Tips on Doing Hand Offs in the 4 x 400m Relay

"DARREN STORR: Hi. My name is Darren Storr. On behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to show you how to run a 4 x 400 relay. Okay, one of the things for the 4 x 400, we have two hand-offs. One is the full extension, and the other is the grab. The next one is the grab. Okay, the first exchange is the full exchange motion where the runner is passing it off at a straight angle, straight forearm, and the runner who's accepting the baton has a grip--has a claw grip, we call it. He takes the baton and he has the same motion continually onto the straight. The next grip, we call it, is a "grab grip" which I just showed you earlier but he's coming in with a circular motion. He's coming in like this, whereas, when I'm receiving I'm taking the baton, same motion but I'm grabbing it. So we have the full extension, which is arms length, full arm extension length and I'm just--my side, I'm grabbing it and taking it. Next one is the grip, claw grip, where you grab and you go, we call it in track and field. You grab it and you go. The grab grip, we really don't use too often because it's not sanctioned for international competition. You'd find more high schools, a few colleges use it, but the full extension is international. That's the one you use more often than anything else. Olympic, world championships, you will use those more commonly."