Captain Reality wrote:
I did hundreds of hours of drills in high school.
The result?
I became more proficient at drills than any other athlete in the state, and probably in the entire country. If drills had been an official event in track meets, I would have been a four time state champion. Meanwhile, my 100m time went from 12.3 as a sophomore to 12.5 as a senior. Great improvement, eh?
The tragedy is you were slow to begin with, and you got even slower.
justasking wrote:
On a long drive recently, my mind was wandering. One of the stops was: do the drills runners do accomplish anything? Is there actual evidence they offer an improvement in performance?
yes they work, as evidenced by thousands of years of carpentry and construction
they work by having a sharp bit which spins and as it spins it pulls small bits of material out of the hole....so as you go...you pull out small bits of wood thousands of times and you get a hole
i am dead serious: You're really blowing the issue out of proportion.
A specialty of mine. Glad you enjoy it.
All we're asking is whether the drills work. It's a simple question.
And when simple answers are offered, several respondents demand proof, and in its absence seem to smugly conclude "aha - I knew they were just a superstition." I'm making the point that that's a silly conclusion... and taking the opportunity for a little pontification.
Really, I think even as we're getting smarter over time, we might be getting stoopider faster. One of the ways is with this implicit assumption that, by 2009, surely pretty much everything in everyday life has been picked over thoroughly by science, so if it ain't backed by scientific evidence, it's false.
Asking "why" is smart, it's not a disorder.
Heh. Practically sounds sensible when you put it that way!
Anyhow, go ahead: pays your money, takes your choice.
Does posting here count as "ancillary work"?
Good luck reaching your full potential as a distance runner if drills aren't part of your program. Vigil (and every other decent coach) has been preaching this for years -- and for good reason. Neuro-muscular fascilitation, Type II muscle fiber recruitment, improved running economy, increased athleticism and reduced chance of injury -- the list goes on. If every distance coach spent a year learning how sprinters train, distance running in this country would be in a much better place.
As far as when to do it, shoot for twice a week. In a marathon phase, you'd do drills and striders the day before your two hardest workouts of the week. If you're training for a shorter event and getting on the track on a regular basis, you can fold one (or both) sessions into your warm-up for track workouts. As in all things, you have to allow a period of time to adapt to the new workload.
For you non-professional runners out there who don't have an endless amount of time to devote to this kind of stuff, here's a sample session that I've had athletes do twice a week all year round. Obviously this is just an example. I'll also preface this by saying that a great source of information for this kind of stuff can be found at:
-- which is a fantastic site.
Following a 15-30 minute very easy jog, do the following:
1. 2x25m “A” Skips**
2. 2x25m “A” Skips for Height
3. 2x25m “B” skips**
4. 2x50m Fast Leg (“Step over knee and drive down”)
5. 2x50m Backward Skip w/ both arms across body
6. 2x25m Straight Leg Shuffle to Bound
7. 2x50m Backward Run (“heel to butt, then reach back”)
8. 2x50m Carioca w/ high knees (“Step over knee and drive down”)
9. 4x20m High Knees for Speed (emphasize quickness through full range of motion)
10. 4x20m Butt Kicks for Speed (emphasize quickness through full range of motion)
11. 4x10m Fast Feet
Followed by 4-10 striders (100-110m in length), building from 5K to 1600m race pace, preferably w/ @120m shuffle jog recovery between striders. (Minimum 45-second recovery between striders – or @120m shuffle jog recovery.)
Notes:
**Emphasize dorsoflex position of foot/ankle – “TOE-UP!”
• last three drills – High Knees, Butt Kicks, Fast Feet – should be done in 4x [1-1-1] sequence together
Full recovery between each exercise is key.
Drills, drills, drills wrote:
Good luck reaching your full potential as a distance runner if drills aren't part of your program. Vigil (and every other decent coach) has been preaching this for years -- and for good reason. Neuro-muscular fascilitation, Type II muscle fiber recruitment, improved running economy, increased athleticism and reduced chance of injury -- the list goes on. If every distance coach spent a year learning how sprinters train, distance running in this country would be in a much better place.
As far as when to do it, shoot for twice a week. In a marathon phase, you'd do drills and striders the day before your two hardest workouts of the week. If you're training for a shorter event and getting on the track on a regular basis, you can fold one (or both) sessions into your warm-up for track workouts. As in all things, you have to allow a period of time to adapt to the new workload.
For you non-professional runners out there who don't have an endless amount of time to devote to this kind of stuff, here's a sample session that I've had athletes do twice a week all year round. Obviously this is just an example. I'll also preface this by saying that a great source of information for this kind of stuff can be found at:
http://www.coachjayjohnson.com-- which is a fantastic site.
