Tag Archives: shin splints

Day 3: Top 5 gifts for Endurance Athletes

OK gang – let’s say that you are an athlete who has to stand on one leg at some point in your sport. This could be running straight ahead, cutting laterally on the soccer field, jumping up for a rebound during a game of pick up – literally any weight bearing sport! You need to learn how to properly USE your foot. So many running athletes don’t have proper coordination of muscles inside their foot. If you can’t move your foot, your foot position will fall apart when running, jumping, cutting, and anything else you do.

What’s the secret?

#1 – understand your foot. Years ago, I made this video for Running Times. The focus was on how to prepare your foot for minimal running shoes (because that was the trendy thing to talk about at the time) but let’s be 100% honest here – the criteria I point out are valid and critical for ANY running athlete. So take a look at it, and make sure you can separate out the “right way” to use your foot muscles. Yes, its hard for most of you, and yes it gets better really, really quickly if you invest a few minutes a day. If you want more, check out my interview with Ryan at MOVEMENT FIX where we talk in depth about how feet work, and how to make your work better!

#2 – buy a MOBO Board

This is a 2021 update. In the past I recommend a rocker board…..but those still let you cheat the way your foot works. I saw a problem in need of a fix, and developed, patented, and launched MOBO. Yes, I made the thing your body needs, yet you didn’t know exists. Want to become durable? Want to become BETTER? Want to improve your performance? Check out moboboard.com and see what you can do to improve your connection point to the ground – your feet!!!

Note – the rocking motion in MOBO is quite different than a “wobble” board. A rocker board pivots around 1 single axis and is great to “train” proper foot stability. A wobble board is essentially a ball on the bottom of the board and is completely unstable in all directions. Sure, a wobble board is more unstable, but its one situation where more instability isn’t better. And the cur out for your toes take the experience to another level entirely, and doesn’t allow you to “cheat” with the muscles in your calf and cues you to use the muscles IN your feet! Get a MOBO board, and have fun improving your balance!

Coffee talk with Endurance Planet

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EndurancePlanet

If you are tired of listening to the same old tunes during your workout, check out this podcast I did with Endurance Planet. We get into some gritty content here. Basically, the idea that you don’t need “more”, you need “better”. And then you need more of the “better.”

Skill first, dosage second. If you are looking for ideas on where to start your transformation next season – start here.

Help for New Runners: a conversation with Healthynomics

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So, you read the “4 exercises every runner should do this month!” in Runner’s World. You even like the 6-pack abs you see on the cover. You wonder how many miles you have to run before yours pop out like that too?

Your best friend challenged you to sign up for a 10K in a few months. And your trip to the running store left you so confused on what to buy that you are thinking about just wearing the beater shoes you use to cut grass.

and we haven’t even started a conversation about chocolate milk being the best recovery drink or not…….there’s a ton of info out there. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with many thousands of runners. If you ever wondered what kind of simple advice goes a long way to set you on the right course for a smooth start and long term success, you just might want to check this out. Healthynomics asked some questions – and you’ll get some answers. Take a listen here:

Getting Started With Running: Choosing shoes, prepping the body, and more!

Does barefoot running really impact injury or performance? Evidence for the peanut gallery

Abstract

Background

Running is becoming an increasingly popular activity among Americans with over 50 million participants. Running shoe research and technology has continued to advance with no decrease in overall running injury rates. A growing group of runners are making the choice to try the minimal or barefoot running styles of the pre-modern running shoe era. There is some evidence of decreased forces and torques on the lower extremities with barefoot running, but no clear data regarding how this corresponds with injuries. The purpose of this survey study was to examine factors related to performance and injury in runners who have tried barefoot running.

Methods

The University of Virginia Center for Endurance Sport created a 10-question survey regarding barefoot running that was posted on a variety of running blogs and FaceBook pages. Percentages were calculated for each question across all surveys. Five hundred and nine participants responded with over 93% of them incorporating some type of barefoot running into their weekly mileage.

Results

A majority of the participants (53%) viewed barefoot running as a training tool to improve specific aspects of their running. However, close to half (46%) viewed barefoot training as a viable alternative to shoes for logging their miles. A large portion of runners initially tried barefoot running due to the promise of improved efficiency (60%), an attempt to get past injury (53%) and/or the recent media hype around the practice (52%).

