February 9, 2023

 RLRH will not publish next Thursday. See you again on Feb. 23.

Stay well. Run long and healthy. Amby

Bad news, big mistake: Many distance runners don’t actually listen to their body

Here’s a report that surprised me at first reading. I think this happened because “Listen to your body” is probably the best and most repeated advice that runners hear. I assumed that a few of us were in fact listening.

But maybe not. Why else would sprinters have more “interoception” than distance runners. Don’t feel bad. I didn’t know what interoception meant either. But it’s clearly defined in the first line of the paper: “the process of detecting and interpreting bodily sensations.”

The paper compared sprinters, distance runners, and non athletes. The non athletes clearly had the lowest interoception. They weren’t very skilled at listening to their body. However, here’s the surprise: “Sprinters reported having better regulation of attention to internal sensations, more emotional awareness, better self-regulation, and a greater propensity to listen to their body for insight than distance runners.”

Also, another unexpected finding: The better the athletes, the lower their body listening. This sounds topsy turvy at first, but the investigators took a stab at explaining it, and I think they hit the mark. They suggest that top athletes must do a lot of “training beyond one’s physiological boundaries.” In other words, we often push hard even when the body is saying “Slow down” or even “Stop, for goodness sake.”

Dedicated runners are incredibly strong, willful creatures. This leads to both amazing success like marathon finishes, and also to high injury rates because we don’t always listen to the body.

We’d all like to find the perfect balancing point between training hard and avoiding injury, but that’s a tough one. Where’s your perfect balance point? Maybe if you listen really hard, your body will tell you. More at PLOS One (free full).

How to bounce back from overtraining  

The other day, a highly successful distance coach asked me what could be done for an apparently overtrained distance runner on the team. “That’s a tough one,” I answered. “Could be lots of things, and this stuff often takes longer to turn around than you’d like.”

Now a scientific “case study” has added new details to the discussion. The paper delves into the problems of an elite cross-country skier who had “two seasons of unexpected underperformance” during the winters of 2019/2020 and 2020/2021. Uh-oh, two seasons is a long time. To see what happened next, “The participant was prospectively followed in the process of returning to sustainable world-class level” in 2021/2022. Hoo-ray. A success story.

How was this turnaround achieved? The following problem areas were uncovered, and corrected: lack of training periodization that included easy days as well as harder ones; limited monitoring of “intensity control” in training; too many days of training “with low carbohydrate availability;” and too many days when the athlete did double moderate-intensity sessions. Finally, an assistant coach was assigned to observe more of the athlete’s workouts.

Conclusion: “The holistic approach described in this case study may serve as a theoretical framework for future studies and practical work with underperforming endurance athletes.” More at Frontiers in Physiology (free full text).

Build stronger tendons and ligaments with collagen

There’s increasing evidence that collagen supplements can improve tendon/ligament strength and stiffness. This is a good thing, as it could prevent injuries. Also, while tendon stiffness sounds bad, it’s not. For runners, increased tendon stiffness is associated with better running economy, since the tendons produce mechanical energy return without consuming oxygen (as the muscles do). So it’s like a “freebie.”

Alex Hutchinson summarizes several new papers at Outside Online, particularly this one from Frontiers in Physiology that investigated the effect of collagen hydrolysate on patella tendon properties of late-teen female soccer players. It found that the collagen could enhance “rapid transference of force” and also “mitigate injury risk.”

A down side for some. Collagen supplements are derived from animal sources like cows, pigs, and fish. While some marketers are pushing “vegan collagen” products, there’s little to no evidence that they are effective … or even deserve to be called “collagen.” More at Live Science.

Air pollutions slows NCAA 5K race times 

Here’s a deep and important study of air pollution and its effect on 5K race times of top NCAA male performers. The investigators, health and environment experts from Stanford University and New York City, performed a “statistically-rigorous assessment” of 5K race times. They included “1,104 performances at 143 races run by 334 elite male collegiate athletes from 46 different universities.”

