Drills and more drills

Hops, skips, jumps and bounds – sounds like a kids game of hop scotch, but how can this possibly improve your running?

Since first seeing some blokes jumping off of boxes and stairs and skipping around the local park, I have been putting some of the plyometric moves into my own routine every week and find that a day of drills on a recovery run day is sometimes just what the doctor ordered. One must of course start slow as although these moves have the ability to strengthen and improve balance, core strength and overall running form, they can also hurt and injure you if you don’t slowly work through them and as with anything, only stack on new moves when you get stronger and more adept at them.

I find that a safe bet is to pursue with them for blocks of 4 weeks and then add in new moves. There are literally hundreds of different exercises that one can do as drills and half the fun is in the experiments – many look very easy when viewed, but when actually trying them they are a lot harder and more taxing on the body.

Ideally for me a full set of drills can take up to 40 minutes to complete and when you throw in a warmup and cool down jog then it is more than an hour of time taken. For some this may seem like a waste of time and they will be more intent on just running. For me though I have learned that these sorts of things break the monotony and keep the brain fresh. I will continue on my funny walks and skip drills etc!

Stride for stride on a life changing ride – Sean Muller