Ground force, Fosbury Flop, throwing circle: the Track and Field ABC casually explains every term our guides assume you know — your starting point before the first sprint.
Ever open a track and field guide and trip over words like "ground force," "Fosbury Flop," or "throwing circle" as if they were obvious? They're not — and that's completely fine. This glossary is your entry ticket: every term our track and field guides assume you already know, explained once, casually, before you dive in.
Track and field isn't one sport — it's a whole family. Almost everything fits into one of three groups.
Sprints (Sprint) cover the short, all-out running events — 100, 200, 400 meters. You run (almost) the entire distance at your limit, unlike distance running, where pace gets managed.
Jumps (Sprung) bundle long jump, high jump, triple jump, and pole vault. Common thread: you convert approach speed into height or distance.
Throws (Wurf), sometimes called a put (Stoß) for shot put, cover shot put, javelin, discus, and hammer. An implement gets accelerated through a kinetic chain of legs, core, and arm. Fun fact: shot put is officially "put," not "thrown" — the shot leaves your hand from the shoulder, not overhead like the javelin. Small difference, its own rule.
Track (Bahn), or oval (Rundbahn), is the 400-meter loop where most competitions happen — usually on the reddish synthetic surface called Tartan. The throwing circle (Wurfkreis) is the tight, round throwing area for shot put and discus (just over two meters across), and the takeoff board (Absprungbalken) is the narrow edge you jump from in the long jump — step past it, and the jump doesn't count.
Ground force (Bodenkraft) is THE term you'll see constantly in our guides: how much force you drive into the ground per step, rather than how frantically you move your legs. Fast sprinters push down and back with over 2.5 times their bodyweight — that's what separates fast from slow, not "leg speed."
Footstrike (Fußaufsatz) is where your foot touches the ground. Land it too far ahead of your body and that's overstriding (Overstriding) — a brake with every step. Goal: foot landing close under your hip.
Core tension (Rumpfspannung), or core stability, is how firm your midsection is. A stable core transfers force from your legs without losing any — a "soft" core just lets it leak away.
When practicing technique, there's external focus (externer Fokus) — thinking about the outward effect, like "push the ground away" — versus internal focus (interner Fokus) — thinking about the body part, like "extend your knee." External focus works demonstrably better, especially for beginners.
Sprinting has two phases: the acceleration phase (Beschleunigungsphase), the first 20 to 30 meters with your body leaning forward, and top speed (Höchsttempo) — also called topspeed — afterward, with an upright torso.
Approach (Anlauf) is the run-up where you build speed before takeoff or release — up to 30 meters in javelin, but completely absent in shot put and discus, since those happen from the tight throwing circle.
Takeoff (Absprung) is the moment you push off the ground — in jumping events, the split-second that decides everything between approach and flight. Landing (Landung) is the counterpart: in high jump and pole vault you land on a soft mat, in long jump in the sand pit.
The Fosbury Flop (Fosbury-Flop) is today's standard high jump technique: you clear the bar backward, while your center of mass can actually pass beneath it. Named after Dick Fosbury, who won Olympic gold with it in 1968. Before that, almost everyone used the straddle (Straddle), going over the bar face-down — now mostly historical.
The forced pattern (Zwangslauf) is a hurdling term: the fixed spacing between hurdles dictates exactly how many strides you take between them — unlike a free sprint, where you choose your own stride length.
The RAMP principle (RAMP-Prinzip) is the warm-up formula: Raise (heart rate up), Activate (engage muscles), Mobilise (move joints), Potentiate (brief bursts of speed). Proven more effective than static stretching before training.
Strides (Steigerungsläufe) are relaxed runs where you build speed step by step up to nearly full effort — a classic finishing block at the end of a warm-up.
Running drills (Lauf-ABC) are a set of coordination exercises like the A-skip and B-skip (high-knee variations with different leg follow-through). Useful for warming up, but no substitute for real sprints.
Spikes (Spikes) are racing shoes with small pins on the sole for maximum grip on the tartan track. Unnecessary for beginners — they only pay off once your technique and track training are solid.
Don't memorize these terms like vocabulary flashcards. Skim through them once before starting your next guide, and only actually hold onto the ones that show up there. Your brain retains technical terms best in context, not stockpiled in advance.
### What is ground force in track and field? Ground force is the force you drive into the ground with every step or takeoff — the more, the faster, higher, or farther you go. Elite sprinters push down and back with over 2.5 times their bodyweight. It's the single biggest factor in speed, more important than legs that merely look fast.
### What does overstriding mean in running? Overstriding means your foot lands noticeably ahead of your center of mass instead of underneath it. That creates a small braking impulse with every step, costing you speed. The fix: consciously place your foot closer under your hip instead of forcing long strides.
### What's the difference between jumps and throws in track and field? Jumping events (long jump, high jump, pole vault, triple jump) convert approach speed into height or distance for your own body. Throwing events (shot, javelin, discus, hammer) instead accelerate an implement through a kinetic chain of legs, core, and arm and send it away from you.
### Why is it called "shot put" and not "shot throw"? Because the shot is technically pushed from the shoulder, not thrown overhead like the javelin. This rule is even written into competition regulations: the shot must stay close to the neck and can't drop behind or below the shoulder line during the put, or the attempt doesn't count.
### Do I need spikes as a beginner? No. Regular, well-fitting running shoes are completely fine while your technique isn't solid yet. Spikes only pay off once you're training on the track regularly — bought too early, they overload unaccustomed calves and Achilles tendons more than they help.
Leichtathletik: Getting Started Overview