They measured air pollution levels, including particulate matter and ozone, for the athletes’ training location 20 days before each race and on the day/location of the race. Result: “Training and competing at elevated air pollution levels, even at exposures within AQI’s [Air Quality Index] good-to-moderate classifications, was associated with slower race times.

For the runners exposed to higher pollution, recorded finish times were 11-13 seconds slower than would have been expected from previous races. This amounted to a loss of 1.3%-1.5%, which doesn’t sound like much but the researchers noted that “ a 12 second increase can differentiate between 1st and 6th place or separate those selected to be on the All-American team.”

Their advice: “”Coaches should consider approaches to minimize exposure among their athletes.” Not to over dramatize the pollution effect, but I suspect we’ll see more urban runners wearing face masks in the future. I did a fair amount of this myself recently when running in a traffic-heavy city, and my mask didn’t bother me … at least not at my normal, easy-run pace. More at Nature/Scientific Reports (free full text).

Everyone’s jumping in a sauna

With the NY Times recently jumping into the froth, articles about the potential health and performance benefits of sauna bathing are now officially everywhere. Of course, the NYT sought context, including a comment from a researcher at Finland’s University of Jyvaskyla (where they should know): “It’s not like, ‘Oh, instead of going for my 45-minute run, I’m going to sit in the sauna for 45 minutes.'’’ 

Maybe not, but cardio physiology PhD candidate Brady Holmer calls sauna bathing a possible “exercise mimetic” at his Friday Physiology newsletter. That means: It shares similarities with exercise, and Holmer has a lot of scientific references to back his view. So does Evidence Based Muscle.

Lastly a just-released paper put two college runners through 16 post-workout saunas in 3 weeks, plus two runs in a heat chamber. Result: “Both athletes had personal bests in the 5K” in good conditions, and one improved his 10K performance in hot weather by 5 percent. Thus, “Post-exercise sauna bathing could be a practical and time-efficient method” to improve distance running performance.” More at J of Sport & Human Performance.

What you need to know about running shoe “heel drops”

Over the last 10-15 years, a new term has entered the running-shoe lexicon: “heel-drop.” It refers to the difference in shoe height from the heel to the forefoot. An average heel-drop these days is about 6-10mm, while a low heel-drop shoe might decline only 0-4mm. Here are two articles explaining more about heel drop, and why it might be an important shoe consideration for you.

Also, the physical therapists at Doctors of Running note that degree of midsole compression could influence effective heel drop. In other words, if you’re a heel striker running on a soft shoe, you will compress the heel at each landing to the point where your actual heel drop is less than when the shoes are sitting on a retail shelf. So pay attention to compression.

Another important point: While zero-drop shoes were mostly born of the barefoot-minimalist approach, a thick super-shoe or other models with similar high stack heights can still have a low heel drop. For example, if a shoe is 38mm thick in the heel and 34mm thick in the forefoot, it has a heel drop of only 4mm. More at Run to the Finish and Run Repeat.

Who’s better--top trail runners or top road runners?

To begin with, they tend to look a bit different. Many ultra trail runners are thicker than road runners, who are chiseled down to a significant degree. It could be that all that up and down trail running produces stronger-looking athletes, or that stronger athletes are drawn to the trails (maybe because they don’t succeed as much as they would like on the roads).

A recent French study aimed to pinpoint some of the trail vs road runner differences with top performers from both groups. The road runners reported spending 81% more time training, including much more strength training and yet they underperformed the trail runners on several strength-power tests. That seemed weird. Is it possible that the natural up and down training of trail runners is more effective than the artificial work road runners do in the gym?

The road runners were unsurprisingly more economical on flat running, but the trail runners matched them when hills were introduced. There were no biomechanical differences between the groups in terms of stride frequency, flight time, and the like. 

