Posture, weightlifting, metabolic expenditure and of course, running

In the pursuit of running with beautiful form the maintenance of proper posture is crucial.  Posture is the most efficient alignment of the spine and hips while running to provide the least amount of resistance and the most effective stride pattern.  From the ground up: foot under the hip, hips forward (lead with the belly button), chest up (not slouched forward), head up and eyes ahead (not down).  Watching a video of any of the best runners in the world will confirm that proper posture is quite upright and allows for smooth and flowing strides.

The musculature that is involved in allowing proper posture is essentially the muculature of the posterior chain, the abdominals, and the muscles surrounding the hips.  Naturally, these muscles will develop over time with running properly, you will be forced to hold upright longer and under more intense speeds as you become more fit.  However, you can get a jump on developing these muscles by including pull ups, squats, back extensions, and several hip movements intended to strengthen the hip complex. 

The best part of developing some more muscle tissue is that it allows metabolic demand to be increased. Muscular tissue requires more caloric expenditure daily to maintain.  This is a double edged sword however, with more muscular tissue, you have to increase caloric intake to prevent the body from breaking muscles down for energy. 

Be more than just a runner, be an athlete.

3k-5k:
5-7 miles easy pace

5k-10k:
6-8 miles easy pace

10k-21k:
6-9 miles easy pace

21k+:
6-9 miles easy pace

Post run strength:
A1. DumbBell row (1arm) 6-8 reps; rest 20 seconds between arms
A2. Clap Push ups; amrap (-2); 3 min rest
B. 200 lunges for time
C. Back Extension; 3 sets of 25; 90 second rest

June 14th

All: Pre run lunge matrix

5k: Easy 4-7 Miles

5k-10k: Easy 5-8 Miles

10k-21k: Easy 6-9 Miles

21k+: Easy 6-11 Miles

Mobility Mobility Mobility!

Running Logs

A training cycle can be considered a scientific experiment of sorts. If it's your first one, you are figuring out your limitations and testing your fitness in a race. If you have trained through many training cycles, you are usually repeating previous successful cycles with small tweaks here and there based on the outcomes. Maybe your mileage was too high and you got an overuse injury. Maybe you did not put the work in on the track and you shorted yourself with a slower time. Whatever the case may be, this new training cycle is a chance to right any wrongs, and perhaps try something new. It is difficult to know what to change, however, if you do not know for certain what you have done in the past.

A training log is your own personal method of keeping track of what you have done in the past and what you can change. Our brains are remarkable organs and are capable of making great calculations based on previous experience. You can probably look at a week in a log that is an anomaly and explain exactly what happened to make it different (you got sick, you had final exams, work was in the way). A detailed log, however, allows you to not only know what was different (less mileage, more mileage, extra day off) but also allows you to  monitor pace, effort, injury, etc.

Matt Fitzgerald has published a great log called the Runner's Diary. It allows a lot of information to be logged easily every day. Otherwise, there are several online logs that allow similar information to be logged a couple are trainingpeaks.com, flotrack.org, active.com

Know yourself and know what you have done, in order to know what you are capable of doing in the future.

3k-5k:
5 mile easy run + (6 x 150m strides)
Strength Training

5k-10k
6-7 mile easy run + (10 x 100 m strides)
Strength training

10k-21k
6-9 mile easy run with 5 x 1 minute pick ups
Strength Training

21k+
6-12 mile easy run + (3 x 300m Strides)


Strength Training for the day:
A1. Bent over Dumbbell row 4-6 reps per arm x 5; 20 second rest
A2. Push Ups AMRAP; 4 min rest
B. Pull Ups 4 sets of 8-12; 3 min rest
C. Sit ups 4 sets of 25; 90 second rest
D. Lunges; 200 as fast as possible with perfect form

Post weights, reps, times and thoughts to comments

Fish and Inflammation

Inflammation is becoming a hot topic in nutrition these days. With diets like The Zone, The Paleo Diet, Atkins, South Beach, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, McDonalds every day, and the list goes on and on, it seems that most are picking up on the idea that chronic low grade inflammation is almost an epidemic in the US and by controlling it, the diet can be far more successful.

