New Training Strategy Cuts 30 Minutes Off Your Marathon Time
As global marathon running becomes more popular, we find more research into methods that can improve marathon performance. A paper based on 206,000 London Marathon runners has unearthed a new one: Join a running club.
The effect of running-club membership was particularly evident among male and female runners in the 18 to 39 age group. Male club members finished the marathon 40 minutes faster than non-club runners.
For females, the gap was 30 minutes.
What makes club membership so powerful? The researchers suggest that it’s the “structured running programs, advice and training from experienced coaches and seasoned runners, guidance on running form, nutrition, hydration and running gear.”
Also: “Humans are social animals who instinctively form groups with the aim of increasing cooperative behavior.” Increased group productivity has been shown in business organizations as well as in sports.
The results of the current paper also indicated that club membership helped runners maintain strong marathon performance as they aged. It negated “the adverse effect of age on marathon pace.”
Conclusion: Membership in a running club could provide the boost an individual needs to become “eligible to apply for a place in some of the more prestigious world marathons like Boston, New York, and Chicago.” More at PLOS ONE with free full text.
Can Squats Improve Performance & Limit Injuries?
Almost every article about lower-body strength training recommends squats. Here’s a new one, for example, at the J of Strength & Conditioning Research. It states: “The squat and its variants can provide numerous benefits including positively affecting sports performance and injury prevention.”
Okay, but what’s the evidence for runners? It seems quite strong for sprinters, but squishier when it comes to leaner, long-distance types. This study did find that “half squats” improved running economy and time to exhaustion among already well trained runners. Another paper found that squats “may help runners to train muscles vital for uphill running and correct posture.”
Other papers, such as this one, find that lower-body strength training, including squats, “may help reduce running-related injury risk.”
Here’s a running specific article summarizing much key information on squats, and presenting 5 top squat variations for runners. Frankly, I wouldn’t do number 5 (and couldn’t do it if I tried 100 times). But I like the others. Most recently, I’ve been working on Bulgarian split squats. More at Marathon Handbook.
Also, here are 20 more squat variations. I like the idea of isometric squats for those who are just beginning, or those coming back from injury.
Make “Happiness” A Top Training Priority
The U.S.’s Grant Fisher ran strong every step of the men’s 10,000 meter final, and nabbed the bronze medal. That’s a rare distance success at the Olympics for a U.S. distance man. How did he do it, especially after a disappointing, injury-plagued 2023?
This article attributes his bronze medal to increased “happiness” in 2024. That’s a hard one to judge, because it doesn’t boil down to simple numbers like training mileage or fast-interval workouts.
Yet there’s no doubting its importance, which more runners and coaches are trying to bring into their systems. Fisher left the Oregon Track Club program towards the end of 2023, moved to Park City, Utah, and returned to his high school coach for training guidance.
“I wasn’t the happiest athlete over the past year, and I think that reflected itself quite a bit in my training and my racing and getting injured in the middle of the year,” Fisher explained in early 2024.
After the 10,000 in Paris, he noted: “Altitude is a piece. Training location is a piece. Generally being happy in my whole set up is a piece. The coaching is a piece. All those things add up. So many things need to go right over the course of a year, and I’m happy that they did.”
That’s a big-picture observation, and one more runners should pay attention to. There are lots of pieces to the training puzzle, and happiness might be more important than has been realized previously.
The book and streaming video marketplaces have plenty of options dealing with the science of happiness. I bet more runners will be checking them out soon along with Daniels Running Formula, The Lore of Running, and others. More at Outside Online.
Meanwhile, the NY Times published a somewhat-related article on how to make your workouts more enjoyable. One expert said: “Track your mood and how much you like something, and see if you can rotate different types of exercise until you find the one you love.” More at NY Times.
Research Report: Fuel Your Muscles & Fitness With Creatine
Creatine is one of those supplements on many most-recommended lists--though perhaps more for strength and power gains than improved endurance. Several new studies have given it an additional boost.
A systematic review and meta analysis found that creatine increased muscle mass and decreased body fat vs strength training alone. The researchers recommend that 7 grams of creatine per day is likely to boost muscle mass by a little more than 2 pounds and lower fat mass by about 1.5 pounds. More at The J of Strength & Conditioning Research.
A similar review of creatine and strength looked only at randomized, controlled trials. This paper agreed that there is “robust evidence” that creatine can have a positive effect on body composition, but found that concurrent strength training was an important factor. More at J of the International Society of Sports Nutrition with free full text.
Canadian Running believes there are at least “3 reasons runners should take creatine,” and provides references to supportive journal articles. This one (with free full text) answers 12 key questions about creatine, and suggests that it might “promote great glycogen storage,” and also “reduce muscle damage and/or enhance recovery from intense exercise.” Those 2 effects would help endurance runners.
In addition, female performance specialist Stacy Sims believes women athletes should pay more attention to creatine, because their bodies “naturally have 70 to 80 percent lower creatine stores than men.” Also, women may eat more restrictively than men, and might be less likely to eat creatine-rich foods like beef. More at Dr. Stacy Sims.
Don’t Get Bamboozled By “Epic Workouts”
All endurance athletes eventually have to determine the training program that most effectively improves their fitness. And there’s no doubt that HIT workouts (High Intensity Training) deliver a big return on investment.
