How to boost your mental endurance
Mental fatigue decreases endurance performance, and mental training can increase performance. So how do you do that mental training? Here researchers showed subjects a 10-15 minute mental training video for 3 weeks.
A control group didn’t watch the videos or receive any other preparation.
Subjects were randomly assigned to their groups, and all took vo2 max and threshold tests before and after the 3 weeks, and a Time To Exhaustion test (TTE) at the end of the three weeks. Researchers also measured electrical muscle activation. The videos, which were watched for nearly 3 hours per subject, included exercises designed to: reduce stress, improve breathing, teach positive self-talk, and visualize success.
Results: The video-trained subjects improved their TTE by 10%. They needed less muscle activation to attain this result. Conclusion: “Three weeks of mental training improves performance by reducing EMG, decreasing activation of the muscle and reducing metabolic factors during the latter stages of exercise.” More at European J of Applied Physiology (free full text).
Des Linden’s new approach to training
One of the things many of us appreciate about Des Linden is her no-BS approach to running. She doesn’t hyper-inflate her comments , or beat around the bush. She gets right to the point. Now approaching 40 (birthday: July 26 this year), Linden told Runner’s World: “Age is not a mindset; that’s silly. It’s a physiological thing.”
Roger that. Yet Linden wants to keep running strong, so she has to figure out how to accommodate her years. Last fall, she trained in her normal high-mileage manner for the NYC Marathon, but with a disappointing outcome. She ran 2:32 including a non-Linden-like 8 minute positive split for the second half.
Training for the recent Boston Marathon, she dropped her mileage almost 20%, and did more interval training at 5K pace. She also took more recovery days to make sure she was ready for the hard ones. “It’s the power,” she said. “That’s your speed coming off the ground. That’s what springs you forward.”
Result: She ran a strong 2:27:18. More at Runner’s World.
The best warmup for a 5K race
I’ve always believed, as a common-sense sort of rule, that the shorter your race distance, the longer and harder the warmup you need. Conversely, the greater your race distance, the shorter the warmup. Sprinters need to do everything possible to prepare themselves for the sudden, pulled-muscle-potential demanded by their event. Marathoners should mostly sit around to conserve energy, and run the first mile slower than goal pace as a smart warmup.
What about in between distances? Good question. And here’s an answer--at least for 5K runners.
Researchers measured the 5000-meter time trial results of 13 high-fit male runners after two different warmup protocols. One included 3 x 250 repeats at race pace (high intensity); the other included no running faster than 70% of race pace.
The high intensity warmup produced significantly better results, in part because it “led to an improvement in pacing strategy.” More at J of Sports Science & Medicine (free full text).
Short, quick strides can lower injury risks
Anyone who tries to predict which runners will get injured is playing a fool’s game. Of course, there are some indicators. The strongest has always been prior injury. Overstriding is another, often measured as low stride rate.
Predicting which runners will get injured is a fool’s game, but there are some indicators. The strongest has always been previous injury, and overstriding (with low stride rate) has shown up in several injury studies.
Here 171 active duty soldier-runners wore a shoe pod for 6 weeks to collect key biomechanical data. Twelve months later, their injury records were analyzed. Who got injured?
Those with a low stride rate had more injuries than high-frequency runners, but the biggest stride factor was a long contact time. “Participants with the longest contact time were at a 2.25 times greater risk for a running-related injury.” To the extent that you can manage to do so, it’s generally good to run with a light, quick stride. More at Sports Biomechanics.
Ketone drinks might improve your muscle growth and mental sharpness
I got excited about a recent ketone drink article published at Triathlete until it started sounding familiar. Then I checked deeper, and realized it was a 4-year old column picked up from Outside Online. It’s still interesting because it hints that ketone drinks could be a boost to recovery rather than a direct boost to performance. Of course, recovery is no small factor in hard-training endurance athletes.
Besides, the ketone studies keep coming--many of them from a Belgian lab focused on their potential benefits. RLRH recently mentioned one linking the drinks to muscle growth “which may be at least partly due to stimulation of erythropoietin secretion.” More at The Physiological Society (free full text).
Now the same lab has another ketone finding--that it might delay fatigue in ultra runners by sharpening mental clarity. That could be a big factor for runners facing the almost inevitable brain fog. The researchers note: “Ketone esters increase circulating dopamine concentration and improve mental alertness, as well as improve postexercise muscular inflammation in ultra-endurance exercise.”
You put all these ketone studies together … and you begin to get a bit suspicious. The results sound too good to be true, too much like a free lunch. Still, the researchers are apparently funded by the federal government, not the ketone industry, so we should give them at least one ear. More about the ultra running paper at J of Applied Physiology.