What does it all mean? Probably that each group has either found their best running activity, or adapted to it by their training. Many do wonder: What happens to the best trail runners when truly elite marathon runners decide to head for the hills. Maybe not Eliud Kipchoge but the 2:06 to 2:08 crowd. Will they displace the current top trail elites?

Maybe, according to a new big-data paper that dug into this question with regard to 100-mile ultra runners. It found that Black South Africans were fastest among ultra men, while European racers topped the female list. East African athletes have largely failed in well-publicized attempts to excel at Nordic skiing and cycling. However, the transition to ultra races and trail races would appear much easier. 

More about trail vs road racers at Outside Online, plus the original paper at the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. Go to Nature (free full text) for more on 100 mile ultra results.

Old injuries and marathon-training linked to next injury 

For the past several decades, a Dutch research group based in Rotterdam and headed by movement and arthritis expert Marienke van Middelkoop has painstakingly investigated many aspects of running injury. They’re trying to identify the key causes, so they can develop prevention strategies.

Here they looked at a group of previously injured runners to see if they would get injured again. Some did, of course. About 20 percent of the new injuries were “located at the same anatomical location as the previous injury.” So be particularly careful in paying attention to areas where you’ve had past problems.

Also, entering marathons may represent a good/bad situation. They’re good because we enjoy the challenge, the travel, the group experience, and so on. Also marathons keep us motivated and fit. But they also tend to be associated with increased injury risk. They have an Odds Ratio of 1.72 in marathon-registered runners vs runners not entered in a marathon. More at Clinical J of Sports Medicine.

Should you choose a non-alcoholic brewski for rehydration?

Non-alcoholic beers have been picking up some good publicity lately, at least in terms of people saying a few of them actually taste good. Of course, many runners are known to enjoy a beer or two even as some are trying to reduce or eliminate their alcohol consumption.

So does that make non-alcoholic brews a good rehydration drink? Probably not, says the Washington Post if you have a subscription. Beer is a mild diuretic and might inhibit muscle growth. 

On the other hand, a 2012 research report from the Munich Marathon found that runners who consumed 1.5 liters a day of non alcoholic beer for several weeks before and after the marathon had lower “post race inflammation” and more protection from upper respiratory tract infections.” The paper noted that supplements seem to have limited or no effect, but flavonoids and polyphenols from “food components” have yielded “ impressive anti-inflammatory and antioxidative effects” after exercise. More at Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (free full text).

A more recent review noted that nonalcoholic beer is more effective than conventional beer in “preventing oxidative stress, preserving the endothelial function, and inhibiting thrombogenic activity.” However regular beer does more to increase heart-protective HDL cholesterol levels. More at Nutrients.

In online message board discussions, you’ve got those who like NA beers (and don’t), those who absolutely believe beer is a necessary reward after a hard training day, and those who find they can train stronger when they decrease or stop their beer consumption. More at Reddit. 

SHORT STUFF you won’t want to miss

>>> Stop the junk food junkets:The 17 most filling snacks for runners 

>>> Competitive sports and regular exercise might increase risk of pelvic floor disorders later in life.

>>> Physical activity before and after meals helps prevent high blood sugar that inflames tissues, causes some cancers, and contributes to diabetes.

GREAT QUOTES make great training partners

"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare."

 --Juma Ikangaa, Tanzanian marathon great

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. RLRH will not publish next Thursday. See you again on Feb. 23.

Stay well. Run long and healthy. Amby

February 2, 2023

52 ways to run better in 2023

One for every week of the year. The folks at Precision Hydration are trying to sell their products, but along the way they do a really nice and even entertaining job of providing top notch advice for runners. That’s what you’ll get at the below link titled “52 ways to be a better athlete.”

You’ll nod your ahead in recognition and agreement at almost all, but that’s no reason not to check out the entire list. In my opinion, you can never read good advice too often. I particularly like # 23: “Know when to focus internally and when to embrace distraction.” And also # 38: “Rotate your run shoes.” Others will strike a chord with you. More at Precision Hydration.

