This one is a quick, yet very effective post about straight leg running drills. This drill will help you activate the muscles in your hip so you can execute more power and explosiveness, thus allowing you to run faster.
Whether you plan to run faster in a sprint, middle or long distance running or in a sport, start incorporating these drills into your workouts so you can improve your horizontal speed quickly.
What are straight leg running drills?
You can see a demonstration of the drill below.
Why are they beneficial?
These drills work the hips, hip flexors, and hamstrings. Particularly, the muscle groups that contribute to greater horizontal speed. If you can execute the strength of those muscles with additional speed, you will run faster due to having a more explosive stride and also increasing your stride length.
It is common to see sprinters doing straight leg running drills as a part of their warm-up to activate the muscles around their hip area.
Variations that you can try.
Straight leg bounds
Similar to the running drill, however you bound for distance my maximising the power in each stride. You can do this for 30m (10 bounds for 3 repetitions).
Straight leg drills on a hill/incline
This will definitely work your hamstrings. Be careful with this on an incline as it does put more stress and tension on the muscles.
Straight leg drills with a weighted sled
You can take a weighted sled (with light weights) and do the straight leg running drill with added resistance.
Straight leg drills into running
You can do the straight leg drills so that you can feel your hips coming higher. When you are ready, transition into running with a similar movement and accelerate for 20-30m.
Try this and let us know what you have experienced in the comments below.
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