Following a 15-30 minute very easy jog, do the following:
1. 2x25m “A” Skips**
2. 2x25m “A” Skips for Height
3. 2x25m “B” skips**
4. 2x50m Fast Leg (“Step over knee and drive down”)
5. 2x50m Backward Skip w/ both arms across body
6. 2x25m Straight Leg Shuffle to Bound
7. 2x50m Backward Run (“heel to butt, then reach back”)
8. 2x50m Carioca w/ high knees (“Step over knee and drive down”)
9. 4x20m High Knees for Speed (emphasize quickness through full range of motion)
10. 4x20m Butt Kicks for Speed (emphasize quickness through full range of motion)
11. 4x10m Fast Feet
Followed by 4-10 striders (100-110m in length), building from 5K to 1600m race pace, preferably w/ @120m shuffle jog recovery between striders. (Minimum 45-second recovery between striders – or @120m shuffle jog recovery.)
Notes:
**Emphasize dorsoflex position of foot/ankle – “TOE-UP!”
• last three drills – High Knees, Butt Kicks, Fast Feet – should be done in 4x [1-1-1] sequence together
Full recovery between each exercise is key.
Wow...I don't even knwo where to begin.
TOE UP- ya, that's not correct. Coaches who emphasize dorsiflexion in the toe are way behind. the foot being in a neutral position, i.e. not actively dorsiflexing, is not surprisingly the best way to optimize elastic storage and return.
Your other points-
Neuro-muscular fascilitation-Do you even know what this is? Why on earth would we want to establish and improve neural programming for exagerated weird drills. Please tell me when someone does a butt kick when running? How about high knees? Or my favorite, the B skip? They don't. Why say neural programming is what drills do when they would obviously establish different recruitment patterns than if you normally ran.
The body works different as a whole then when in isolation. Knee lift is NOT a result of you actively lifting your knee like you would presume in the high knee drill. It is dependent on how the rest of the stride works. It's dependent on hip extension for example. Same thing can be said about the recovery angle of the lower leg, or ground contact, or anything. They are all dependent on other actions taking place and those other actions can have a heavy impact on what happens. I could tell you to do butt kicks all day and you might not change that angle, probably because the problem is in the extension portion of the stride, NOT the recovery phase.
Type II muscle fiber recruitment- WHAT? Drills aren't that fast or powerful or anything. You aren't going to get much FT muscle recruitment doing the drills you suggested. You know what really is GREAT for FT fiber recruitment? SPRINTING....imagine that..
improved running economy-NO evidence what so ever for this claim. It's thrown out there by everyone because it sounds good, but the reality is no one knows.
increased athleticism- great, so does throwing rocks, chopping trees, playing soccer, or anything else.
reduced chance of injury-I'll give you this one if you use the drills as a dynamic warm-up. That's about the only legit claim drills can have.
Lastly, Distance coaches WOULD gain from learning from sprint coaches (and vice versa) the problem is that distance coaches have no idea who is a good sprint coach or what is correct in sprint training.
So, you get a bunch of distance coaches copying crap that is useless or not understanding what they are doing.
As I said before, by many top sprint coaches Drills are considered useless for improving running form/mechanics.
I use to do drills, and they helped. I got lazy and stopped, and about the same time injuries and weak legs started. This thread inspired me to start again.
I was always curious if I was performing my drills, plyos correctly.
Any videos of the drills done properly? It'd be great if there were some where runners were performing the exercises as opposed to football players.
"As I said before, by many top sprint coaches Drills are considered useless for improving running form/mechanics."
Drills DOES improve running form and mechanics when combined with sprint training. Drills are great way to warm up (dynamic strething) and those are done on the balls of the feet, so lower leg strength and skill of ankle improves. You shouldn´t sprint AT 100% more than 4-6weeks at most cases but
drills can be done through year with NEAR top speed sprints.
Here`s some "scientific evidence" for those who needs that:
what??? wrote:
The body works different as a whole then when in isolation.
Then why do hurdlers do trail-leg drills?
and I'll believe you when you say "by many top sprint coaches Drills are considered useless for improving running form/mechanics." when you ACTUALLY QUOTE a "top sprint coach" who says so.
Tyson Gay does drills. Usain Bolt does drills. El Guerrouj did drills.
what??? wrote:
Why on earth would we want to establish and improve neural programming for exagerated weird drills. Please tell me when someone does a butt kick when running? How about high knees? Or my favorite, the B skip? They don't. Why say neural programming is what drills do when they would obviously establish different recruitment patterns than if you normally ran.
