Drills: Do they work and how?

Plyometrics are different from drills. Plyos are explosive strength building exercises which improve the ability of nervous stimuli to fire more muscle fibers, thus improving strength. They typically involve using the bodys natural and involuntary "stretch reflex" to tap an unusually high amount of muscle fiber to contract and shorten the muscle to keep the muscle from tearing itself. The same phenomenon can be seen on a smaller/slower scale when someone stretches a muscle too hard, it gets tighter to protect itself.

Drills are practice for coordination of running form. Whether or not they are of benefit likely depends on the individual situation and the methodology employed.

My D1 college coach forced every distance runner every day through 4 sets of drills. We could not even go for a recovery run at a jog without spending 45 minutes doing drills on tired legs.

Speaking for myself, my legs turned to garbage and stayed that way until off season, and the exercises became less and less coordinated as time went on. This occurred over and over again. Additionally, I observed this phenomenon in others as well. Despite spending so much time and practice on them, week after week our coach would let us know that the job we were doing "sucked." Imagine that.

In my situation, with that methodology, it was truly a counterproductive endeavor. It was spending 45 minutes a day decreasing my ability to race.

For most, that time would be much better spent running while only doing exercises like that on rare occasion, perhaps weekly or so, and stretching AFTER the run. Front and side standing leg swings are all that is needed to get started in training.

Otherwise drills can become a huge investment of time and energy in a very unimportant facet of training.

In that article was at something about high knees etc., I didn´t said it "addresses drills".

Consider what you want, don´t be too schematic. Drills for me

includes different exercises from high knees, heels to butt etc to different kind of jumping exercises.

Also easy running is a plyometric action. Doesn´t need to categorize too much.

A free tip for you all who doesn´t do drills or whatsoever, try do those on the grass on bare feet and you maybe notice in the next few days how weak your lower legs are.

By doing drills (which includes dozens of different exercises including basic push ups and so) I am trying to get strength/power and strength endurance to all muscles in my body from toes to neck, also trying to avoid muscular imbalances. That way I am able to maintain form better when tired (which means not slowing down so much). I haven´t been injured in my LONG "career" yet and I am going to keep it that way.

It's no doubt bad karma to post on a thread when you haven't read it in it's entirety, yet the thread was mentioned in the discussion of the workout below and forwarded to me:

http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2009/05/speed-development-intro-and-part-1/

and

http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2009/05/speed-development-part-3-and-4/

Any informed, intelligent athlete or coach will find numerous flaws in this workout, both conceptually and in execution, yet I think the workout is, on the whole, useful and efficacious.

I will echo Mike Young's comment that drills for runners (i.e. distance runners) are beneficial in that they strengthen (subtly?) the body in a sport specific manner and that cues are useful for athletes.* I will also say that the blog below always sparks my mind, partly because underlying the opinions expressed have been influenced, to some degree, by Tellez. and like any skill, you have to practice it.

http://stevemagness.blogspot.com/search/label/sprint%20training

Also, what does the term coordination mean to you? To me this is where running fast comes in; it's a skill and like any skill needs to be practiced.

Underlying this thread is a common theme/point of contention on LR - what should you spend your time doing? My two cents: create more time in your day, allowing you to do more - more easy running, more fast running, more medium running, more active isolated stretching, more ancillary work, more foam rolling, more ice bath, more self message**, more sleep, more hydration and more attention to Nutrient Timing***

I look forward to reading the entire thread sometime later this week when time allows.

*I remember hearing Vin during his Standford days saying something about rhythm to his guys at the NCAA XC meet; that's a simple example of a cue and the mind/body connection is something that is important for runners, though no doubt less important for runners than for hammer throwers.

**Moderators will delete your comments on this comment unless your comment is extremely cleaver.

***I've now had the dame book for a year and not read it...got to read it.

One of the problems with this thread is making the connection between plyometrics and drills.

Plyometrics have been proven to aide distance running performance. There is research that shows this. Now, if you can answer the questions of how and why then you can make the connection to drills.

Plyometrics is a coupling of an eccentric and concentric muscle action. If a concentric muscle action is preceeded by an eccentric muscle action it creates more force. More force = more speed. The shorter the transition time between eccentric and concentric action the great the force produced.

Test 1: Jump up without first dipping down...if you even can.

