maratoolKneeling Arm Drill
How to do the kneeling arm drill
- This drill helps increase arm efficiency during the run. Begin kneeling, left foot in front, right knee down. Apply pressure through the front heel to keep your glutes and hamstrings activated.
- Begin by blocking the arms in long, pendulum like swings. Close the arm angle, blocking with the arms as you would when jogging, progressing to a run and finally a sprint.
- As soon as your hands pass the hip, accelerate them forward during the sprinting motion to move them as quickly as possible.
- Switch knees and repeat.
Muscles worked
The force comes from the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.
A plyometric repetition is over before a slow contraction could contribute anything, so they have to produce that force immediately on contact.
Other muscle groups are involved too: the abdominals brace the trunk so force can pass between the hips and the shoulders.
Every exercise for:ShouldersAbdominals
How this movement works
Force comes toward the body — you draw a limb, or your own bodyweight, in against whatever resists it. What changes between sessions is how far into the position you can get and hold, not how much is loading it.
It is filed under plyometrics, which trains the stretch-shortening cycle: loaded fast, released immediately. Contact time matters more than volume, so these belong early in a session.
What you need
These train the shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:
- Landmine Linear Jammerbarbell
- Lateral Dumbbell Raisesdumbbell
- Lateral Raise - With Bandsband
- Leverage Shoulder Pressmachine
- Low Pulley Row To Neckcable
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 141 shoulders exercises in this database, 74 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.