Improve your 5k time

For years, many people have taken to the streets and trails to run 5K’s, obstacle races, and marathons. Most people may do it for fun, but there are others who want to dominate their age group and can’t keep their competitive streak under control and “just have fun with it”.

For those people, I’ve listed a few ways to improve your running time that will help you beat your friends and earn bragging rights throughout this summer season.

• Improve aerobic capacity

  • The first thing you should do when trying to improve your running time is to make sure you have a good aerobic base. Run longer distances at a conversational pace (you should be able to speak in sentences) that will feel easy throughout the duration of the run. This will build a “bigger engine” and allow you to work at higher intensities without feeling as fatigued. Without an adequate aerobic base, you’ll stall out as you try to push yourself towards the ends of races and time trials.

• Improve maximum speed & power

  • If you want to run a faster time, you have to get faster. By increasing your maximum speed, you also increase what is 70% of that speed, and this allows you to run a faster 5k time. By doing speed work, you also improve running economy. This will reduce the number of “energy leaks” you have, which will improve your ability to put all of your effort into moving forward. If you’ve never done speed work before, build up gradually and with longer distances (100-200m) to start, as this is a very intense form of training and you don’t want to injure yourself doing too much too soon.

• Improve pacing

  • Running shorter intervals at your desired pace will you understand and feel how that time will be during your run. By focusing these intervals on shorter distances that gradually get longer, you will be able to build out your specific pacing and special endurance required for your race pace. Begin with 400m runs at your goal pace with plenty of rest between reps. Gradually increase the intensity by either decreasing the rest, or increasing the distance you run.

• Resistance training

  • The benefits of resistance training for middle to long distance running are many, but to keep it short and sweet, you’ll improve your leg strength and power, running economy, improve resiliency, and improve neuromuscular coordination. All of this can help improve your time trial performance by 2-4% over a few weeks of training, and if you really want to drop your times, you should absolutely be incorporating some resistance training into your training weeks. Two total body training sessions a week is a good place for most people to start with, focus on the quality of your movement first before increasing the weight or volume done.

Basic movement patterns

When designing training programs, I have a different view point compared to most online trainers, in that I come from the sports performance world so what I choose to do will not only get you in shape and looking better, but it’s going to help you move better and will translate to what you enjoy doing.

Unlike most bodybuilding type programs, I don’t focus on muscles, but instead on major movement patterns. I do this for a few reasons: 1, for training efficiency, most people don’t want to spend hours in the gym, hitting multiple muscle groups at once helps keep sessions short. 2, increase athleticism, focusing on movement patterns increases coordination, strength, and power, in positions that are used in life and sport. 3, increase resiliency, by training movement patterns, this lead to better injury prevention as the tendons and ligaments are trained as well, keeping you healthy and thriving in whatever you choose to do.

Below are the 6 major movement patterns I focus training programs around.

1. Squat - Back, front, or any other squat variation

2. Hip Hinge - Think deadlifts and RDL’s

3. Upper body push (horizontal & vertical) - Bench press, overhead press, or pushups.

4. Upper body pull (horizontal & vertical) - Pull ups or rows

5. Lunge - Forward, lateral, or reverse

6. Core Bracing - Bird dogs, planks, and lots of traditional strength exercises

Simply put, just about every thing that we do, in daily life or in sport can be broken down into one of these major movement patterns, and by focusing on these basics, you can reach a high level of fitness with consistency.

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Is more always better?

Whether it comes to health, fitness or nutrition, you or someone you know has probably thought that if X amount is good, then more is better. While this may make sense in theory, rarely is this true.

When training for performance, whether that’s speed, strength, or power…lots of emerging research is actually showing that by leaving a few reps in the tank, or not training to failure, that you’ll actually get better results then had you pushed yourself really hard.

So if you’re out on the field sprinting, training to get faster, every rep should be of high quality, and once your times start to drop that should end your speed session. Sure, you can push through and tough it out, but why? It’s not going to make you faster, or build “mental toughness”…you’re just going to add unnecessary training volume that could be better used improving in other areas. 

More isn’t better, better is better.

