What To Believe--And NOT--About Running Form
The New York Times recently published a great article on running form--what’s good, what’s bad, and what you don’t need to worry about. The story succeeds because it comes from a knowledgeable writer, Christine Yu (author Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes), who manages to score interviews with several global experts.
Several of these authorities--Matt Fitzgerald, Bas van Hooren, Isabel Moore, and Heather Vincent--will be familiar to longtime RLRH readers, as their names and research have appeared frequently here.
What does Yu learn from them? That “running technique does matter to some extent, but certainly not as much as many people try to make you believe,” according to Van Hooren.
For example, runners are often told they should aim for 180 strides per minute. That’s largely true for Olympians, but not realistic for many of us. Van Hooren suggests that staying above 160/minute is a more practical guide. Listen to fast-tempo music to reach this goal.
Isabel Moore notes that many runners overthink their stride rate, foot placement, knee lift, and more. Her studies indicate that we find our best stride almost automatically if we continue running for several months. “Just keep running,” she says. “Let your body do its thing without thinking about it.”
Heather Vincent takes the cake with a great running tip I had never heard before. It’s simple, memorable, and practical. She likes runners to maintain a slight degree of tension through the abdomen “like you’re blowing out a candle.”
This will help with your core alignment on the run. More at NY Times.
I Swear, You Swear, We All Swear … To Run Faster
Swearing has been shown to improve physical performance over short time frames. However, it may not be a great idea in social situations like a big road race or triathlon. As a new paper notes, “The taboo nature of swearing may limit its utility in real-world situations.”
On the other hand, consider the positive side: “Swearing can be easily utilized, is cost-effective, and appears to be a potent ergogenic intervention.”
Swearing works its magic through 3 known pathways: physiological, psychological, and nociception (dealing with pain). It heightens the first two, and lowers response to the third.
When it comes to endurance, we need more research “to better comprehend the ergogenic effects of swearing.” For example, it wouldn’t be a good idea to begin swearing at the beginning of a marathon. After all, you don’t want to start too fast.
However, it might work well on the last lap of a mile race. Or any time late in a race when you need a little extra push.
You’re probably wondering what swear words are most commonly used. Don’t feel bad. Everyone wonders about that.
Here’s the answer. The 4-letter “F” word comes up first about 51% of the time, followed by the 4-letter “Sh” at 38%. More at Frontiers in Psychology with free full text.
Injured? Stopped Training? New Study Reveals How To Bounce Back
Runners get injured. It’s a fact of life. Fortunately, we usually bounce back quickly from soft-tissue muscle and tendon complaints.
Still, we have to expect occasional layoffs, and know how to organize our training for a return to fitness. A comeback.
A new case study has delved deep into that question. It investigated a 54-year old triathlete who stopped training for 12 weeks, and then started up again.
Before stopping, the subject had been racing in triathlons for 30 years and achieved a top 5% rank on standard physiology testing. He trained 10 to 12 hours a week.
Researchers measured his fitness and body changes before he stopped training (i.e., at “baseline”), at the end of his 12-weeks off, and as he returned to training over 12 weeks.
Results: The subject gained about 4.5 pounds during his time off. He also lost the same amount of muscle. As a result, his vo2 max dropped by 9.1 % in cycling and 10.9 % in running.
Further results: After 12 weeks of retraining, the subject weighed 3 pounds less than at baseline. This raised his vo2 max above his baseline point even though he had not regained all the lost muscle.
However, his running economy was lower than at baseline. This suggested that “following a detraining period, the return to initial values is much slower for RE than for vo2 max.”
After beginning his comeback, the subject followed a cautious, graduated return to training. He took 6 weeks before again hitting his normal training load of 10 to 12 hours per week.
Conclusion: “Well-trained endurance master athletes can regain their cardiorespiratory fitness in a period equivalent to the duration of the detraining. However, running economy seems to take longer. Additionally, because detraining leads to a significant decrease in muscle mass, master athletes should pay particular attention to regaining muscle mass and strength through specific training and diet during the retraining period.” More at Frontiers in Physiology with free full text.
How To Find The Best Midsole For Your Next Shoes
When we run, we hit the ground with a force that produces shock tissue vibrations (STV) in the legs. Prior research has shown that we should try to keep these STVs as low as possible.
When they are low, we feel more comfortable on the run, may be less likely to incur injuries, and may also improve endurance performance due to less peripheral fatigue of the leg muscles.
That knowledge still leaves a lot of questions to be answered. Two big ones: How do different midsoles affect STVs. And what kinds of runners are most likely to benefit from what kinds of midsoles?
These were the questions a French research team recently set out to answer. They gathered a large number of 20 mile/week recreational runners (133 in total, almost half female), and asked their subjects to run in the lab in identical shoes. Except that the shoes had one key difference.
