Roundups

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

Another interesting batch of links this week in my opinion. Let’s jump right in.

Fascia

Most of us probably don’t think about our fascia short of that one well known part of it that runs along the bottom of our feet. However, it is extremely abundant throughout our bodies and important in so many ways.

Running Times had a good primer on it that I came across this week. I’d consider this a must read. I’m partly including it here so I can reference it myself and read it again.

Is drafting a placebo?

That’s the question Alex Hutchinson asked in one of his Sweat Science blog posts from this past week.

As usual, I think Hutchinson has a great point when he says there is a difference between placebo and avoiding mental fatigue. Just because something may not be measurable doesn’t mean it isn’t real. We may not notice a difference in wind resistance but that doesn’t mean there aren’t benefits, as he points out, in terms of mental fatigue in drafting. I found myself thinking the same thing he wrote as I was reading the paragraph before he wrote it.

Of course, then I also found myself thinking the same thing he was about to write moments later. Sometimes, with some personality types, a runner may experience less mental fatigue by leading than by following. It all depends on the type of runner you are. Once again, know yourself and you’ll be able to decide the better strategy but we can’t overlook the benefit of pacers who make our jobs easier. Expending less mental energy worrying about pace early can mean having more mental energy later to push through the physical fatigue or to strategize.

Dangers of tapering

Most of us know the taper is quite possibly the most difficult part of a training plan there is. I probably spend more time thinking about the taper than I do anything else. What to do to get things just right? How to make sure you find that balance of enough rest without going stale from resting too much?

Well, Steve Magness has some thoughts on this. I always like Magness’s writings because he does such a good job of balancing the science of sports physiology with the art of coaching. This post is no exception.

So what’s his answer to what’s the right taper? As with most things, the answer is it depends.

Find what type of athlete you are and remember what event you are training for. Do you need the psychology of the routine? Do you need more speed/power? Are you more FT or ST orientated? What event are you tapering for?

These questions and more will hopefully help you solve the conundrum of tapering.

Good thoughts as always. Definitely worth a read.

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.

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

It appears I’m borrowing heavily from the New York Times Well blog this week. No conspiracy, it just happened to have a couple very interesting things in it that I’d like to share and, for the first, expand on.

Have Fun!

First, some comments on Losing Weight May Require Some Serious Fun:

In that pursuit, the researchers first recruited 56 healthy, adult women, the majority of them overweight. The women were given maps detailing the same one-mile outdoor course and told that they would spend the next half-hour walking there, with lunch to follow.

Half of the women were told that their walk was meant to be exercise, and they were encouraged to view it as such, monitoring their exertion throughout. The other women were told that their 30-minute outing would be a walk purely for pleasure; they would be listening to music through headphones and rating the sound quality, but mostly the researchers wanted them to enjoy themselves.

…

Those women who’d been formally exercising reported feeling more fatigued and grumpy than the other women, although the two groups’ estimates of mileage and calories burned were almost identical. More telling, when the women sat down to a pasta lunch, with water or sugary soda to drink, and applesauce or chocolate pudding for dessert, the women in the exercise group loaded up on the soda and pudding, consuming significantly more calories from these sweets than the women who’d thought that they were walking for pleasure.

In other words, if you’re doing a chore, you are more tired, grumpy and likely to "reward" yourself by eating unhealthy "treats". If you’re out for a pleasure walk, the exact opposite.

This goes along with something I’ve said for a long time. We’re all better off if we do something we enjoy. Personally, I love running. It’s a release for me. It’s a joy to be out running. Can you believe, though, that I’ve actually encouraged some people to quit running and try something else? It’s true. I’ve had several instances where people have told me they dread running, they hate it but they want to keep running to stay healthy. Then they ask me how to keep at it. My answer is, if you don’t love running, don’t do it. Try bicycling, rollerblading, hiking, pick-up basketball, volleyball, touch football. Find something to do but make it something you enjoy.

Why do I tell people to quit running? Because it just makes intuitive sense. If you don’t like something, if you consider it a chore, two things are likely to happen.

First, you need to reward yourself for doing the chore. For those of us who love running, the run itself is the reward. For others, it’s very likely that bad habits like eating junk food will be the reward.

Second, you’re much less likely to keep doing it. Running is such a pleasure for me that I’ve never had trouble continuing to do it. Sure, I sometimes have trouble keeping the hard training going but my day isn’t right if I don’t at least get out the door for something. I have more trouble taking time away from running, even if it’s a single day, than I do getting out because my run is one of the best parts of my day. If running isn’t that for you, though, you’re not going to keep at it. I’d rather see you quit running right now and find something else you like to do instead than try to keep running and end up quitting in frustration and not picking up something else you might like more.

So keep running…if it’s what you like to do. If not, find something you do like to do and keep doing that.

Static stretching

Static stretching has been a hot topic of debate for some time now. Does it reduce or increase injury risk (answer: depends)? Does pre-run static stretching reduce running economy (answer: not likely unless you’re holding the stretches for unusually long periods of time)?

Well, this study takes a look at how it affects pacing in a 3K time trial. The results?

The overall running time did not change with condition (SS 11:35+/-00:31 s; control 11:28+/-00:41 s, p = 0.304), but the first 100 m was completed at a significantly lower velocity after SS. Surprisingly, SS did not modify the running economy, but the iEMG for the BF (+22.6%, p = 0.031), stride duration (+2.1%, p = 0.053) and range of motion (+11.1%, p = 0.0001) were significantly modified. Drop jump height decreased following SS (9.2%, p = 0.001).

I found it a little disturbing that they so soundly bought into the theory that static stretching affects running economy but I’m glad they pointed out that they didn’t find that in their study. The evidence is out there. This isn’t the first study to find these results.

That said, the results are interesting. You start slower over the first 100 meters after static stretching but there is no statistically significant difference in finish time. What does this tell us? I’m not sure. But it is another piece of evidence that pre-run static stretching does not in fact affect running economy. The evidence now suggests you’d have to hold your stretches for well over 30 seconds to do that. As I mentioned, the evidence is there. We need to get people paying attention to it.

A miracle hamstring exercise?

A hamstring exercise that can result in 70% fewer hamstring injuries?

In a 2011 study, 942 Danish soccer players were randomly assigned to either an off-season program of the Nordic exercise or normal training. In the subsequent season, those following the Nordic exercise program experienced 70 percent fewer injuries than the control-group athletes. Players who had previously suffered hamstring damage saw 85 percent fewer injuries.

The article notes that, according to "at least" a half dozen studies, injury rates may decrease by almost two-thirds with the use of this exercise.

This almost seems too good to be true but a half dozen studies suggests there is more here than just random chance. I’m still not completely sure what to do with this but, if I had a history of hamstring injuries, I think I’d be trying this exercise right now. I actually did pass this along to a runner I coach with a history of hamstring problems as soon as I finished reading it and I hope she considers trying this.

More coming Thursday. I started writing a post sharing a couple links and I realized it quickly was turning into too much to combine with my "have fun" comments into one single post.