This is fairly straight forward video this week, yet it’s important for two reason.  First, this is a great example of a proprioceptive activity that is running specific; we hear about the importance of proprioception all of the time yet it is often taken out of context (i.e. “runners should kneel on a swissball for 30 seconds to improve their core”).  The second thing to take from this video is that don’t need anything!  You don’t need to a $100 Bosu Ball, you don’t need to drop $80 on a pair of Frees and you don’t need to go out and buy the little blue inflatable balance discs.  Now, I believe in all three “tools” i just listed, but I’ve got to be honest about that fact that more and more I want to do things at practice that require no props/equipment.

Okay, so why do this?  Well, as Mike Smith (Kansas State) says during the video, the foot on the ground is the foot that’s doing the majority of the work, yet it’s really all three joints – ankle, knee and hip – that are working.  And a thought that just occurred to me is that this is a great precursor (a necessary precursor?) to Olympic lifting for track athletes when we consider that we’re trying to get “triple extension” of the ankle, knee and hip joints during those lifts and this type of work does the same thing.  Anywya, back to the the real issue – in this routine you’re improving your neuromuscular system and that improvement has the potential to not only decrease the chance of injury in the lower leg and foot but also, in a small way, improve running economy.

Lately I’ve been using this as part of the warm-up, so that 4-5 days a week the WU is “LM, LL and 4-6 min of Alphabet (2-3 min per leg).”  Due to the weather in Boulder and Flaggstaff the athletes are doing this with their shoe on.  Is that easier?  Most definitely…but it’s still a nice neurmuscular stimulus in the warm-up (and later in the year if someone is falling all over the place when normally they’re good at this we can assume that their nervous system is fried and that we should probably alter the workout or simply just change the assignment to an easy day).  However, for many athletes this could and should be used after practice with other preventive and ancillary exercises, i.e. the exercises you’ve stolen from the training room and are using as part of your weekly routine.

I think I’ll leave it that – with no comment on the Leg Cycle drills – so that we have something to talk about in the comments below.