The one legged runner

When I started to work with Roddy knee pain was robbing him of the enjoyment he got from his morning run.

A 2:30 marathon runner, he really felt he wasn’t running freely.

The pain wasn’t crippling him but it was always there.

Some days it was barely noticeable but on others, it was like toothache nagging away at him.

But always worse after a longer run.

He couldn’t comfortably get into certain positions in his yoga classes.

Especially those that required a deep flexed knee position..there he got a sharp pain.

And even the child pose was really uncomfortable.

He was one of the classic “uninjured” injured athletes I see regularly. 

You can still train and play but you don’t feel like you used to.

The years haven’t been kind and accumulated niggles are having an impact.

Movement is a bit restricted.

Nothing seems to flow the way it used to.

In part due to tissue adaptations but mostly down to the behaviors you’ve learned to allow you to keep on trucking.

Great on the one hand…it allows you to keep training but, eventually, a real handbrake in terms of performance.

There often isn’t a need for big changes or to take a complete break.

It’s much more about finding the gaps in your training and filling them…

Checking how you move and work on any glaring restrictions…

And helping you solve the problems yourself.

Roddy, like many, had lost the ability to balance on one leg.

As soon as he got into that position he felt like he’d fall over.

Yet being comfortable here is essential to pain-free running.

It’s your mid-stance position.

If you are unable to get there you’ll load your leg very unevenly.

What you start to see are three compensations when you are running.

  • The knee flexes too much when your foot hits the ground
  • The knee extends too fast.
  • A lateral drop of the pelvis on the support leg

These aren’t just limited to runners…

Pretty much anyone with knee pain will demonstrate them.

The reason for this?

A lack of posterior knee stability.

You need the calf and hamstring working as a team to prevent the early knee extension.

This in turn places you in a position where the whole leg is working better.

You don’t get excessive knee flexion.

The glutes then have time to do their job and the lateral tilt disappears.

And like I had planned it that is where Roddy is now.

Not just running without any pain but running faster.

Yet his training isn’t geared towards running faster… he’s all about enjoying his running having left his competitive days behind him.

But here’s the kicker…

He’s running around 30 seconds per km faster with no extra effort.

How’s he doing this?

Because he’s got two legs again.

For the last few years, he’s pretty much been running on 1 leg.

His injured leg barely contributed to pushing him forward.

He says it’s most noticeable on hills where he feels a lot more powerful and doesn’t slow down anything like as much.

If your knee pain has been impacting your ability to train…

If sitting for long periods means throbbing pain around your knee…

Or your knees are starting to go snap, crackle, and pop when you stand up.

I’ve put together my top 3 knee pain exercises here for you to get started.

My Top 3 Knee Pain Exercises

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rty0xzwkpb9rbxb/Top%203%20Knee%20Pain%20Exercises.pdf?dl=0

You’re gonna get injured

Let’s be honest, if you play any sport or keep yourself fit and active…

Sooner or later you WILL get injured…

And if you’re training for the type of conflicting goals we’re talking about here… like squatting heavy and running a marathon the chances go up.

Why?

Because you’re trying to cram everything from max strength to LISS sessions into your week.

It’s the main reason for athletes suffering from the aches and pains I talked about in yesterday’s email.

Or at least trying to do everything from every programme is the problem.

If you’re aiming to hit some big numbers in the gym and out on the road you can’t simply bolt two powerlifting and  10K programmes together. 

There simply isn’t enough time in the week to do them 

Sure, we can reduce the chances of this happening.

That’s why I encourage a decent strength training programme…

And why I hammer on about having a BALANCED training regime

But eventually, it will happen — you WILL get injured.

Which poses an even greater problem…

Which is that if an injury isn’t treated properly, the long term effect can be even worse than the initial injury itself.

To illustrate that, I heard a line a few years ago that went something like…

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can cause permanent damage”

Let me explain what that means (and what it’s got to do with any injuries you might get)…

Every injury you suffer is like an insult to your body.

We all get insulted at some point in our lives.

If you’ve got supportive friends, caring parents, etc… that insult will be barely noticeable.

You’ll brush it off. And you’ll get on with your life like without any lasting consequences.

What if the opposite were the case?

Or if it happened often enough?

Or it was a serious insult?

In this situation, you’re like the kid who got bullied the whole way through school…

The mental scars could last a lifetime…

Leaving you riddled with underlying self-doubt and social anxieties that spill over into everything you do.

The injuries you pick up are just like this.

If it happens often enough…

Or if it’s serious enough…

It will start to affect other areas of your body.

But a good rehab plan is like having caring friends and supportive parents.

You come through the experience with no lasting consequences.

Because it deals with not only the pain but why it’s there in the first place.

Because a good rehab plan is an active one.

One that teaches you to move well again…

Makes you stronger…

And, ultimately, prepares you for the activities you enjoy doing.

Something that you won’t get by with a “rub” and doing a bit of stretching can’t do.