A large majority (68%) of runners participating in the study experienced no new injuries after starting barefoot running. In fact, most respondents (69%) actually had their previous injuries go away after starting barefoot running. Runners responded that their previous knee (46%), foot (19%), ankle (17%), hip (14%), and low back (14%) injuries all proceeded to improve after starting barefoot running.

Conclusion

Prior studies have found that barefoot running often changes biomechanics compared to shod running with a hypothesized relationship of decreased injuries. This paper reports the result of a survey of 509 runners. The results suggest that a large percentage of this sample of runners experienced benefits or no serious harm from transitioning to barefoot or minimal shoe running.

Road vs. Cyclocross Bike Fit: what’s the difference?

Saddle position

Your pedals are driven by large muscles surrounding the trunk, hips and knees. In fact, about 98.8% of the force you deliver to the pedals comes from your hips and knees. That’s right, the ankle only produces a very small percentage of your total power. So it makes sense to have the saddle height and setback (also called for-aft position) the same between your road and cross bikes to maximize power production. Why would you select a saddle position that compromises power output? Keep it simple. If you like your current saddle placement on your road bike, there is zero reason to change it on your ‘cross bike.

Handling and comfort

Good bar position allows you to move around while properly weighting the front end for corners and technical terrain | Photo © Jill Rosell Photography

Okay, now here’s where things are a bit different. Instead of rolling your slick tire down fresh asphalt, you’ve got to contend with dusty pumice, wet grass, rocks, roots, and the nutrient ‘crossers crave: mud! In short, it’s critical to have a good handling front end. This means that you want to have a little less weight on the front so that you can lift your front end over obstacles easier. Careful though, too little weight on the front end will bring your torso too upright make it hard for your front tire to bite and send you skittering wide towards the outside of the turn. Let’s see how this all plays out in fit.

‘Cross bikes typically have a higher bottom bracket. If you were smart, you’d kept your saddle in the same place as your (properly fitted) road bike. This means that your saddle is higher in the air than your road bike. Since your saddle is higher, your handlebars also need to be higher.
Hand-grip placement for optimal handling: A lot of people rarely use their drops on their road bike. Then when on the ‘cross course, they find that they are forced into the drops on steep downhills to brake and get a better grip on the front end. Most riders find the bike is much more stable when conditions get squirrely if they use the drops. So if you are going to be in the drops, make sure you are comfortable.

So what’s the secret recipe to make sense of it all?

It’s simple really; the goal is to get the bars a bit “closer” to you. And you can do this in three different ways. You can run a shorter stem to move the bars closer, you can run your bars higher (by putting a few spacers under the stem or by using a stem with more rise), or a combination of both. I typically recommend that riders start by raising their bars first (because this usually only means moving spacers or flipping a stem). Setting up the bars with some combination of “up and back” will allow you comfortable access to the drops for good grip and handling, and while still allowing you to have optimal engine placement so you don’t lose any precious watts.

Powerful, sketchy, and somewhat comfortable. Yeap; sounds just like ‘cross racing!

Brain Power: Athletes, Coaches, and Clinicians – Join us for a great event in Bend, or beyond

The running shoe industry has been taken by storm: TP Striders

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Revolution, not evolution. The latest innovation for your feet is not from the behemoth with swoosh. Its not from the company who brought you “those funny toe shoes.” Instead, this latest venture was announced last night on prime time television.

Its innovative “dual-purpose outsole” has a unique feature to help you out of a certain situation that always seems to come on about 1 mile into your run. Run prepared! If you’d like learn more, check out the video below.

Ground-breaking news: runners who are faster than you have longer strides

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This year, I got to present along an all-star cast at the USATF SPEED Summit in NJ. Basically, the goal is to breakdown the elements of coaching based on science, and then use this science to bolster what we do on track. Smarter plan = better results. Or maybe I should say smarter people help us develop better plans? This is the conference I was most looking forward to this year, and it did not disappoint.

So let’s get past the sarcasm in the title, and go straight to the big picture: if you run slow, you take short strides and your turn over isn’t that quick. The only way to run faster is to increase your turnover and your stride length. So it shouldn’t be a surprise when you hear that faster runners have a longer stride length than slower runners. But now we get into an interesting question…..is stride length the cause or the effect? Or more specifically, why do some runners appear to bound effortlessly over the ground?

