The Acceleration Theory: Use Momentum To Finish First

The accel­er­a­tion the­ory can help you crush your competition.

At times in life, it might seem like every­one is ahead.

At such times, you might exper­i­ence stress, self-doubt, and per­form­ance anxi­ety — espe­cially if you have a com­pet­it­ive personality. 

Struggling to stay ahead at all times might be drain­ing men­tally and phys­ic­ally. Just keep­ing up becomes a chore.

Turns out that stay­ing ahead might also be over­rated. I came to this con­clu­sion when research­ing how to become a bet­ter sprinter. 

Here we go:

My Sprint Experiment in Greenwich Park

In 2004, I lived in Greenwich, London. My girl­friend and I ren­ted a run­down apart­ment above a loc­al post office near Cutty Sark.

Broke and rest­less, we spent much time exer­cising in Greenwich Park, home of the GMT date line. The park was an excel­lent place to play around with a stop­watch and some sprints. 

Why not? We were both strong sprint­ers in high school and wanted to see if we could still hit some decent times.

I quickly learned that I was­n’t even close to any of my high school records. As dis­ap­point­ing as this was, I added some inter­val train­ing to my regi­men. I pushed myself hard but could not get my new, slow times down. 

Whatever speed I had as a teen­ager now seemed to be gone.

Still, I was­n’t ready to give up.
I turned to research.

Inspired by the Best of the Best

Data Points from Maurice Green 

In his paper, A Mathematical Model of the 100M and What It Means, Kevin Prendergast out­lines a for­mula for describ­ing what hap­pens dur­ing a 100-meter dash. 

Prendergast tests his proof on the res­ults from the 1999 World Championships, where data from the eight final­ists were ana­lysed. Seven sprint­ers were then grouped and com­pared to the win­ner, Maurice Greene.

Data points from the sprint­ers (exclud­ing Maurice Greene) in that race showed:

And here are the same data points, but for Maurice Greene alone:

Oh, cool.

The sev­en final­ists reached their points of max speeds at an aver­age of 59.79 meters into the race, at which point Maurice Green was still accel­er­at­ing, reach­ing his max speed at 86.84 meters! It shows in the dur­a­tion of accel­er­a­tion, which for Greene was 8,68 seconds (almost the entire race!) and 6,44 seconds for the rest.

Greene’s max speed was­n’t much high­er than the oth­ers, but the oth­ers decel­er­ated for 3.38 seconds while Greene only slowed down for 0.99 seconds. 

Prendergast con­cludes:

“The prac­tic­al les­son from this mod­el for sprint­ers and coaches would seem to be the bene­fit of extend­ing the time of accel­er­a­tion. It is this, rather than raw power out of the blocks, that will res­ult in faster times. It is prob­ably a mat­ter of con­trol. […] It is pos­sible to derive a math­em­at­ic­al mod­el that mod­els a 100m per­form­ance very well. It provides valu­able inform­a­tion on the makeup of the per­form­ance, regard­ing accel­er­a­tion, velo­city, and dis­tance at any stage in the race. It enables us to see the vital ingredi­ents of suc­cess in 100m run­ning, and that the most vital is to accel­er­ate as long as possible.”

Data Points from Usain Bolt

Assuming that the fric­tion between our feet and the ground is con­stant and that run­ning on two feet is giv­en, then a the­or­et­ic­al super­hu­man can run 100 meters between 4,5 to 5 seconds. 

Going any faster is impossible without alter­ing phys­ics.

But here’s the excit­ing part:

Look at the velo­city curve for the world’s fast­est sprint­er, Usain Bolt.

When I looked at break­downs for fam­ous 100-meter sprint­ers over the last 40 years, their aver­age top speeds had­n’t increased much, but Usain Bolt stands out with his max­im­um speed of 12,2 meters per second.

We can see that Bolt’s speed var­ies dur­ing a 100-meter dash. So, what can we dis­cern from his data points? I looked closely at sev­er­al 100-meter dash finals.

The accel­er­a­tion phase: To accel­er­ate, you must be at an angle with the ground (lean­ing for­ward, push­ing with legs) to be able to push hard against grav­ity.

The top speed phase: Once upright (run­ning tall with as little con­tact with the ground as pos­sible), you can only main­tain speed or decelerate.