Go ahead and reread that for a moment and let it sink in. If you want to improve in any area of performance, don’t focus on lifting or running more, focus on doing it better. This means not just showing up and going through the motions during gym sessions. Instead, really pay attention to the details in how you’re moving and how every rep feels. Are you hitting depth in your squats? Are you moving the weight as fast as you can during the concentric (muscle shortening) portions? Are you giving full effort in your jumps/throws/sprints?

For continual performance improvements, first you have to do the work. Then you have to do it really really well. Doing a lot of bad, or mediocre work won’t help you. I continually tell my athletes that we may not do anything fancy, but we’re going to do the ordinary extraordinarily well.

So for your next training session, focus on the quality of your training first, and if you feel your form breaking down go ahead and rack the weights. Do this consistently and see how your strength and power improve over time.

The Value of Testing

Testing is one of those topics that generally has some confusion around it, from who should be doing it, to how, or even if you should test at all. Now I’ll go through my personal thoughts and try to explain why I believe it to be important, not just for athletes but for anyone with health and fitness related goals.

When it comes to testing and measurements, one of the most important steps is to decide what exactly should be measured. Now for most people with general health or fitness goals this most likely looks like body measurements and progress pictures. For my general population clients I always suggest this tape measure because it’s easy for a single person to use without needing anyone else there, but for athletes or those with more performance related goals then determining what is most important to measure may not be the easiest thing to determine.

Based on your sport or individual goals, what these tests are will differ. This will range from sprint times, to max strength or upper body power tests, but the important thing is that the test is relevant to you and your goals. In addition, no one test should be taken alone, but instead should be used in conjunction with others to get a better view of the whole picture. This will ensure that you can understand what is actually happening when that number on the scale doesn’t move.

So why the hell would you measure? The most common responses things I hear in opposition of testing is that “they can see the athlete adding more weight, they must be stronger” or “they don’t run in a straight line during a game, why should we test it?”. And while these arguments may come from a good place and may have some logic to them, quite frankly it’s flawed thinking and isn’t in the best interest of the athletes we serve. Now yes, they may be using more weight, but this isn’t the best indicator that they’ve actually gotten stronger. We have to consider the athletes effort and motivation in each workout if this is this measurement tool. If at the very beginning of a training program it’s unlikely that an athlete will be going all out or working at near maximal efforts, so just by increasing their motivation and effort, they’ve added more weight to the bar without actually getting any stronger. The purpose of the test isn’t necessarily just to measure how strong or powerful someone is, but to assess where they’re at, and determine what the best course of action will be to get them to their goals. It’s commonly said that what gets measured gets managed, this is something I wholeheartedly believe in and I have seen the differences in programs where stats are measured and progress is usually better compared to those that don’t routinely measure stats.

Now I mentioned above that test results should be used to determine what the athlete needs to reach their goals. As a results-driven coach, I use testing results to determine how to structure the next training block. For example, say someone takes body measurement and found that they only lost two inches instead of more, this would lead me to look at the current program and see what could have done better to increase this persons fat loss, or understand that maybe they added muscle in this time frame while also losing fat which led to the lower results.

So now you’re convinced that testing is important, but when should you do it? Well, it depends. Based on what exactly you’re testing and you’re current level of fitness, the tests can be weekly in the case of weight measurements, or only come every other month if you’re looking to evaluate certain physical attributes. The most important part here is that each test is carried out in the exact same way. You should weigh yourself at the same time, or have the same warmup protocol for a strength or power test. This will ensure that the results can be correctly compared to one another and that there isn’t a large difference because one day you weighed yourself after a big meal, but the next time was first thing in the morning. This will obviously lead to “bad” data and the results really can’t be compared to each other.

If you’re interested in more info regarding testing or what specific tests I use then let me know in the comments below.

Exercise Progressions for Performance Training

Implementing exercise progressions is a key part of creating a good training plan, and how it's done can help set the athlete up for success or put them on a route to unnecessary frustrations. Below are a few ideas I keep in mind when planning and implementing progressions.

First, progressions should have a reason why they're being implemented, randomly deciding to do something different "just because" isn't a valid reason. Understanding what physical abilities you need to be successful in your sport, with a clear understanding of where you're currently at is the foundation for planning exercise progressions.

