Strength Training for Runners: Part I

Many runners I speak with in the gym believe that in order to improve their running, they need to lift weights in a fashion that’s similar to running. That is, they believe lifting very light weights for many many reps (thus creating an endurance-like situation for their muscles, heart and lungs) will lead to better performance. Conversely, many endurance athletes see no reason to lift heavy weights. They often believe they’ll become muscle bound and/or injured. (Besides, when was the last time the winner of a 10k stopped to deadlift for three reps?) The fact of the matter is, runners–both sprinter and distance runners–will benefit from lifting heavy weights and/or explosive movements. There. That’s what I have to say. Now let me explain…

Strength is your friend.

Strength is like money: No one ever complains that they’ve got too much. (Please let me know if, after a race, the 2nd place finisher said to the camera, “I’d probably have gotten first if I’d just been a little weaker.) Stronger muscles will propel you faster and/or further. Our view of endurance however may clash with our view of strength. They may seem like two very different concepts. We may think that endurance is strictly a heart & lung thing. Strength and endurance aren’t that different though. Strength and endurance are very strongly linked. And for the endurance athlete, improving muscle strength will also improve his or her endurance.

Several studies have indicated strength training increases endurance performance in cross-country skiing, running (here, here, here) and cycling (here, here, here). Explosive exercises and very heavy strength training (1-5 RM) have been researched and shown to improve running economy, anaerobic power, and lactate threshold. (Further discussion and references can be found here and here). Thus, exercising in a fashion that’s very different from running–that is a very few seconds of explosive movement and/or lifting very heavy objects a few times will benefit an activity done at a much lower intensity for a much longer time. So while it’s obviously vital to engage in your endurance sport of choice in order to improve in that sport, the addition of the right strength training protocol will increase your performance. What’s at work here?

Physiology

Endurance performance is more than just the heart and lungs. Several sources (here, here) have suggested that neurological and muscular factors play important roles in endurance performance. We know this because several of the above studies show an increase in performance with no improvement in VO2 max. That is, the heart/lung function didn’t improve–but something did! Improvement in running economy is indicated in several studies.

We should consider a couple of effects of explosive and heavy weight training. First, the muscle fibers used in running are likely made stronger via these methods. Thus muscles can generate more force and a more powerful stride. Second, more muscle fibers may have been drawn into action, again making for a greater ability to drive forward during stride. The results from either of these situations is that we should be able to use less energy to run just as far and as fast as before–AND we should be able to run farther and faster period. Great!

What about muscle and weight gain?

Many runners are worried about gaining weight from lifting too much heavy weight. The fear is reasonable in that any sort of weight gain will likely slow down a distance runner. (The right amount of new muscle mass in a sprinter however may be beneficial.) The reality is though there is nothing for a runner to fear from lifting heavy. There are several reasons.

First, putting on lots of muscle is mainly a function of eating. To put on mass, one must eat like a grizzly bear: several sizeable meals per day (not just snacks), gobs of meat, lots of all sorts of food. This sort of eating can’t be done unconsciously. There must be intent.

Second, we have the genetics issue. It’s very likely that people gravitate to endurance running because they’ve been dealt a hand of genetic cards that facilitates running. This same hand of cards DOES NOT facilitate growing large muscles. Thus there is often a self-selection process that sees certain people participate and excel in endurance sports while others may tend toward strength-and-power sports or bodybuilding–activities that in order for the participants to excel, require large amounts of muscle mass.

Third, explosive and heavy strength training doesn’t build big muscles. (Huh?) These methods are far more stimulating to the nervous system than they are to actually growing bigger muscles. That is, we’re looking at getting the brain to cause more muscle fibers to fire in order to create an explosive movement or lift something heavy. A different process is at work for growing muscles, and this process is better stimulated by lifting moderate weights for roughly 8-15 reps.

To give a further example, if we look at sports involving weight classes (boxing, wrestling, martial arts, weight lifting, power lifting for example) we see that many of these athletes need to get stronger without gaining weight. Otherwise they’ll end up in a weight class in which they can’t contend. These folks need to get stronger but not bigger. (Sound familiar?) How do they do this? They lift heavy.

Next, I’ll discuss workouts based on these factors.

