This is particularly true for those who run shorter distances. However, many won’t be able to tell you why they are doing these drills, which should be of concern to anyone who wishes to analyse their training in order to get the most out of it.

Why perform drills?

Before we decide we are going to do running drills in our sessions, we should ask the question - what are they for? In this video we have a look at the reasons why an athlete might want to perform drills and how to get the most out of them.

There can be several reasons for performing running drills and these are dependent on which drill is being performed. These include trying to achieve improvements in technique, mobility or even strength.

Generally, drills can be split into three types of which there are details on the next page.

Who should do running drills?

Drills should be seen as an important part of ANY runner’s regime, particularly for those competing over shorter distances since the technique is slightly less intuitive. It should be stressed though that the performance of drills will be beneficial to most athletes.

Some of the drills described may not appear in the section that you may anticipate. This is because they may fall into all of the aforementionned categories.

Now we know the why, how and who of drills, we can look at some specifics of what to do. Here is a video with some of the key drills we perform as athletes.