- We're gonna do a series of nine ladder drills.
Fourth drill is pretty tough.
It's the carioca.
And this is a good way to help teach your feet
to pop off the ground quickly.
So trainiacs, what we have in behind me here
is one of the biggest reasons that I built
this pain cake training studio,
done gym, topless Taren bar.
and so that throughout these videos,
I can show you a lot of the more nuanced things
that I can't show you going around to a gym,
a pool, just on the bike.
In here I can show you things that are very beneficial
to triathletes, particularly new triathletes
that you don't get in your average gym.
What we have here is an agility ladder.
An agility ladder is something that we can do,
particularly in my case, when I'm injured
or during the off season when you want
to build running skills and improve your running times
by not running, but building the foundation
to be a good runner.
So what we're going to do here is we're going to do
a series of nine ladder drills
that I'm going to show you in a second,
but you need to know that ladder drills
have four main benefits.
Number one, you can use it for a warm up.
Number two, it increases your coordination,
and coordination across all planes,
whereas running is very forward moving,
swimming, very forward moving,
a little bit side to side.
Biking is more or less stationary.
We are very linear as triathletes,
so this allows us to build coordination
across multiple planes.
That also then increases the mind body connection
because we have to think about where we're putting
our feet and what order we're going to do it in,
and then finally it's going to increase
the ground contact time.
Now for elite runners, they're already used
to bouncing off the ground really quickly,
but for new runners, getting that running stride up
so you're bouncing off the ground really quickly
and you're not slogging through the run
is what's going to allow you to become
a really good, efficient runner,
and this is a good way to help teach your feet
to pop off the ground quickly.
So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to do
an agility ladder workout, and I'll show you
the nine movements that I'm going to do
and explain how to do them,
but when you're doing an agility ladder workout,
there are a few things that you want to think about.
Number one is correct posture.
When you're starting out on the agility ladder,
like I'm doing today, you're going to want
to look down at the ground, but to be an efficient runner,
you want to be upright, so as you start getting comfortable
with the movement, you want to start going
from looking down to looking up
and doing the movements by feel.
A second thing is that when you're getting started,
you want to focus on execution of the proper movement
over speed.
We're not looking to build speed here,
we're looking to build the coordination,
and doing the movement right at the start
is important and speed will come later
as you start getting more comfortable.
A first drill you want to do is just running
through at normal speed, going from one box to the next.
Keep your body upright, look forward as much as possible,
and keep your feet as low as the ground is you need to.
We're not doing high knee skips here.
Go from one box to the next
and stay on the balls of your feet.
The second drill is high knees in the same box.
It's kind of like A skips when you're warming up
for running.
Pull your knees up to your chest
and bounce from one foot to the other,
going into the same box with both feet,
then moving on to the next.
The third drill, you're going laterally
from side to side, going both left and right,
and you're taking your feet laterally,
shuffling slowly along the ground
without pulling your knees too high up,
and bring both feet into the same box.
Fourth drill is pretty tough.
It's the carioca.
You're moving forward from one box to the next
with every step.
The only difference is that you've got one foot
that is just going straightforward.
The other foot is going in behind you for one step
and then in front of you for one step.
Do this like all the other drills,
going both left and then right.
The fifth drill is coming in from the side of the box.
You're going to be facing the ladder
and it's going to be moving to the left and right of you,
going two feet, in, in, out, out,
in, in, out, out,
in, in, out, out.
The sixth drill is like a standing broad jump.
You're going to jump with both feet forward,
two boxes ahead, and then you're going to jump
with both feet back one.
Again, go two forward, one back,
two forward, one back,
two forward, one back.
The seventh drill is just the same as the third one.
You're going laterally left and laterally right
into the same box with both feet,
but in this case you're doing high knee skips.
The eighth drill is simply single leg hops
and we're going to do this four ways.
We're going from the left to the right
with your left foot,
going box to box to box to box,
then we're going the opposite way with the same foot
from box to box to box to box.
Repeat with the other leg.
So in the end you end up doing four ways.
The final and most complicated drill
is called the icky shuffle.
This is going to take a lot of getting used to.
We are going into a box with one,
and then you're going forward onto
the other side of that box, moving forward.
The way that you can think about this
and make it easier is thinking about
a one, two, three count.
One out, one in, one forward.
There you go, trainiacs.
That's how you can use an agility ladder
to improve your running,
whether you're injured or whether you're just in
the off season, you want to build the skills
to be a better runner.
If you aren't yet subscribed and you dug
the bejesus out of this video,
please consider doing so and hitting
that notification button below,
where you'll see every single one
of our daily triathlon tip,
gear, nutrition, review, all triathlon good things videos,
every single day, and if you are an existing trainiac,
thank you and please consider sharing
and commenting below.
I like hearing from you guys.
Alright, later.