Second, and just as important as the first point, you should only progress once the athlete has shown that they are ready for it. This seems simple enough, but many times progressions are made because that's what the plan says to do, or the coach is itching to get to the good stuff. Yeah, getting to more complex exercises is fun, but unless the athlete has shown that they can do the very basic things well first, you'll only end up spending more time having to double back and correct issues that arise because they weren't ready in the first place. 

Lastly, progressions shouldn't add unnecessary complexity for the sake of novelty, this comes back to having a reason why. Training is to prepare you for your respective sport and that should be reflected with the exercise selection and progression plan. So instead of progressing to kneeling on a bosu ball while overhead pressing kettlebells (please don't do this), transition from a regular squat to pause squats where you hold the bottom position for a few seconds. This changes the force-velocity demands of the exercises and helps increase isometric and inertial strength (starting from a dead stop) which are beneficial for almost all athletes.

Ultimately the goal of a good training plan is to give you the physical capacities to be better at your sport. This is accomplished through the use of proper exercise progressions that emphasize different physical characteristics of the core lifts instead of moving to something else entirely. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel, just refine it.

If you're interested in personalized coaching services to help prepare you for your next sport season, click here for more details regarding online training.

Four Benefits of Strength Training For Runners

Running has always been fairly popular among recreational athletes, but for those who have decided to get a little more serious let’s briefly look at four benefits that adding strength training will have on your running performance.  

• Decreased injury risk by improving both muscle and tendon health and strength.

• Increased endurance by improving neuromuscular pathways, thus improving running economy and lessening the amount of work done to maintain the same pace.

• Improved mobility by working in more than just one plane of motion and developing the less used muscles in running.

• Improved speed, by increasing the maximum force output of the muscles, you’ll be able to run faster throughout the race or at the end during your last sprint.

These are are just the beginning of the benefits that strength training will have for runners, and at this point the research overwhelmingly supports adding strength training to endurance training as a way to get better.  

Basic Principles For In-Season Training

When it comes to in-season training there are a few important principles to keep in mind to ensure that you're creating the best program that will allow your athletes to be successful in competition. While traditionally periodization models have been built around single competition sports such as weightlifting or track and field, team sports are unique due to there long seasons and having competitions each week and possibly multiple times a week. So how do we reconcile this with physical training? The answer may not be to use a traditional periodization approach, but rather one that looks at the schedule and adapts to the needs of the athletes. 

First it's important to point out that the overall goal is to manage stress and keep and athlete healthy. At no point should adding unnecessary volume or chasing numbers be the goal or the direction taken when planning out an in-season program. Important in this is that it's not just training stress, it's stress from competition, classes if they're in school still, from their spouses, and also just general life stress. All of this must taken into account and be managed to ensure the athlete is in the best place for competition.

Piggybacking off of this, you'll want to limit exercise variation and not put anything new in the plan here. New movements and exercises tend to cause soreness and that's the last thing you want during the season.

It's important to realize that while commonly done, there is no "maintenance" phase, you are either getting better or worse, so when putting together your plan be sure to not fall into the trap of wanting to be conservative with intensity for fear of injury, as this may actually increase their injury risk because they will lose strength throughout the season. And with many team sports having relatively short off seasons and preseasons, utilizing the in-season to get better should be at the top of the list because this will be the longest uninterrupted block of time throughout the year. The key point is to find windows of opportunity to train hard, so obviously don't plan a max strength session right before competition, but rather by knowing how much time is necessary for supercompensation, this will allow you plan when is most effective to get your training in. This also means that you should have a working knowledge of how long your athletes can maintain their biomotor abilities (strength, speed, flexibility, endurance, technique) to ensure that you train each quality within this timeframe to maintain and improve it's capacity.

When it comes to exercise selection, you want to keep variation to a minimum, always changing exercises or doing unfamiliar work will cause soreness and this is the last thing that you want to happen during the season. Generally you should only pick exercises that are specific to the demands of the game and allow for large ranges of motion to maintain mobility throughout the season.

A final point, is to acknowledge the demands of their sport. Practices and games provide a good stimulus for biomotor abilities based on the sport, so it should be noted to only add in what is necessary on top of this. But on the other side of this is realizing that sport is not the best stimulus for fitness, so realizing where the sport adds fitness and where it falls short is the important point here. 

