I’ve long been a fan of drills, but I hadn’t run them for a long time.
But I’m back doing them at least twice a week, and they have reminded me of their magic.
I do two rounds of butt kicks, A- and B-skip, fast feet, side skip, high knees, carioca and a couple of new ones: ankling and straight leg run.
It was the ankling one that drove home the benefits of drills.
After doing this drill just once, I could feel I needed to loosen my ankles. They felt too tight in the air. The drill had shown me a weakness in my stride: too much tension in the recovery phase.
So whenever I noticed tightness in my ankles over the next couple of runs, I let my ankles go slack in the air. It felt much better.
But weeks after that first session of ankling, I don’t get the feeling I should loosen my ankles anymore.
Sometimes it occurs to me that I should keep my ankles slack. But trying to relax them doesn’t make my running feel any different or better. Not like it did on the runs after the first insight.
It’s like the drill taught my body what it should be doing, and my body got the message quick.
I’d had breakthroughs like this with drills in the past. The A-skip and butt kick. After doing these, I could feel where the drilled actions fitted into my running stride.
I’d emphasize the action of the drill in my running, and my stride felt cleaner. Then, after a couple of days, emphasizing the action didn’t feel different anymore. Like what has happened this time around with ankling.
Are drills worth doing when your body knows the patterns they reveal?
I don’t know, but I’m betting they are.
First, doing them must reinforce good form. Second, they are also a mild form of strength and plyometric training.
So I’m going to keep doing them, and look for new ones and new ways to do them to stimulate learning.
Right now I’m working on high knees, the drill that I do the worst — ungainly and slow. If I can get it to not feel awkward, my running brain might learn something useful.
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