I can't get my f***ing knees high enough when sprinting?

Question

Whenever I try to sprint, I feel like I'm running on the planet Jupiter where gravity is 2 1/2 times that of Earth. I just can't get my knees up. And because of this, I'm REALLY slow. Any advice for me?

Answer 1

Make sure your arms are coming up the appropriate amount.  If your keeping them really low at your sides then that might be hurting you. Make sure that your shoulders are slow and relaxed and your arms swing up parallel to your body and to each other. Other than that, practice high knee drills and focus on getting your arms and legs up. Your legs do what your arms do.

Answer 2

Weak or overworked hamstrings, most likely. Do some drills and lifts to strengthen your hamstrings (good mornings, squats, etc.), then move on to plyometrics after you have a good base.

After a while, your hamstrings will be so much stronger that your knees will come up higher without efffort.

Answer 3

plyometrics. 2wice a week for 6 weeks.

Answer 4

plyometrics consisting mainly of the quad muscles. high jumps, box jumps, etc. bursting motions

Answer 5

drills !!

high knees mainly , try doing high knees, buttkicks

Answer 6

Sprinting is not for everyone, try distance-it is more enjoyable and very relaxing to the point that I want to run and it feels really good after about an hour into the run.

Answer 7

the higher you pump your arms the higher your knees will go. work on pumping your arms stronger and your legs will follow

Answer 8

There are a few things that you can do.  First, get your arms to pump higher.  Your arms should be at a 90 degree angle and you should see your hand in your field of vision and then it goes to your hip pocket.  Legs will follow what your arms are doing.

Drills:  try doing short runs of 25-30 yards concentrating on keeping your ankle at a 90 degree angle and trying to step over your calf muscle.  Going much higher than this is going to slow you down.

Buttkickers:  don't point your knee down when kicking your butt.  Try to make the quad parallel to the ground instead.

A - skips:  to hard to describ, but try to look it up.  Progress up.  If you can't get your knees up while running, slow down.  If you are still having issues, then turn it into a skip.  If you can't get that, do it marching.  The best way to get faster is to slow yourself down to the point that you can do things correctly and then speed up.  No use practicing at full speed wrong.  Neuralmuscular patterns need to be changed.

There are a lot more, but this should give you the basics to help!

Good Luck!

Answer 9

try doing a lot of drills. they're boring, yes, but they help.do a lot of high knees, and when you're sprinting make sure you're on your toes, that'll make it easier to get your knees up.

Answer 10

practice running drills in sand... you have to get your knees up to move in sand so when you transition back to the track it should solve the problem

Answer 11

form running is tough......It takes a while of drilling every day to get the form down bc running is a science...plz dont do buttkicks like someone mentioned earlier bc that makes it worse....