(Photo by Wayne L. Johnson – waynepacer.smugmug.com)
While the northeast was clearing out from the record snow fall, we were finishing up our first week of training with 7 x 1/4 mile on the incline of the Ringling Bridge in 75 degree weather. In speaking to family and friends up north, they were all having fun in the snow. To each their own as I am happy to be running and training in the Sunshine state.
In my last blog post, I spoke about the importance of landing stiffly on your foot pad when sprinting to decrease your time on the ground and thus becoming faster. Many runners have a difficult time with this stiff landing and the explosive push off because they do not yet have the strength in their lower extremities to run like this for very long.
Here are 3 ways to properly develop the muscle structure in your legs to become explosive:
1) Work your way up to the Speed and Explosion segment of Body Protection, at www.BodyProtection.com.
All the explosive movements are done on your foot pad as you can only stay 1/4 of a second on the ground. Very difficult to do, but worthy of trying as you build your legs for speed, stability, and power.
2) Practice your Power Preparation before you run to prepare your legs for the power needed to run faster in your sport at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WxcZtJeYAE&list=UUuZjTDO6NmSeuiWZ7jbgrxw&index=34
3) As you can see in the above photo shot yesterday at the conclusion of our workout, cool down with flexibility exercises that increase your range of motion for sprinting like the walkover/ bounding hurdles. Please note the stiff landing and how my heel does not touch the ground when I am bounding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGEaFslzNf0&list=UUuZjTDO6NmSeuiWZ7jbgrxw&index=73
Remember that I maintain my stiff landing throughout my mile competition. Months of strength, explosion, and speed training needs to be done in order for you to depend on your sprint and power form. I will be announcing my first race in 2013 in my next blog post. All the best with becoming your best!