Putting this altogether is a good starting point to plan an in-season training program, however all of this assumes that capacities have been built in the offseason and preseason and the in-season is the time to continue to progress to ensure that athlete is at their best for the entire length of their season.

Does Resistance Training Provide any Cardiorespiratory Benefits?

Introduction

The importance of cardiorespiratory fitness cannot be understated, but currently this is an abundance of literature that investigates traditional aerobic exercise (running, cycling, swimming, etc..) with little focus on potential cardiorespiratory benefits that may come from resistance training. While initially thought to provide no cardiorespiratory benefits due to the long rest periods, there are now more methods being used such as circuit training which may have potential benefits on cardiorespiratory fitness.

Review of major Findings

For traditional resistance training, there does not seem to be substantial contributions to the cardiorespiratory system due to the relatively short work periods and long rest periods, however upon comparison between aerobic and resistance training it has been shown that resistance training increases blood flow when compared to aerobic exercise (2). This would suggest that there may be benefits to cardiorespiratory fitness if training is manipulated accordingly. Ratamess et al. found that mean oxygen consumption (VO2) and ventilation (VE) are inversely related to the rest interval (RI) length, with the greatest VO2 measures seen with RI of less than one minute. When RI was three minutes or greater the benefits of increased oxygen consumption were no longer seen (7). However, with the shortened rest periods, the load had to be lowered each set so that each group (high and moderate intensity) could still hit their goal of 5 and 10 reps per set. This loss of force output would immediately dictate whether to use this method depending on the goal of the session and whether strength or muscular endurance/aerobic capacity are what is being trained.

In a separate study, Alcaraz et al. looked at the relationship of bar speed in the bench press when done in a traditional training protocol and also during a circuit training protocol and the effects that these two training protocols would have on the cardiovascular demands of the individual. What they found was that there was no difference in bar velocity or power despite the circuit training protocol having two lower body exercises substituted for the passive rest period of the traditional training protocol (1). Despite there being no differences in performance, the cardiovascular load was much greater in the circuit training protocol with a higher average heart rate during exercise and rest. This suggests that resistance training circuit protocols can be a viable training method to increase cardiorespiratory fitness.

In another study, Mukaimoto et al. studied the oxygen consumption of three different circuit resistant training (CRT) protocols; a high intensity (80% 1RM) with normal movement, low intensity (50% 1RM) with normal movement, and a low intensity (50% 1RM) with slow movement group. What they found is that the low intensity group with slow movement had a greater total VO2 consumption and energy expenditure, despite a lower average VO2, due primarily to the fact that the total exercising time was much greater than the other two groups. They also found that the blood lactate levels were lower in this group which would suggest that the slow movement training had a greater aerobic component when compared to the same load at normal movement speeds (5). It should be noted that in each of the three groups, the average VO2 for the training session did not reach 50% of VO2Max and thus may not be a suitable stimulus to increase cardiorespiratory function. This may have been due to the fact that all exercises were done on nautilus gym equipment and used only a small amount of muscle groups per exercise. In a study by Gotshalk et al. they investigated the cardiorespiratory responses to a CRT protocol. They found that VO2 was elevated above 50% of maximum indicating that this low intensity (40% 1RM) six exercise circuit could be used to increase cardiorespiratory fitness, possibly as a cross training option or when traditional aerobic exercise isn’t done. A second finding from this paper showed that during resistance exercise, heart rate and VO2 do not increase at the same rate as during aerobic exercise (4), with heart rate reaching above 80% of maximum while VO2 hovers over 50%, thus basing resistance training prescriptions off of heart rate is not a viable option until further research is done. Similarly, Ortego et al. found that there may be gender differences in regard to oxygen consumption during resistance training as they found that women had lower absolute VO2 levels during exercise while having similar heart rate measures (6). This further complicates the issue of prescribing resistance training for increasing cardiorespiratory fitness as sex, and fitness level may be factors that effect if adaptations are possible.

