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. 

 

Could the competitive stage be in her future?

The last transformation story featured Joe Becker.  Joe has a favorite quote that was written by the man himself, Louie Simmons.  "Some men grow older, others grow stronger."  This is a brilliant quote and I'm going to go ahead and change "men" to "people." In this month's feature, Veronica Ariens, aka Big Ron the Ripper, will be featured and she is the definition of this quote. 

At 61 years young, she outtrains and outperforms most people in their twenties.  She is truly an inspiration.  Over the course of the last year, she has dropped around 9% bodyfat and is now in the low 20 percent range, which is considered excellent for females at any age let alone over 50. She has also shed inches off of her waist and abdomen. She can knock out pushups and pullups with the best of em, squat and deadlift well over her bodyweight and has developed the conditioning of an animal.

Even more impressive, she follows some amazingly consistent eating habits and it shows in both her physique and performance.  She has even been asked on more than one occasion if she is a cop.  There are some clients that, with a little guidance and direction, will go above and beyond what you would normally expect and take things into their own hands in order to push limits and achieve their goals.  Ronnie is one of those clients.  Even when she is not working directly with me, she gets in for extra workouts multiple days a week with her partner Gwen (who I'm sure will be featured soon as well).

Any females (and males for that matter) that think pain, injuries and osteoporosis are all that await you as you grow older and that you can't train hard and be an athlete after college have proof right here.  Get better everyday; there are no excuses.  In addition to the body comp changes in the pics below, take note of the great postural improvements all the way up and down the body, both in rotation and flexion/extension.  Big congratulations to Ronnie, keep up all of the amazing work!!

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After



Get to work kids.

Ronnie in action

I recently wrote an article for Exercisesforinjuries.com.  Its being posted as a series and the first part can be read now HERE  Be sure to check it  out and share it with friends and colleagues if you like it.  I discuss my journey to coming back stronger from a back injury including what issues that I had that gave me problems, training mistakes I've made and learned from, exercises and training I've done to come back stronger than ever and advice for anyone trying to get through an injury or setback with their training.  Give it a read!!
And dont miss
PART 2

So I am finally finished with massage therapy school.  With the high volume of training I've been doing and the final intense stages of school, I have not had much time to do any extensive writing lately.  Now that I am done with school and the national board exam, I plan on getting some more frequent writing in.  To kick things off, I have written an article for Suite 304's newsletter (Miller SWC and Hands on Inc.) and want to share with you an experience that one of my clients recently went through.  You can find the article on my articles page.  Read about Kaz's adventure below!!

One of my wonderful clients, Kathy Kas Amby aka Kaz (which coincidentally happens to be the nickname of a legendary powerlifter and strongman) recently competed in a powerlifting meet for the senior olympics.  She won the women's division and did an awesome job.  It was great to watch her go through her training leading up to the meet and then go out there and tear it up when it counted.  She finished with a 135 squat that was easy; she definitely could have hit more and will for sure next time.  She then hit a 65 pound bench press before just missing 80 pounds.  To finish her day off, she pulled an awesome 160 pound deadlift that solidified the win. She accomplished these great lifts after only just under 2 months of powerlifting specific training.  Awesome job Kaz and may her performance and determination be an inspiration to everybody!!! Check out some pics and vids below!!