The Quest for Being (Slightly Better Than) Average …

 

To be better than average.

It sounds like a bit of a low bar to aim for, doesn’t it?

The thing is it doesn’t take long before being better than average is actually pretty damn good.

I’ve never been particularly great at anything.

And whilst when I was younger the idea of being great at something was definitely appealing…

When I played rugby I definitely dreamed, as most boys did, of playing for Scotland. But, whilst I was a good enough player but I was never going to get paid to play.

Because there’s a lot of extra stress that comes with being really good.

I had a friend who played high-level rugby tell me he couldn’t sleep the night before a game.

I mean who needs that…getting stressed about something that’s really a hobby?

Definitely not me.

And as I’ve gotten older I’ve become much more interested in being good at lots of things.

Having less of a specialist focus allows you to have fun and enjoy all the health benefits from different activities.

Powerlifting for the over 40’s is great. 

But the lack of cardiovascular work will bite you on the arse eventually if it’s all you do.

With runners, this flips around…

Yes, you ain all the health benefits from running but lose out on valuable upper body strength.

But given that there really isn’t any need to specialise as we get older why should you?

Especially as you can be both fit and strong…

That they aren’t mutually exclusive.

My 5K time is 8 minutes faster than the average for a UK male…

I could rock up at a powerlifting meet and not get embarrassed…

And my 5K row time on rowinglevel.com is in the advanced category.

No, I’d much rather be a jack of all trades.

Easily able to run to the school pick up when I’m late without sounding like a dying donkey…

Able to comfortable maneuver 3 by 2 slabs around the garden without thinking my back might explode…

Or carry boxes up and down stairs all day when we moved from our top floor flat.

But the funny thing is that if you decide to get good at a number of the different aspects of fitness.

Then you will stand out.

Not just in your age group but in any gym you care to go into.

It’s ok to be sore

I’ll let you into a secret…

It’s ok to be sore.

“ …he gave me the confidence to understand the feedback my knee was giving me and when it was OK to push through any pain.”

And Aaron didn’t know the difference anymore between the kind of pain that comes with hard work and the kind that is telling you something has gone wrong.

But if you’ve been unable to run for more than a mile before being crippled with pain it’s a hard one to get your head around.

And if he was to get back running he needed to be able to tell the difference…

Especially as he was training for the London marathon.

But it doesn’t just apply to running.

Your training, regardless of what it is, shouldn’t result in you being in pain.

Yet if you don’t have a few aches and pains from time to time and you likely aren’t training hard enough.

This doesn’t mean you should be sore all the time…

After a tough session then yeah, you can expect a few aches…but day to day?

Nope.

Normal aches and pains should come and go…

They also shouldn’t be in the same place all the time.

If they are, it’s an indicator you might want to check things out before they become a bit more than a minor annoyance.

It doesn’t mean you’re injured, simply that the area is getting a bit overloaded.

Sit back and have a look at what you’ve been doing…

Is there a common factor relating to a particular pain point?

If there is, that might be all you might need is to change things up a little.

So don’t fear pain. Learn the difference between normal training aches and pains and those that are the harbingers of doom.

That way you can be confident about pushing things but also know when you should back off.

That four letter word

It’s a 4 letter word that sparks a lot of controversy.

One that causes genuine offence to some.

A real slap in the face.

(No, not that one.)

But one that has people verging on questioning your sanity when you mention it to them.

“You mean I have to…

REST?”

Yes, you do.

Your training isn’t the most important part of the process.

What you do when you aren’t training is.

For all our obsession with exercise choices…

The intensity…

The frequency…

Cardio or lifting?

Your training isn’t where the magic happens.

Nope…

The magic happens when you get your rest and recovery on point.

When you are taking it easy and allowing your body to catch up with everything you’ve been doing.

All the plans I’ve ever written emphasise recovery.

And having a minimum of 1 rest day every week

And the only people who only get 1 day off are the experienced, well-conditioned athletes.

Everyone else gets 2 or 3 depending on their experience.

And every plan places emphasis on the importance of;

1. Getting to bed at the same time every night and getting up at the same time every morning…

2. Making good food choices that fuel your training and your recovery…

3. Hitting your 10,000 steps every day.

Because each of these help lay the foundations for improvement.

They enable you to smash the hard sessions that create the need for change.

Get your recovery sleep, food, and basic activity on point and you set yourself up for success.

Naked running

“I want you to run naked”

I was talking to a fellow coach recently, when he brought it up that he did quite a bit of naked running.

Safe to say, I was skeptical. 

I mean, I couldn’t picture him getting more than a few hundred yards down the road before getting lifted by the Police.

So I asked – “Do you do it on the treadmill at home?”

He looked at me like I was mental and replied, “No, what would be the point? You know there’s loads of great trails here. I lock the front door and stick the key under a brick as normal and head off”

Now before you think he’d lost his mind. And, maybe wondering how he’d avoided going to jail, he wasn’t talking about not wearing any clothes. 