The shoes had midsoles characterized as hard, medium, or soft. How would various runners perform in these 3 conditions?
Result (simplified): Rearfoot runners who had higher amounts of body fat received the best STV reduction when they wore “soft” midsoles. Forefoot runners with short stride flight times did best in hard midsoles. Higher mileage runners with longer flight times did fine in “medium” midsoles.
Conclusion: “Functional groups were different in terms of intrinsic characteristics such as running mileage, fat mass and biomechanics.” Also: “These characteristics could be assessed with simple metrics in running shops, at home or in the field.”
In other words: When choosing your next pair of running shoes, consider your unique running style as you check out shoes with soft, medium, or hard midsoles. More at Scandinavian J of Medicine & Science in Sports.
Do You Know--Or Need To Know--Your Blood Lactate?
Many runners love their heart rate monitors. Not content to “feel” their effort in training or racing, they rely on their monitors to gauge if they’re running at 80 percent, 90 percent, or even 99 percent of peak heart rate.
And if you do this consistently, you can come to understand the relationship between your heart rate and your performance. Including how the two change for different distances and different weather conditions.
Other runners would prefer to know their actual blood lactate levels, which give a better reading on the state of your skeletal muscle (legs) efficiency and fatigue. This gets to the very essence of the currently popular “Norwegian system” of training.
In this system, endurance athletes take frequent pin-prick blood tests during workouts to make sure they are not pushing too hard. The goal: to train up to a certain intensity level, but not beyond..Going over the lactate line could push you into overtraining, or at least an insufficient recovery state.
The problem has long been that pinprick blood tests are, well, cumbersome and prickly painful. Who really wants that?
Now Alex Hutchinson explains in this Sweat Science article that continuous lactate monitors are poised to make a big breakthrough in the next year or two. He covers several companies that use different techniques to achieve continuous monitoring, ie, like your heart rate monitor.
At least one expert thinks somebody is going to get rich off this technology, as athletes will swarm to purchase and use lactate monitors. That remains to be seen. Case in point: The same was predicted of continuous glucose monitors, but the prediction was wrong. More at Outside Run.
The Bean Counter’s Guide To Optimal Nutrition
A group of top nutritionists working together as the 2025 US Dietary Advisory Committee has proposed that Americans should consume less meat for protein, and more beans, peas, and lentils.
Why? Because the beans contain less saturated fat and substantially more fiber.This makes the health results “more compelling,” says Stanford’s Christopher Gardner, a committee member.
Legumes are also healthier for the planet, says another committee member, David Katz, from Yale. They consume much less water than beef farming.
The more different kinds of beans you eat, the better. Each has individual strengths in addition to protein and fiber. For example: Fava beans are packed with lutein, an antioxidant; black and red kidney beans rank high for potassium; and chickpeas contain high amounts of magnesium.
The committee was charged primarily with helping Americans reduce the country’s high rate of obesity, which is linked to other chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Here’s some exact language from the Committee’s summary:
“What is the question? What is the relationship between dietary patterns consumed and growth, body composition, and risk of obesity?”
“What is the answer to the question? Dietary patterns consumed by adults and older adults that are characterized by higher intakes of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, fish/seafood and lower intakes of meats (including red and processed meats), refined grains and sugar-sweetened foods and beverages are associated with lower adiposity (body fat, body weight, BMI, and/or waist circumference) and lower risk of obesity. These dietary patterns also included higher intakes of unsaturated fats and lower intakes of saturated fats and sodium.”
More at CNN and from the federal government's Dietary Guidelines webpage.
5 Things You MUST Know About Running Injuries
This article comes from a website for physical therapists, and heavily promotes a video behind a paywall. But the basic information is helpful for runners aiming to avoid injury. In other words, every one of us.
After all, there are many times when we have to be our own diagnostician and physician. At least with minor aches and pains.
I particularly appreciated the simple explanation about why aging runners must be more aware of injury risks and how to avoid them. This leads directly to key point # 4: “Calf is king.”
Because: “The soleus is particularly important, generating forces up to 6-8x bodyweight during running.”
Therefore, runners need to “include high-load strength and plyometric training such as skipping and hopping for the calf and Achilles, to prepare them adequately to perform their critical function in running.” More at Physio Network.
SHORT STUFF You Don’t Want To Miss
>>> Are you over-striding? Here’s how to tell, and what to do.
GREAT QUOTES Make Great Training Partners
"The real purpose of running isn’t to win a race; it’s to test the limits of the human heart."
— Bill Bowerman, legendary Univ of Oregon coach
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. RLRH is taking a 2-week break for the Holidays. See you again the week of January 6, 2025. Oh, my, we’re almost 25% through the new century. Happy New Year to all. Stay safe and healthy. Amby