Often when we start training, we have a goal in mind. The goals can be anything from improving general fitness conditions, running a marathon, losing weight, or increasing muscle mass. People often wonder how quickly the training results will be visible. How quickly will I reach my goal?
Continue reading “How long does it take to see training results?”
Running and training are full of myths. Some of them still live tenaciously, even though they could have been proven wrong by science a long time ago. There are many running myths that can affect people’s training and beliefs about how they should train. Some of the myths can also affect how we see training in general. Here is just a small fraction of common beliefs.
Continue reading “Running myths – True or false?”
Roughly speaking, there are two types of runners, those who do strength training and those who avoid it. Sometimes those who avoid strength training start it, but they find excessive body soreness a couple of days after the training session. This often leads to quitting the whole thing. Before you give up with strength training, here’s what you do.
Continue reading “I started strength training, and I’m too sore…”
Runners tend to look after their legs and train them to stronger, but foot and ankle mobility is often overlooked and forgot. Poor foot and ankle mobility can cause injuries that can appear upper legs. It also affects the running technique and speed. Foot and ankle absorb the shock when we run, the force is transmitted all the up in the back. Poor shock absorption make ankles stiff and cause calf and shin stiffness and other problems.
Continue reading “Runners foot and ankle mobility for better performance”
In a physical perspective, there is some difference between women and men. Women are often described slower and weaker, because of the physical factors, but that’s not necessarily the thing. Women can be stronger and faster than men, like the same way some men are stronger and faster than other men. It depends on the training background and many other things. But in the scientific perspective, there are many differences between men and women. So should they train the same way?
Continue reading “Should women train differently than men?”
Roughly speaking running performance can be divided into three sections; psychological factors, biomechanics and physiological factors. Each of these section contains several sub-concepts, let’s see some of these factors. Continue reading “SCIENCE TALK: The consist of distance running performance”
Are you training often? Are your timing your training to be beneficial?
We all know people who train twice a day, or maybe you do that too. Most of the people train once a day or less, but at some point of development, two exercises a day are necessary when levels and goals are increasing. Recovery plays a huge role when training amount or intensity are increased. This is not only considering those who are training twice a Continue reading “SCIENCE TALK: recovery enough?”
There are three energy systems in human body. I’m not going to explain how they break down, to avoid making this post extra long. I’m going to briefly introduce them and explain their relationship to strength training especially for distance runners and why runners should vary strength training types. Continue reading “SCIENCE TALK: Energy systems and strength training”
Life is full of uphill and downhills so is running. Expect that in running downhill are nicer than real life.
Correct form to run uphill Continue reading “SCIENCE TALK: Uphill and downhill running technique and benefits”
Are you running always the same routes and the same type of surface? When you prepare for the road race, it crucial to run road and get comfortable that harsh and hard surface. The impact for the leg is one of the hardest when running in the road, so you need to get used to it otherwise you will struggle. But you still should vary surfaces sometimes, why? Continue reading “SCIENCE TALK: Should you vary the running surfaces”
Most of us has bad habits, that’s okay, but if we constantly repeat them, the development and performance start to suffer. As running is not just running, to become faster and better we have to consider every aspect of our life. This doesn’t mean you have to live like elite athlete, but there are many little things which you can do, these also often prevent injuries and improve life quality. Can you recognize yourself any of these bad habits? Continue reading “Runner’s bad habits”
Just run, that’s enough? Or is it?
Becoming the better and faster runner, doesn’t only mean tons of running alone. Runners should also do the strength training to improve their running form, endurance, speed and other physiological factors. M. Chatara et al. (2005) show that strength training improve VO2max, whereas Støren et al. (2008) proved that strength training improved time of exhaustion level in maximal aerobic speed. There are tons of studies which show similar results, and no wonder why most of the elite athlete do some strength training. Even though there are variable between training group, for example Nike Oregon project runners hit some heavy weight training once in the while when most of the Kenyan runners Continue reading “Should runners do strength training?”
Rest/Sleep
Proper night sleeps are the one of most important things for the every athlete. If you are waking up early, make sure you go to the sleep early. Quality of the sleep is more important than the amount, of course you have to get good amount the sleep, but if your sleep quality is poor, the long sleep do not necessarily help.
Healthy food
The healthier food the better. Diverse and healthy food is the key for the good training. Junk food don’t give your body what it needs, it might only give your mind the short pleasure. Eating the same food all the time, might increase cravings to eat junk food, also Continue reading “Things every runner should do”
Last post we looked couple most common knee injuries and what cause them, now we will take closer look how to prevent them.
Strength training:
Side-lying leg lift
Lay down on your other side, keep straight line from head to ankle. Lift your upper leg and bring it back down. Do 15 reps. Repeat 3 times. Remember do both sides. Continue reading “Knee pain – exercise and prevention”
Knees are one of the most often injured part of the runner. There are tons of the reasons which can lead knee pain/injuries, such as shoes, running terrain, posture, technique, etc. I’m always recommending take any abnormal feelings and pain seriously, denying it or lack of treatment (prevention) may cause long symptom and/or recovery period. Here are some most common “muscles” related pain producers.
Patellofemoral pain syndore- also known as runner’s knee
Runner’s knee is a repetitive stress injury, where the pain located in the under the kneecap (patella) or front of the knee. It occurs when pressure between patella and femur increases, as the knee flexes and extents patella glides trochlear groove, end of the femur. Normally the bursitis which are the lateral side of the knee reduce the friction, but if Continue reading “Running injuries: knee pain”
You might have heard flat foot; other word pronation, where foot rolls inwards while standing. It’s normal to foot pronate or supinate (opposite to pronate) in certain points during gait cycle. But when pronation happens during stance phase where most of the body weight is right above the foot, problems might occur. Pronation is foot’s triplanar movement, so this means if pronation occurs it affect three cardinal plane; subtalar eversion, dorsiflexion of the angle and forefoot abduction. Also as the foot is rolled inwards it increases rotation of the tibia, when it causes pressure to joint and ligament which can lead many other problems.
Pronation often cause knee pain, medial tibial stress syndrome know as shin splints, calf, shin and foot muscles soreness and pain as the muscles are pulled wrong position. When muscle is pulled wrong position long period of time it shortened while its opposite muscles lengthened. Often the lengthened side start to show symptom of pain as it Continue reading “What is pronation?”
Does your legs feeling like they weighting tons while running? Is your running posture more like sitting in the chair than upward? Do you have knee or other leg pains? If you answered yes even one question, you MIGHT have tight hip muscles or/and muscle weakness. If you don’t suffer any of these I still recommend to you take care of your hips to prevent any problems to the future, for example those that we spoke at running injuries: hip and thigh pain post.
In hips area we have many muscles and muscles’ insertion and origin which rotate, flex and extend our legs. These muscles are also one of the basis for our running. If these muscles are tight or weak they pull our body down when space between our upper body and legs shortened as muscles are short too. This of course lead that our legs don’t have Continue reading “Tight hips – exercises and prevention”
