We all know how important our arm swing is for our running, right? You can be more efficient and faster with a good arm swing.
What if that wasn’t exactly the case?
As it turns out, our arm swing may be less important than we thought. Sprint speed and running efficiency seem to be affected by not using our arms at all but not significantly.
Tart cherries for recovery? I didn’t know but there’s apparently quite a bit of research on using tart cherries as a recovery aid. Unfortunately, the research is funded by those with a vested interest in finding a benefit. That doesn’t mean it isn’t legitimate but it does mean we should be more cautious with the results.
Also, I would point out that we now know that recovery aids can decrease the benefit of our training. In short, you train to cause relatively minor physiological damage. When your body recovers from that damage, it builds itself back stronger. When we artificially assist in that recovery, we reduce the training benefit from building back stronger. So do you really want to use recovery aids? Maybe right before an important race but maybe not while in the midst of training.
Intermittent fasting: not so great? Intermittent fasting has gotten a lot of attention and praise recently. But is it really better than other weight loss strategies?
As usual, my suggestion is do what works for you. Intermittent fasting is not superior to any other form of calorie restriction. It doesn’t have any magical powers to make you lose more weight. However, if you do a better job restricting your calories by restricting the amount of time during the day when you can eat, then it will probably work for you.
How important are your warmup and cooldown? Bottom line: they matter. But possibly not to the extent or in the ways that we’ve always heard. The one thing I’d like to really stress in this: on our warmups, we really need to work to find that sweet spot where we’re ready for the demands of the race but not wearing ourselves out. We also need to remember that this point is different for different distances and different people. If you’re racing a 5K, you need a longer warmup than if you’re running a marathon because the 5K is a more intense event and you should be focusing more on saving energy for the marathon.