Strength and Conditioning for Endurance Running, page 1
THE CROWOOD PRESS
First published in 2015 by
The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR
www.crowood.com
This e-book first published in 2015
© Richard Blagrove 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 84797 988 9
Frontispiece: Shutterstock
Acknowledgements
Writing this book would not have been possible without the help and support of several important people. Firstly, I’d like to thank my colleagues at St Mary’s University for their assistance with this project and allowing me access to campus facilities for photo shoots. I am enormously grateful to my models Jo, Jake and Emily for the many hours they spent in the gym and outside, often in the freezing cold, shooting the photographs. A special thank you goes to Christine for her time and considerable patience in taking the photographs in each location. I’d also like to thank the endurance runners I’ve provided coaching support to over the last ten years. The experiences I’ve gained from working with you have provided me with the knowledge and confidence required to write this book. Finally, the most important thank you goes to my wife, Victoria. Without your support and understanding throughout this project, this book would never have come to fruition.
CONTENTS
Preface
Part 1: UNDERSTANDING YOUR NEEDS
1 INTRODUCTION TO STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING
2 PHYSIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
3 BIOMECHANICAL AND INJURY CONSIDERATIONS
4 ASSESSING STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Part 2: STRENGTH TRAINING
5 DISPELLING MYTHS
6 RESISTANCE TRAINING
7 PLYOMETRIC TRAINING
Part 3: CONDITIONING EXERCISES
8 TRUNK TRAINING
9 FOOT AND ANKLE CONDITIONING
10 HAMSTRING CONDITIONING
11 GLUTEAL STABILITY
12 TECHNICAL RUNNING DRILLS
13 MOBILIZATIONS AND STRETCHES
Part 4: ORGANIZING YOUR STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING
14 PLANNING YOUR TRAINING
15 CASE STUDY EXAMPLES
Index
Mo Farah competing in the London Marathon. (Photo: Shutterstock)
PREFACE
Running is arguably the most natural and pure form of physical exercise that the human body can be exposed to. Evolutionary studies suggest our ancestors were endurance runners who used persistence hunting to catch their prey, and the earliest evidence of competitive long-distance running events dates back to 1829BC. In the modern era, participation in endurance running events is at an all-time high, with thousands each year taking part in road-running events in particular, and many now attempting the holy grail of endurance running, the marathon. Dozens of new participation initiatives, charity fund-raising events and endurance challenges have also emerged over the last decade, and have contributed to the rise in popularity of the sport.
It is likely that if you are preparing for an endurance running event you have a goal in mind, whether it be to simply complete the distance, run a personal best or qualify for a major championship. In order to achieve that goal, hopefully you recognize that it is necessary to devise a training programme yourself, one that is carefully planned around the distance of the event and your individual requirements. Logically, your training programme should be predominantly made up of running-based training sessions of various distances, intensities and formats, each designed to enhance a specific feature of your physiology. Traditionally, though, endurance runners and coaches have tended to neglect other forms of training, such as weight training and conditioning techniques. This is perhaps due to a lack of guidance or instruction on which exercises are best to use, but often in the belief that they don’t benefit performance, add unwanted muscle bulk, or cause excessive soreness.
Despite the apparent uncertainty amongst many runners concerning the benefits of strength and conditioning, there does appear to be a growing awareness of its value. Coaches and runners are becoming increasingly keen on learning about the latest new training techniques or ways to stay injury free. Running magazines and the Internet are also littered with advice on the best workouts or exercises to improve running performance. No longer is the running community viewing strength and conditioning as only something élite runners include to give them an edge over their rivals. Despite the rising interest in strength and conditioning for runners, there is unfortunately a lack of high quality literature available. The main motivation for writing this book is therefore to provide a detailed resource for runners, coaches and students of strength and conditioning, that provides accurate and useful guidance.
The aim of this book is to share the knowledge I’ve gained, and the approach I’ve used, with the dozens of endurance runners for whom I have provided strength and conditioning support over the last ten years. The book is designed for any middle- and long-distance runner who is interested in learning about how to improve their performance and to lower injury risk with an evidence-based and scientific approach to their non-running-based training. Whether you plan to participate in a local fun run, or you are a young runner aspiring to compete at the Olympic Games, this book will provide you with a simple and effective set of supplementary exercises which you can tailor to your own individual requirements.
