There are hundreds of drills, core, and weight training exercises and thousands of variations. Some athletes excel with a scheduled routine; others prefer variation. Do some research, experiment, and find the exercises that make you stronger, more resilient to injuries, and faster.
Why Do Athletes Work on Drills, Core, and Weights?
We want the reader to know the “why” regarding the importance of Drills, Core Work, and Weightlifting. At CTC, we use these exercises to achieve the following results - for all sport athletes and all fitness programs - not just runners. The enclosed PDF provides a more thorough explanation for coaches and athletes preparing to design drill and core routines.
I want the reader to grasp that the benefits of Athletics’ Drills, Core Work, and Weightlifting extend to all sports and all humans, especially sedentary people. I use the word Athletics for a reason: Within the Olympic movement, there is no sport of Track & Field. It is referred to as “Athletics.” Athletics - as a sport, goes back thousands of years and is basically humans competing to move the fastest, jump the highest, or throw heavy objects as far as possible. It is a competitive (quantitative) measure of being exceptionally human! Athletics is intuitive to nearly all humans.
The Most Basic Human Sporting Event & Lessons: Think of kids skipping rocks on a lake or pond. They quickly / naturally figure out how to look for the ideal-sized and weighted rock (Physics: flat rock, not too heavy, not too light)… they quickly / naturally find the proper throwing angles for the arm (mechanics)… they quickly / naturally know, and celebrate, a good throw when they see it (it bounces several times across the water and travels a long distance).
Failure to select the right rock or correct throwing form elicits a very-human and predictable set of human responses as well: some kids will throw a tantrum or cry because of the failure. Some kids will ask for and accept help from a “coach” or simply copy a friend. A small percentage of kids will give up on rock skipping completely. Other kids will just continue to practice with increased determination. Once the movement patterns are mastered (brain and muscles working together), the expert rock skipper can return to the “sport” years later and excel immediately - the movement patterns have been solidified in the brain.
The work is important - if you are not doing it you should start NOW! For new athletes and unfit folks I design entire workouts around drills and core work. We may do a 15-minute warm-up jog, followed by 45 minutes of strides, drills, and core work. We’ve also done 120-minute runs with 90-second “breaks” every five minutes. The “breaks” focus on Core Work exercises. The goal for the 120 minute session may be to keep the heart rate between 145-150 BPM. The work not only builds better athletes, the pain tolerance part of the work builds better competitors. Coaches may refer to the work as “circuits,” “stations,” or “routines.” Athletes may refer to the work as “smoke sessions,” because of the intensity of some of the routines. For example, after a 60-minute circuit routine, we may end with a timed session of 50 burpees. It is difficult.