Can you go from great shape to even better shape?

It’s not easy, but it’s important. At some point in our training cycles, we all want to jump to the next higher fitness level. But how?

Many coaches and athletes believe that short, fast sprint training might provide the necessary bump. Two new studies have looked at this approach. In the first, a dozen “highly trained” rowers were assigned to do 6 weeks of hard intervals, either 90 seconds or 180 seconds at a time. Conclusion: “The HIIT interventions did not induce significant performance or VO2 kinetics improvements.” More at International J of Sports Physiology & Performance.

A second paper involved “trained cyclists” who were assigned to do “maximal acceleration training” 3 times a week for 12 weeks in addition to their normal training. The max accelerations were all-out efforts that lasted 10-15 seconds each, followed by 2-min recoveries. In each session, the cyclists did 10 of these in about 22 minutes. 

Result: After the max acceleration training, the cyclists improved their peak-power output by 4.1%.

That could certainly make a difference in a long bicycle race that ends, as most do, with a mad sprint to the finish. Still, the researchers concluded that the extra training produced only “modest favorable changes of performance indicators” because it didn’t budge the athletes’ max aerobic power or power output at comparable blood-lactate concentrations. More at Frontiers in Sports & Active Living (free full text).

Glutamine boosts triathlete run times

Researchers decided to test for possible benefits of hydrolyzed whey protein plus glutamine dipeptide on oxygen consumption, distance covered, and muscle damage during “an exhaustion test” performed by nine elite triathletes. They used a double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover protocol. Athletes were given the two supplements or a placebo 30 minutes before beginning a progressive treadmill run in a lab.

The supplementation “resulted in the physical effort at a higher percentage of maximal oxygen consumption, improved second ventilatory threshold, increased distance covered, and reduced circulating markers of muscle injury.” Distance covered rose by 2.8%

Conclusion: “These findings support oral glutamine supplementation’s efficacy in triathletes.” It’s not often that we see such a positive change in already elite performers. The investigators reported no conflict of interest with any supplement company (and didn’t name any commercial products). More at Frontiers in Sports & Active Living (free full text).

Eat carbs last at meal times

Patrick Wilson is an assistant professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University, and author of a definitive book on digestive issues that runners sometimes encounter, The Athlete’s Gut.  But he’s not just an expert in nasty stomach problems; he’s also a registered dietitian with wide interests in that field.

One of his interests is “ordered eating,” which refers to the order in which we consume fluids and foods in a meal. Here he performed a systematic review of studies about the effect of order of proteins/fats/carbohydrates in meals. Conclusion: “There may be benefits to eating carbohydrate after vegetable and/or protein-rich foods.”

Why? Because if you eat carbs first--or alone, as in far-too-many high sugar drinks--they will send your glucose-insulin response into “excursion,” which is Wilson’s way of saying “out of whack.” This could lead to diabetic and obesity-heart health concerns. 

On the other hand, carbs consumed after fibers, fats and proteins don’t cause the same response.  “Carbohydrate-last meal orders tend to lower blood glucose and insulin excursions.” More at J of the American Nutrition Association. 

Morning workouts vs evening: Which is better?

A couple of weeks ago I linked to a Training Peaks article about the benefits of morning workouts. I didn’t realize then that the author was going to follow up with another article about the benefits of evening-nighttime workouts.

The second article has been published now, so you get to review and evaluate both. There’s no denying that most road races take place in the morning, and most track meets in the afternoon or evening, so that will be a big consideration. Beyond that, your personal daily schedule and your chronobiology are likely the most important factors. Either way, be careful to get as much sleep as possible. Good news: One recent paper indicated that nighttime workouts don’t disturb sleep patterns as much as previously believed.

