Deborah Sides did her PhD looking at this: KINEMATICS AND KINETICS OF
MAXIMAL VELOCITY SPRINTING AND SPECIFICITY OF TRAINING IN ELITE ATHLETES
Deborah Sides did her PhD looking at this: KINEMATICS AND KINETICS OF
MAXIMAL VELOCITY SPRINTING AND SPECIFICITY OF TRAINING IN ELITE ATHLETES
somecoach wrote:
From my own coaching experience, cues are only as good as the athlete can apply them, and therein lies one benefit of doing drills. I.e., teaching what knee drive feels like, teaching what proper shin and hip angles feel like. Teach them in relative isolation, then through cues apply them to actual running.
Some other benefits I see are from the plyometric nature of some drills, skips specifically (I agree that varying definitions are at play in this thread). Similar to how we're teaching isolated parts of the movement pattern, we're activating specific and relevant movement patterns. If you have the time in training, I see no downside especially from an injury prevention viewpoint. Furthermore, many of these drills are an easy way to micro dose plyos into a distance runners schedule, which have undisputed positive effects particularly in economy, RFD, and potentiation
It seems like the way many programs do drills, they could actually be an injury risk. By that I mean, many people do drills immediately before working out, and if there's a significant plyometric component, that's going to add extra stress and fatigue to your body right before the workout.
I've also done drills as more of half-assed warmup routine instead of stretching, and they seem fine for that.
The connection people seem to be missing here is that they are applicable to and benefit those who need them most and can most take advantage of the conferred efficiency for frequent racing (beginner youth) and those undertaking higher training load (pros). If you did them for a handful of years in high school or college, the primary benefit has been conferred and that benefit mostly sustains unless you go through long periods of inactivity or different activity (cycling, etc.) You shouldn't need to keep doing algebra drills once you've mastered algebra, either. Continuing them when you're a hobby runner after high school or college is like putting performance suspension on a Hyundai Sonata, there are surely trade-offs for bigger performance gains for similar investment in simply running more with limited time, getting better sleep and nutrition, etc. When you're a kid or a pro, you have the time and focus to do the extra 1%. When you have several higher priorities than run performance, that 1% stuff becomes pointless especially if you put it ahead of or in place of some of the other 99%.
I take it that they increase strength, flexibility, and range of motion. Some of them are also good for warming up. I also found that my workouts were a lot faster when I did some drills in advance, because I was better warmed up. If you've already taken the legs through greater range of motion than in the workout, the workout motions themselves are no strain at the beginning. You might also get a kind of natural comparison by looking at programs that do more or less the same mileage and workouts but one of which does a lot more drills. Usually the latter will be much better. There are programs, however, that spend more time on drills than running and that is not going to do it.
Absolutely help, especially in younger runners and for middle distance runners, but still useful for older distance runners. I do them 3x a week before workouts.
BTW, the coaches who say your running efficiency will simply get better by running more and don't do any drills are foolish. The athletes I know who follow this mentality get injured a lot more due to mechanical flaws, and tend to underperform on the track where good form is more important.
Why would good form be more important on the track? I would think it's even more important as you get up to the marathon, since you're very fuel-limited.
As a separate option, hill repeats actually are shown to improve running efficiency and performance. You could think of them as very specific "drills", I suppose.
When you have several higher priorities than run performance, that 1% stuff becomes pointless especially if you put it ahead of or in place of some of the other 99%.
You know the LR thread is coming. 3, 2, 1 ...
"What magic drills for sub-2:45 marathon on 20 miles/wk?" - MileageIsOverratedGuy
A core strength and glute routine do much more to improve running economy in my experience. As others have said drills can help with a warmup. Especially for short distances. Also if you do them long enough your heart rate stays up so they become a cardio workout in themselves. But again I really don’t believe they improve economy.
citius5000 wrote:
I mean they definitely import form over time I think from coaching high school kids especially.
Evidence?
Runningart2004 wrote:
Running is a skill. Drills, short sprints, etc, improve the skill of running, reduces waisted motion, improving running economy.
Alan
In studies done at Eastern Michigan U, the idea that you can judge RE by looking at "form" has been pretty well debunked. Runners who look "bad" often have better RE than those who looked "good". You can look up the studies by Stephen McGregor, et al.
runnER/DR wrote:
Are you asking for a well-controlled randomized controlled trial with a sufficient sample size in EXERCISE SCIENCE!? lol hilarious.
The studies in exercise science are a total joke. It's no fault of the scientists of course. There are all sorts of logistical and financial hurdles that don't allow for quality studies.
Exercise science is basically bro science. Coaches and athletes mimic what successful programs and athletes do. I'm sure a lot of fluff gets exported from successful places, but how do you decide exactly what element separates the good from the great? Who wants to experiment with not doing what the successful programs are doing?
I take issue with this take.
I am familiar with studies on plyometrics, but I would not put them in the category of "drills".
low miles wrote:
Absolutely help, especially in younger runners and for middle distance runners, but still useful for older distance runners. I do them 3x a week before workouts.
BTW, the coaches who say your running efficiency will simply get better by running more and don't do any drills are foolish. The athletes I know who follow this mentality get injured a lot more due to mechanical flaws, and tend to underperform on the track where good form is more important.
Well since anonymous post says they "absolutely help" I guess that ends the discussion.
Professor Brohardt wrote:
Luv2Run wrote:
I have looked a few times on pubmed and google scholar but maybe just not using the right search terms.
What actual evidence exists that running drills that coaches often use actual improve what they claim to improve?
Evidence is not "the pros do it". In the past pros did all sorts of things that are not beneficial.
Your last paragraph was unscientific.
If the extensive drills that professional runners do makes their running more efficient, then maybe drills work to improve running fitness?
John Kellogg once referred to this concept as Neuromuscular Facilitation.
Is that a thing?
Discus.
Not sure how my last sentence was unscientific. Many athletes in many sports never lifted weights. I think we can see a lot evidence that weight training is a positive.
NoVan wrote:
How would you do this with a typical high school cross country team of 50+ kids? You would have to organize and analyze 100s of video clips per week.
I don't know how often I see people on letsrun talking about how high school coaches incompetent, or 'only doing it for the stipend' without considering the significant logistical issues of running a program with a large number of kids of varying levels of interest, experience, and talent.
Very easy to manage:
You divide your kids in the good, the bad and the ugly group.
With the good group you do this analysis monthly, with the bad 3-4 weekly and with the ugly ones 2 weekly. No one talked about weekly. Would be simple.
But he, keep your coaching your way and don't touch anything. Have fun.