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They are stronger. About 80% of the cost of running comes from holding your body up against gravity. If you have strength reserves, it’s easy to combat gravity and float from step to step. This extra strength enables more “hang-time” which translates to a longer stride length with less effort. Take home here? Get stronger.

How can you develop running specific strength? You can run. Collegiate and sponsored athletes get two workouts a day, and are racking up big miles. You know what else they do? They lift weights to develop strength reserves. Its highly likely that you don’t have the time and energy to rack up monster miles each week. But take a look at your week. Can you examine your training program and budget 30 min 2x’s a week for some strength work? If the answer is no, take a look back at the Achievement Triangle post…..and ask yourself where you’d like to be. And if you are over 40, this is not optional. Get strong to get faster.

Want more? Check out this reference: Weyand

Triathletes: don’t let your cycling mess with your running!

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What can a new research study tell you about running off-the-bike? Sometimes, research just tells us things that are somewhat interesting. And other times, like this one, research provides a very nice take home message of which we should all take note.

A few weeks ago, we published a study called “Sagital Plane Kinematics During the Transition Run in Triathletes.” Don’t let the fancy words throw you off. All you need to know is this: Cycling before your run makes it harder to maintain your posture.

Now those of you who have seen me for an evaluation, read my Running Times article called “P is for Posture”, or read my book know that this is the un-sung skill that can make or break you as an athlete. Posture is the foundation around which the most powerful muscles in your body attach. If the position of those muscles is optimal, a number of things go really well…..most notably peaked performance, and a better stabilized chassis for a reduced risk of injury. If this optimal position is compromised, then you aren’t operating at your best.

So, if I told you ahead of time that doing “A” before “B” will produce complications that make “B” harder, you’d (hopefully) try to prepare ahead of time to minimize, or eliminate those complications. Right? …. Well, here’s what happens.

We had a group of triatheltes come into our lab and run. We measured a number of factors related to the way they ran to get a baseline. This same group of runners came back a second time, but before they ran, they cycled for 30 min at a just-easier-than-threshold effort. Their post-bike running data showed that they had more arch in the low back, a more anteriorly-tilted pelvis, a more flexed hip, and less hip extension.

poor position = poor performance

For those of you wondering if this is good or bad, I’ll give you both the simple and more in-depth version. Running off the bike makes you look more like the person on the left than the person on the right.

optimal posture = optimal performance

For those of you who want to know why, and get more in depth –> read my article in Running Times, and then read Ch 6 and 8 in Anatomy for Runners, especially the “3 non-negotibles” on p.183, and the test on p. 196.

I simply cannot downplay the significance postural alignment. If you screw this up, you’ll screw up your run. And given that 70% of injuries in triathlon occur in the run, this is yet one more contributing factor.

Cycling doesn’t “hurt us” – then why do we see postural shifts occur in triathlon? You are bent over in a forward position. Some tissues get bound up. Others get lengthened. And we only did this for a 30 min ride. What happens if you force this constrianed position for 5 hrs, and then go run? We don’t know for sure (because we didn’t test this) but if I was a betting man, I think we’d see the same patterns, but somewhat worse. To be fair, we only looked at their running data for the first 14 min of the run. Maybe posture improves after this 14 min. Maybe it stays the same. Maybe it gets worse. We didn’t test it. But no one wants two slow or injury-prone miles out of T2. And due to the fact that central fatigue typically makes our posture worse, I’d think this is something we should all pay attention to.

So here’s your chance to beat the odds, and be “smarter” than the average. Here’s your mission for today:

Find correct posture standing right now (see above references)
Hold correct posture walking around your office or house.
Go for a run, maintain correct posture (and if you fall into the “back seat” stop and fix it!)
Go for a brick workout, and pay special attention to your postural alignment off the bike. If you focus on this in training, it will be easy to correct on race day. You should be able to run any pace – from an easy run to 400’s on the track – without compromising your posture alignment.

I’d like to thank our former grad student and first author, Nicole Rendos, for taking the lead on this study. And if you are looking for more ways to tune-up your triathlon training, come see us this August for our REP Triathlon Camp!

The Bat-signal has been lit: time for a PARTY!