Your probably the same guy who tells his milers that they don't need to run further than 1609m in training, because its not specific to their running..
You practise exagerated form and technique so that you do the average well. Very fast sprinters do almost do a but kick when running, by shortening the lever (your leg) it takes far less energy to bring your leg back through, and you can do it faster and for less cost, so you practise the but kicking drill.. and so on for the high knees etc
Obviously the best training for running, will always be running, but if you want to move smoothly then do some flamming drills.
i am dead serious wrote:
Adeyabo wrote:Drills do work and do help.
Oh, thanks for clearing that up. We should have just asked you all along. And here we were looking for evidence, when really we just needed your assertion. Great.
Here's another non-mystery solved...you're an ass.
You're welcome
.
what??? wrote:
Drills, drills, drills wrote:Good luck reaching your full potential as a distance runner if drills aren't part of your program. Vigil (and every other decent coach) has been preaching this for years -- and for good reason. Neuro-muscular fascilitation, Type II muscle fiber recruitment, improved running economy, increased athleticism and reduced chance of injury -- the list goes on. If every distance coach spent a year learning how sprinters train, distance running in this country would be in a much better place.
As far as when to do it, shoot for twice a week. In a marathon phase, you'd do drills and striders the day before your two hardest workouts of the week. If you're training for a shorter event and getting on the track on a regular basis, you can fold one (or both) sessions into your warm-up for track workouts. As in all things, you have to allow a period of time to adapt to the new workload.
For you non-professional runners out there who don't have an endless amount of time to devote to this kind of stuff, here's a sample session that I've had athletes do twice a week all year round. Obviously this is just an example. I'll also preface this by saying that a great source of information for this kind of stuff can be found at:
http://www.coachjayjohnson.com-- which is a fantastic site.
Following a 15-30 minute very easy jog, do the following:
1. 2x25m “A” Skips**
2. 2x25m “A” Skips for Height
3. 2x25m “B” skips**
4. 2x50m Fast Leg (“Step over knee and drive down”)
5. 2x50m Backward Skip w/ both arms across body
6. 2x25m Straight Leg Shuffle to Bound
7. 2x50m Backward Run (“heel to butt, then reach back”)
8. 2x50m Carioca w/ high knees (“Step over knee and drive down”)
9. 4x20m High Knees for Speed (emphasize quickness through full range of motion)
10. 4x20m Butt Kicks for Speed (emphasize quickness through full range of motion)
11. 4x10m Fast Feet
Followed by 4-10 striders (100-110m in length), building from 5K to 1600m race pace, preferably w/ @120m shuffle jog recovery between striders. (Minimum 45-second recovery between striders – or @120m shuffle jog recovery.)
Notes:
**Emphasize dorsoflex position of foot/ankle – “TOE-UP!”
• last three drills – High Knees, Butt Kicks, Fast Feet – should be done in 4x [1-1-1] sequence together
Full recovery between each exercise is key.
Wow...I don't even knwo where to begin.
TOE UP- ya, that's not correct. Coaches who emphasize dorsiflexion in the toe are way behind. the foot being in a neutral position, i.e. not actively dorsiflexing, is not surprisingly the best way to optimize elastic storage and return.
Your other points-
Neuro-muscular fascilitation-Do you even know what this is? Why on earth would we want to establish and improve neural programming for exagerated weird drills. Please tell me when someone does a butt kick when running? How about high knees? Or my favorite, the B skip? They don't. Why say neural programming is what drills do when they would obviously establish different recruitment patterns than if you normally ran.
The body works different as a whole then when in isolation. Knee lift is NOT a result of you actively lifting your knee like you would presume in the high knee drill. It is dependent on how the rest of the stride works. It's dependent on hip extension for example. Same thing can be said about the recovery angle of the lower leg, or ground contact, or anything. They are all dependent on other actions taking place and those other actions can have a heavy impact on what happens. I could tell you to do butt kicks all day and you might not change that angle, probably because the problem is in the extension portion of the stride, NOT the recovery phase.
Type II muscle fiber recruitment- WHAT? Drills aren't that fast or powerful or anything. You aren't going to get much FT muscle recruitment doing the drills you suggested. You know what really is GREAT for FT fiber recruitment? SPRINTING....imagine that..
improved running economy-NO evidence what so ever for this claim. It's thrown out there by everyone because it sounds good, but the reality is no one knows.
increased athleticism- great, so does throwing rocks, chopping trees, playing soccer, or anything else.
reduced chance of injury-I'll give you this one if you use the drills as a dynamic warm-up. That's about the only legit claim drills can have.
