Training

High Intensity Drills for Faster Running

With over 10 years of elite coaching experience, Dan Stepney has worked with some of Britain’s greatest running athletes.

Dan recently caught up with SportsShoes and Nike to share some of his top training techniques for achieving faster runs. In the second instalment of the 2-part series created by Dan and Nike athlete Ellie Baker, they take a look at some of the must do drills for working towards your fastest run to date.

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Drills to perfect fast running form

Every training session should have a purpose. Whether that’s to build aerobic capacity, to increase lactate buffering or speed development. For every session you do, it should have a reason behind it (even if the reason is to just have fun). On an elite level, we discuss with our athletes about what we want to get out of the session before it starts, so that the goals of it are clear.

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The below drills are designed to help you perfect your fast running form:

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Exercises

To be performed over a 20m distance. Each drill getting progressively faster over the first 15m with the last 5m aiming for fastest cadence (leg speed / turn over) possible. Emphasis should be on fast cadence rather than travelling horizontally fast. This helps promote leg speed.

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A-Skip: Skip forward, lifting your lead knee to waist height while keeping your back leg straight as you come off your toe. Aiming for a 90-degree angle at your hip, knee and ankle. As you move forward, alternate legs and strike the ground with your mid-foot or forefoot purposefully while swinging your opposite arm in unison with your lead leg.

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B-Skip: Similar to the A-Skip. Skip with a high knee motion, extend your lower leg and accelerate the leg down, engaging the hamstring. Hit the ground with your mid-foot or forefoot. Repeat with the opposite leg in a skipping fashion.

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Heel flicks: Lift your heels directly up to your glutes in a straight line. There will be a slight knee drive to allow this to happen. Keep tall and have an aggressive arm drive (remember that arm drive should go backwards as well as forwards).

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High knee: Concentrate on lifting knee drive to a 90-degree angle at the hip, with a 90-degree angle also at your knee and ankle joints. Keep tall and have an aggressive arm drive (remember that arm drive should go backwards as well as forwards).

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Bounding: A plyometric movement which helps build explosive power, which is also a great way to develop speed, as well as improve running economy.

These are exaggerated long strides, driving off the back leg and driving the front knee. Take a few strides to get up to speed. Drive your knee forward using the momentum of the opposite arm trying to hang in the air as long as possible. The aim is to generate power from the ground quickly.

Concentrate on having a quick contact time with the ground, as well as producing as much power as possible. We are looking for triple extension from your hip, knee and ankle of your take off leg and triple flexion (90-degree angles) of your hip, knee and ankle of your knee drive leg.

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Straight Leg Pogo Jumps: This drill is designed to isolate the flexion and extension of your ankle joint to generate force from the ground. It also helps the knee and hip joints to handle and utilise impact and load.

With your legs together and knees slightly bent, explode off the ground as high as you can and then land with a stiff ankle, repeating by reacting to the ground quickly. Aim for a solid contact with the ground and a short contact time. Dorsiflexing at your ankle joint is going to help with this and it will allow you to generate more force into the ground.

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Single Leg Hops: Space out cones evenly by roughly 3 feet apart. Hop over the cones with an active knee drive. Emphasis on ground reaction and speed on contact. This will help create an energy return from the ground. 

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Wicket Runs: This is a maximal velocity upright sprinting drill where the athlete runs through a series of small hurdles (or cones) that expand in spacing. This drill forces the athlete to self-organize posture and running technique. There should be an emphasis on moving limbs faster and faster as you go through the hurdles, concentrating on vertical bounce and tall posture. This promotes good front side mechanics, stride frequency and increases force production. Wicket runs are very good to combat over-striding, which is a common technical error that can inhibit athletes from running faster.

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Resistant Band Sprints: Place a resistance band around your waist, which is fixed either by a partner holding the other end or attaching it securely. Concentrate on getting your hips forward into an ‘attacking’ position. The whole body should be in a forward position, with triple extension of your hip, knee and ankle on your standing leg. Have an aggressive knee drive aiming for 90 degrees at your hip, knee and ankle.

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Stride outs: The emphasis here is on the change of pace. E.g. 20m at 70% effort, 20m then at 90% effort and then 20m back at 70% effort (the length and % of effort can be changed accordingly). When changing pace, concentrate on increasing cadence. This will help to promote better ground contact. This drill is utilising all of the other previous drills from earlier and applying them to active speed play.

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Ellie wears Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 35 running trainers. See here link to warm up piece for PART 1 in the series.

>> Follow Ellie on Instagram: @ellienatashabaker

>> Follow Dan on Instagram: @stepneydan

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Run fast with the Nike Pegasus 35

The Nike Pegasus is a classic, staple shoe and very well known and loved by the running community. This year, Nike are using that power to help people run even faster in their classic shoe with a new, fresh design that’s engineered to fly. Find your fast with the new Nike Pegasus 35 available from sportsshoes.com.

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Looking for some training tips and advice? Then head over to our Training category where our athletes and experts explain everything you need to know.