find your niche

This is a good topic for both coaches and athletes. Somewhere along the way we need to find our niche. Not all of us are going to be top 5 finishers and we don’t need to train that way. For many adult recreational athletes, the goals are getting in shape and having some enjoyment of the sport. My experience is that many of my students take up running/cycling/etc. for this reason. A few of them will progress to the level of being competitive in local events and actually train for PRs (personal records).

A good coach and a client with good, honest appraisal of their skill level should discuss this issue at some point in their training program. Trying to turn someone into a competitive athlete, who is better off as a casual jogger, is a big mistake. Eventually both the coach and client will become frustrated or worse-injured from overtraining.

And, in the same line of thought as my prior blog on running for a lifetime, I believe that people will move in and out of these brackets. I started out in the competitive world of triathlons and then moved into the relaxed world of Ultramarathons. Now I only train for my own reasons and can bump up or down in intensity level. This is much more fun, then training at competition level and being a slave to stopwatch and all the trivia.

So, part of training smart is knowing your niche, what you want out of your program and then achieving it in a sensible way.

circle of 5

Jim Rohn, the famous business philosopher/ personal development sage, had this as one of his 12 pillars of success. Your circle of 5 is the 5 people you spend most time with in any activity. This is where the popular bumper sticker wisdom “it is hard to soar like eagles, when you hang out with turkeys” comes from. He would break it down into groups-positive, neutral and negative.

 The positive people, you want to spend more time with them. The neutral people you can give or take away time that you spend with them. And the negative people do your best to limit your interactions with them. When you apply this to your training, think about the people in your group-are they striving to get better and willing to work hard/study new ideas or are they content to repeat the same old, same old? Does your group make you step up to the plate or do they listen politely to all your excuses and commiserate with you?

What about your coach? Does he hold your feet to the fire? Does he/she have the velvet rope policy? If you continue to “excuse” your way out of missed workouts, is that really doing you any good?

So, take a hard look at your training group and your coach, are they helping you to improve and holding you to high expectations or are they letting you drift along? You have a choice about which group you can belong to. Coaches have an obligation to hard workers in a group to ask the less motivated workers to train with a different group.

Remember, train smarter.

The Joys of Tire Dragging !

This week we got back to the plain and simple workouts of tire dragging. I do believe this is probably the most old school method of building strength in runners. As a Strength and Conditioning Coach, I see this as an extremely valuable tool. Most traditional exercises programs are great for building muscle, but then you have to train that muscle to fire in the correct neurological sequence for improved running economy. With tire/sled dragging you have the strength building process occurring while running –How sweet is that!

Creative thinking is important with tire dragging so that it does not become a boring session. I like using “Musical Tires”. Have a variety of tire sizes and let your runners alternate from big to small tires. You will be amazed to learn how small changes in tire sizes will affect the amount of muscle recruitment. The best thing is going from a Kahuna tire to a small tire- you feel like superman and go flying down the track.

Another very skill that can be learned is linear running or what we call gliding. When beginning runners, are running with their tires, the tires tend to bounce or skip. When their technique improves the tires will drag smoothly no matter what speed or size of tire. So a runner can listen to the sound of his/her tire as a means of self –correction.  The simple act of having the rope across the front of your hips, will improve your sense of “running from the center” and becoming smoother. No need to go practice getting you CHI in order. Just go get a tire and rope.

So, there you have it. Stronger and more efficient running in 1 neat little package.

That is what I call training MO SMARTER!

Run (or whatever sport you like) for lifetime

This blog is a result of themes I read in 2 completely different books “Complete Book of Running “by Amby Burfoot and “No Need for Speed” by Jeff “The Penguin” Bingham. If you are one of those rare people, who is happy with running the same route every week and doing the same local 5K races then this blog is not for you.

They both bring up the point of paying attention to your training from year to year.  They feel and I would agree that it is terrible to hear “I used to be a runner/etc.” With proper attention and maybe some good coaching, runners can avoid injuries and worse yet BURNOUT.

Methods include: using a wide variety of goals-this month is recreational running, next month is an easy 5K, and then a serious 5K. Or maybe a whole year of running just for fun with local track club as a break from competition. Or switch from marathons back to 5Ks.

There are lots of options out there, and learning to run at different levels is a great way to prevent burnout, keep improving and learning new things. Personally, I am sticking with Ultramarathon events but have changed from East Coast event to races in Arizona deserts and soon will be trying high altitude races to see what happens.

Remember 2 mottos at Coach K fitness- Change is Good and Train Mo Smarter.

Learn the ropes, and then conquer Rome.

This is a chapter from a great book called “Start Where You Are” by Chris Gardner of “The Pursuit of Happyness” fame. Even though this is written more from a business perspective, I think it has great application to sports.

Many of us go out and pick up a new sport –jogging, cycling, etc. and develop a basic proficiency at it and then stop there. I have known runners that run with same speed, style and sometime same route for many years. And same is true with many cyclists that I have known-after many years, they have not changed group levels, not gotten better on hills or long rides.

This is where “learning the ropes” comes in hand. We (myself included) all have the very strong tendency to get in a routine (rut) that feels good, not threatening and “gets the job done”. The hard part is breaking out of that routine to learn the different aspects of your sport/hobby. Like doing specific training for hill climbing, learning to have faster foot contacts/spin rate, how to accelerate in short distances, etc. All these things that time and some good coaching to learn and even worse- it means giving up our usual habits in order to make time for new learning. Lots of cringing!

BUT, once you have learned all these little aspects of running/cycling/etc. you are now a much more complete athlete and you will be amazed at how much of a jump you make in performance. The brief amount of time spent “learning the ropes” is insignificant compared to the months or years you spend doing the same old, same old to get the equal amount of improvement. Which leads us to the point-

Train mo smarter!  

Why do we need to do the Long Run???

I was reading “Making the Marathon Your Event” by Richard Benjo and he talked about why we need to do the Long Run that is in every single training program in the world. He comes up with 4 points:

1.       Increase your body’s work capacity.

2.       Increase your anaerobic threshold and aerobic capacity.

3.       Increase your muscle/tendon strength.

4.       Increase your confidence.

SO out of these I can come up with alternative methods that are less time consuming and weather dependent.

1.       There are multiple cross training programs that will increase your body’s work capacity, and that is a big part of “Run less, Run faster” book. And I agree with the concept and practice it myself on many occasions.

2.       Ditto. A well-structured integrated circuit training program can do wonders for your anaerobic threshold and aerobic capacity.

3.       Ditto. A good plyometric program and/or wgt lifting program can improve your muscle/tendon strength.

4.       BINGO!..This is one thing that I think that why doing the LONG RUN is a must in any program. The mental aspect of long distance running is HUGE. When you have been out on trails for couple hours the combination of boredom, fatigue, uncertainty of new course, etc. all slowly chip away at your psyche and ability to run well.  BUT, if you train consistently under similar conditions, you will be to handle the challenges on race day much easier..”Oh yeah, I have done this before” is a great mental response to race day challenges.

That is why training smarter is often mo better than training harder.