Lastly, Distance coaches WOULD gain from learning from sprint coaches (and vice versa) the problem is that distance coaches have no idea who is a good sprint coach or what is correct in sprint training.
So, you get a bunch of distance coaches copying crap that is useless or not understanding what they are doing.
As I said before, by many top sprint coaches Drills are considered useless for improving running form/mechanics.
Care to name those "many top sprint coaches".
Didn't think so
.
Captain Reality wrote:
I did hundreds of hours of drills in high school.
The result?
I became more proficient at drills than any other athlete in the state, and probably in the entire country. If drills had been an official event in track meets, I would have been a four time state champion. Meanwhile, my 100m time went from 12.3 as a sophomore to 12.5 as a senior. Great improvement, eh?
Nothing, not drills nor steroids, would have helped you.
Don't hate the drills, hate your genes slow boy
quick highlights:
-they are not primarily technique drills. They are strengthening drills.
-Last sentence: "Tom Tellez, coach of Leroy Burrell and Carl Lewis, did not believe in the use of drills."
http://www.elitetrack.com/blogs/details/2793/From Mike Young:
http://www.elitetrack.com/faqs/answer/217/
"Sprint drills do not in and of themselves develop proper sprint mechanics and may in fact be detrimental. Sprint drills can however provide an opportunity to teach cues that can be used in full speed sprinting, or create desired sensations which may carry over to full speed sprinting. These benefits however are contingent on the manner in which the sprint drills are performed. Sprint drills may also be used to develop certain physical capacities or warmup the athlete. "
The word "drills" appears no where in there.
U.N.O. wrote:
Here`s some "scientific evidence" for those who needs that:
http://www.athleticscoaching.ca/UserFiles/File/Sport%20Science/Theory%20&%20Methodology/Endurance/General%20Concepts/Nurmekivi%20The%20Combination%20of%20Different%20Training%20Means%20in%20the%20Preparation%20of%20Elite%20Middle%20Distance%20Runners.pdf
Adeyabo wrote:
Nothing, not drills nor steroids, would have helped you.
Don't hate the drills, hate your genes slow boy
Have you considered the possibility that Captain Reality is female?
(What???):
What you said is quite interesting... Thanks also for some links to interesting reads. (though I didn't quite apprciate that hostile tone which is so typical at this forum...)
I've got a few interesting DVD from Japan with some interesting drills which I'm sharing with a couple of coaches in the East Coast as well as in Oregon. One was put together by coach Susumu Takano who coached Suetsugu to his bronze medal in 200m in Paris WC. One of my favorites is actually skipping over mini hurdles. Of course, a drill like this actually involves quite a bit of plyometrics as well as flxibility. That paper you liked about Mach training is quite interesting; so thank you. However, I wasn't quite sure if one line at the very end (in regards to coach Tom Tellez) would justify your opinion on "many sprinting coaches disregard drills"... I thought the whole paper was actually talking about drills.
I think you got some interesting points--I never was a big fan of that dorsiflex stuff either--but it would be nice if we knew who you were--for all we know, you could be some yahoo who likes to pretend you know something and enjoys trashing others. If you care to discuss further about drills, I would like it if you shoot me an e-mail and continue.
"technique development exercises (knee lift runs, bounding runs etc.)"
By the way, what kind of personal problems you have?
Drills, drills, drills wrote:
Good luck reaching your full potential as a distance runner if drills aren't part of your program. Vigil (and every other decent coach) has been preaching this for years -- and for good reason.
Hi,
Can you give us a link to something substantiating your claim that Vigil is a proponent of these drills? TIA.
Al
U.N.O. wrote:
"As I said before, by many top sprint coaches Drills are considered useless for improving running form/mechanics."
Drills DOES improve running form and mechanics when combined with sprint training. Drills are great way to warm up (dynamic strething) and those are done on the balls of the feet, so lower leg strength and skill of ankle improves. You shouldn´t sprint AT 100% more than 4-6weeks at most cases but
drills can be done through year with NEAR top speed sprints.
Here`s some "scientific evidence" for those who needs that:
http://www.athleticscoaching.ca/UserFiles/File/Sport%20Science/Theory%20&%20Methodology/Endurance/General%20Concepts/Nurmekivi%20The%20Combination%20of%20Different%20Training%20Means%20in%20the%20Preparation%20of%20Elite%20Middle%20Distance%20Runners.pdf
I cannot see how the article addresses drills.
Also, I do not consider plyometrics to be drills. I can see the benefits in plyometrics and there is some evidence to support their use (along with explosive weight training) in training a distance runner. Also, I never meant to include things like hurdling--a skill that requires some obviously specific training. I see "technical" events as a place where proper drills would help.