Technique – the cornerstone of your programme!
Skip technique? It happens all the time in the strive for running perfection at the amateur level. Here’s why you should train your technique every week!
I see this time and time again writing marathon programmes for people. Substitution a technique day for what is thought of as a harder physiologic or fitness-based session to maximise gains. Let’s discuss why a technique session every week can and should be the cornerstone of your training programme.
Don’t sacrifice technique to suffer!
Stay safe- run forever.
Fast, Faster, Fastest.
Don’t sacrifice technique to suffer.
If you follow a detailed prescribed running programme, you are going to get fit for your race. The word technique may trigger alarm bells, of slow, boring, practice – this is not the case. Whether you are beginning your running journey or a veteran runner, I guarantee you can improve your technique and fitness in the same session. Get a biomechanical analysis and then the fun starts. And the crux of the matter is, to improve your technique 99% of the time we make significant increases on the distance you lower body movers. It may be through a knee drive, heel lift, or hip extension, but you will make a larger movement. To train this into a habit, we need the central nervous system to get used to it. This means SPEED. We train at least 10% faster than your race pace in order to ingrain and sustain the technical changes needed to make you a faster runner. If you just started your technique it will involve short sharp intervals. If you are coming back for refreshers, it means longer endurance-based technique runs – and don’t forget about the incline. What I’m saying is the technical sessions will improve your fitness without slogging yourself. It adds technique and minutes into your training in the most effective and efficient way. Leaving your evil coach to dish out the punishment elsewhere in your programme!
Stay safe – run forever
If you’re running a fast 10km or a slow marathon, you want straight lines, good force attenuation and strength. If you don’t practice technique the chances are you have a significant amount of rotation, an overstride, or other shearing forces within your kinetic chain. If you run consistently like this, you will pick up an injury. They may be small and regular, like a muscle straing, or they may be significant and lengthy, like a stress fracture of tendinopathy. Either way – getting analysed on video will tell help to prevent this. Once you have the knowledge you can train your technique every week – and eventually every run, to make you a safer runner. You can do it yourself or with a coach – but the most powerful tool you will acquire is the knowledge of how to correct and improve yourself. Take that and video yourself weekly to track improvements over time and have a concrete platform to work from.
Fast, Faster, Fastest.
Im sure you are sick of hearing me say it, but the technique is the secret to speed. Once you have mastered it then you can focus on the physiology of being the best athlete possible for your distance. But in amateur and recreational running, training techniques will break down the biggest barriers to running fast. It consists of cutting energy leaks into rotational planes of movement. The fastest way to run is in straight lines, using you potential energy of your muscles through the range in a continuous cycle generating force and speed. Of course, they come hand in hand, and to run fast you need good technique, aerobic capacity, muscular strength and endurance. They all facilitate each other – however, if you take two athletes with the same physiological markers, and give one a programme that involves technique training, in the end, there will only be one winner. Get onto your technique training and see the difference in you, today.
Recap
Don’t sacrifice it for a tougher session – technique will be tough and training your cardiovascular system efficiently.
Technique combined with specific strength is the best way to prevent future injuries and keep you on the road.
To get fast, run properly. Technique training will facilitate this and within 6-10 weeks, you won’t know yourself!