3 Power-Unleashing Workouts for Runners

For nearly a decade, Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett, co-founders of the Mobility WOD (MWOD) and Stand Up Kids, have been paving inroads into how we think and approach movement in the modern world. It’s an easy argument to make that their work and books have helped open up an awareness that has led how much you see standing desks in offices these days.

When it comes to the value of mobility for athletic performance, six-time Hawaii Ironman champion and triathlon super-coach, Dave Scott, makes it clear: "There is no strength without mobility." Scott's essential point for athletes is that—if better performance is the goal—you should prioritize mobility work before you start worrying about weights and strength training.

For runners and obstacle-course racers who want to do their sport better, faster, longer and for as long as they are alive, a dramatic amount of benefit can be derived from several of the foundational MWOD videos first broadcast to the world early in this decade. Kelly Starrett’s full-spectrum approach to optimizing your body and habits for running is contained in the NYT bestseller, Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally, but with a half-hour and the three videos below, you can start now on the path to more pliable explosive power and durability in your running.

1. Unglue Your Sticks

A full-scale attack on sliding surface dysfunction and all-around stiffness that tend to plague athletes who put in a lot of running, jumping and landing work. This is how you unglue it all.

2. Brakes Smoking?

Running downhill tends to burn out your quads and the accompanying muscles that take a beating from hard, hilly runs. Here’s the antidote.

3. Heel Cords of a Cheetah

Consider the amount of  power flowing through your lower-leg complex when you run, jump and land a lot. To keep the suspension system operating at full potential, Starrett says, you have to give the heel cords some love. This is how you do it.

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