On the other hand, studies have shown that athletes in many endurance sports (running, cycling, swimming, nordic skiing, rowing, etc) devote 80 to 90 percent of their training time to LIT (Low Intensity Training.)
That still leaves plenty of wiggle room when it comes to weaving HIT and LIT together. Especially for those tempted to improve faster with more HIT.
Norway-based endurance expert Steven Seiler has been at the forefront of 80/20 training from day one. Here’s a 2009 paper in free full text.
Now he has written a 2024 update arguing that endurance athletes should pay more attention to “the long game” and less to “epic workouts.” He believes that athletes should focus on training that “extends over years.”
Seiler lists 3 reasons for this: 1) HIT workouts should not be viewed in isolation, as they often are, when certain training programs are promoted; 2) There are multiple “molecular signaling pathways” driving improved fitness, and these depend on a range of intensities; and 3) “Successful endurance athletes balance low intensity and high intensity, low systemic stress, and high systemic stress training sessions over time.”
Conclusion: It takes “effective integration of intensity, duration, and frequency of all training stimuli over time” to create a training program that “drives endurance performance success.” More at Applied Physiology, Nutrition & Metabolism.
Wash Your Hands After Next Marathon
“Transient” is an important term in any analysis of running and health effects--especially after long races. After a marathon, you might face more risk of conditions ranging from dehydration to heart-muscle damage.
But these risks are usually transient. They often peak within 24 to 48 hours post-marathon, and then return to normal levels. A marathon is guaranteed to give you very sore leg muscles, for example. But that soreness soon fades, and your muscles might even get stronger or more durable.
Way back in 1990, exercise-immunity expert (and avid marathon runner) David Nieman published the first study showing that runners were susceptible to upper respiratory tract infections after a marathon. Some subsequent work failed to confirm this finding. Now we’ve got a meta analysis of the topic.
Result: Risk of developing a respiratory infection is 18 percent greater post-marathon than pre-marathon.
Conclusion: Runners should be encouraged “to find efficient interventions to reduce this risk.” This might include all the lessons you learned from Covid: relative isolation, hand washing, masks, etc. More at Exercise Immunology Review.
Twins Study: Vegan Diet Lowers Calories, Slows Aging
The medical field called “geroscience” has been growing rapidly in recent years, because there are more older individuals in many countries. Also, “Aging is associated with increases in health care costs and financial stress on social insurance systems.” Geroscience aims to limit these costs by “slowing down or reversing the molecular changes that occur with aging.”
One excellent way to explore this important subject is through twin studies. Take a group of twins with identical genetic makeup, and put them on two-separate regimens to see if anything happens. That’s what this study did.
The subjects were 22 pairs of identical twins who were all following a healthy, omnivorous diet. One of the twins was then put on a vegan, total-plant diet for 8 weeks, while the other twin continued eating his/her normal omnivorous diet. Researchers were looking for changes in “DNA methylation”--an epigenetic process that is associated with cancer and other diseases.
Result: Subjects on the vegan diet exhibited “a significant decrease in epigenetic age acceleration,” which should lower cancer and other health risks. They also consumed 200 calories/day less, and lost about 5 pounds more during the 8 week period. It’s possible that the weight loss, and not the vegan diet, contributed to the decreased age acceleration.
The researchers argued for a “nuanced” interpretation of their findings. They pointed out, for example, that the omnivorous eaters showed increases in tryptophan and serotonin that could impact mood regulation. Also, vegans must be careful to get enough B 12 in their diets.
Still, they concluded: “We observed significant changes using epigenetic age clocks among healthy identical twins, suggesting short-term advantageous aging benefits for a calorie-restricted vegan diet compared to an omnivorous diet.” More at BMC Medicine with free full text.
Pace Lights & World Records: Why Are The Lights Allowed?
The 2024 Paris Olympic Games will conclude Sunday with the running of the women’s marathon. But some of the big issues will remain unresolved.
One of those: Should we try to protect records set in an earlier era without new technologies like Super Shoes and WaveLight pacing of endurance races?
You expect to read scientific opinion papers on this subject, but you don’t necessarily think that one will be co-authored by a former world record holder like Kenenisa Bekele, who is racing the Men’s Olympic Marathon on Saturday. However, that’s the case here in a “Viewpoint” at the J of Applied Physiology with free full text at the Download link.
Bekele and co-authors ask why World Athletics allows pacing lights while prohibiting coaches or managers from providing “live physiological or biomedical data.”
“There should be some level of consistency in the rules,” the authors argue. “Is feedback allowed or not allowed?” It seems a reasonable question.
World Athletics hasn’t responded. Presumably the track & field federation likes the new records that have been set with super shoes and pacing lights. After all, records create more excitement than non-record performances. Alex Hutchinson takes a deep dive into new technologies and the evolution of records here at Outside Online.
SHORT STUFF You Don’t Want To Miss
>>> Root for the underdog: Give Dakotah Lindwurm some support in Sunday’s Women’s Olympic Marathon.
GREAT QUOTES Make Great Training Partners
“We all have bad days and bad workouts when you wonder why you started. Don’t worry, they will pass.”
--Hal Higdon