So I just tried to animate a run cycle and it was horrible. Is there a more efficient way to do it
then to fully rig the model then just start moving each joint with key frames?

I looked up this tutorial online and this guy seems to have strange colored (joints?) or something attached to his model. The colored joints seem to be making his animation go much smoother than what I was trying to do. How do I get that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUf0Urg3wPw

PLEASE HELP!