Feldenkrais

I’ve been suffering with back pain and other symptoms (Achilles pain most recently) of something since about 2002. I’ve gone through a lot of types of therapy from physical therapy to chiropractic, to Muscle Activation Techniques to Active Release Therapy, acupuncture, massage, prolotherapy and lots of different corrective exercise protocols. My issue seems to be a movement issue. That is, as I move the sequence of events–muscle contractions, feedback from muscles and joints, etc.–that should be happening aren’t happening in an ideal way. I’ve gotten better especially with my introduction to Z-Health but nothing has quite yet resolved my issues. I’ve been aware of Feldenkrais for a while and it’s been on my list of modalities to investigate. I recently emailed Seattle-area Rolfer and Z-Health practitioner Todd Hargrove (Todd writes an excellent blog) to ask him his opinion and he suggested I search out a Feldenkrais practitioner, so I did. Yesterday was my first experience and it was quite interesting.

I met with local Denver Feldenkrais practitioner Ray Little for two hours and I became quite a bit more aware of how I move–and how I should move. Without any technical terminology or complicated instructions, he helped me feel how to walk properly. The most powerful thing he showed me was where on my foot to feel the impact of walking (right in front of the heel) and then how to effectively push myself forward. We discussed the idea of lengthening into stride, taking the impact of the foot strike and smoothly rebounding into forward motion. All and all it was a very enlightening experience and I very much look forward to meeting with him again next week.

As I’m about to post this, I’ve gone on two runs since Monday and I’ve felt better than I have literally in years. I think I’m back on the horse!!

Achilles Tendon Issues: Help from Dr. Ivo at Summit Chiropractic

My wife and I just recently enjoyed a long weekend in the mountains full of skiing/snowboarding, sleeping in, and wishing we had a condo near the slopes. Part of that weekend included a visit with Dr. Ivo Waerlop at Summit Chiropractic in Dillon, CO. I went in hopes of 1) getting help with my sore left Achilles tendon that’s been bothering me for months, and 2) get some of his thoughts on barefoot running. The visit was very helpful and enlightening.

Dr. Waerlop was featured in a Denver Post article on barefoot running. My wife looked up his web site and it grabbed my interest. Dr. Waerlop is involved in the biomechanics of cycling, running and skiing (three things I love), and he’s involved in barefoot running. In fact, he’s a biomechanics advisor for Vibram. He’s also an accupunturist.

I won’t go into every detail but his asessment of my gait was very precise and his explanations very thorough. He assessed my feet, legs and trunk; observed my gait; and presecribed several exercises for me plus a sole lift for my shoe.

Most importantly we focused on attending to the causes of my problems (faulty biomechanics in the feet and toes) rather than the symptoms (pain in the Achilles–oh yeah, and my low back and my left shoulder).

He also advised me on barefoot running. I probably won’t ever be a full-on barefooter but I likely will be doing some barefoot running in the near future. (Gotta take it slow!)

There’s more. Dr. Waerlop is part of the Homonculus Group. (What is the homonculus? Excellent question. Click on the word to find out.) This is a group of physicians and sports performance/injury rehab professionals who are “committed and driven to better understand the problems of pain and movement impairment in this world (basically the aches and pains that ail individuals.)” The Homonculus site is rich with podcasts, articles and discussion threads (though it appears their discussion board has received a lot of spam which should be removed. Go to page 1 of the discussion board for legitimate information.) Finally, Dr. Waerlop is one of the Gait Guys whose lectures on gait assessment are found at Youtube.

I am very excited to dig into the articles and podcasts. If you’re a trainer, coach, or injury rehab professional–or if you’re just a fitness geek with some spare time, I highly recommend you investigate some of this material. I can’t get enough of this stuff!!!

Counterpoints to Barefoot Running

I think it’s important to analyze any trend or issue from several viewpoints. In the world of fitness and nutrition we see all sorts of fads come and go. Today barefoot running is gaining in popularity. I’ve posted recently on some of the research that suggests barefoot running may be healthier for the joints than shod running. So, I believe it’s worth considering doing some barefoot work whether it be gym work such as weight training or agility work; or perhaps very short runs on a soft surface such as grass. It may in fact be beneficial to work toward a full transition from shod running to barefoot running. That said, it’s vital to consider other views.

First, the Science of Sport gives us Barefoot running – new evidence, same debate. One notable point the writers make is this:

“I guarantee that the media are going to be all over this and they are going to tell you that you should be running barefoot or in Vibrams. You will hear how science has proven that being barefoot will prevent injuries, and that those of you who are injured should blame your shoes as you lob them into the garbage bin.

(This sort of observation can go for just about every new study that’s reported in the press.) I think it’s entirely likely that runners may latch on to barefoot running thinking that it’s an instant magic cure for whatever is bothering them and the results may be disastrous. (Then what will the press, physical therapists, and podiatrists say? “Barefoot running is the worst thing in the world! No one should do it ever! Then we’ll have discarded a potentially helpful tool from our toolbox.)