So what is chronic low grade inflammation? It is an inflammation of the tissues (organ and muscle tissues) that is nearly constant (chronic) and not extremely noticable (low grade) so it is often unnoticed, and untreated. It matters because constant low grade inflammation has been linked to heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, several cancers and several other diseases. Heart disease is a major issue in western health and will be the basis for our discussion from here on out. When tissues are constantly inflamed over long periods of time (we're talking years) the actual genetic expression of the heart cells will be altered, which often causes the immune system to respond by attacking the new genetic expression. Unfortunately, the altered gene is not attacking the tissues in every case, but the immune system just views it as foreign body that needs to be attacked. From there a cascade of several physiological changes eventually results in heart disease.

Most runners are unconcerned with heart disease, because of the health of the heart tissues resulting from long term training effects of aerobic exercise. Inflammation, however, is not limited to the heart, it can also manifest itself in the muscular tissues and tendons which can result in pain or discomfort. Most runners attribute this to training effects and treat it with icing and other anti-inflammatory remedies. Inflammation can also manifest in the digestive system, which is much harder to apply ice to. If you've ever been on a run and had a digestive problem, you see the seriousness of this topic.

Controlling inflammation can be simplified into managing your ratios of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fats. Omega-3's are the good, Omega-6's are the bad. The current western diet results in a ratio of approximately 12:1 of Omega-6:Omega-3. A great diet will have a 3-4:1, an ideal diet will be 2:1. The abundance of Omega-6's is unavoidable, but there are some relatively simple ways to manage the ratio.

Fish oil supplementation is the easiest and fastest remedy outside of completely cleaning up the diet. Adding several grams of fish oil (yes, grams - that's 1,000mg) to your daily diet will help manage inflammatory responses. If you know you're going out to a restaurant, or you simply can't say no to a high sugar, refined, or processed food, throw down a couple grams of fish oil before you consume.

Making sure you have plenty of lean meats in your diet will help as well. Turkey, chicken, fish, and any type of shell-fish contain plenty of omega-3's. You can also find eggs with Omega-3 added to them.

The most effective way to manage your inflammation is to clean up your diet. Lean meats, fruits, vegetables and some nuts (not peanuts) as the main staples in your diet will allow you to achieve anti-inflammatory nirvana.

For more information on nutrient timing and nutrition for endurance athletes, come to Dick Pond Athletics in Lisle, IL this Thursday at 6pm for a fun run and then a quick nutrition seminar.

Base Phase Workout:

3k-5k:
30 minutes easy
            +
10 x 100m strides (jog back recovery)

5k-21k
30-50 minutes easy (depending on feel and distance training for)
            +
2 x (300, 200, 100m strides)

21k+
4-6 miles easy

All: complete 100m of lunges after strides

Post distance run, times, comments, feeling, recovery to the comments

Building a Strong Base

Building a strong base as an athlete is paramount to longevity of a season. But base-phase training is not only long slow distance runs, it should also involve working on structural strength and mobility.

The idea behind the base phase is that the lower intensity of running allows the body to adapt to the pounding of running for long periods of time. Working on speed later in the season stresses the muscles exponentially more than base phase running and stresses the body more metabolically. Increased stress can lead to increased incidence of injury through a myriad of different avenues. So working on running long and slow will slowly adapt the body and allow a safe and steady incrimental increase in mileage. At the end of the base phase often you'll be running close to your peak mileage for the year, then as mileage decreases, intensity can increase with less risk of injury.

Base phase training can (and in my opinion should) involve strength and mobility work. Mobility should be stressed all year, but especially during early season running in order to increase mobility and allow small injuries from the previous season to be relieved as well as prevent any traumatic injuries that may occur and overuse injuries in the future.

Strength work is underemphasized in the running world, in my opinion. Mastering basic weightlifting movements and practicing them, especially during the base season, can only improve running technique and help improve performance. For example, a back squat (Squatting with a barbell resting on your shoulders) not only increases muscular strength in the legs, it also increases bone density in the legs and core skeletal system. A basic back squat also reinforces mobility in the hips and ankles, strength in the upper back, abdominals, and gluteals and improves the structural integrity of the tendons and ligaments in the hips, knees and ankles. Many runners are disinterested in lifting a barbell over their heads, but a basic barbell press allows the core muscles to engage with a vertical load being placed on it (similar to running, but the load is coming from below, still on the vertical plane). The barbell press will also allow improved strength in the postural muscles and again, reinforce the density of the skeletal system being stressed.

