Nov 2025 Coach’s Corner:
This series almost died because athletes have had so many incredible questions lately. I have several new pieces focused on your questions but that meant writing time taken away from this drill breakdown.One of my ambitions is to get back to writing every week. I actually hate Instagram (and nearly all social media outlets), primarily because they are short-form, instant-gratification machines that demand I produce and recycle and regurgitate content every day. Okay, rant over about the other platform (though I also love seeing athletes celebrate themselves there, which is cool). Here’s the point: more writing coming at you. And the new book is in revision right now!
Want to know first when it drops? Get on the Saturday Sprinting newsletter (maybe by checking out this popular guide for female athletes interviewing coaches or with this guide to crushing your athletic comeback as an adult in explosive sports)!
Athletes come to me to get faster. At some level, my business exists to prove that speed is a skill and that everyone can improve it. The central task of a speed training program is motor learning. Each body is willing to become fast. Few bodies know HOW to be fast. So workouts and training planning only take you so far as an athlete – you have to learn what makes a fast runner fast, develop that skill, then rehearse it until your brain understands what to do and when to do it.
This little series breaks down the HOW of fast running, in the form of daily drills within the Speed Drill Warmup.
Full SHIFT Speed Drill Warmup
Part 4, this article, is all about the Easy Series. Before that, though, here’s the full Speed Drill Warmup, with each drill done over 20 meters except the ones marked with an asterisk:
- Forward Skip
- Backward Skip
- Tall Lateral Shuffle R/L
[easy series] - Stepover Lunge
- Snap Lunge
- Rocket Lunge
[lunge series] - A March
- A Skip
- A Cycle
[A series] - Quick Straight-leg Run*
- Straight-leg Bound
- Bound
[push series] - 5-Box*
- 1-leg 5-Box R/L*
- Big Split*
[bounce series]
How Skipping Supports Running Faster
Skipping deserves to be a fundamental human movement. In 2023, a video of a man attempting to skip went viral [reposted onto YouTube] because of how obvious it was that he could not process the coordination of the movement. Skipping represents all the challenges of running and sprinting, just at lower speed: powerful pushoff, absorbing force during landing, coordinating leg action with arm action.
In the Speed Drill Warmup, easy skips help you identify your readiness to sprint. They give feedback about your elasticity, muscular tension from your big toe through your hip, and general sense of wellness. The warmup starts here because if any of those things feel off, you’re not ready to sprint!
Technical Cues in the Forward Skip
Only one cue matters in the easy skip: skip like a kid!
To skip like a kid means to fly for a moment after each takeoff, then to land quietly as you step into the next takeoff. Don’t overthink this! Skipping should be easy and feel rhythmic and natural. Skipping should be fun.
If skipping requires a ton of brainpower, that means it is the most significant motor skill for you to practice on your athletic journey.
If skipping reveals joint pain, call up your care team because something needs attention immediately – and lots of attention before you return to sprinting or jumping.
Technical Cues In The Backward Skip
Even when athletes feel great with the easy skip and can revisit the sensations they remember from childhood, the backward skip tends to get them. Virtually no one does this exercise (except, amusingly, wide receiver and defensive back coaches in football).
There is a 45 – 90 second period where I offer athletes no technical cues on the backward skip at all. Instead, this is a motor learning puzzle for the brain that I prefer they simply attempt then refine while moving. Once you are confident with the backward skip, make your only point of emphasis popping as high in to the air as possible with each takeoff. Popping high increases the force of your landing. Because you are skipping backwards, you will land on the ball of your foot by default, which makes this drill great for developing eccentric capacity in the lower leg. The backward skip will never become a significant or intense training load, but it is a great check of your readiness for higher speed drills on the day.
Technical Cues In The Tall Lateral Shuffle
This drill isn’t so difficult in terms of coordination, but it is very revealing regarding knee and hip asymmetries. If you have a clunky hip, it will make itself known either when you push off from the clunky side or when you land on the clunky side. If you have a bothersome knee, it will make itself known, usually when it is the knee in back, relative to your direction of movement. The tall lateral shuffle is another drill I don’t offer any direct cues about during the first or second execution. Instead, simply do the drill, then assess what you feel and what needs to change for you to perform it rhythmically and easily.
Once the drill feels consistent, simply bounce higher with each step. The longer you are in the air, the more you practice anticipating ground contact and creating tension throughout your system so you don’t collapse on landing.
How the Easy Series Relates To The SHIFT Speed Drill Warmup
The easy series differs from other groups of drills in the Speed Drill Warmup in that its components do not directly serve the sprinting task. Forward, backward, and lateral skipping are simple assessment tasks. Done for very long distances (100+ meters each), they become excellent extensive loading on your elastic tissues. Done frequently, they are like dynamic joint mobility exercises to wake up your tissues for the more intense loading of technical speed drills.
You might be tempted to dismiss the easy series in order to save time or to skip to the “good stuff” in your drill warmups. Don’t! The easy series is a gentle transition from whatever you did before arriving to the training space. Forward skipping is the lowest load prep you can use to determine if your lower extremity is feeling stiff or sore on the day. Backward skipping guarantees a forefoot strike, so primes your brain for correct ground contact. Lateral bouncing such as the tall lateral shuffle assesses your large joints before you put more severe loads into them through larger ranges of motion.
Each part of the Speed Drill Warmup is designed to prepare you physically and mentally for sprint practice at the same time it teaches your brain an aspect of the motor skill of maximal effort running. The easy series is your first assessment for the day: am I really ready to sprint or should I train foundational qualities some other way?
On many occasions when I suspected I was too achy or too tight or too tired to sprint effectively, low-level yet acute pain during the easy series saved me from myself. I threw medicine balls, did hurdle walkovers, or went home to rest instead. Let this first section of the Speed Drill Warmup be the same for you.
Next up, the final section: the push series – how bounding might be the only answer you need for power development and how it contributes to sprinting faster.