Ryan

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I read a lot of interesting things this week but much didn’t really seem to fit into a blog post well. Here are three that I thought might be interesting for the blog.

Seeing blue

I’ve long been a fan of the color blue. I think it shows in this site.

Well, maybe my next pair of sunglasses should have lenses that match my blue HillRunner.com gear.

The findings of this research suggest that exposure to the color blue improves performance of a muscular endurance based task. Such a simple and inexpensive performance enhancement warrants further investigation to explore different exercise modalities as well as effects of different colored lenses, and the mechanisms as to how color affects performance.

Red had no effect in this study.

I agree with the conclusion. Further study is warranted. Am I rushing out to buy a pair of sunglasses with blue lenses? Heck no. However, I will probably be in the market soon and will this cross my mind if a pair I’m considering has blue lenses? Along with the thought of how they would look with my HillRunner.com gear, sure.

Keep your arteries healthy

We all know the importance of being healthy. However, how could not being healthy affect our performance? There’s a lot of question about that, though I’ve always believed being unhealthy should obviously not be good for your performance.

Well, here’s some evidence of that.

Arterial health appears to be an important determinant of muscle oxygenation during exercise. In turn, the muscle oxygenation during exercise is strongly related to the V˙O2peak. Developing training modalities to prioritise arterial health outcomes may be a useful way of improving V˙O2peak in this population.

Now, this was sedentary middle-aged individuals (ages generally in the 50s). Maybe not a lot of carry over to highly active athletes in their 20s but why not? I’d love to see some studies on arterial health and how it affects well trained athletes at all ages.

Marathon battle of the sexes

Battle of the sexes. I love these. It’s interesting in how many ways we can find women are smarter than men. If we check who slows more in the second half, what do you think the results will show?

Men slow more than women in marathons. D’oh!

The sex difference in pacing is robust. It may reflect sex differences in physiology, decision making, or both.

I have my suspicions. In my experience, it’s the men who are far more likely to set unreasonable goals and refuse to give up on them until they begin walking at 20 miles. Women are more conservative in their goal setting and more willing to adjust their goals if unforeseen circumstances arise.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

In an ironic twist, a day after my post on summer running went live I came across a study on what about the heat affects us. Also this week, pre-exercise static stretching and a better way to warm up?

First, what is it about the heat that affects our running? For the longest time, we’ve been told it’s that our core temperature rises to near dangerous levels and our bodies shut down to protect themselves.

Well, what if that’s not the case?

There were no group differences in core temperature and heart rate response during the exercise trials.

…

This capacity difference appears to result from a magnified core to skin gradient via an environmental temperature advantageous to convective heat loss, and in part from an increased sweat rate.

In short, the study had runners running in temperatures of roughly 64, 79, 93 and 108 degrees farenheit. It found no statistically significant difference in core body temperature or heart rate between runners running at these different temperatures. What it did find was that the difference between core temperature and skin temperature was lower and sweat rate was higher in the higher temperatures. The suggested conclusion is that these factors, not core body temperature, are what actually affect our performance in the heat.

Of course, this is just one study. It would be nice to see some follow up to see if others can produce the same results.

Assuming these results can be reproduced, though, how might we act on this? Well, I’ve always been a fan of pouring cups of water over your head and/or body at aid stations when racing in the heat. That would help cool your skin, which according to this would help your performance. Anything else you can do to help cool your skin would, presumably, do the same. This is probably the mechanism by which those chill vests some elite athletes use before warm weather races work.

Second, does static stretching affect our performance

The going concern over pre-exercise static stretching is that our power output is reduced. Well, it is…in some cases.

Basically, this goes back to something I have been seeing a lot of recently. If you static stretch a muscle for more than 45 seconds, its power output is reduced. If you static stretch for less, no reduction in power output.

So, if you feel like you need static stretching pre-run, do it. Just don’t hold it for too long. Personally, I’ve always felt better in races when I did some stretching pre-race but I don’t hold the stretches for long. So my takeaway from this is keep doing what I’ve been doing. That’s probably the takeaway most runners should get from this.

Finally, make sure you do some harder running in your warmups

I’ve long been a fan of warmups that increase in intensity. Start very easy, build up over time and finish with some strides at or slightly faster than race pace shortly before the start of the race. It’s just the way I’ve been taught to do my warmups and it makes intuitive sense. You’re preparing yourself to run hard so why wouldn’t you run hard as part of that preparation?

Scott Douglas writes about a study to delve into this a little deeper with some interesting results.

In short, runners did some strides and moderately paced running as part of warmups twice. In once case, they wore weighted vests during the strides. In the other case, they did not. After wearing the weighted vests, their running economy and peak speed improved.

What to make of this? Should we all go out and buy weighted vests? One interesting idea that comes to mind for me is using skipping exercises for exaggerated power output. Another is doing something like Jay Johnson’s lunge matrix, which I know he has mentioned as a good pre-race routine.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Because I didn’t post on Monday last week due to a weekend trip with the family, I have two weeks worth of reading to catch up on. Hopefully, that means what I’m picking will be the best of the best. Twice as good? We can hope.

Cramps and Gatorade

I never thought I’d be linking to Deadspin but here you go (warning: some use of "adult" language included).

Here’s the thing: We actually don’t know for sure what causes a muscle cramp, despite what you may have heard from your high school football coach, or your half-marathoning buddy, or your gym-rat friend, or a sports-drink commercial. And the reason we don’t know has a lot to do with Gatorade and the "science" of hydration.

This summarizes what we know about cramping pretty well. I often thought, if cramping were all about hydration or electrolyte levels, why do runners get hamstring cramps, not biceps cramps? Well, this explains why not, given the current knowledge.

It also takes an interesting side trip into the Gatorade Sports Science Institute (GSSI) and points out some shortcomings. Most notably, ask yourself if GSSI is about expanding our knowledge of sports science so Gatorade can make a better product, why as Gatorade remained essentially unchanged for decades? Is their job to improve the product or improve the marketing?

Grit

The title says it all: How Much Grit Have You Got?

…individuals who believe that frustration and confusion are signs that they should quit what they are doing may be taught that these emotions are common during the learning process. Likewise, individuals who believe that mistakes are to be avoided at all costs may be taught that the most effective form of practice …entails tackling challenges beyond one’s current skill level.

I just love that quote. Obviously, grit is very important for success at anything. I would say this is especially true in running. You need to sustain that long term interest mentioned in this article and you need to have those long term goals and not give up on them. I strongly believe we can train our grit. We can become grittier individuals. It takes a lot of hard work but it can be done.

Taking in carbs during training

Finally, a topic I’ve been interested in for some time. I am a strong believer in the idea that you have to train while fueled sometimes and while not fueled sometimes. For runners, this means taking in calories on some long runs and not on others, maybe even not taking in calories before or during some long runs. Those fueled long runs will help your body become more efficient at processing the calories you’re ingesting and using them. The unfueled long runs will help your body become more efficient at burning fat and teach your body to use more fat early on, even when glycogen is still ready available. In addition, they will stimulate changes that will help the body store more glycogen.

Well, here’s a review that backs up that idea.

Finally, athletes should practise ‘train-low’ workouts in conjunction with sessions undertaken with normal or high CHO availability so that their capacity to oxidise CHO is not blunted on race day.