Strength training is a great way to improve your technique by reinforcing the core muscle groups necessary to running with good form. There is no end to resources out there to finding out what you can do to become stronger, but remember safety is number one and technique is always more important than pounds lifted.

If you're interested in receiving a personalized strength training program contact Peak Performance at stone.davidj@gmail.com

Base Phase Workout:
Now that you've had a week to acclimate to running...

3k - 5k:
3-5 miles easy

5k-10k
4-7 miles easy

10k - 21k
5-9 miles easy

21k+
7-11 miles easy

Post Run for all:
40 Sit Ups
30 Push Ups
20 Pull Ups

Mobility Wod:

Don't forget to come to Dick Pond in Lisle this Thursday at 6pm for a fun run and a Peak Performance Training lecture on endurance nutrition!

Mobility Matters

Endurance athletes are notoriously not mobile. This is a problem. In the ancient days of endurance sports there were schools of thought that believed it was beneficial to be less flexible and that increased flexibility would decreaes force production of the legs during distance events. Upon investigation, however, there have been no studies that support that statement significantly. On a recent run, I was blessed to meet a young man from the Sudan who is an extremely talented runner. Upon completion of our run he began to do a series of drills that displayed (in addition to his overwhelming reserve of energy) incredible flexibility.

It makes more sense for a runner (or any athlete) to be as flexible as possible, it can only decrease the amount of work needed to complete a foot cycle. Let's think about it: the amount of force required to propel the body forward when running is going to be the same whether the runner has high or low mobility, as it relates to mass x acceleration. Mobility does not apply to mass (your body weight), and it only applies to acceleration in as much as the musculature's ability to contract efficiently. The muscles used to run do make up the tension that must be overcome to complete a foot cycle. Since mobility does not really apply to force, where does mobility affect runners?

Mobility is related to the tension that the legs must overcome to function properly. Think about your legs now: you have quadriceps in the front of the legs that flex the hips and raise the knees up. In the back, you have hamstrings and gluteals which pull the legs back down providing the force that propels the body over the foot and thus, forward. Now if you increase the tension of the hamstrings significantly, they will be in a constant state of pulling the leg posteriorly (toward the back). Now, instead of simply overcoming gravity + the weight of your leg to lift your knees to run, you also have to use that musculature to overcome the tension of your hamstrings. Initially, this is minimal, but anyone who has run long-distances will tell you, the small things begin to matter more and more the longer you run.

Still not convinced? Spend one week working on your mobility and tell me your quality of life has not improved. If you need a place to begin, look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkPLnVU1KOo&feature=player_embedded

Base Phase Workout:
Lunge Matrix: http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2010/04/lunge-matrix-as-warm-up/
Followed by 30 minutes easy and consistent
Then, 10 x 100m (or 15 seconds) strides
Lastly, 2 x 10 pull ups with 4 minutes rest between sets.

Nutrition: Improve Quality, Increase Quantity

Nutrition can be a touchy subject for some athletes, especially endurance athletes. The idea of changing things up from a training standpoint can be terrifying, but when changing things from a nutrition standpoint, it's simply unheard of. However, I think once any athlete looks at their diet there will almost always be some concessions that can be made. The book Once a Runner has a famous quote that, I believe, sums up the attitude of many endurance athletes, "If the fire is hot enough, it'll burn anything". Implying that as long as you train your ass off you can eat whatever you want and not worry about negative health effects. While it's true that if you burn enough calories, you won't gain weight, and you can actually run the best race of your life even if you eat Mcdonald's every day for a month (See this link: http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/Illinois-marathon-runner-only-eats-McDonalds-as-he-trains-for-his-next-race-031011) there is more to nutrition than calories-in/calories-out.

Quality of diet is not the whole ball game when it comes to becoming a better athlete, but it can be a very important piece of the puzzle and, in fact, when the quality of food you eat is good, you get to eat more of it. So what constitutes high quality food? The types of foods that provide sufficient nutrients without causing an inflammatory response from your body, and that will not overload you with excess, unnecessary calories. That was a mouthful (pun somewhat intended). Let's break that statement down.

