Drills, Hills, and Thrills

By Roger Sayre

The last couple of times I have run into past president and legacy member Mike Sandrock at Boulder Road Runners events he asked if I had any tips to keep running well at age 60+. I don’t know if there are any secrets, other than keeping healthy, consistent with training volume, doing some (but not too much) training at race pace or faster, and adding in some of the things on the side to make sure that you have a little snap in your stride.

This month I’ll discuss some of the extra training you can do to maintain your body strength and stride ability. I’ll break it down into four categories:

• Core Strength
• Stretching and Drills
• Hills and Strides
• Strength Training

Arguably, a lot of the recent improvements that we have seen at the top levels of the sport from high school to college and pro can be attributed to increased knowledge and application of these types of exercises into training. It’s little stuff, compared to the many hours some of us spend on the track, roads, or trails, but it adds up. You can join a health club, hire a trainer, and put in a lot of time in these, or invest something less than that and still get a noticeable return. A little bit of this work can go a long way to improving your all-around running fitness and efficiency, and it can make some of the hard work a little easier while at the same time helping you prevent injuries.

Core Strength

Back in the day about all the core work we did would be sit-ups or crunches and a few sets of push-ups. Now there are entire routines, some very elaborate, and it can become a sport unto itself. Unless that’s your thing and you are striving for YouTube or Crossfit fame with an amazing core routine you can do just fine with a couple of short sessions a week.

Nevertheless, I listed core work here first for a reason. Core strength is foundational for runners and you neglect working on it at your own risk of injury, or a gradually weakening posture over the years. What are the best core exercises? There are many good books, articles, and videos describing these exercises. I’ll list two excellent books: Build Your Running Body (2014) by Pete Magill, Tom Schwartz, and Melissa Breyer. And this year’s Personal Best Running by Mark Coogan and Scott Douglas. Both books have descriptions and pictures of different core and strength exercises and Coogan’s book has links to access online demonstration videos.

Core sessions don’t need to be terribly long or arduous, usually about 8 to 15 minutes a couple times a week is fine. A simple routine might include Front and Side Planks, Crunches (forward and side), Bicycles, Leg Lifts, Bridges, and Russian Side Obliques. Since most of these are on your back or side, also incorporate something like Reverse Bridges or “Superman” lifts while lying on your stomach. These will stretch out your lower back a little so you maintain a balance.

You can look each of these up online to see how they are done, and to refresh yourself on developing and maintaining proper form. Typically, 30 to 60 seconds per exercise is sufficient, but sometimes it’s (fun?) interesting to see if you can do one or more for 90 seconds or 2 minutes!

Two or three core sessions a week is probably enough for most of us. And if you have some imbalances that have required physical therapy, adding some of those into your core routine is good practice.

Stretching and Drills

Yes, we did stretch back in those early days of last century, although maybe not consistently and usually it was static stretching before or after a run. Now as then, doing a few stretches is a good idea. It’s usually beneficial to have a little warm-up before you start so that your muscles and tendons are ready.

More recently Dynamic Stretching has become more widely used. You can do a set before almost any workout or race. A good routine is to run a mile or two to loosen up, then find a flat stretch and do between five and ten Toe Touches on each side, jog a few steps, then pause and do the stretch. Then do Hamstring Stretches (knee to chest) from a standing position and then quad stretches (pulling your foot toward your glutes). If your hips are feeling tight either do a Standing Leg Cradle stretch, or forward and reverse rotations of the hip. Other routines you could add from easy to more difficult include High Knee Steps (marching) and High Kicks. A quick routine usually takes less than 5 minutes.

After dynamic stretching you are ready for a set of drills. Find a flat-even surface of at least 30-40 meters. If you are just starting out, maybe begin by just doing one set for only 20 meters and work up from there. After some time and working on technique, just two or three sets of each exercise is usually sufficient for your warm-up routine.

You can start with A Skips (like skipping in the park when we were little kids) focusing on high knee lift (bringing the thigh to parallel with the ground, knee bent at 90 degrees) and quick but light foot plants. Do for 30-40 meters, then jog for 30-40, repeat. Then B Skips (like A skips but after bringing your knees to 90 degrees you kick out with the lower leg). If you are brave and more coordinated than I am, you can add C Skips or Karaoke Steps.

Following the skips, do Butt Kicks (usually only 30 meters because the turnover is high but stride length is short). Keep your thighs perpendicular to the ground (inline with your torso), and kick back so your foot hits or nearly hits your glutes. With these, imagine that the ground is hot and you want to keep the foot contact minimal, so you are just popping right off with each short stride.

