Reaction starts
Ready when: Run, stop and change direction (b1) done.
What you are learning
To react fast to a signal and get going: stay low and take short, quick steps first. Races start with a sound, and moving before it is a false start.
Words on this card Start line, False start
- Start line
- Where a race starts and ends. Runners run through the finish line, not up to it.
- False start
- Moving before the start signal.
Show it first for the one teaching
- Lie face down behind the start line and keep still.
- On the clap, get up fast and stay low.
- Push off with short, quick steps, letting them grow as you rise, and run to the cone.
Your part while they practise
Give one clap as the signal, at a different moment each time.
Step by step
- Take a start position: standing, kneeling, sitting, lying face down or lying on the back. A new one each time.
- Keep still and listen.
- On the clap, get up fast, stay low and run with short, quick steps to the cone.
- Walk back.
How much: 10 starts 6 min a session 3 days a week
Say one thing Pick one line from "What you will see" for today and say only that.
The game: Clap race
Two runners side by side in the same start position; the first past the cone scores.
Who plays: two children, or a child against a grown-up; you or a third player claps.
How to play, turn by turn
- Turns
- The clapper calls a start position; both runners take it
- The clapper claps at a different moment each time
- Race to the cone
- Walk back and go again
- Fair play
- A grown-up runner starts 2 m behind the line.
- Points
- 1 point to the first runner past the cone.
- Fouls
- A point to the other runner
- Moving before the clap (a false start)
- Starting from the wrong position
- Running across the other runner's path
- Winning
- The first to 6 points.
- 2 points for 1 star
- 4 points for 2 stars
- 6 points for 3 stars
Easier or harder
Standing starts only.
A shorter, quieter signal.
What you will see, and what to say
- the child moves before the clap
Wait for the sound
React to the clap, not to guessing when it will come. - the child pops up tall at once
Stay low, short quick steps
The body rises slowly over the first few steps.
Self-check
8 of 10 starts on the clap, none early.
Fitness for this
Warm up first: how to warm up, at workonfitness.com. For strength and stretching, its exercise library shows each exercise step by step, with an easier version.
This card trains reaction, acceleration.
awiseathlete.com/sports/athletics/athletics-b5