Drills: Do they work and how?

Proof by vigorous assertion?

it's axiomatic, i.e. self-evident

So essentially nobody has any semblance of solid proof beyond "well all the elites do it" that drills actually do anything?

Its pretty similiar to the ice bath thing...people do it because everybody else is doing it but there is zero scientific evidence of their effectiveness.

What I can nderstand is why more people are not doing studies into the effects of things like Ice Baths and drills.

Captain Reality wrote:

Drills are worthless. The only way to invoke the motions involved in running is to actually run. The motions performed during drills have no semblance whatsoever to actaul running.

If someone with an improper running stride continues to run more improperly how will they improve their stride? How will repeating an act improperly result in correcting the deficiencies?

If it makes you feel better, are you wasting your time?

There's zero scientific evidence for a staggeringly high percentage of the actions you take in daily life. Start paying microscopic attention to every last thing you do, and ask where's the scientific evidence.

Now _most_ of those things probably make sense, are effective. Some might be harmless little bits of superstition, or might have a different effect than you think, or work but via a different mechanism than you reckon. That's (human) life.

Feel free to not do drills, or ice baths, but please recognize that the lack of firm scientific evidence that they increase X by Y% is hardly tantamount to proof of their ineffectiveness. You could even have several studies which show ice baths don't do this, or that, or the other - and yet they still may be significantly beneficial, it's just that these studies didn't measure the right thing, or test the right population, etc.

heyyo wrote:

If someone with an improper running stride continues to run more improperly how will they improve their stride? How will repeating an act improperly result in correcting the deficiencies?

If you could identify flaws in the running stride, and knew how to correct them, you would practice implimenting the changes consciously while running. Not by doing "high knee" and "butt kick" drills.

Any statistical insignificance in a scientific study can be caused be a small sample or lack of power, a type II error. Wikipedia calls this the "the error of excessive skepticism". Excessive skepticism may have its time and place, but when the drills (calsthenics and/or plyometrics) take like 10 minutes, why not take the chance that you are wasting 10 minutes if they are ineffective?

Secondly, as many have said traditional drills like high knees, butt-kicks, and skips do not mimic proper running movements. However, the drills can be easily modified so that rather than being ridiculous they are slighlty exaggerated running movements. A personal favorite of mine is a combination of high knees/butt kicks done at a faster speed than standard drills.

Captain Reality wrote:

heyyo wrote:

If someone with an improper running stride continues to run more improperly how will they improve their stride? How will repeating an act improperly result in correcting the deficiencies?

If you could identify flaws in the running stride, and knew how to correct them, you would practice implimenting the changes consciously while running. Not by doing "high knee" and "butt kick" drills.

Thanks for actually adding helpful commentary rather than your original response and the standard letsrun extremist philosophy of the only thing you need to do to run better is run more.

Also I do both, implement changes consciously while running and drills after I run but before I stretch. Some stride flaws require additional strength and flexibility and I find performing drills on already warmed up muscles and followed by stretching, aide me in improving my stride while on my runs.

Drills don't have to be ineffective but they standard way they are implemented is ineffective in my opinion.

when you do drills, does it feel like the legs are getting strengthened? if yes, then you're getting something out of it. The bounding and skipping are clearly good for strengthening your legs, giving you more power, because they fall into the explosive motion category. And the high knees in particular can verge on fast stride work if you feel good>you lift the knees and kick your lower leg out and pretty soon the distance runner looks a little like a sprinter. My strides speed improved considerably after doing some of those fast high knee drills. What are some effective plyos?

I do coordination exercises (with some jumps) in my warm up before hard session as a dynamic stretching and to activate the lower leg so that I can run efficiently and with good style on the balls of the feet during the main session. After that session I use drills for strength endurance training (short reps with short/no recovery when alternating "coordination exercises" with traditional exercises like push ups, lunges, squat jumps) and from my experience I can tell that those are very effective to avoid bad mechanics at the end of the race, also the lower leg strength and strength endurance does improve a lot which is also very important (to avoid "dropping" on to your heels and that way on to your thighs when tired). Those gives good "stiffnes" for your stride where the power you use is used more efficiently (energy utilization improves).

The question is incorrect. Some drills are useful. Some drills are not.

As a coach I used "drills" as a vehicle to increase workload capacity. Take a freshman boy who has never run xc before. How well will he really do if you send him on a 3 mile run? He will probably make it but he will struggle, he will mentally tire and he might just possibly choose not to continue the sport. However, if you give him some simple drills to complete that get his heart rate up for about 20 minutes then go tell him to run a mile, he will probably run a good mile, feel good about himself and fall in love with the sport which will then let you coach a more devoted athlete. Over time you use the "drills" to increase workload capacity so that you don't just blindly increase mileage. If the kid can now run 10 miles a day plus drills.. he can probably run 11 miles without drills.

As far as the specific uses of specific drills, I think it matters little if there is scientific evidence supporting them. Let experience guide you; it's not that hard to just set up a good chunk of training time (2-3 months or something) and complete some drills. If you feel drills aid in your running then you should probably keep doing them. If they aren't helping, you stop. So with that in mind, we should consider the elite athletes who do complete drills. I'm sure they have worked with their coaches to develop a program where nearly every physical action they do is aimed at improving their running. They must believe drills are helping them. Kenyans and Ethiopians complete series of simple drills. What more real evidence do we really need?

Drills only work when performed in an ice bath. Duh.

Try doing 8-10 exercises like high kness and butt kicks for 400m each.

Your weak legs will be shaking. Plyos make fast runners.

I would think drills would help in injury prevention as well..I wish I had done them early on..now after 4 epidurals...I'm not sure they'll do me any good anymore...I really like to copy the excersizes and drills on flotrack's Shalane Flanagan/John Cooke workout video and the videos of the Florida State and Indiana Elite team doing Core...

I wish I had of not made a joke out of them early on...too late now.

heyyo wrote:

Any statistical insignificance in a scientific study can be caused be a small sample or lack of power, a type II error. Wikipedia calls this the "the error of excessive skepticism".

I find it extremely ironic that the first sentence refers to "scientific" study and the next sentence references Wikipedia. Hilarious.

[quote]Captain Reality wrote:

Drills are worthless. The only way to invoke the motions involved in running is to actually run.

In reality, all that really matters is what happens when your foot is in contact with the ground. Thus, drills that focus on swing phase movements, i.e. "high knees", "butt kicks", "quick feet," "form walk," etc. have little or no value. [quote]

Using the logic in your first point, is there any point in doing core work or supplemental weight training since they don't directly mimic a running motion?

Also, that's not true that your foot contact is the only component of the running stride that is important. Vertical oscillation, heel recovery, knee height, etc. are also important in the stride length/frequency/turnover rate. Drills aren't necessarily a silver bullet, but can, overtime, help to improve some of these mechanics.

What are plyometrics? A quick coupling of an eccentric and concentric contraction.

I would consider drills (butt kicks, high knees, ect) as a very easy novice variation of plyometrics. So would the NSCA.

You wouldn't have a high school freshman run 100 miles in his first week of training. You wouldn't have a novice do a 60in (or 30in for that matter) box jump for reps.

Ancillary work is done by all other sports across the world. Why are distance runners so against doing things that improve performance? (eat right, strength train, plyos, etc)

Alan