Sure, you’re skinny. But you can still get strong
If Alex Hutchinson and I were to face off in a weight-lifting competition, we’d both lose. We’d be DQ’d for failure to show up, because we’re embarrassed about our low muscle mass. But it’s also why we’re so interested in strength training (called “resistance training” in the science world).
We know muscle is important, from reading all the research, and we’d both like to add some muscle to increase our overall health-fitness. Here, Hutchinson does a great job summarizing new and encouraging strength training research out of Belgium. Bottom line: We skinny folk with an excess of Type 1 muscle fibers (good for endurance) can add muscle just like the Type 2 (power) folks.
We might, however, need to do a few more repetitions--about 25% more. As the researchers highlighted: “Importantly, slow typology individuals performed a significantly higher training volume to obtain similar adaptations compared to fast typology individuals.”
But that’s no problem. Reps is what we’re good at. Reps reflect endurance. More at The Journal of Physiology.
Not that anyone should expect a miracle transformation. Hutchinson has “included strength training in my routine pretty consistently over the past decade, but I’m in no danger of needing to buy bigger T-shirts.” Same here, and I still can’t do more than about 2 dozen pushups at a time. But one of my docs noted that I had better muscle tone, which brought a smile to my face. More at Outside Online.
How diet affects your sleep … and everything else
We don’t hear much about this, but your sleep is affected by what and when you eat. And of course your sleep impacts everything else, especially mental and physical performance. A high protein diet with plenty of tryptophan is helpful, as are low glycemic index carbs, fruits like cherries and kiwis, and keeping a watchful eye on your caffeine and alcohol intake. It’s also smart to not eat too close to bedtime. More at Cureus (free full text).
Sleeping too much or too little are both linked to shorter lifespans, but performing more exercise reduces this risk. More at European J of Preventive Cardiology. Exercise of various types, including low-intensity housework and walking, “is an effective and safe non-pharmacological intervention for sleep disturbance.” More at International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.
Lost hours of sleep impair endurance exercise the next day. When well trained cyclists were deprived of 3 hours sleep, their performance the following day suffered even though some measures like heart rate, lactate, and glucose were unchanged. More at J of Sleep Research.
Lastly, exercise physiologist Brady Holmer notes the “profound link between sleep and cardiovascular aging.” Even the American Heart Association is paying more attention to sleep. The AHA recently added sleep to its “Life’s Essential” list, now numbering 8 items. The other 7: diet, exercise, nicotine, weight, blood lipids, blood glucose, and blood pressure. Holmer suggests: ‘Think of every night of sleep like an exercise training session--an opportunity to rejuvenate your body and grow stronger.” More at Substack/Brady Holmer.
3 new ways to run cool in summer heat
Some of us haven’t encountered summer heat yet, but we know it’s coming. We also realize it will put a dent in our running enjoyment and performance. That’s why researchers are always looking for ways to help us out a bit. Here are three new papers on the subject: one about pre-run cooling; one on in-run cooling; and one about post-run recovery.
The first investigated the effects of a “neutral beverage” vs. a pre-run “ice-slush/menthol beverage” drink with menthol (consumed 30 minutes pre-exercise, or 60 minutes). All drinks were followed by 60 minutes of hard cycling in a hot, humid environment. Result: “Performance was significantly higher in Pre-60 than in Pre-30 and Neutral conditions.” More at Biology of Sport (free full text).
In the second paper, experienced runners used an ice-filled cap for 10 minutes before and during a 5K time trial in a hot lab. The protocol was “a randomized crossover design.” Subjects performed significantly better with the icy cap even though there was no change in their core temperature. Clearly, they would have known when they were wearing the cold cap.
The cap is commercially available here, and it doesn’t appear that the company paid for the test. There is no declaration in the paper, and no mention on the website. The cap weighs 13 ounces when ice filled, and then less as the ice melts.
Conclusion: “Continuously cooling the head may be a practical strategy to enhance running performance in hot conditions.” More at International J of Exercise Science (free full text).
The third report examined the recovery potential of battery-powered cooling gloves worn after subjects had performed 30 minutes of high intensity exercise in a lab. Compared to a no-cooling condition, 20-minutes of glove use produced a significant drop in body temperature and blood lactate concentration. The gloves also enhanced cardiac function and muscular endurance in a subsequent exercise challenge.
Conclusion: “Hand cooling can effectively improve athletic performance.” The authors also note that cooling gloves are much smaller, more portable, and less expensive than cold-water immersion tubs and other cryotherapy devices--thus more “practical and convenient.” The gloves used in the trial were customized and not commercially available. More at Technology & Health Care (free full text).
Here’s what the gloves looked like:
SHORT STUFF you don’t want to miss
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>>> Who returns to running after a hip/knee replacement?
GREAT QUOTES make great training partners
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.”
--Benjamin Franklin
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby