By enhancing your running technique, you can increase your speed, enhance your performance, and feel more at ease while reducing the risk of injury and strain. A correct running style minimizes your susceptibility to exhaustion and optimizes the benefits of your run. Implement the following suggestions to enhance your form.
1. Look Ahead
Avoid looking down at your feet. Keep your gaze fixed on the ground ahead of you, approximately 10 to 20 feet away. This will not only help you maintain correct running posture but also reduce the risk of tripping or falling by allowing you to spot obstacles in your path.
Are you running with your head protruding forward? This places significant strain on your neck and shoulder muscles, resulting in tension. To ensure that your head is not tilting forward during your run, align it in a way that the ears are directly above the center of your shoulders.
As you run, envision yourself akin to a marionette being pulled by a string, with your body stretched out straight.
2. Keep Hands at Your Waist
Make an effort to maintain your hands around your waist region, slightly above where they can barely touch your hip. Keep your arms bent at a 90-degree angle. Novices usually have a habit of holding their hands close to their chest, particularly when they are fatigued.
If you maintain that arm position, you could become even more fatigued, and your neck and shoulders will begin to feel tense and tight. Nonetheless, if you are running at full speed, your arms will move your hands back and up without any extra effort.
3. Relax Your Hands
While running, ensure to maintain a relaxed posture with your arms and hands. Refrain from clenching your fists, as it may result in the tension moving up to your shoulders and neck.
It’s best to keep your fists relaxed, as if you’re holding an egg in each hand and you don’t want them to crack.
4. Check Your Posture
Maintain an upright and erect posture.
To maintain proper posture during running, it’s important to keep your head up, keep your back straight, and ensure your shoulders are level. You should also keep your shoulders below your ears and maintain a neutral pelvis. Avoid the common mistake of leaning forward or backward at your waist, which often occurs when runners become tired.
It is advisable to periodically evaluate your posture. It is typical to hunch over slightly when fatigued after running, causing discomfort in the neck, shoulders, and lower back. Whenever you catch yourself slumping, try sticking out your chest.
It’s crucial to sustain proper form towards the end of your run in order to combat exhaustion and cross the finish line with vigor.
5. Relax Your Shoulders
To avoid tightening the chest and limiting breathing, it is essential to keep your shoulders relaxed and facing forward, without hunching over. Relaxed shoulders lead to easier breathing.
Make sure that your shoulders are not raised up and near your ears. If they are, clasp your shoulder blades on your back as if you’re closing elevator doors. Hold that posture and let your shoulders descend.
Make sure to check your shoulder position regularly to ensure they remain relaxed. If you notice that you’re shrugging, perform the shoulder-blade squeeze maneuver once more.
6. Keep Your Arms at Your Sides
To prevent slouching, which can hinder efficient breathing, refrain from swinging your arms from side to side. Crossing your arms over your chest can also cause shallow breathing, which may result in side stitches or abdominal cramps.
As runners become fatigued or stressed, they tend to bring their hands closer to their shoulders, reducing the gap between their upper arms and forearms. In case you observe this occurrence, it is recommended to let your arms hang by your sides and shake them. Then, readjust them at a right angle to your shoulders while keeping them relaxed.
7. Rotate Your Arms From the Shoulder
The movement of your arms should originate from your shoulder joint and not your elbow joint. Imagine your arm acting like a pendulum, swinging freely at your shoulder. Initiate the motion by moving your elbow backwards and then allow it to return towards your body.
As you bring your arm back in front of you, it should be at a distance close to your hip but not touching it.
The movement of your arms should be beside you while walking.
When your arms are placed over your chest, they will gradually rise to your shoulders causing you to hunch over. This can impede your breathing. It’s better to position your arms at your sides, running parallel to one another.
Visualize a line running vertically through your body, your hands must not extend beyond it.
8. Don’t Bounce
Vertical oscillation, or bouncing while running, results in excessive head and body movement and leads to energy wastage. Greater elevation from the ground causes increased impact upon landing and quicker exhaustion of leg muscles.
To minimize bounce and save energy, run lightly, and land softly on your feet. Try to keep your stride low to the ground and focus on quick stride turnover. Take short, light steps, as if you’re stepping on hot coals.
According to some specialists, the ideal pace of the most effective runners involves a cadence of 90, meaning that the left foot hits the ground 90 times in one minute. If you decrease the length of your stride, your cadence will increase.
Only practice changes in your cadence and foot strike for brief periods. Initially, they will feel unfamiliar, so avoid doing them excessively. As they become more familiar, you will be able to incorporate them into longer portions of your running routine.
