Drills/exercises for increasing stride length

Will increase the force you can apply snd how fast you can apply it.

Don't ask for help on LetsRun... Go read some good books or talk to a good coach.

Funny coincidence, I was actually sitting on the plane next to one of the co founders of TRX yesterday and discussed this exact topic. He feels that there are a series of exercises that can be done with the TRX that increases hip flexibility, which is probably one of the main contributors of increased stride length. He has tested it with a few athletes and saw the improvements.

Check it out...

If you do try it out, get back to us to tell us how it went. I'd be curious.

Hill sprints wrote:

Will increase the force you can apply snd how fast you can apply it.

Even though force is applied more slowly in hill sprints?

So how does that work then?

What hill sprints actually do is mobilize your feet and ankles a lot lengthways but not much sideways, whilst running fast downhill does the opposite.

This is a good programme, with minimal volume and a careful week by week progression. It's very similar to Russian routines used for mid d runners in the 1980s; they had them doing tiny doses, quite often. Should work for anyone who follows it. (Of course, 95% of readers will jump straight to the most advanced exercises on about session 2...)

But the problem with ANY plyo or explosive programme is that a distance runner in heavy training usually WON'T be fresh 3x per week to do them with good form. (Young ones on low mileage, maybe). Try to do these things when tired or with sore calves, and you can get hurt quickly. I did, as did all of my friends, back in college.

Slow heavy lifts - e.g. Barry Ross deadlift protocol - have also been shown to benefit runners of all levels, producing reduced contact time and better sprint speed, but are a lot more "do-able" when you are a bit tired in the depths of winter training.

Anything that increases the power in the calves, quads, and glutes should in theory help lengthen your stride length.

Long story short: I was at a clinic this January and saw Jay Johnson speak. He was talking about supplementary exercises to allow greater volumes/intensities of work without increasing the risk of injury. Same clinic, I picked up a video of "Jim Hunt's Gold Medal Dynamics". The claim of the video was that it contained series of drills to enhance neural coordination/efficiency, etc....

Anyway, we implemented one of the warm up routines (with a few modifications) on a daily basis and have added some body weight strength stuff most days. During the pre season, My kids were running lots of easy mileage and we were seeing a bunch of overuse injuries. Once practice started, we started doing the drills and strength stuff on a regular basis. We were doing about the same amount of overall volume, with higher levels of intensity, but less of the volume was in the form of straight ahead running.

Whereas in the past, I might have assigned a 7-8 mile run with some push ups, sit ups, and lunges. Now I might have them start out with 20 min of active warm up drills, working in all planes of motion, followed by a 5 mile run, followed by 800-1600m worth of running or jogging mixed with strength exercises such as lunges, burpies, push ups, etc...

All of my kids have been running PRs all over the place so far early in the season. I haven't done a biomechanical analysis of the kids stride length, but they are running extremely well right now.