Sufficient nutrients: As a human the functions of the body are fueled by the food that is ingested. The more work you do (physical activity) the more energy you need (caloric intake). If only it were that simple. If you expend 2,000 calories/day, in theory, you could function just fine taking in 2,000 calories of strawberry rhubarb pie. Unfortunately, strawberry rhubarb pie does not contain the necessary amount of protein required to sustain high intensity activity. Eventually, performance and health in general would begin to decline. The term "balanced diet" is used to describe proper nutrition as it involves taking in all of the macro and micro nutrients necessary for optimum health and performance. Thus, in order to provide an athlete with the sufficient nutrients for peak performance and health, drawing nutrients from several different sources will ensure that all nutrient needs are met.

Inflammatory Response: Most athletes are familiar with inflammation as a concept. The most acute and understandable source of inflammation is injury (the swelling of a sprain involves inflammation of the tissues in the ankle). Inflammation can be brought on by several different causes, one of which is food. Inflammatory foods are the foods that your body does not process well, and which cause tissues to become inflamed. Usually, inflammation occurs in the internal tissues and organs, but can often manifest itself in muscular tissues. Studies on diet with rheumatoid arthritis patients have shown that anti-inflammatory diets can relieve much of the inflammation of RA. More recent studies are beginning to show that athletes can also be affected by inflammatory responses to diet. Foods that can cause inflammation: Gluten, cheese, low-grade meat, refined sugar, refined flower, omega-6 fatty acids.

Excess, unnecessary calories: Excess calories are those calories that go beyond the caloric needs of the day and are most often found in foods that are not nutrient dense. Interestingly enough, those foods that are not dense in nutrients, but contain excessive calories are often those that are also inflammatory foods. Pastas, breads, desserts, alcohol and several other foods contain plenty of calories, but are low in nutritous content. It's true, pasta contains many carbohydrates but serving sizes in the US often contain more than enough carbohydrates to fulfill a day's needs, but are difficult to digest, dehydrate athletes, and provide very few vitamins or minerals.

Figuring out what to eat can be difficult. Making a drastic diet change can be nearly impossible. The easiest place to start in making a positive nutritious change is in diet quality. When you eat high quality foods (lean meats, fruits, vegetables) you get to eat more of them with few negative results. As you begin to dial in your nutrition as an athlete there will be small nuances that make big differences. Finding those small details can take a long time, and involve a lot of trial and error, but you can make a simple positive change immediately by improving the quality of foods you eat.



Base Phase Workout:
45 minute run easy and consistent (if you live near hills, run them)
MWOD Afterwards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ro45mUvQzo&feature=player_embedded
Then, 20 push ups (Unbroken)


Post distance run, feelings in the MWOD

Run Beautifully

I titled this post after a chapter in Matt Fitzgerald's book "Run: The Mind Body Method of Running" because I think it very simply and eloquently sums up the answers to many questions involving running form. Naturally, it is possible to go into great detail about footstrikes, arm carriage, pelvic alignment, etc. etc. etc. but I find it unrealistic and impractical to tell any group of people to focus on striking their foot directly beneath their hip, maintaining a specific angle of postural alignment or anything else extremely precise and specific. While it may benefit a runner to know all of that, the reality is that when you put your shoes on and hit the road, you can't watch yourself run through a Dartfish camera in super slow-mo. The best you can do is feel how you are running. I practiced this over the several months I spent recovering from Plantar Fasciitis, and I found a few consistent and practical practices.

The first is to recognize what beautiful running is. I've included a couple videos to look at and will describe them in further detail later, but nearly any professional race you watch will contain several runners who appear to be running effortlessly (they're not really running without effort, it just looks like it) and that is often beautiful running. If you can read this, you obviously have the internet, use it to look up videos of races (search Diamond League Races, Olympic Races, World Championship Track, etc.) and get a good impression of what the runners look like while running and attempt to mimic that. 

The above is a video I got from Runblogger.com. He uses this video to describe foot placement and show the gait of a barefoot runner. I think this is a great example of beautiful form and it leads nicely into the next way to understand good form: look at what's NOT there.

