Better running form can have a variety of beneficial effects on your overall training. Improved form can help make you a better, more efficient runner; one who is less likely to suffer from chronic over-use injuries.
The following are the benefits of incorporating running-specific drills into your daily workout routine:
Better Form/Technique
The most obvious benefit to doing any running drill is the improvement of your overall form/technique. The main objective of these drills is to make sure your arms and legs are pushing your body’s momentum in a forward direction. Too often runners will have wasted energy by having too much lateral arm and leg movements, which translates to a lot of wasted energy and slower race times.
Injury Prevention
Another major benefit of running drills is the reduced risk of injury. One of the main reasons behind doing drills is to over-exaggerate your normal running form. This forces your legs to activate muscles that are not used on a regular basis. This often times can help you stay injury-free.
Superior Warm-up and Flexibility
When compared to static stretching, a form-based warm-up gives you a better stretch. Not only is your warm-up mimicking your running form, you are also, in turn, raising your heart rate and improving blood flow throughout your body.
Here are five simple drills that can not only make you a better runner, but also keep you strong and healthy:
1. High Knees Bring your leg up to 90 degrees while focusing on keeping your head looking forward and your foot in the flexed position.
2. A-Skips With this drill you are again focusing on bring the knee up to 90 degrees and landing on your fore foot.
3. Quick Feet The point of this drill is to practice a fast turnover; the ideal cadence is 90 foot strikes a minute.
4. Bounding Main areas to concentrate on are good knee drive and springing off of your fore foot to gain good height.
5. B-Skips Much like the high knee drill, you are focusing on bring your knee up to 90 degrees and keeping your foot in the flexed position, while extending your leg forward and striking your mid-foot on the ground.