You can wrap up the session with High Knee running, which kind of combines the elements of the skips and butt kicks. Run with exaggerated high up to 90 degrees (some do more) and run with quick light strides, again focusing on popping off from the surface quickly with each foot plant.

Sometimes you can add in some light Bounding, which takes some coordination and concentration because basically, you are leaping from one leg to the next so the impact is fairly high. Maybe do these on a soft surface and on an incline to save knees and shins.

Stretch every day if you can.

Strides and Hill Sprints

Following the drills, you are almost ready for the workout. You might want to do a few strides (aka pick-ups) of 15 to 20 seconds or 80 to 100 meters. A track straightaway or a soccer field are perfect. Start moderately for 20-30 meters, pick up the pace through the middle, and then coast toward the end. Doing two to four of these, increasing in pace on each one, is usually sufficient. These are not all out sprints, but you usually want to run the last one or two at your starting workout pace or faster. Sometimes, especially when warming up for repetitions at 5K pace or faster, you can do a full timed 100 meters on the track to dial into pace.

At this point you are ready for the workout.

After the workout, doing a short set of strides or hill repeats at goal effort or pace for a shorter distance (e.g., at mile pace if you are training for a 5K or 10K), is a good way to work on your speed and running efficiency. If you are doing strides on a flat surface or track you can practice accelerating through, so you can practice changing gears. Again, these needn’t be all out sprints unless you are actually training for 400 m or less. These could well be at mile pace or under.
Alternatively (especially in the early season or off season) find a nice little hill (4-7% grade is fine) and do a set of hill sprints/strides at maybe mile race pace effort, or under, for 15-20 seconds), catch your breath and jog down. Make your recovery time maybe 2X to 3X the time of your sprint (so 40-60 second recovery for a 20 second rep is usually enough). Repeat 3-6 times.

After most workouts or runs, take a few minutes to do some light stretching, dynamic or static. Your muscles will bounce back a little more quickly with those few stretches.

Do strides or hill sprints before or after your workouts, about twice a week.

Strength

Strength work for running has been around for quite some time, but its importance has increased over the past 10 to 20 years. Once again though, strength work can be an end in itself, and sometimes runners end up spending as much time in the weight room as running. At the other extreme some runners would like to avoid strength training altogether. The focus here will be to do relatively simple and short sessions, focusing more on body weight work and not so much on using weight equipment or a gym.

Hip and Glute Strength – One of the most important developments in strength training over recent years has been the increased emphasis on strength and mobility for the hips and glutes. If these are not balanced and activated properly, then your stride will not be as efficient and you will probably be more susceptible to injury.
Immediately following the core routine described above, try a quick set of hip strength and mobility exercises. Former CU runner and coach Jay Johnson has a nice series of videos showing hip Strength and Mobility (SAM) routines, which you can find on YouTube. I like to do pointers and fire hydrants (three types of those, out leg out, and then forward and reverse) and usually do 10 of each.

Lunges – Do sets of standing and reverse lunges, followed by a set of around the world lunges (a combination of standing, reverse, and side lunges) as your strength improves you can add some hand weights or dumbbells. These can be done after your core routine, or as part of your pre-workout warm up, maybe best following the set of dynamic stretching.

Squats and Deadlifts – these can be done with or without weights, best starting without weights until you develop basic strength and proper form.

Upper Body – there has always been some conjecture whether extensive upper body training helps runners or not, but the consensus is certainly that some work is better than none. Some of the easiest to employ might be push-ups, pull-ups (if you have access to a pull up bar), and some light work with dumbbells. Twice a week or so, do sets of 10-30 push-ups, and some pull ups. If you can’t do a full pull up then either try a bent-harm hang and hold for as long as you can, and/or jump up so your chin is above the bar and lower yourself down gradually, repeat a few times. You can build from those until you can complete some pull-ups.

Finally, here is a quick dumbbell routine you can do with light weights (say 3-10 pounds for most of us, 15 or more if you are strong and ambitious): running motion with weights in hand (10-15 reps), arm curls, arm raisers, and pumping motion (punching the air) above your head. Start with one or two sets and build.
Strength train about two or three times a week.

Conclusion

Even as you get older (or even if you are young!) you can add life to your legs and spring to your stride by incorporating some ancillary strength and flexibility work into your routine. The time investment is not big (maybe as little as 20-30 minutes total, two times a week), but your running efficiency will certainly improve. A bonus is that your risk of injury probably will be reduced by integrating these types of exercises into your training.