Best of luck with achieving the goal that you’ve set yourself. I hope you find that the information contained in this book adds a new dimension to your training, which will prove useful in helping you towards your goal.
KEY INFORMATION
These key information boxes are included throughout the book as a way of summarizing important information. If you are not interested in the scientific detail and are keen to get cracking with some S&C exercises, just read these boxes to ensure you receive the main messages from each section.
1
UNDERSTANDING YOUR NEEDS
To appreciate the underlying reasons why strength and conditioning training techniques are effective for endurance runners, it helps to have a basic understanding of endurance running physiology and biomechanics, Based upon the physical qualities that underpin endurance running and the risk factors that contribute towards injury, a set of suitable assessments can then be selected. These will allow you to identify your own strengths and weaknesses so you can tailor a training programme around your own individual needs. The opening section of this book aims to introduce basic scientific concepts associated with strength training, conditioning and endurance running before presenting a series of simple assessments.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING
WHAT IS ‘STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING’?
Twenty years ago the term ‘strength and conditioning’ (S&C) was virtually unheard of, let alone an important element in the physical preparation of sports performers. As standards at an élite level have improved, investment into understanding the science that underpins performance has also increased. Consequently, over the last decade or so, the value of specialist sport science support has begun to be recognized, and S&C has developed into its own industry. Despite the modern professionalism of élite sport, the knowledge and experiences of specialist coaches working with full-time athletes is rarely filtered through to recreational sports performers and young athletes, who would also benefit from a more holistic approach to their sports preparation.
S&C is associated with any training methodologies that enhance the physical preparedness of athletes for their sports training and performance. This means that any training that isn’t directly set by the technical sports coach is considered S&C. In a broad sense, S&C has three primary goals: to improve performance, to improve the capacity for training, and to lower the risk of injury.
To improve performance: The training techniques described in this book are likely to result in a number of adaptations to the nervous and muscular systems, which will directly enhance your running performance. These include improvements in your ability to generate force with each stride, more effective use of elastic energy from tendons, and a more efficient running style.
To improve the capacity for training: An indirect benefit of additional physical training is that you will be able to tolerate a greater volume of running. Without a foundation of general athleticism, robustness and physical competence developed through S&C activities, it is very difficult to tolerate progressively higher loads of training over a long period of time.
To lower the risk of injury: Due to the high volumes of repetitive loading on the body and on the joints of the lower limb in particular, it is no surprise that endurance running has a high prevalence of over-use type injuries. Placing load through a tissue that is vulnerable to injury using specific strengthening exercises will result in improved tolerance to repetitive stress. Reducing injury risk also indirectly results in improved performance, as less training time is lost through being side-lined with an injury.
Education
An often forgotten objective of S&C is to educate at
KEY INFORMATION
Strength and conditioning (S&C) involves any physical training activities outside of your running programme. Strength training has been shown to improve running performance and reduce the risk of getting injured. Improving basic movement skills and physical capacities will also allow you to tolerate higher volumes of running in the future.
WHAT IS ‘STRENGTH TRAINING’?
Many runners and their coaches will often associate the term ‘strength training’ with muscle-bound men pumping iron in the gym and grunting loudly! This obviously isn’t the outcome that an endurance runner wants, and neither does it have to be.
‘Strength’ is loosely defined as the highest amount of force that a muscle group can produce under specific conditions. Fundamentally, we all require a basic level of strength simply to move around and complete everyday tasks. Everything we do is underpinned by the ability of specific muscles to produce force during a co-ordinated movement. So if we want to start moving quickly, as when we run, we need the capacity to be able to produce a high level of force rapidly through this movement pattern. Running speed then ultimately is directly related to the amount of force you are able to produce against the ground during a short period of time, so if you want to learn how to run faster there is a logical reason to make your running muscles stronger!
The ‘Specificity’ Trap
The key phrase contained in the definition of strength above is that force is always expressed under ‘specific conditions’. This means that just because one person shows exceptional strength in a gym exercise, it doesn’t mean that they will be strong on a different skill, or, more importantly, be able to express force well during running. So strength is always specific to the movement pattern we are expressing force in, but also the speed and direction we are developing the force. With that in mind, it is important that when you select exercises to improve your strength, they carry a degree of ‘specificity’.
