How to Improve your Running Technique

In this article, we share a few running drills that will help you increase your running efficiency.

• High knee lifts – leaning slightly forward over the toes, drive up with knees while running at a moderate tempo so that the thigh reaches horizontal.
• Heel-bottom kicks – again, leaning forward over the toes, flick the heels up behind so that the heel touches your bottom with each step. Continue to work on this until your heel is able to flick or get close to flicking your glutes.
• Skipping/hopping – the emphasis in this exercise is using the elastic properties of your calves and feet to create propulsion. Bounce quickly on the balls of the feet, ensuring your heels do not touch the ground and there are no pauses in the movement. This can be performed either with or without a skipping rope.
• Tempo running – this is a drill designed to prevent over striding and maintain correct rhythm. Head out on a short run without a stopwatch, as the emphasis here is on maintaining rhythm. Use a metronome or playlist at approximately 90bpm until you are able to naturally maintain this rhythm.
• Bounding – over a short distance, take successive fast, long bounds to cover the distance in as few steps as possible. This drill encourages good push off and hip extension, but remember when you do your actual run training that the emphasis should be on avoiding over striding.