The article goes on to give an example of what happens when the pendulum swings too far and runners adopt something very new and very different into their training:

“And I will illustrate this with our own insight into footstrike and injury. When the Pose research was done in Cape Town, athletes basically had their footstrike patterns changed through 2 weeks of training in the new method. The biomechanical analysis found lower impact forces (sound familiar? Same as the Nature paper), and even less work on the knee joint. This was hailed as a breakthrough against running injuries, because lower impact plus lower work on the knee meant less chance of injury. Jump ahead 2 weeks, and 19 out of 20 runners had broken down injured. Why? Because their calves and ankles were murdered by the sudden change. And the science showed this – the work on the ANKLE was significantly INCREASED during the forefoot landing.”

Thus we get the very clear point that barefoot work must be added gradually into your routine. A rapid switch in running technique is probably a very bad idea. DO NOT move rapidly to replace all your shod miles with barefoot miles.

Over at the Running World According to Dean you can read Another Barefoot Running Story. He seems a bit skeptical on the issue of barefoot running. Owen Anderson at Educated Runner has presented two posts on barefoot running: Barefoot, Nearly Barefoot and Bearfoot Running; and Barefoot Running: What the Harvard Study Really Said. Both articles are again somewhat skeptical of barefoot running and running in Vibrams. Anderson’s second post is most valuable I believe in that he points out some of the limitations of the study “Foot Strike Patterns and Collision Forces in Habitually Barefoot versus Shod Runners” that appeared recently in the journal Nature.

Anderson makes this point: “The Nature investigation did disclose some interesting information about the effective mass of the foot and shank (which we won’t discuss here), but it offered no other information about the potential links between barefoot running and either injury or performance.”

He’s correct. This study was not a long term study. The study indeed showed lower impact forces at the ankle, knee and hip during barefoot running when compared to shod running, however the runners were not observed over the long term. Thus we only know what happened during the short duration of the study. This situation is indicative of most barefoot running studies. Nor did the study investigate which method–barefoot or shod–results in the fastest performances.

Further studies should be conduced looking at several points. First, long-term studies should look at injury rates of shod runners compared to barefoot or minimally shod runners. Second, we need to move beyond injury issues and look at racing performance. In other words can we run faster barefoot/minimally shod or in shoes? Third, it might be interesting to see how many people have tried to convert from running shoes to barefoot running but were unsucessful. What happened to these people?

From my point of view, none of these other posts or viewpoints have changed my thinking that some degree of barefoot work is very likely healthy for a fair number of people. It’s not necessary for anyone to permanently discard their running shoes for bare feet, but perhaps it would be valuable to consider taking the shoes off from time to time and letting the feet behave like feet.

News on Barefoot Running: Part II

Previously I discussed how wearing shoes alters the human running stride. For millennia, our feet functioned well enough to get us to the 1970s when we put them into running shoes. The result seems to be our adopting a running stride (heel strike) that may be more stressful and injurious than an unshod stride (forefoot strike). I want to continue the discussion by looking at a few more studies of our feet and the effect of shoes.

The original ATV...

I’ll go back to a Science Daily article from November of 2007 called Your Knees Want to Take you Shoe Shopping. The research was originally presented in 2007 at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting. Researchers analyzed the effects of various footwear on patients with knee osteoarthritis. Specifically, they looked at loading of the knees.

The first point the researchers make is this:

“In knee osteoarthritis, there is abundant evidence that patients with abnormally high loading knees (high amounts of stress on part or all of the knee joint) are at increased risk of both injury and disease progression.”

Now, the important research findings were these:

“Researchers found that clogs and stability shoes were associated with significantly higher loading of the knees, while the walking shoes and flip-flops resulted in lower knee loads similar to those occurring when walking barefoot. Therefore, shoes that allowed natural foot motion and flexibility appeared to be more beneficial in terms of knee loading.”

That final statement goes to the point that a natural stride, unaffected by modern high-tech footwear seems to be more healthy for us. Here’s more supporting information. Footwear Alters Normal Form and Function of the Foot is a 2009 Science Daily article that profiles a study on barefoot walking. Specifically the researchers studied people who’d never worn shoes. The researchers wanted to observe the biologically normal function of the foot which had evolved for millions of years without the influence of shoes. They indeed saw habitually unshod feet moved performed differently from shod feet. The article notes:

“Barefooters have a relatively wide forefoot and manage at better distributing pressures over the entire surface of the foot sole, resulting in lower (and most likely favourable) peak pressures. As such, the fundamental scientific results are also important for clinicians and for the design of quality footwear, which should not hamper the foot’s biologically normal function.”

