Mark: Now, you may be new to running or perhaps you've been running for a long time now. Either
way, it's quite possible that you haven't come across some of the basic run drills that
can help you to become a more efficient and faster runner. Here today, I've got five basic
run drills for beginners to get you started. [music]
All right, I'm going to start out with a drill that I normally start with. It's what I call
the pose drill, although people do call it different things. It's essentially an over-exaggerated
running motion, but very slow and very controlled. From a stationary position, raise your knee
up in front of you to waist height, keep your toes pointed slightly up and your ankle slightly
less than 90 degrees from your thigh. At the same time, keep your chest and head lifted
high as if an invisible rope is pulling you up. When you reach the top of your knee raise,
lift your heel on your standing foot so that you move forwards onto your toes before bringing
your raised leg back down to earth. As your leg comes down, take a step forward
and into raising the other leg. Just make sure that you keep the arms moving as you
normally do when you're running to help that drive forwards. Just make sure that you're
doing this drill nice and slow and nice and controlled so that you can think about each
section of the drill. That's also going to help you to activate all of those stabilizing
muscles that in turn are going to help keep you nice and balanced and nice and in line.
[music] Right, now moving on to a firm favorite with
runners and coaches, the high-knee drill. Many of you will have done this drill before,
but do you really know why you're doing it? The high-knee drill helps you to develop a
high-knee drive. Having a high-knee drive allows you to increase your stride length
per step, per stride. As you run faster then technically you're able to cover more distance
per stride. By doing this high-knee drill helps to ingrain that and make you a more
efficient runner. The high-knee drill. Focus on driving your knee up to waist-high before
lowering it down again, lift your toe slightly and keep your chest high. This is a rapid
movement that will also engage your arms as part of the drive. Remember to drive with
the opposite arm. Do this two or three times for around 30 meters before turning and walking
back to the start. [music]
Now moving on to another dynamic drill. This is the A-Skips. It helps to develop a good
leg strength, a nice high-knee drive, as well as a quick ground for the contact time. As
the name suggests, take small skips but drive the knee to waist height while the trailing
leg extends and stays as straight as possible. Both feet should touch the ground at roughly
the same time and again, don't forget to drive your arms. This drill is a fantastic way to
link the slower drill movements into your final run form.
[music] As with the A-Skips and many of these drills,
this next drill is called many things but essentially it is the A-Skips, but with a
little leg extension out front or sort of like the can-can. Skip forward as we did in
the last drill, but at the end of your knee drive, extend your forward leg before snapping
it back down. As you snap your front leg back down to the ground, it will feel like you're
pouring at the ground. Once you get the hang of these, you can really feel it and get into
the rhythm. Do this for around 30 to 40 meters before stopping and walking back to the start.
Finally, I like to finish my drills with this one, strides. They allow you to practice that
good running technique that we've just been working on and all those other drills at a
nice fast pace. [music]
Start stationary and accelerate gradually until you're running at around 90% of your
top speed for the final 10 meters. Strides should be completed over a distance anywhere
between 50 to 100 meters and are a great way to link all the earlier drills into your actual
running gait. You often see top runners doing these right before the start of a race, as
it really gets your body fired up for what's ahead. Wherever you go, there's some basic
drills for you there. Now, although we have called these beginner run drills, that's not
to say they're solely for beginners. A lot of top professional runners and triathletes
do these very same drills prior to hard workouts and prior to races, just to get themselves
warmed up, ready and moving in the correct way.
Now, little suggestion here. Because these drills literally take around five to ten minutes,
why not actually just include these into a lot of your everyday runs as well, as well
as those hard intervals and prior to races? Again, just to get yourself ready and really
fine-tune that technique and get you really running efficiently. If you have enjoyed today's
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