One thing that I have been talking about in number of recent Boot camps has been the number of runners that now do ‘drills’ to improve their running technique or form. There is a lot of interest in this in recent years. It means that when taking a running injury history and looking at the training loads then the drills they do need to be taken into account rather than just the distances run.

There are a number of different drills that runners can do and there is plenty of information on the web about them. One that attracted my attention is the 100 Up drill which I first wrote about on Podiatry Arena and more recently on PodiaPaedia. This is drill that was first used in the 1800’s as a drill to train. Lately it has been ‘rediscovered’ as a long lost ‘secret’ way to teach correct good running form. I not so sure about that as there has been a lot of hype and rhetoric about the drill and very little critical appraisal of it.

I think it will help some runners who want to transition to forefoot striking, but its not going to be a panacea or magic bullet.

Craig Payne