In Part III of this series I’ll discuss new research that demonstrates running shoes actually contribute to greater stress at the ankles, knees and hips.

The cutting edge of running technology!

First of all, a disclaimer: I am NOT telling everyone to throw out their running shoes/inserts/orthotics and go barefoot to run all the time forever. If you’re having success then keep doing what you’re doing. I do however suggest reconsidering what you think you know about the human foot and the shoes we put on them. If you’re in pain then you MIGHT consider changing from a highly structured foot environment to something less structured. Alright, on to the important stuff.

The case against running shoes (or maybe FOR going barefoot from time to time) seems to be mounting. What we’ve got here is more evidence that for running, the human foot all by itself is likely the most highly advanced instrument for the job.

I’ve posted previously on the issue of running and human evolution, and the issue of running shoes vs. barefoot running. Research continues on the issue. An article in Science Daily titled Barefoot Running: How Humans Ran Comfortably and Safely Before the Invention of Shoes tells us of research on three groups of people: those who had always run barefoot, those who had always worn shoes, and those who had converted to barefoot running from shod running. (This analysis of different types of runners is one strong point of the study.) Runners in Kenya and the U.S. were subjects. The project was a joint effort between Harvard, University of Glasgow, and Moi University. The full article can be accessed for a fee in the journal Nature.

The researchers observed very different patterns during barefoot running vs. shod running. Barefoot runners land on the mid-foot or the forefoot whereas running in shoes tends to promote a heel strike. Barefoot running results in a more spring-like step by utilizing the arch of the foot rather than driving the heel into the ground.

“Our feet were made in part for running,” Daniel Lieberman (researcher) says. But as he and his co-authors write in Nature: “Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning.“

The researchers suggest than in fact barefoot running may be less injurious than running in modern running shoes. They caution that running barefoot or in minimal footwear must be a gradual process if one has been running in shoes for a long time. Lieberman delves further into the biomechanics of barefoot running on his web page called (surprise!) Barefoot Running. I haven’t read this site yet but I’m planning on digging into it ASAP. Looks very interesting.

From what I’ve learned as a personal trainer I recognize the immense importance of properly functioning feet. If you take a look at your feet and how much movement is available to those things you may be surprised. There’s a lot of potential movement there! Proper foot movement brings on proper knee movement which brings on proper hip movement which makes the trunk and the shoulders move properly. Liberman observes that humans have been using their feet for far longer than the modern running shoe has been around. In our modern age we’ve decided that much like our food, we’re going to out think nature and “improve” on something that’s worked well for a very long time. But what happens when we put our feet in running shoes? We start to take away movement. We put a big piece of foam between us and the ground so that we desensitize our feet. (Compare this to going to a movie in sunglasses or listening to music with earplugs in.) In other words, we seriously alter something that’s been working pretty well for thousands of years. This alteration in function is made even more dramatic if we use orthotics. So it seems entirely likely to me that many cases of knee pain, hip pain, even shoulder and neck pain may well be rooted in what we’ve done to our feet. At the very least, I think it’s worth examining the issue. I’ll discuss more on the issues around barefoot vs. shod running in upcoming posts.

Attn Runners: Check Out This Site (Powerrunning.com)

Hey, if you’re into reading, Power Running looks to be a very in-depth site with lots of thoroughly thought out information on the physiology of running and how to train according to your abilities. The writer has really done his homework and he’s got some interesting theories that sort of go against some of the conventional wisdom.

For instance, he asks the question of whether or not more and more mileage is good for everyone. He notes that the elite runners improve as their mileage improves but he theorizes that the elite runners have the genetics to run more and more and to benefit from that large workload. Many of the rest of us though may well benefit from much lower mileages. He talks about the FIRST running program which is a three-day-a-week program and why it may be the best program for the most people. Check out the site to learn more. I’m finding it to be a very informative and interesting read.

A Little Bit on Stretching: Part II

So where are we? We’ve covered the different flavors of stretching. I now need to go back to something I said in Part I: No human movement is possible without stretching. This is going to get a little more complicated before it gets simple–but I promise to give you information that you can actually use outside the game of Jeopordy!

