How to Do Hand Offs in the 4 x 400m Relay

"LOUIS YOUNG: Hi. This is Louis Young on behalf of Expert Village and I'm going to briefly describe some of the relay hand-offs and some of the differences. In the 4 x 100, you have a totally blind hand-off, where the receiver of the baton is not looking at the baton or the person sending the baton so that's going to be completely blind where they're running and just reach back and wait to feel the baton, Next would be half blind, which is used in the mile relay by some Third World countries, teams that have more chemistry, and that requires much practice. What they're going to do is they start blind by taking three steps, turn back, reach, grab the baton and continue running. And then there was the one demonstrated by Darren where the entire time, he was back looking at the baton, reach back and that's completely safe, although it is the slowest hand-off. In the mile relay, you're coming in and you're finishing your last 25 meters or so, you're going to be at lactate threshold where your muscles aren't doing--acting like they were at the beginning of the race. So when you come here, you going to really need the recipient to help you out and gauge how far you are, and that was 0% blind hand-off. He looked back and he reached for it and took it and there was no mistaking where the baton is at any time."