“Descending ladders” climb to top of workout ladder
The descending ladder interval workout has always made a lot of intuitive sense. You go really hard for a set distance and pace (let’s say 3 laps) that you probably couldn’t repeat a second time. So you cut down your second repeat to 2 laps while maintaining pace. Then you do a 1 lapper. Then half a lap. Always at the same pace.
The result is a strong piece of training at a hard pace. You manage to hold that pace through the entire workout, with each repeat remaining “do-able,” only because each is shorter than the preceding one.
Now we have impressive physiology data to reinforce the benefits of descending ladders. At Outside Online, Alex Hutchinson describes a paper that compares several different workouts, and explains the power of descending ladders.
Several weeks ago I noted another report favoring long intervals over shorter ones for stimulating your vo2 max. It appears that High Intensity Decreasing Interval Training, or HIDIT, is even better. More at European J of Applied Physiology.
Simple (but complete) guide to good running form
Several running experts who are also members of the American College of Sports Medicine have teamed up to produce a deeply-referenced review article they call “Healthy running habits for the distance runner.” It’s a running-form article, and not one about diet and sleep and the like. Their work includes a nifty free Infographic that actually looks the way most of us would like to look at mid-stride--relaxed, balanced, good posture, moving smooth.
The accompanying article includes many of the usual tips that are always worth reinforcing: Run with shortish, quickish strides, as quietly as you can, while squeezing your glutes, tightening the tummy, and being careful not to overdo a forward lean. Also, the authors are big fans of taking walk breaks when you feel overly fatigued, as during long runs. They believe that excessive fatigue causes bad running form, which leads to injuries.
I particularly like the simple instructions at the bottom of the Infographic. “When tired during a run: Take a break and walk a minute or two. Breathe and eliminate fatigue. Re-envision good running form, and then re-engage back to running.” Also, “Avoid injury: Do not outrun your endurance on long runs, as this is when form breaks down. Consider periodic breaks along the run, or try intervals.” More at Current Sports Medicine Reports.
The secret of Kenyan running success
It’s no secret that Kenyan runners have dominated world competition for the last 30 years. The “secret,” or at least the unknown, is a clear and compelling explanation. Maybe good genetics plays a role; no one is quite sure. Maybe it’s the altitude and clean air. Or the fact that most Kenyan runners don’t touch a drop of fluids during their weekly 30K long runs. “That’s okay,” says head coach Patrick Sang. “They don’t need it.”
In this wonderful story with fantastic photos, Sang posits that simplicity and community are the key building blocks to strong Kenyan running. At training camp, the athletes follow a routine of “Sleep, eat, train, repeat.” Everyone pitches in with the shopping, cooking, and cleaning--even superstar Eliud Kipchoge. He has just one special perk--a modest private bedroom.
“I think that when you stop leading a simple life, your mind-set loses contact with the outside world and you lose your focus on your actual goals,” says Kipchoge. “At this point, you run the risk of forgetting about the really important things in life.”
The article author adds: “The Rift Valley – Iten and Kaptagat in particular – is like nowhere else on earth. Everybody knows a champion who is friends with another champion, who is the neighbor of another champion.” Magic begets more magic. More at World Athletics.
Welcome to the “Recovery Decade:” Get more sleep
If you or I were to claim that we’re in the “Recovery Decade” of exercise training science, it would be hard for anyone to argue. Sleep is the new intervals. A few examples follow.
Here’s an Infographic that sums up a recent Sleep Loss systematic review and meta analysis. It found that every hour of lost sleep diminished performance by 0.4 percent.
The U.S. Navy considers itself a “ high-reliability organization that must maintain optimum performance under challenging conditions.” To see how things were going, the USN commissioned a major study of the sleep habits of 7617 personnel on 73 different ships. Result: Basically no one was getting more than 7 hours sleep. Worse, “Fatigue-induced occupational functional impairment was directly related to sleep deficiency.” More at Journal of Sleep Research.
Most interesting of all, recent Philadelphia Marathon winner Amber Zimmerman, PhD, is doing post-doc work in “sleep medicine.” Does that make her a believer? Yup, big time. Even though she’s often running long in the pre-dawn hours, Zimmerman aims for 8.5 to 9 hours of sleep a night. There’s another good reason she’s performing better now than ever before, having achieved a 5 minute improvement with her 2:31:35 at Philly. Zimmerman notes that she has slowed her easy-day runs from 7:00 pace to 8:30 pace. More at Fast Women.
“Train your brain” with pre-workout exercises
The effect of brain training and brain fatigue on endurance performance remains an area of great academic interest. Not to mention practical potential. Here, researchers put subjects through several rigorous mental routines before exercise training. Another group did the same training without the prior mental stress.
After five weeks, both groups were tested for endurance performance, which improved twice as much in the mental-routines group (24%) vs the exercise-only group (12%). Conclusion: “Mental training before physical training improves endurance performance greater than physical training alone.” More at European J of Sport Science.