Look at the stride--the STRIDE!--not the filthy habit. Photo by Ed Yourdon / CC BY-SA 2.0

Each time we move, we use energy stored in stretched muscles to drive our limb into movement. When I take a step forward for instance, I hit the outer part of my heel and it rolls inward (calcaneal eversion). The arch of my foot pronates a bit, and it pulls my calf muscles (soleus, gastrocnemius, posterior tibialis, among others) inward which takes my lower leg (tibia) inward into internal rotation. At the same time, my body is moving forward over my ankle which creates dorsiflexion. The tibial internal rotation also causes my knee to flex and internally rotate. Once the knee moves in, it pulls on the IT band which is attached to my glute complex and now my glutes lengthen both forward and inward and my hip flexes–and if my hip is functioning properly it will move sideways into adduction in the direction of this leg that just took a forward stride. So all these muscles have worked and stretched to keep my foot and leg from collapsing into the earth. Now these muscles have all been turned on and with the energy stored inside them like stretched rubber bands they will propel me forward into my next stride.

Without going into every single action, the muscles and limbs of the opposite leg are contracting and creating extension, external rotation and abduction (though the adductors are stretching and slowing external rotation of the femur) at the hip, extension and external rotation at the knee, and plantarflexion and external rotation at the calf and ankle, and supination at the foot.

WOW!!! Are you kidding me!! What a lot of stuff!! And that’s the story from just from the waist down! All that and this lady can still manage to smoke a cigarette. Did you notice how many muscles were stretched in this process, and in what directions? Parts were moving forward, back, inward, outward and sideways. As Gary Gray terms it, this is 3-D loading to exploding.

In all seriousness, this sequence of events must happen in order for our bodies to efficiently produce force and absorb shock. Each stretch of each muscle in turn activates muscles up the line. If this process is inhibited (could be due to injury, sitting too much, doing the same thing over and over and over, or who-knows-what) then we tend to get knee pain, back pain even shoulder or neck pain.

These movements aren’t just important for walking and running. Proper movement in all three dimensions is vital for cyclists, skiers, dancers, even swimmers–even though their movement patterns are different from walkers and runners.

In Part III I’ll build on this whole process and show you an effective way to mobilize some important regions of the body via dynamic stretching.

: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theowl84/
CC BY-NC 2.0

With the recent running of the New York City Marathon, some information on distance running seems appropriate. The Human Body is Built for Distance is a recent story in the New York Times Health section. Part of the discussion includes the theory that humans are unique among animals in our distance-running abilities. It seems that we might indeed be the fastest of earth’s land-based creatures over the long haul. Some of our advantages include our foot structure, spring-like connective tissue, our cooling system, our glycogen storage capacity, and even our sense of balance.

Of further interest is the discussion on running injuries and footwear. Christopher McDougal author of Born to Run suggests in the article that many of our ancestors as well as some of our less-advanced contemporaries ran and do run many more miles with far fewer injuries than we do with our fancy modern running shoes. The idea that primitive running is better running has been suggested here, and here. It’s also the driving idea behind shoes such as the Nike Free and Vibram Five-Fingers. About 90 percent of runners training for a marathon experience injury according to statistics in the article.

Sort of makes sense right? How long have modern running shoes been around? Nike started business in the late 1970s. Meanwhile, humans were running around a lot longer than that, their feet shod in some very minimal items. So what’s going on here? As our running shoes evolve are the wearers actually devolving?

I know enough to know that I definitely don’t know the answer to this question. I’ve gone back and forth on the issue and I’ve moved from running in Nike Frees to running in Nike Frees with Sole Supports in them. Isn’t that odd? From what I’ve read and experienced though, the issue of high-tech running shoes vs. low-tech running shoes vs. barefoot running is an extremely personal matter. What works miracles for one running may wreck havoc on another. It can be a maddening process trying to find the ideal way to address your feet.

If this topic is of any interest to you, I recommend strongly that you read the Science of Sport’s series on running. It’s remarkably in-depth in its analysis of shoes, feet, and running technique.

Achilles Tendon Injury Resource

I just found this site The Running World According to Dean and it’s got some very interesting information, particularly some good information on Achilles tendonitis and/or tendonosis. I’m going through this issue right now and it’s tremendously frustrating and mysterious.

Click image for source.

It’s not a cut-and-dried sort of thing. It seems everyone’s Achilles issue is particular to them. It may arise from simple overuse like running too much, too fast, up too many hills and/or running too fast up too many hills. It could also arise from various biomechanical issues that aren’t always easy to identify. The wrong shoes seem to also play a role. Even certain types of medication can contribute to the matter.

Beyond the many causes, there are almost as many treatment recommendations: ice, heat, stretch, don’t stretch, run a little, don’t run at all, orthotics, shoes… Anyhow, if you’re going through any of this then this site might be of help to you.

Denver Fitness Journal

All Things Health and Fitness by Kyle Norman, MS, CSCS, FMS, RRCA Running Coach

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