There might be a “missing link” in running injuries

Most experts agree that running injuries occur because of “training errors,” and one way to detect such errors is with a Total Training Stress system, of which there are several. These systems try to account for your mileage, your pace, and even the surfaces you train on. Plus, of course, your sleep, your mental-stress level, and more.

Complicated, right? But wait. There might be a missing link. In a new paper, several biomechanics experts suggest that we should also consider how much we stand and walk around during the day. After all, we perform these activities many more hours/day than our running, and that could make a difference. For example, simply standing for a prolonged period can produce 56% as much knee joint load as running. 

That’s why the researchers make this point: “Given that the accumulated loading from non running exercise and physical activities of daily living can impose substantial and consequential load on the musculoskeletal system, we make the case for considering loading from all sources of physical activity as a contributor to running injury.”

More at J of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, and a helpful infographic from YLMsportscience.

Do nearby footsteps change your running?

At one time or another, most of us have noticed that a training partner’s stride frequency was slightly different from our own. We heard their foot scuffing-stomping on the road next to us, and noted it didn’t perfectly harmonize with our own. So what?

Japanese researchers wondered about this, so they rigged a funny little study to dig deeper. They put two runners on side-by-side treadmills separated by a thin partition. The runners couldn’t see each other, but they could still hear the nearby footsteps.  

Both were told to run at an easy, comfortable pace for a few minutes. But then Runner A, unbeknownst to the other, was told to increase or decrease stride frequency. How would Runner B respond, if at all?

It turned out that Runner B did respond, but very modestly, and this had no effect on heart rate or relative perceived exertion. The researchers were forced to conclude that “the relatively low intensity of exercise did not affect the physiological load due to footsteps.” More at PLOS ONE (free full text).

Sad to say: Micro-dosing with EPO works

Most of us would like to ignore doping violations, and focus on healthy running for ourselves and for our friends. That’s fine. But it would also be nice if our sport could remove itself from the shadow of drugs and illegal performances.

Unfortunately, that’s more easily wished-for than accomplished, especially in a sport that offers prize money to skinny, large-lung athletes that can’t reap similar rewards in other sports. Here an RCT study found that frequent, small intravenous injections of EPO were sufficient to improve several performance measures by about 4 percent. That’s roughly 5 minutes for a 2:10 marathon runner.

Some marathon observers believe that such micro-dosing has become popular among athletes hoping to reduce the chances of getting caught. Conclusion: Microdosing can “enhance aerobic-dominated performance in both trained males and females.” More at Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

The mysterious world of mental toughness

When someone finally figures out what mental toughness is, or if it even exists, I’ll be the first one cheering from the peanut gallery. Until then, it seems a quagmire, at least in terms of how to acquire and improve your mental toughness. 

A new paper digs into the “Goal-Expectancy-Self-Control (GES) model,” which proposes that mental toughness is a “state-like multidimensional concept comprising three resources.” They are challenging goals, self-efficacy, and self-control, which “are proposed to lead to optimal performance through attention, effort, perseverance, and strategies.” Words, words, and more words.

Excuse me, but my attention is drifting. Even Alex Hutchinson had to admit that “all these elements work together and influence each other in ways that, honestly, become hard to follow.” He’s not being sarcastic; he’s just saying that there’s no simple formula here. But you can check here for the original article and here at Outside Online for Hutchinson’s summary.

A more helpful approach comes from a “Fast Talkers” paper of several years ago. After learning

“a personalized self-talk intervention,” the runner-subjects improved their 800 meter times. Conclusion: “The intervention positively influenced mental toughness and finish times.” More at J of Applied Sport Psychology.

Short Stuff you don’t want to miss

>>> Can creatine help you get in better shape?

>>> Here’s a nice review of the 8 “most prominent recovery techniques out there.”

>>> Too soon to know: Continuous glucose monitors are supposed to help you boost your endurance, but research doesn’t yet show that they have “any meaning in sport.” (free full text).

Great Quotes make great training partners

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.” 

--Atticus Finch, in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby