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10 Things You Should be Doing to Improve Your Race Performance but Probably Aren't

2/3/2012

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I worked with a ton of triathletes and runners at the Milwaukee Multi Sport Expo last weekend and did mini assessments, soft tissue treatments and some basic exercise/movement coaching.  A majority of endurance athletes do not understand how they should be training outside of their specific sport activity.  Here is a list of important things that I discussed with many of the athletes and that can  help you if you are a runner or triathlete, etc. 

1.      Develop adequate muscular support.  Every time your foot strikes the ground while running, 5-7 times your bodyweight of force goes through your joints.  Without adequate support, injuries will come.  It is of utmost importance that you strength train appropriately if you run a lot of miles.  Long distance activities release excess amounts of cortisol, which tends to promote muscle atrophy.  If you don't build some muscle to balance out and assist all of the long duration activity, its not a matter of if but a matter of when an injury will occur. 

2.      Address muscular imbalances and movement faults. With repetitive activity such as that involved with endurance races, imbalances and patterns are bound to develop.  When muscles that work with one another are out of whack and/or movement along different joints is impaired, certain areas will become overloaded; leading to injury and decreased race times.   Movement faults and imbalances must be assessed and then addressed through appropriate exercises and tissue work to make sure that loads are distributed evenly among the kinetic chain.  A very common problem that I saw particularly at the expo is a lack of big toe extension on either one or both feet. When the big toe can't extend far enough, push off stresses are overloaded in other areas of the foot and the rest of the way up the body.  It can have effects all the way up to the head. Muscles such as the adductor hallucis can often be released to help improve movement here along with some mobilization drills and retraining push off patterns with gait. 

3.      Address postural issues-  With impaired posture such as rounded shoulders (kyphosis, a very common issue I see with runners), breathing will be less than efficient, which means your body has to work harder to deliver oxygen to your tissues; which means that you will not perform as well as you could.   Get the rib cage elevated, and breathing will be much more efficient which means that working tissues will have better oxygen supply which means that fatigue will not set in as easy.  Postural issues such as this also make running gait less than efficient, which can lead to injuries and wasted energy with each step. 

4.      Develop Max Strength- The nervous system must be trained to tap into a wider variety of muscle fibers and to do so more efficiently.  The more force you can put into the ground with each strike, the faster you will be.  The stronger you are, the easier your body has to work with each step.  Its like giving your body a bigger engine.  To do this, heavy weights must be lifted for multiple sets of 2-5 reps (specifics will depend on the athlete) in big bang exercises like squats, deadlifts, rows and presses.

5.      Develop Speed Strength- Training the nervous system to activate more fibers faster will make you faster and take time off of your race. This can be done with exercises such as speed squats and speed pulls,  for multiple sets of 2-10 reps.  For straight speed strength, the lower rep range will be used.  For speed strength endurance, the higher rep range will be used.  Unlike powerlifting speed work, where only the lower rep range for speed work is usually needed, endurance athletes will also need endurance speed work to be programmed in for optimal carryover to race performance. 

6.      Perform Free Motion Functional Movements with Strength Training To train for performance, muscular coordination, balance, stabilization and movement patterns must all be addressed with exercise.  This means that squatting, pulling, pushing, rotation and locomotive variations all better be addressed within a runner’s strength training program.  (Unless you run while sitting down on a pad while the rest of your body is stabilized for you that is).

7.      Develop Other Energy  Systems-  Endurance activities primarily train aerobic endurance; however, all energy systems are active to some extent.  Developing anaerobic capacity, anaerobic power and aerobic power will assist the aerobic system and will make you faster, more durable and will give you that extra kick when you need it.   Anaerobic capacity can be trained by performing high intensity intervals with an activity such as a sprint for a long period of time.  This trains the body to buffer substances such as hydrogen ions more effectively and trains the body to perform at higher intensities for a longer duration of time without gassing out.  Rest periods will be long enough to allow the body to generate sufficient intensity but not long enough to develop full power, which is mentioned next. 

Anaerobic power can be trained with a similar activity but with a longer rest period between rounds.  This trains the body to perform as fast and powerfully as possible while utilizing the fastest of the fast twitch muscle fibers.  Each individual round is more important here. 

Training for aerobic power trains the heart to pump blood stronger with each beat and betters the aerobic system's ability to work effectively (i.e. deliver oxygen) towards higher intensity ranges and heart rates.  Increasing the heart's performance here will make aerobic endurance feel like cake.  This is done with fairly high intensity activities with the heart rate towards the upper end of the aerobic range and lower end of anaerobic range. The intensity and heart rate is not quite as high as anaerobic work (which can get up to 180+) but it is significantly higher than typical aerobic endurance work (150-160 vs. 120-140) and the work to rest ratio is generally 1-1 to 1-0.5.   Sprints, prowler work, sled work, jump rope, kettlebell drills and battle ropes are all good options to train these qualities.  I highly recommend checking out Ultimate MMA Conditioning by Joel Jameison and Block Periodization by Vladimir Issurin to learn more about specific energy system development.  Bill Hartman also has tons of great info on specific energy system development.  Priceless sources full of great information!

8.      Develop Fast Twitch Oxidative Fibers-  Your body has different muscle fiber types.  There are two fast twitch types.  Although primarily used for high intensity power movements,  one fast twitch type has quite the potential to assist with endurance, known as fast twitch oxidative fibers.  Developing these fibers can go a long way with assisting your performance.  These will be developed pretty well with anaerobic capacity and aerobic power training discussed above (there will usually be some overlap between training with these two qualities).  To develop these specific fibers, performing activity that is intense enough to activate the proper motor units must be done over and over again for long periods of time. A couple examples that I like to use include the following.  Pad or Prowler pushing with a decently heavy weight is done for ~8-10 second trips every 20 seconds for up to 20-25 minutes.  Squats in the 90% intensity range are done for 1-2 reps every 20-30 seconds for up to 20 minutes. This is brutally hard work but will pay off in huge dividends for any endurance athlete as developing the oxidative capacity of these fibers will give lots of assistance to the slow twitch fibers that are usually relied heavily upon during a race. 

9.      Develop Slow Twitch Fibers-  These fibers are heavily relied upon with endurance activities.  Specifically training them in the weight room can make them stronger and help them to reach their full potential.  Many people don't realize that these fibers can actually be developed outside of endurance activities.  A great way to do this is by using a fairly slow tempo with exercises.  Performing an exercise such as a row with a 3 second eccentric and 3 second concentric phase will train these fibers; thus, helping them to perform better when called upon in a race. 

10.  Do Something Other than Your Usual Events-  If you do anything at all, at least perform some other form of training, as doing the same activity and nothing else will limit your progress.  Adaptation is one of the most basic laws of performance.  Your body will adapt to what you do.  If all you do is run, bike, etc. you will only improve so much.  Developing all of these other qualities will provide your body with the change and shock that it needs to improve and will give it the true help that it needs from all of the appropriate systems. 


Remember, random training equals random results.  Create your goal, develop a plan to reach it and work hard. 

 

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Training For Runners Part 2 (Taken from SAC Newsletter)

11/5/2010

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If you haven't already read it, here is Part 1


Some of the main things runners need to work on that many completely skip with their strength training are the following. 


Max Strength Development

Strength is the base point of pretty every other physical quality.  The nervous system must be trained to fire more motor units and muscle fibers and to do so more efficiently.  The more force one puts into the ground, the faster he/she will be.  This can help the optimization of stride length and stride frequency, which can knock a lot of time off of a race.  To build max strength, big bang exercises such as back squats, front squats, deadlifts and many more must be performed for multiple sets of low reps  (4-6 sets of 1-5 reps) with maximal weights. 

Speed Strength Development

If you want to cut time off of your run, it should be common sense that you would want to be faster, right? Training the nervous system to fire motor units and muscle fibers faster will allow one to shave more time off and run a faster, more efficient race.  This can be done with many different squatting, pushing and pulling variations with many sets of lower to moderate reps with lighter to moderate weights.  For straight speed strength, 8-12 sets of 2-3 explosive reps works well.  For speed strength endurance, 6-8 sets of 5-10 explosive reps works well.  An exercise like the back squat would work well with this.

Addressing Muscular Imbalances

Everybody has some type of imbalance that could be worked on.  Runners tend to have more than average.  The repetitive motion that is performed for an unbelievable number of steps tends to create problems.  One big issue that tends to be common is hip imbalances.  From my experience,  a weak glute medius muscle on either one or both sides of the body is quite common.  When this muscle doesn’t fire or do its job, the knee will cave and the foot will crossover during foot strike.  This can cause knee, hip and/or back pain over time and repetition.   Single leg movements such as lunge variations and glute med specific movements such as clam shells and side leg raises can help with this.  This is just one of many possible imbalances.  If it is one side, things tend to be worse.

Performing Free Motion Functional Movements

Relying only on machines does nothing for performance.  To train for performance, muscular coordination, balance, stabilization and movement patterns must all be addressed with exercise.  This means that squatting, pulling, pushing, rotation and locomotive variations all better be addressed within a runner’s strength training program.  (Unless you run while sitting down on a pad while the rest of your body is stabilized for you that is).

If you run and are missing out on any of these things, you better get to work!!!

 

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Glute Medius Progression

9/11/2010

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So I have received inquiries about exercises I do/have done with Dan, the marathon runner who had hip issues, that I train.  I've been working on getting more videos taken.  If you haven't already done so, be sure to read the hip impingement blog from months back.   Here is a vid explaining some basic progressions I like to use to get the glute medius functioning better. Check it out.
One thing I want to point out.  As you saw in the video, he flexed his hip when he first did the side leg raise.  I then cued him into extension.  He could be extended better than what we finished with; he was fatigued since we did this after his entire workout.  When the hip flexes, that means that the tfl (abducts the hip just like the glute med, tends to become more dominant) is trying to do the work.  So always be sure that the hip is extended fully when raising the leg up.  The side leg raise is done against the wall first while actively pushing back into the wall with the heel to ensure that the glute is doing the work.  The side leg raise shown here is done after.

As I said, it is very important to do multi joint exercises to get the muscle working in a "real time" environment.  Single leg exercises Dan has done and progressed with include split squats, stepups, reverse lunges, forward lunges, and progression from dumbbells to barbells with each.  Bulgarian split squats and one leg squats would be the next that I would use.  Hip dominant exercises include one leg glute bridges, one leg rdl's, hip thrusts, band stomps and single leg reverse hypers.  These all get the glute max nice and strong as well, which he lacked. 

When we first started, his left glute med was much weaker than his right so extra sets were done for the left with the clam shells.  I also used a band to teach him to keep his knee straight during single leg movements. 

After a couple of phases with all unilateral movements, we added in some bilateral movements including plate squats, back squats, front squats, yoke bar squats, pull-throughs,  rdl's, sumo rdl's, good mornings and reverse hypers (in different phases obviously). 

On top of all of the glute work (his glute was not extending the hip like it was supposed to so the femur rubbed against the socket, hence the reason for so much glute work), his tfl, rectus femoris and psoas needed length (psoas actually needed some strength too).  So plenty of stretching and mobility work has been done for these muscles.  The hip flexor stretch I have previously shown has been a mainstay.  It should also be noted that specific abdominal muscles play a role in what goes on at the hip and pelvis as well.(  We will save that for another post. 

He now has hardly any hip pain or clicking and has actually begun to get into some light running drills without issues.  Doing what needs to be done in the weight room to help running performance and prevent injury is HUGE and hopefully more runners will begin to realize this.  In a future post (hopefully soon future), I will discuss some of the energy systems training Dan has done to maintain and build his endurance while simultaneously strengthening his hips and fixing his problems.  Stay tuned!!
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Running to Get in Shape or Getting in Shape to Run?

2/24/2010

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Is this guy heading towards great shape or a great amount of pain?
Ok, I gotta break this down because I see people everyday running who simply have no business running.  One of the first things a ton of people seem to do when they decide that they are going to get in shape is run.  I'm talking long distance, slow and steady running. There is really no rhyme or specific reason for it, most people in America simply think that running is the way to get in awesome shape.  Why? I don't know, wish I did.  Heck, I've even had some athletes who used to run a mile to warmup before their lifting sessions.  Why? I doubt that their coaches would have a good answer if you asked them.

Don't get me wrong, running can be a great form of exercise IF you are ready for it and IF it is used at the right time.  I used to run all the time (and ended up with stress fractures because I wasn't ready for the amount I was doing and didn't have a proper understanding of what I was doing, back in high school) and still do on occasion.  Every time your foot strikes the ground during a run, you are putting multiple times your bodyweight of force through your joints.  Add up each of those foot strikes during an entire run and you end up with A LOT of stress going through those joints.  Now, if you do not have sufficient muscular support to help absorb that force, then you are asking for a world of hurt my friend.  Not only that, but if you have any kind of muscular imbalance in your hips, thighs, back, etc.  then you are asking for an injury and a whole list of problems. 

I glanced over at the treadmills the other day and noticed a girl running who had some nasty things going on in her hips and it was clear she had a major imbalance between each side.  I guarantee that if she doesn't already, she's bound for unilateral knee pain. 

So, if you want to run and insist that it is the exercise form of your choice, please do yourself a favor and make sure that you are in shape to run.  Most people simply are not.  Besides, if your goal is to lose fat and simply get into great shape, building muscle is the most important thing to do.  So lift some weights first and foremost, do some form of energy systems work that isn't murder on your joints like running is, and go from there.  Be sure to check out earlier posts about fat loss training and comparisons of different conditioning protocols if you want to know more.
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