The power of Relative Perceived Exertion
Relative Perceived Exertion (RPE) might be one of the most important concepts in training, coaching, and exercise physiology. But it’s under attack every day because you can’t measure it with a wristband or a pricey digital gizmo. There’s no multi-million dollar marketing campaign trying to convince you of RPE’s benefits because there’s nothing to sell.
RPE is literally the way you feel--good or bad? energized or fatigued?--and some have become so high-tech that they dismiss anything without a bright, blinking display. They may also become dazed and confused by advice to train and recover according to “how you feel” just as they lack faith in the “drink when you’re thirsty” recommendation.
But what other device can factor in, as RPE does, changes in pace, terrain, distance, altitude, heat, humidity, dehydration, mental fatigue, muscle soreness, glycogen availability, and more? None. And it’s free.
Using RPE, you can monitor your training so it’s “mostly easy, sometimes hard, and sometimes very hard.” You might also realize it’s smart to adjust any workout that doesn’t feel the way you expect it to feel.
RPE was developed by Swedish physiologist Gunnar Borg from the 1960s onward, and first appeared as a 6 to 20 scale roughly equivalent to low and high heart rates (from 60 to 200, divided by 10). The scale extended from minimal effort to max effort. Borg RPE ratings have also been transposed onto a 1 to 10 scale.
If you pair your daily exercise with a Borg assessment of how each effort felt, you could move toward an enhanced notion of training intensity, recovery, and adaptation (ie, increased fitness.) The link here includes a free full text history with updated neurophysiology and practical applications. See Int J of Environmental Research & Public Health.
Consider these for your New Year’s resolutions
I’ve reread Steve Magness’s and Brad Stulberg’s “The Growth Equation Manifesto” many times this year, and it only rings more true each time. If you’re looking for a couple of solid resolutions for 2023, start here. I guarantee you’ll find one or more.
It’s hard not to smile over “Avoid foods wrapped in plastic.” The most important might be: “Don’t expect things to feel good all the time.”
You might want to print out the full Manifesto and refer to it often. That’s what I do. The advice is “Simple though not easy,” as Magness and Stulberg would phrase it. But any effort you put into these principles will almost surely be returned many times over. More at The Growth Eq.
Curcurmin gets positive review for exercise and recovery
There are a number of spices and herbs with supposed beneficial effects on running or at least on reducing muscle soreness and inflammation. Cinnamon is a favorite in my home. We enjoy putting it in coffee, on oatmeal and apples, and basically wherever we can.
Curcumin has probably attracted the most attention in sports medicine. It’s the yellow spice in turmeric, which is often used in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking. Here a long review article reaches positive results on curcumin, concluding “Due to the anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin, it can increase exercise performance and decrease exercise-induced muscle soreness and muscle damage.”
Also: curcumin, via its antioxidant properties, may be effective in “reducing cellular oxidative stress, especially in mitochondria over the long term, as well as positively impacting exercise endurance, strength, and recovery to improve overall health.” More at Food Science & Nutrition (free full text).
How to use percussion therapy for muscle pains/injuries
Percussion massage “guns” (horrible name but quite descriptive) seem like the current and future leader for anyone suffering from muscle pains like the familiar DOMS that runners experience after hard workouts and races. These things are new and not extensively researched yet, but you have to admit that a machine can apply forces much faster and perhaps harder (if that’s what you want) than human hands. Also, while they can be expensive, you also have to compare them to the hourly fee of your favorite massage therapist.
Here’s a guide to their use. The author makes an important point--one that you’ve heard a million times about the way you train: Don’t go too fast, too soon. With massage guns, that means start gentle and build up as your muscles adapt to the percussion. More at Stack.
Here are two free “Consumer Reports” evaluations of massage guns from a year ago, but without the actual reviews (which would require a subscription). The first. The second.
Big data reveals that exercise protects against serious Covid
Doctors from the large Kaiser Permanente health insurance group took a retrospective look at more than 190,000 people in their system who had a positive Covid test. They asked these subjects: “How much did you exercise before getting Covid?”
The results showed a clear dose-response association between degree of inactivity vs regular exercise and severity of eventual Covid illness. “Those who were consistently inactive were 191% more likely to be hospitalized and 391% more likely to die than those who were consistently active.” This held true across ethnicities, ages, prior high blood pressure, and other variables.
The researchers concluded: “The results of this study document substantially higher odds of hospitalization, deterioration events, and death, with lower amounts of self-reported physical activity in a stepwise fashion for adults infected with COVID-19.”
Therefore, “Public health leaders should add physical activity to pandemic control strategies.”
More at American J of Preventive Medicine.
SHORT STUFF you don’t want to miss
>>> Nasal breathing strips helpful to runners but certainty of evidence is “very low.”
>>> DIY myofascial release effective against ITB in cyclist group (free full text)
GREAT QUOTES make great training partners
“Eventually the hoopla will die down, and people will run the same way we brush our teeth--every day, without a fuss.”
--Jim Fixx
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading. See you in two weeks. Amby