There's a lot of biomechanic research about where the best place to put your foot is, where you should carry your arms, what angle you should have at your hip and the like. But there is so much variability in all of that between the elite runners who display beautiful form (see below), that you cannot say with 100% certainty any type of "Do this" when it comes to running. You can, however, say "Don't do this". So look at the video above and the one below, what don't we see? Heel striking, locked knees, curvature in the upper back (humped back), head-bobbing, winged-out elbows and more.

Let's focus on the most important:

Heel striking: Learning to run on the forefoot, or mid-foot can only improve your stride. It's hard to do and it will wreck your calves for a while when you start doing it regularly, but the soreness in your calves will be far more pleasant than the after-effects of being a heel-striker for mile after mile. We'll discuss this more in depth in the future, but for now, just think about running on the forefoot or mid-foot. You may find that increasing your cadence (the number of steps per minute you take) will help.

Curved Spine: You'll see in the video below, there is some variability in arm carriage and placement of the feet, but you will see that 25.7 miles into a marathon these men are running with great posture in their upper back (Ryan runs with a slight forward lean at his hip). At the same time you see that, also note that their shoulders are loose and their arms are swinging cleanly. They don't have d-bag shoulders, as Kelly Starrett would say.

Head Bobbing: Finally, you'll see in both videos above, that the head is stable. Without hunching the shoulders the head is not bobbing, shaking, weaving, whatever heads may do. Also, the eyes are fixed forward, not down. That's not to say they're not looking at the ground, but the nose is at least pointed straight ahead (slightly up in the case of Geb), and if the eyes are looking down, it's without moving the head.

In the most recent issue of Track and Field News, Nike Oregon Project coach Alberto Salazaar points out  that we teach our kids the skills of every other sport (baseball, basketball, football) but we never take the time to teach running as a skill. Running is the only sport that coaches say "it is what it is". Though humans are naturally made to run (another topic that will be discussed in depth in the future), we have adjusted our strides and picked up bad habits through several different mediums (shoes, inactivity, muscle weaknesses) and we need to re-learn the skill of running in order to be capable of doing it longer, faster, and with less injury.

Base Phase Run:

10 x 100m strides practicing form (Stride is not a sprint, but also not a jog. It's a speed you can use to focus on running with perfect form and turn your legs over quicker than you would during a run, but not as fast as possible); if you have access to a football field use that, otherwise do 10 x 15-20 seconds; rest as needed between strides

If yesterday's run was tough and you're recovering: 25-30 minutes easy and consistent OR

If yesterday's run was easy: 35-50 minutes easy and consistent; time dependent on distance of goal race.

Finish with 40 sit ups, 20 push ups, 10 pull ups (assisted pull ups are acceptable, if unable to do pull ups, do pull downs with a heavy weight to failure x 2)

Post distance run, mental technique used to find beautiful form, questions, comments and impressions of beautiful running.



Get Your Mind Right, Think Long-Term

Since the running boom of the 1970's there has been a constant, and often controversial, evolution of the best way to train to run faster and farther. Over 40 years, scientific research has allowed the running community to develop certain constants in training, many of them pointing to the simple fact that there are very few constants in training.

One often-ignored constant of training is the practice of building a season up to a peak race. To be a competitive racer is not just going out and repeating workout after workout expecting to run a new Personal Record in every race. The standard, and proven, construction of a racing season involves 4 to 5 macro-cycles (or phases) that lead to a taper (recovery period) prior to a peak race. After reaching a peak, it is often difficult to continue running at the same high level of running, so a rest phase often precedes the next base phase leading to a new peak. This creates a long-term look at running, and allows runners to see a life-time cycle of improvement and racing.

Peak Performance Training is intended to provide information on running as well as specific workouts and training phases daily with the intention of reaching a peak race twice each year. Whether running a 5k, 10k, half-marathon, or marathon, there will be specific workouts geared to allowing you to reach a race in peak shape, ready to run a new PR.

Before beginning any training program consult a physician and make sure that you are capable of exercising up to high intensities. In the mean time check out some of the links on the blog!

Base Phase Workout:

30-45 minute run at a consistent pace
Followed by MWOD: http://www.mobilitywod.com/2011/04/episode-213365-recovering-your-jumping-calves.html




Post distance run, feelings, comments, questions and compare your calves and feet before and after MWOD