Running Form Drills (#2)

I admire people who have perfect running form. Over the last year, my running form had gone done the tube from the over compensating I was doing. Over the last couple of months I have been working very hard to improve on my form. It honestly couldn’t get much worse so there was only improvement to be made. Part of this process has included running form drills. I do these every other day before I “run”. I say “run” loosely because I don’t cover much distance. The distance has increased very slowly allowing my body and anterior compartment in my left leg to adjust. I do additional cardio on top of the drills and “running”. This additional cardio is usually completed after my drills so that my legs are fresh when I work on my form and consists of a spin workout or a bike ride. I have recently been riding my bike on the Centennial Trail because another spin workout was going to make me gauge my eyeballs out.

I am not going to lie, when I got clearance from Dr. A to begin running, I really thought I was going to be running. Ha, joke was on me. Seriously.

The first couple of weeks consisted of “running” for 20 minutes. Matt’s instructions were to “run” a 200 practicing my form, etc. and then walk a 100. Repeating this process over 20 minutes.

My next phase bumped me up to 300 repeats. The first couple of weeks at this phase had me “running” 5 X 300 meter repeats with a 100 meter recovery walk. Even though the “running” distance was 100 meters further, this workout took less than 14 minutes to complete.

The third phase of comeback has been increasing my 300 repeats. Every other day I have added an additional repeat to my workout. I am currently up to 9 X 300, with a 100 meter recovery walk.

None of my running has been for speed. Speed isn’t of concern right now. As I am running I am really focusing on:

1. Cadence being around 90-95 strides per min.

2. short strides that allow me to minimize my up and down movement

3. Foot contact- Remembering to paw the ground, contact with mid foot under my hips, taking short & quick strides, pulling me heel to my butt each time, and standing up tall

WHEW. That is a lot of stuff to remember. Who knew there was such a science behind the perfect stride!

I am meeting with Matt again next week so I am excited and curious as too how much more "running" I will get to do. :-)

On the days where I run I do the following warm up stretches:

(These are my additional prehab/rehab stretchesthat I posted last week)

Single leg glute bridges (2 x 10)

Scorpion (2 x10)

These are the drills I do before I "run":

Static single leg (2x 10)

Calf raises (2 x 20- holding for 1 second)

Pawing the ground (2x 10)

Wall fall + heel pull to butt (2 x 10)

German walks (2 x 10 yards)

Let me know if you have any questions :)

--Tasha