Another factor that may affect oxygen consumption and potential for increases in cardiorespiratory fitness is the exercise type. In a study done by Farrar et al., they measured the oxygen cost of a 12-minute kettlebell swing test. What they found was that average relative VO2 was 65% for the test and heart rate was 87% of maximum (3). At a closer glance, VO2 and HR both rose dramatically within the first minute of exercise and then plateaued for the rest of the 12 minute test after the second minute. These results show that kettlebell swings are a sort of middle ground between traditional aerobic exercise and circuit resistance training. At first glance this shouldn’t make sense, however differences between kettlebell swings and the majority of exercises used in CRT do exist. First, kettlebell swings are full body exercises which is the most obvious difference between exercises selected. Secondly, many exercises selected for CRT protocols have defined concentric-eccentric phases which are typically done in a controlled steady rate. Kettlebell swings however, can be argued as a ballistic exercise which alters the dynamics of the concentric and eccentric muscle actions, which may provide more cardiorespiratory benefits when compared to traditional resistance training and what has commonly been studied in the circuit training protocols.

Conclusion

While there is limited research regarding the cardiorespiratory benefits of resistance training, there is evidence to suggest that circuit resistance training protocls can invoke a cardiorespiratory response which could be greater depending on the speed of contraction and also the amount of rest allowed between exercises and sets. In addition, it seems that dynamic resistance training may provide the most benefits to cardiorespiratory fitness as this shortens the concentric muscle action which would allow for more blood flow to pass through the muscle tissue, however this type of training hasn’t been investigated fully and needs to be looked into more, along with what intensity level (%RM) may elicit the greatest oxygen consumption.

Sources

1. Alcaraz, PE., Sanchez-Lorente, J., and Blazevich, AJ. Physical Performance to an Acute Bout of Heavy Resistance Circuit Training Versus Traditional Strength Training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 22: 667-671, 2008.

2. Collier, SR., Kanaley, JA., Carhart, R., Frechette, V., Tobin, MM., Hall, AK., Luckenbaug, AN., and Fernhall, B. Effect of 4 Weeks of Aerobic or Resistance Exercise Training on Arterial Stiffness, Blood Flow and Blood Pressure in pre- and stage-1 hypertensives. Journal of Human Hypertension 22: 678-686, 2008.

3. Farrar, RE., Mayhew, JL., and Koch, AJ. Oxygen Cost of Kettlebell Swings. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 24: 1034-1036, 2010.

4. Gotshalk, LA., Berger, RA., and  Kraemer, WJ. Cardiovascular Responses to a High-Volume Continuous Circuit Resistance Training Protocol. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 18: 760-764, 2004.

5. Mukaimoto, T., and Ohno, M. Effects of Circuit Low-Intensity Resistance Exercise with Slow Movement on Oxygen Consumption During and After Exercise. Journal of Sports Sciences 30: 79-90, 2012.

6. Ortego, AR., Dantzler, DK., Zaloudek, A., Tanner, J., Khan, T., Panwar, R., Hollander, DB., and Kraemer, RR. Effects of Gender on Physiological Responses to Strenuous Circuit Resistance Exercise and Recovery. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 23: 932-938, 2009.

7. Ratamess, NA., Falvo, MJ., Mangine, GT., Hoffman, JR., Faigenbaum. AD., and Kang, J. The Effect of Rest Interval Length on Metabolic Responses to the Bench Press Exercise. Eur J Appl Physiol 100: 1-17, 2007.

New Year's Resolutions

With the first month of the new year just about over, many health and fitness resolutions are going strong, but sadly even more have already failed or have been given up on. Why is it that so many of us fail to make our resolutions last any longer than a month? And if you are still holding strong you're more than likely on the brink of just saying quit and go destroy a large pepperoni. 

The reason that most resolutions, or any new habit for that matter, fails is that we tend to set too high of goals. We have to work out 5 days a week, eat super "clean" while also eating half of what we used to, all while more than likely trying to change some other non health related habits. While many see this as the road to a healthier life, it's nothing more than a recipe for disaster. These high goals we set leave us nothing but a long hard fall when we fail.

So next time, instead of shooting for the moon, aim a little lower. Make one small change that will be so easy there's no way you can fail. And once you've identified your goal, only make that one change for two to three weeks. After proving to yourself that you're able to do it consistently, make another small change. And continue like this until you look back and notice that you've made huge changes over a long time period but each step towards that goal was small and manageable. It is this way that we can make long lasting changes that will keep us from falling victim to quitting on our resolutions each year.

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