Turns out I’ve been wrong about sprint­ing. I always tried to reach my top speed as fast as pos­sible in my sprints. 

The world’s best 100-meter dash sprint­ers can only main­tain their top speeds for 20 – 25 meters. Maurice Green accel­er­ated for an incred­ible 8,69 seconds and kept his top speed for 0,99 seconds.

And what was I doing? I cruised eas­ily at my “top speed” for 75 – 80 meters.

Huh.

How fast would I have to run at a top speed that I could only sus­tain for no more than 20 – 25 meters? I real­ised that I should try to extend my accel­er­a­tion phase.

Time for a new experiment.

Back to Greenwich Park: New Experiment!

My girl­friend and I went back to Greenwich Park, marked every 10 meters along a 100-meter track, and I made a few test sprints. 

First, I ran as usu­al. I reached my top speed (run­ning tall with as little con­tact with the ground as pos­sible) after about 25 – 30 meters, and I man­aged to keep my speed reas­on­ably well for the remainder of the distance. 

Now, I wanted to extend my accel­er­a­tion time. But for how long? I decided to go for the 60-meter mark. 

I pre­pared myself, and as my girl­friend star­ted the stop­watch, I got off to a good start. As I kept accel­er­at­ing, the strain on my body was immense. At the 30-meter mark, I felt like I was car­ry­ing an ele­phant on my shoulders. At the 40-meter mark, I could not keep accel­er­at­ing for longer.

And as I began clos­ing in on the fin­ish line, my legs and upper body were spent. At 80 – 90 meters, I could feel myself decelerating.

Reaching the fin­ish­ing line felt like an etern­ity. Also, I felt a lot more drag through­out the sprint, almost as if someone had attached a para­chute to my waist, slow­ing me down even further. 

Discouraged, I asked my girl­friend about my time.

“Well, Jerry, that was your fast­est 100-meter dash ever,” she said while star­ing at the stop­watch like she could­n’t believe it. “By a margin.”

The Acceleration Theory in Everyday Life

How do you apply the accel­er­a­tion the­ory out­side sprinting?

I began think­ing of every­day ambi­tions as sprints of vari­ous lengths.

The philo­sophy goes like this: First, you work hard on improv­ing. Then, when you hit the 60% mark, you put everything into over­drive — time to fly!

Read also: The Every Day Rule: Manage Your Identity To Achieve More

When work­ing with a cli­ent, I spend 60% of the ini­tial pro­ject scope doing ground­work, ask­ing uncom­fort­able ques­tions, research­ing, pre­par­ing mater­i­al, run­ning tests, etc. While oth­ers start deliv­er­ing res­ults at their lower-end top speeds, I keep accelerating.

I know that by stay­ing uncom­fort­able for longer, I’ll win in the end. Call it “a geek’s approach to life.”

If a per­son­al pro­ject is planned for 12 months, the 60% mark will occur after 219 days of accel­er­a­tion. If a small task is to be done in 12 minutes, it’s time to fly after 432 seconds of preparation.

If I live health­ily until I’m 85, my life’s 60% mark will occur at 51. Yes, I’m determ­ined to crush it when I get there.

This mind­set keeps me hon­est and hard­work­ing. It reminds me nev­er to stress about being behind in the first half of any­thing. And it motiv­ates me to go for gold like a space rock­et when the accel­er­a­tion phase is done.

Establishing 60% Marks in Life

Based on my insights from Greenwich Park, I think these obser­va­tions have served me well not only in my pub­lic rela­tions career but also in life. 

Here’s how to sum up the accel­er­a­tion theory:

Know what done (100%) looks like. Always know the dis­tance for a par­tic­u­lar under­tak­ing (i.e. the equi­val­ent of know­ing where the fin­ish line will be).

Your focus before the 60% mark. Hunker down and accel­er­ate con­tinu­ously. Never mind about your com­pet­i­tion; focus on the hard work of gain­ing momentum.

Your focus after the 60% mark. Get up straight and main­tain your hard-earned top speed. Be mind­ful of main­tain­ing good form, and don’t try to get back into accel­er­at­ing again.

Here’s how to sum up five straight­for­ward takeaways:

And remem­ber: Your com­pet­it­ors are not ahead. They’re just the ones who peaked too soon, wait­ing for you to over­take them.

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