Training

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

Here is an interesting article with some research that has given me something to think about. The idea of changing your foot strike depending on your particular issues such as knee pain versus ankle or Achilles pain is interesting.

https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/pounding-pavement-by-heel-or-toe/?_r=0

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

Mental fatigue matters

I’m sure many of us have been there and know intuitively that mental fatigue can affect our running. I know I’ve experienced those rough runs where I just feel physically drained after a day of work that required a lot of concentration or a long study session when I was in school.

Well, now we see a study that backs this up. The interesting thing about this study is that it appears we perceive more physical fatigue, even though when bypassing the brain the body is able to perform just as well.

It’s interesting to see the idea of training the brain to handle mental fatigue. Why? Because, about 2 weeks ago, I was reading about a protocol to do just that. Basically, you perform a task that fatigues your brain, then you go out for a run.

I can’t help but wonder if this is one of the next new frontiers in training for endurance athletes. It is a very interesting idea. Fortunately, if you want to get ahead of the curve, I think there are ways we can do that without waiting for this new protocol to come out. Do you have some mentally challenging tasks you have to get done this weekend? Try doing some of them before your long run. Tough day at work? Maybe a run after work would be good not just to decompress but also to work on your ability to run through mental fatigue. I know I like my runs during my lunch break at work just to break up the work day. Maybe, in addition, I’m giving myself some extra training that I had only thought about in passing before.

Just a thought. What do you think?

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

I think many of us right now are dealing with a heatwave that has already been around for a while and is expected to hang around for a good part, if not all of, this coming week. I just sent the following to one of the runners I coach:

You can’t pound the heat into submission but it can pound you into submission if you’re not careful.

Be smart out there.

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

Note: This is something I wrote over a decade ago. My positions have evolved quite a bit since I originally wrote this. I’m going to write a follow-up that I hope to be able to post in the near future. However, as the articles section of this site will be going away eventually and I want to preserve the evolution of my thoughts, I’m going to maintain this as is.

This is a very popular question. Read running magazines and you will think the answer is obvious. Well, do a little more research and the answer becomes much more fuzzy.

The first research I suggest doing for any questions of training is to look at what the elite runners do. These are the people who have gotten the most out of their training. They have figured out what is worth their time and energy and what isn’t. So, what do the elite runners do? Well, very few elite runners who focus on events of 5k and up go anywhere near weight rooms. That doesn’t mean they don’t do strength training, though. The most popular form of strength training for elites is running hills. Repeats, circuits, easy and long runs over hills, fartleks, you name it. The bottom line is that they spend a lot of time running up and down. That’s not all they do, though. Core strengthening is something that almost all of them do. Abdominal training is done by many elites. Circuit training is also popular with some, as well as body weight exercises, like pushups, pullups, step-ups, one-leg squats or lunges, one-leg hops or toe raises. Some, although they are a distinct minority, especially as their goal distance becomes longer, also lift weights.

Another form of research that I like to look through would be scientific studies. So, what do they say? Well, not a whole lot for lifting weights for distance runners. Studies have shown that lifting weights is most likely beneficial for racing distances that take less than 10 minutes to complete. What about the longer distances? Well, things change sharply. In fact, I have seen only one study that showed lifting weights is beneficial for "well trained" athletes and I found that study to be questionable. That study also said it is beneficial for the 5k but findings were inconclusive once the race distance was over 20 minutes. I have yet to see one study that found weight training to be beneficial for anything longer than that. What about athletes who are not "well trained"? Well, studies have shown that adding weight lifting on top of their current training routine does help improve performance, which makes sense. You are increasing training load. Regardless of what that training is, increasing training load will increase fitness. But there’s a catch. Using that increased training load to do more running instead of lifting weights leads to much more significant performance improvements. In the end, almost all studies have found that lifting weights has no statistically significant positive effect on racing performance in events of longer than 10 minutes and some suggest that there may be a negative effect on performance. What about other forms of strength training? Well, studies have shown that running hills is one of the most beneficial forms of training that a runner can do. Circuit training, core training, and body weight exercises haven’t been studied enough to offer any quality assessments.

Of course, there is one variable that I have purposely left out so far. Many people believe lifting weights is good for injury prevention. While this sounds great, for the typical biomechanically sound runner, there is simply no evidence supporting these claims. In fact, in an unscientific study of one, my injury rates have been higher when lifting weights (under the supervision of trainers and strength and conditioning coaches) than when not lifting weights. On the other hand, if you have a biomechanical inefficiency, lifting weights may make sense to correct any imbalances.