Being specific doesn’t mean simply replicating or mimicking the running action, but selecting the right tool for the job. Just because an exercise doesn’t resemble the running action, it doesn’t mean it is useless. In fact you’ll find that many of the exercises contained in the chapters of this book look nothing like running. However, each provides a specific overload to a physiological system or area of the body to drive a particular adaptive response. It is therefore important to think about the type of stress an exercise imposes upon the body and what outcome that stress will produce, rather than simply making sure it looks like running.
When it comes to strength training exercises, to ensure you achieve a degree of specificity that allows transfer to the running action, most exercises should involve the lower body producing a ‘triple extension’ movement pattern. Triple extension is a simultaneous extension of the ankle, knee and hip joints, such as when you jump in the air. Triple extension movements allow you to accelerate your body with a high level of force, exactly the same as in the running stride. Extending at these three joints in an explosive action not only takes advantage of the strong, powerful extensor muscles located in the lower limb, but also their ability to transmit force across the joints from hip, to knee, to ankle and through the ground.
There are a number of different types of strength that all reflect how force is being generated by the neuromuscular system. Luckily for us these are all very trainable qualities, which are important to running, and can be enhanced with the correct type of training.
KEY INFORMATION
Strength training involves improving your muscles’ ability to produce force. The training exercises used to develop strength should bear some similarity to the running action, but shouldn’t necessarily attempt to replicate a stride. Exercises should involve a movement pattern termed ‘triple extension’, which means your ankles, knees and hips should all extend simultaneously, like when you jump.
Maximum (or absolute) strength
Maximum strength is the quality that people usually associate with strength. It is the highest amount of force an individual can develop through a specific movement pattern, and so is best represented by the amount of weight you can lift on a given exercise. Powerlifters who can squat in excess of three times their bodyweight, and bench press twice their bodyweight, are examples of athletes who have a high level of maximum strength. Obviously strength of these magnitudes is of much less benefit to endurance runners, but this doesn’t mean that maximizing your strength isn’t important.
Relative strength
The maximum amount of force a muscle group can develop is related to both the size of the muscles contributing to a movement, and also the ability of the nervous system to activate as many muscle fibres as possible. Obviously an endurance runner’s performance would be negatively affected by adding any muscle bulk, so ‘specific’ maximum strength training should involve prescription, which teaches the nervous system to switch on more muscle fibres. This means that rather than maximum strength being the key quality, ‘relative strength’ is more important, as it represents the force that can be produced per kilogram of bodyweight.
Based upon the definition of maximum strength, improving this quality is best achieved by performing resistance-training exercises that use relatively heavy loads for a low number of repetitions. As Chapter 6 will address, loads used during key exercises must be individually prescribed. If you are new to this type of training, it is likely you will get stronger relatively quickly simply by practising technique with a moderate load.
KEY INFORMATION
There are several different types of ‘strength’ that are important for a runner to develop. Relative strength is the maximum force that you can generate per kg of body weight. Putting on muscle bulk is a disadvantage to endurance running performance; getting stronger without adding unwanted mass is important.
Explosive strength
The ability to generate a high level of force against the ground is an important determinant of running performance. However, during the running stride you spend only a fraction of a second in contact with the ground, therefore you have a limited amount of time to generate this force. So although strength is defined as the maximum amount of force you can generate, this definition doesn’t account for the fact that during running, force needs to be produced very rapidly. Producing strength quickly or explosively is a separate but very trainable quality that all runners need to develop to enhance their performance. Chapter 6 provides some key exercises that you can use to develop your explosive strength.
Reactive (or plyometric) strength
Of all the four main strength qualities defined here, reactive strength is undoubtedly the most important to the endurance runner. As explained later in this section, the running action relies heavily on the elastic properties of tendons and connective tissue to produce the majority of force. Instead of relying on the muscles to produce the force, which requires a considerable amount of energy, the body makes use of these passive tissues, which are incredibly efficient at storing and returning elastic energy. In much the same way as a spring, you can improve your body’s reactive strength qualities with a training technique called plyometrics. These exercises teach your legs to bounce along more effectively, and therefore muscles fatigue at a slower rate.
KEY INFORMATION
When you run, your foot is only in contact with the ground for a fraction of a second, giving your body very little time to produce force. Developing your ‘explosive strength’ will help you generate force more rapidly. During running, the tendons in your legs act like springs to help you move efficiently and save energy. Your ‘reactive strength’ is your ability to use these tendons effectively and can be improved with plyometric training.
