Toronto Running Chiro

Okay so here is the second follow up to my session on Thursday.

Whenever I talk about drills I like to remind everyone that I learned these drills in high school at cross country and track practice.  At this time it is much easier to learn these new movements quick.  But no I am not giving you an excuse not to do them rather I am letting you know it is going to take some practice.   Just giving you an understanding as to where they come from.

When I first learned drills no one ever explained why we did them aside from we had to do them before we could do the workout.  And I often think this is such a shame as the more you can understand why it is you are doing them the better.  So hopefully this post can bring some light to that.  We do not make you do drills so that we can watch and laugh at you because they seem like intimidatingly difficult movements that we make you do when your concentration is clearly already on to the track work at hand.  Try to do them with intent; if you are going to do them regardless you may as well make the most out of them.

One last thing if you feel ridiculous doing them; next time you are at a race look at the elite corral.  I guarantee at some point during their warm up the elites have all done these drills as well.  So basically it just makes it look like you really know what you are doing.

Before we get in to the drills I also just wanted to touch on a few of the common running technique errors we commonly see in the clinic.
Over striding: landing with your foot out in front and basically putting the brakes on
Cross over: running like you are on a tight rope with each foot crossing the midline of your body
Not using your arms appropriately whether it be swinging across your body, doing bicep curls etc.
Poor posture: as it turns out our upper body and posture are very important in running.  Because it allows us to actually bring our feet up and also because it allows our core to function properly.
Of course the best way to know if you do any of these is to have a gait analysis done.  This is one of the main things we do at The Runner’s Academy http://www.therunnersacademy.com.

Here is the breakdown:
A skip: think about marching and picking your feet up
Ankling: think of stepping over your ankle
B skip: this is what helps us go FAST think of pulling your foot under you
A run: quicker version of the A key is to touch ground as many times as you can not get there as quick as you can
Big to small: start by ankling and get bigger as you go
*any of these can be started off with a march to make sure you have the proper movement pattern and once you are confident move in to a skip
**be sure to stand tall and swing arms front to back
Now put these drills in to action by doing them right in to a stride.

If you want a challenge from these drills do holding on to a bar with hands above head.

As before unfortunately I cannot post videos but here is the link to my instagram where they are displayed:  https://www.instagram.com/p/BYTvo8GAk9M/?hl=en&taken-by=torunningchiro

Happy drills!