Running Drills

Reading Pete Magill's post the other morning got me to thinking about my own return from this stress fracture and that I am a perfect candidate who could benefit from doing running drills to rebuild my stride efficiency. Problem is that I have never done them before and wasn't too sure of what they were. Along come Google. What I discovered is that drills seem to be a cross between plyometrics, speed workouts, and dynamic stretching.

So armed with a list of drills from here, plus some in my head that I wanted to do, I headed to the track after work yesterday to give them a try. Plan was to execute a drill for 100m and then run/recover 300m to make it 1 lap per drill set. So following a 2km walk/run warm-up I got right into it.

Here is what I ended up doing

Sideways running - 1 set facing in, 1 set facing out

Sideways cross overs - 1 set facing in, 1 set facing out

Backwards Running - 2 sets

Hands on Head - 2 sets, but executed in a single lap, so only 100m recovery

Butt Kicks - 1 set

High Knee A - 1 set but only 50m

High Knee B - 1 set

Quick Feet - 1 set

Straight Legs - 1 set

Skip - 1 set

Finished with 3' barefoot on the grass around the track

I was really impressed by the workout. It was not easy, but not too difficult and you can make it harder or easier as you want by increasing the length of each skill. It felt like it was building strength and co-ordination with an added aerobic touch. I can not imagine there is anyone that would not benefit by adding skills to their workout arsenal.

I plan on continuing with these for the next few weeks as I build back, adding a few more skills to the list and extending the workouts. Kimber will be joining me next week, so I will be interested to get her opinion.