8 Powerful Running Drills To Improve Your Speed And Running Form
1. High Knees
By emphasizing the running position, this traditional drill strengthens your calves, hamstrings, and glutes, resulting in increased power during a regular run.
The High Knees exercise is beneficial for enhancing both form and speed because it facilitates quicker turnovers, resulting in increased speed.
Crucial observations:
- Be sure to keep your back straight and shoulders up the whole time. It’s tempting to move forward or backward to help lift the knees with your body. Instead, focus on using the muscles from your legs and core to do the lifting.
- Focus on fast steps, without worrying too much about your speed going forward. The main goal is not covering ground, but focusing on the position and your form.
- Don’t let your arms hang at your sides. Moving them will help you lift your knees and is true to good running form.
2. Butt Kicks
The primary target of butt kicks is the hamstrings, which aids in speeding up their contraction.
This exercise is a type of plyometric workout that boosts endurance and improves cardiovascular health. The explosive movements involved also strengthen the glutes and provide stretching for the quads.
Crucial remarks:
- Hold your upper body and move your arms the same way you do for the High Knees.
- Pump your arms forward at a 90-degree angle and be sure to pump the opposite arm of the leg you’re kicking (e.g. If your right heel is touching your butt, pump your left arm forward).
- Gradually build up speed as you go, making sure you’ve got the right form first.
3. Straight Leg Run
During the Straight Leg exercise, your ankle and toe positions are taken into consideration along with your hamstrings when you lift and land your legs.
Assistance is available to achieve a proper mid-foot strike and enhance coordination.
Crucial points to consider:
- Don’t bend your knees at all (hence, the name ‘straight’).
- Point your toes upward (dorsiflexion) so that the feet can land mid-foot.
4. Carioca
Even though they may seem challenging to learn, practicing Carioca drills can significantly enhance your flexibility in the hips and movements between the arms and legs.
Crucial points to be aware of:
- As you cross your right foot in front of the left foot, shift the weight to the ball of your right foot.
- Once you move back to the starting position, cross the right foot behind the left, shifting the weight to the ball of the right foot.
5. A-Skip
A-Skips assist in enhancing lower leg muscle endurance and inspire better foot contact.
Crucial points:
- Get used to the drill by walking at first, then move up to the skip once you’ve figured it out.
- As you lift your knee, make sure it reaches all the way to your waist, while the back leg stays perfectly straight.
- Strike the ground with your mid-foot or forefoot.
6. B-Skip
By doing B-Skips, you can enhance the flexibility of your hip and ankle movements, ensure proper grip of your feet on the running surface, and enhance your coordination.
Crucial points:
- As you raise one leg, skip with the ball of your other foot.
- When the raised leg lands, grab the ground explosively so the ball of your foot hits below your center of mass and you stand on both feet. then quickly switch to the other leg.
7. Single Leg Step Up
Sprinters frequently utilize the Step Up exercise due to its ability to enhance the mechanics of lower body explosiveness and replicate the sprinting motion.
Notes of significance:
- Use a box that allows your leg to bend at about 90 degrees.
- Be sure to keep your back foot behind the box, not beside the box, while your front foot is on top of the box.
- When you jump up, only use the front foot on top of the box. Be sure to drive the foot into the box, until it fully extends.
8. Side Shuffle
Crucial points:
- Step with your toes first and then use those toes to immediately propel yourself into the next step.
- These steps should go as fast as possible, so your heel barely touches the ground, if it all.
Benefits Of Running Drills
Think of your running as having a higher efficiency level, where your muscles require less effort to produce more oxygen, similar to measuring your personal miles per gallon.
By doing drills, you can enhance your muscle and joint strength, which will give you more power and enable you to activate the appropriate muscles for specific purposes. To achieve this, it’s crucial to have robust hip flexors, core muscles, quadriceps, and hamstrings.
Enhancing neuromuscular effectiveness, also referred to as balance and coordination, has a positive impact. It strengthens the receptors primarily in your legs and feet, resulting in better anticipation of sudden changes and enabling smoother, faster, and safer running.
Your technique improves as your running motions become more automatic, resulting in more efficient movements.
Improving your running cadence through drills contributes significantly to your performance and helps prevent injuries.
It is important to remember that improved muscle memory is actually achieved through the repetition of movements which become imprinted in the brain, not the muscles themselves. This enables you to perform the movements repeatedly with greater ease.
By engaging in running drills, you can enhance your cardiovascular health by generating additional oxygen, leading to an elevation in your overall fitness level. As a result, you will be better prepared to combat exhaustion and less likely to experience a sudden decrease in energy reserves while running.
By utilizing drills in a slightly varied manner, they can function as a warm-up, making your runs less complex.