In the end, there is not a whole lot of evidence supporting the use of weight training for performance benefit. This doesn’t mean it’s not worth a shot. Experiment, we are all studies of one. However, as I always say, why assume you are in the minority when chances are you are in the majority? If weight training isn’t working for you, move on and find something that would make better use of your limited training time and energy. If you have to decide between a few extra miles on the roads or hitting the weight room, by all means, run a few extra miles. That is where you are going to get the best performance benefit.

In closing, I would like to offer a link to a Peak Performance Online article about strength training. I have been using the exercises mentioned in this article since my college days and find them to be much more beneficial than anything I could do in the weight room.

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

This spring, a runner I coach sent me this article and asked my opinion on it. Here’s how I answered (with a few edits and extra references).

I used to jump in the ice bath after every run. I used to ice anything that bothered me in the least and I’d take NSAIDs whenever something seemed wrong. I’d take antioxidants twice a day on my doctor’s advice.

Once I got out of college and didn’t have 50 gallon barrels and whirlpools with chest freezers full of ice right next to them and all the other resources of your typical collegiate training room, a lot of the “routine rehab” I did fell to the wayside. I just didn’t have the resources and facilities to make it easy and, after working an 8 hour day and spending 2+ hours a day running, didn’t have the time or energy to make it happen. You know what? I was just fine. I was running better than ever. So I looked at other things. I looked at icing every little thing that bothered me. I kept icing things that seemed like major problems but I didn’t ice everything that came along. Those little things cleared up just as quickly without ice as they did with.

Even earlier, I read a story of a runner who died from medical complications that were caused by his daily use of NSAIDs and I swore off using them as soon as I finished reading the story. Unfortunately, this was before every story was on the Internet and I can’t find it online but I do think this story points out some of the concerns.

Interestingly, alternating ice and heat was something I first heard about back in the early 90s. The idea was to reduce inflammation with the ice but increase blood flow with the heat. For probably over a decade, I have heard very little about it but it always seemed to work better for me than straight ice.

More recently, in the last 2-3 years give or take, there has been a lot of talk about whether these recovery aids really help us or lessen the training effect. In short, inflammation and muscle damage are the result of training stress and it’s the process of recovering from these things that stimulate our bodies to rebuild stronger. If we use all kinds of aids to lessen these things, are we affecting the stimulus and the response of our bodies? Here’s one example of this discussion.

Where I am now:

Personally, I’ve stopped taking antioxidant supplements. I try to get everything I need from my diet and there is reason to believe that mega doses may lessen the body’s response to training. Essentially, you’re sabotaging your training if this is the case. Besides, there are side effects to mega doses that are coming to light and aren’t very good.

As for ice and heat, I only do so when I have a problem that seems to be an impending injury. Then I alternate ice and heat on the problem spot. I haven’t done an ice bath since I graduated from college, although I can see the benefit of a post-race ice bath.

NSAIDs are out of the discussion for me. More hazard than they are worth.

One thing I am becoming interested in is hydrotherapy and compression in general. If you think about it, hydrotherapy is in many ways compression. Getting waist deep in water is essentially the most effective pair of compression pants you can find. Personally, I think simple low tech hydrotherapy of spending time with at least your legs submerged in water can make a big difference for runners. Whether the water is hot, cold or just right isn’t as important as the compression of the water on your legs. Whether I’m in a whirlpool with jets massaging my muscles or a swimming pool playing with my daughter doesn’t matter and I don’t have to tell you which one I can spend more time doing.

I’m also becoming more interested in compression socks for the same reason and because we don’t always have a pool available.

Now, I’m not sure if there will be a debate coming in the future about compression having the same drawbacks as ice baths but it’s an interesting technique and some of the concerns seem to be removed.

Finally, foam rolling and massage are widely accepted as very positive with, as of now, no negative side effects.

So what does this all mean in 5 sentences or less? I think ice baths are overrated, maybe useful after a race but overused in general training. Alternating ice and heat on a potential injury can be helpful but not on every little thing that comes up. NSAIDs are generally bad if used with any consistency. Massage and foam rolling seem to be very good and compression via socks or spending time submerged in water look promising. Hey, I got it all out in less than 5 sentences!