult to ignore.
💥 The torso is involved in everything the rest of the body is doing.
The more aggressively the body moves…
the more difficult it becomes to imagine the torso remaining completely uninvolved.
💥 The Big Realization
A few articles ago, speed seemed much simpler.
Most athletes focused almost entirely on:
👉 glutes
👉 hamstrings
👉 quads
👉 calves
Then another contributor appeared.
👉 the hip flexors
Then another.
👉 the arms
And now another contributor enters the picture.
👉 the torso
Not because sprinting suddenly became more complicated.
But because the body has always been contributing more than most athletes realize.
The torso is not simply sitting between the upper body and lower body.
It is not merely a connector.
And it is not merely along for the ride.
Every stride requires the torso to:
👉 rotate
👉 support movement
👉 remain organized around the spinal column
👉 help prevent energy from leaking throughout the system
And that makes it very difficult to dismiss as a passive contributor to speed.
The faster an athlete attempts to run…
the harder it becomes to ignore the contributors involved in supporting that movement.
And the torso is one of them.
🧭 Continue The Journey
So far you’ve discovered:
👉 the muscles responsible for pushing
👉 the muscles responsible for swinging
👉 the arms
👉 the torso
But another realization is beginning to emerge.
These contributors don’t operate in isolation.
They all participate during the same sprint.
And that raises an important question.
💥 If all of these contributors matter…
how do they work together?
📖 Next Up: Part 7 of 18
➡️ The Running Speed System: Why Contributors Must Work Together
