As some of you know, I've had an intern this summer and it has been working out pretty good for me. This has been my first intern and some of you are taking advantage of our "summer intern special" and working with him. One of his assignments with me has been to research speed drills on websites that I'm a member of.
There are a lot of great resources out there for speed development, but I usually don't have the time to meticulously go through them all and find what is useful. Derek, my intern, was told to do just that. After he had a feel for our program, I told him to go and find some new drills and exercises that we can use to help you run faster.
Here is one he came up with that I like. I've already started implementing it with some of our clients. Just like the subject title says, I feel it is a very simple exercise you can use to improve your running speed.
So here it is - a 10 yard sprint, but you're hopping on one leg instead of running.
This is really great. I do hops with a lot of my younger athletes and a more advanced version of it with my older ones as a plyometric movement. With this 10 yard sprint, now it is taking it a step further.
You have to work on your arm swing as well to get you going fast. It helps develop that coordination of the opposite arm, opposite leg mechanism. Plus, the hop is on the balls of your feet, to develop the kind of powerful movement you need to run faster.
I do 3-4 of these per leg. I just started using this drill so I can't tell you definitive results from it, but I think it is a pretty great drill. All you need is about 15 yards of space and you are good to go. The extra 5 is so you can slow down. Try it out and let me know what you think.
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