In this post I show you 4 sprinting drills that are incredibly effective at developing proper form and preparing the body for acceleration work. These drills are an essential element of Ken Harnden´s athletes sprinting workouts and are performed during most of the training year.

A-Skips and B-Skips can be fantastic drills when performed correctly. They can also be terrible drills when performed incorrectly. Too often coaches and athletes incorporate them into their training routine without really understanding the proper technique. When this happens athletes develop bad habits that tend to carry over into their running. Olympian and NCAA champion Ken Harnden gives a detailed breakdown of each of these drills including posture, body positions and mechanics.

Other drills include one-two-three and straight-legged bounds. In addition to building technique, these are fantastic drills to get the nervous system and body warmed up and primed to get some solid speed work in.

Coach Harnden also emphasizes the importance of getting drills correct before moving on to more advanced sprint training.

Lastly, Olympian sprinter Cejhae Greene gives his personal opinion about the off-season and the critical role it plays in successful sprinting.

PRE-ACCELERATION DRILLS

We’re going to go through a set of four drills that coach Ken Harden´s athletes do pre-acceleration.

A-Skip

The A-Skip is a very common drill. It’s a great drill if done correctly. It’s a terrible drill if done incorrectly. We’re looking for great postural integrity at the hip. We want to stay up and tall in the middle of the body (in the hip girdle area). We want to make sure we stay 90º everywhere we can (ankle, knee, hip, and elbow). And the most important thing is that we maintain a forward lean slightly. We don’t want to drift back and sit down in order to get the knees up. We want to stay over the top of our center of mass and drive the foot into the ground. Great forward lean, 90º everywhere, and great dorsiflex.

A-Skip focus points:

• 90º angles at ankle, knee, hip and elbow
• Good postural integrity (stay tall)
• Maintain forward lean
• Drive foot down underneath center of mass

B-Skip

The B-Skip is an extended version of the A-Skip. We’re allowing for the same positions, and the same set of drills and the same set of rules are engaged. But when we drive the knee up, we’re going to extend the lower leg, and drive it down to the track and pull ourselves back. It’s a great drill. Again, if done correctly, this is a much more difficult drill. When you’ve got young kids that are beginners, stick to the A-Skip until they’re really proficient and then move to the B-Skip. This is not a drill that you rush. It’s a drill that’s taking its time. It´s a much more difficult drill to stay over the top of your center of mass with because you’re drifting the foot out. Young athletes want to drift back. We want to stay over the top of the center of mass as much as possible.

One-Two-Three

We call the next drill one-two-three. Again, it´s a more advanced drill, so it´s not for your younger athletes. Let them build into these drills. It’s basically three small steps and then a cycle. When you go to the cycle, we want that cycle to come underneath the hip and land under that center of mass, so it’s pushing us down the track as much as possible. Make sure the focus is on the hands at the same time.

So we’re working on cycling the leg, working on that range of motion through the cycle and down. When athletes let the foot drift out in front and it lands out, it means the other leg’s got to be in the air while that leg moves underneath the hip. So we want the foot to strike and be under, and come straight back up. We want a crescent moon shape. So as the foot comes front in the air, it’s down and then it’s straight up underneath the butt.

One-two-three focus points → Foot moves in ½ moon shape:

1. Cycle foot lands under hips
2. Bring foot up quickly after contact

Straight Leg Bound

Straight leg bound is a great drill for forcing athletes to drive the foot back into the ground. Again, the dorsiflex is really important and again, the center of mass is really important. We want to drive underneath center of mass, not back where we’re flicking the foot and landing on the ground. We want to drive it down into the ground and pull as much as we can with the hamstrings. It’s a great drill to finish your warmup with, and really get the body clicking and turning over.

LEARN HOW TO DRILL FIRST

We talk about the repetitions and repetitions are great, but consistently good repetitions are so much better than just repetitions.

We talk about being able to sprint correctly. So for coach Ken Harnden, if he’s a young athlete and he’s starting out and he wants to learn how to sprint well, he goes out and he learns how to drill first. He wants to do A-Skips and he wants to do B-Skips, and he wants to do those types of drills that he can film and tell himself: “Yes! You have postural integrity. Your hips are high. You have 90º angles at the shin and the knee and the hip, and my arms are 90º.” If he can do those well, then he can broaden my horizon and say: “OK, well. Now we’re going to take those and instead of going 10 or 15 meters, we’re going to go to 30 meters.”

Now we’re going to add some longer running. We’re going to do those things well. We’re going to run through the wickets so you can control your stride length. Those kinds of things.

Once you’ve taken that athlete and you’ve said: “OK. You run well. You do the basics well.”, then we can start to add in the cool things: the plyometrics, the weight room…, those kinds of things. But again, as you start those, we’ve got to learn to do them well.

• So learn plyometrics at a low level with a low volume. Let’s not get hurt doing them.
• Let’s learn the weight room with a broomstick in our hands. Instead of throwing 250 pounds on the squat, let’s put a broomstick on our shoulders and let’s learn to squat correctly. Let’s make sure that we’re flexible enough to go through the range of motion and stay healthy.

CEJHAE GREENE´S INSIGHT ABOUT SUCCESS STARTS IN THE OFF-SEASON

That’s really where all the quoin quote grit gets done and the work gets done. Your season is where it starts. We call it “off-season” because you’re not really doing a bunch of technical stuff but that’s where the real works work get done, that’s where you get better because when the season rolls around you’re just focusing on technical stuff, the small stuff adjusting… But if you haven’t done that base work and really become fit and get yourself better, then all the technical stuff becomes harder and you never really get the most out of yourself. So that’s why it’s so important, at least for me.

I tend to push myself a little bit harder than I did the year before. I try to get that extra little “oomph!” to obviously try to make sure I’m better than my competitors. So that’s where, for me, the bulk of the work gets done. And not to say in during season the work doesn’t continue. It definitely does but it’s a different kind of work. You can only get certain amount of stuff to do because you’re really technical. So I’d say off-season is where the bulk of the work is and that’s where you really need to just buckle down by your head and do the work. So for me, that’s one of the biggest things of all-season, at least for me.

Bibliographic references:

• Outperform. (2020). Sprinting Drills That Develop Proper Form [Video file]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/U0JjbMMTOmw?si=5o1JLK2z00zf61eK