Test 2: Jump up while first taking a big dip downward to produce the eccentric-concentric coupling.

You will jump higher on Test 2.

As you continue to jump over the course of weeks your transition time will shorten and your jump will be higher.

Now, videotape yourself doing high knees and butt kicks, and all other sorts of drills. Look for eccentric action. Watch how one motion leads into the next.

Test 1: Stand. Do a high knee without first flexing your hips/knee.

Test 2: Now do a high knee while first flexing your hips/knee.

Far more effective on Test 2...:)

Drills are a lead into Plyometrics. They are an easier version of Plyometrics. For runners putting in 100 miles a week they may be the ONLY version of Plyometrics.

Jay has it right here:

"Underlying this thread is a common theme/point of contention on LR - what should you spend your time doing? My two cents: create more time in your day, allowing you to do more - more easy running, more fast running, more medium running, more active isolated stretching, more ancillary work, more foam rolling, more ice bath, more self message**, more sleep, more hydration and more attention to Nutrient Timing***"

It's all a matter of what you have time for and what you make time for.

Alan

Drills: Do the work? And how!

the -> they

Irony Man wrote:

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.

I find it extremely funny that your way of adding to a thread is to take two separate words which don't contradict and then put them next to each other and call it irony.

Secondly, I could have easily not given the site credit for the quote I used.

Lastly, if you see something wrong with the section of the wikipedia article i referenced then please point it out otherwise I see nothing wrong with using it as a source.

Drills, even high knees and butt kicks, strengthen and coordinate muscle action. They are good as part of your warm-up because they get all of the muscles used firing in a broader range of motion than jogging and stretching do alone. That is a well known physiological fact. As for improving economy you just can't do a couple drills and expect your form to improve. The drills strengthen and activate your muscles so that you can have good form if you want to BUT YOU have to actively focus on good form during all your running to break bad habits so that efficiency is natural and unstrained at race time.

Circumstantial evidence:

2004 track season: 50-60 miles per week leading into and during season, minimal drills and no focus on form, PRs 1600m-4:35 3200m-10:07

2005 track season: injured through first meet, 35-40 miles per week during season but extensive drills and constant focus on form, PRs 1600m-4:25 3200m-9:39 (after only 28 days of training)

I was already pretty mature in 2004 (full height, same weight as 05, could grow a beard, etc.). So I would say that form is important and that drills help with that if done correctly.

Check the Journal of Strength & Conditioning, don't remember the issue number but study was done by a Dr. Philo Saunders on runners the ran 3k around 8:30, showed significant improvements. I know the NSCA and Australian Sprots Institute has done other studies on this, so I would check them out.

The saunders research you referenced was with Plyos, not form or sprint drills.

heyyo wrote:

I find it extremely funny that your way of adding to a thread is to take two separate words which don't contradict and then put them next to each other and call it irony.

Whoa there, chief. I took a direct quote from your post. If any words were put next to each other, it was done by you.

heyyo wrote:

Secondly, I could have easily not given the site credit for the quote I used.

Sure you could have done that. That would have made it even easier to not take you seriously.

heyyo wrote:

Lastly, if you see something wrong with the section of the wikipedia article i referenced then please point it out otherwise I see nothing wrong with using it as a source.

Dude, it's Wikipedia! The fact that you see nothing wrong with using that as a source suggests you don't know much about where that information comes from. Ask your teacher if he/she will accept Wikipedia as a source.

I don't have a "teacher". I practice statistics for living, am 100% comfortable quoting wikipedia on letsrun as a way of dumbing down statistics and am 100% positive there was nothing inaccurate in the portion i referenced. okay go back to class now.

....and wikipedia like books, scientific articles, newspapers, magazines, the internet and any other source can contain errors because they all undergo the same peer review process, wikipedia arguably to a larger extent like many other open source projects. In addition books and other traditional sources have contained many errors and inaccuracies over the years. In fact the eugenics practiced during the holocaust was an accepted form of a science in America as well as Germany at the time and could have been found in sources approved by your teacher.

Lesson learned, we shouldn't believe everything we read in books because they are filled with errors along with valuable information. Conversely things we read on the internet which are written by the same people who make books (??!!) also contain errors as well as useful information. Nothing ground breaking here...