What my pal meant by ‘naked running’ was leaving your GPS watch at home when you head out for your run.

And I’ve got to say…

Now that I’ve tried it, and ran ‘naked’ regularly — it’s liberating. 

Perhaps more so than running with no clothes on. (Though I haven’t tried that.)

Here’s the thing …

We are so conditioned to track everything, it can take the joy away from running.

When I did cross country back in PE classes at school, you just ran. No watches, no heart rate monitors. 

Just kit on, and around the route the teacher told you to do.

Since 1999, and the launch of the Casio ProTrek, we’ve become tied to the idea of knowing every little stat about our running.

Obviously, this does have some amazing benefits.

But at the same time, you become reliant on it. 

Losing touch with being able to run purely by feel.

Something that is vital if you’re chasing after a PB.

And running by how you feel is what naked running is about.

Once you ditch the watch it’s so much easier to listen to what your body is telling you.

For instance…

If you’ve had a busy week, hitting a certain pace might be pretty hard. 

With no watch telling you you’re going too slow, you’re forced to run by feel.

You have to listen to your breathing, and whether or not you’re straining when you should be going easy.

The big benefit from naked running comes when you put your watch back on.

Because that’s when you can listen to your body and the signals it’s sending you… without checking your watch every 30 seconds.

You won’t need to.

You’ll know if you’re on pace by how you feel.

And you can review things when you finish.

Because, like I said, the tech isn’t evil, you just need to stop relying on it.

So my challenge to you is to leave your watch at home once a week. 

Learn to listen to what your body is telling you and reap the benefits.

How Ray-Bans can help your training

I hope you’ve all been enjoying the lovely sunny weather recently.

Annoyingly I’ve discovered I’d lost my sunglasses.

So I thought I might treat myself to a pair of Ray-Bans and Ray-Ban Aviators in particular.

The iconic Aviators have been around since 1937 and, as the name suggests, were designed specifically for pilots. 

The lenses are deliberately large and curved to cover the whole field of vision to keep the sun out of the pilots’ eyes.  

But aside from the inferred coolness of being designed for pilots and them being Ray-Bans.

Ray-Ban Aviators are cool for another reason…

They use science.

By applying a chemical filter to the glass the original Aviators filtered out the blue light. 

The process massively cuts down the amount of light reaching the eye and helps maintain a sharp image.

Then later they introduced a polarised lens that prevents all the horizontal light from reaching the eye.

And this polarising effect isn’t restricted to just your sunnies.

You can apply it to your training.

The idea being that you have a big contrast between your training sessions.

Where polarised sunglasses will cut the light that reaches your eyes in half we want to go further with your training.

And have more of an 80/20 split.

Something that all elite athletes do but is perhaps easiest to see with elite runners.

They stay away from the middle ground. Making sure that each and every session is either hard or easy. 

With the biggest chunk being easy. 

To determine what actually is easy or hard is simple.

Easy =  a Zone 2 heart rate throughout the run.

Hard = either a Zone 4 or 5 Heart rate depending on the type of session.

If they tried to run the way most everyday runners do there’s no way they could clock up 100+ miles a week.

Fail to apply this simple concept and you’ll be plagued with aches and pains…

Regularly injured…

And constantly fail to achieve their goals.

So as an Everyday Athlete this is one of the few times you want to copy what the elites do in their training.

Where normally this would be madness…

A  fast track to injury and the treatment room.

By applying this idea of polarising your training you ensure the complete opposite.

It’s got a proven track record for getting the most out of our training especially if you want to…

Avoid injuries…

See consistent results…

And enjoy your training more…

Because it makes it easier to recover.

And it doesn’t make any difference what type of training you’re doing.

Lifting in the gym?

You need to limit those sessions where you’re hitting weights in the 85%+ range.

So NO maxing out every week.

You can even apply it to something like BJJ.

When you’re rolling aim for 1 hard, evenly matched battle, out of every 5. 

The others can be easier, more technique-based.

You’ll recover more easily between sessions and improve faster too.

So take inspiration from your sunnies and apply it to your training and watch your performance take off.

The art of suffering

“The life of an elite athlete is, in the end, the art of knowing how to suffer”

So says Killian Jornet.

If you don’t know who Killian is, he’s probably the best ultra runner in the world. 

And if you want to run ultra distances, knowing how to suffer is the difference between finishing and getting a DNF.

So it’s safe to say Killian is a man who has honed his ability to suffer.

But what is the “ability to suffer” and is it something you can train?

In some respects you can.

Let’s think of the ability to suffer as an override button.

One that allows you to take “manual control” of your body.

We, obviously, have a well developed system for self preservation. One that lets you know when what you are doing is jeopardising your ability to function properly.

There are times when you will automatically override this, such as if you injure yourself when running away from a  tiger.

At this point getting away from the tiger is much more important than your sore knee.

But what if there is no tiger?

If there’s no tiger, then it comes down to you deciding what you are doing is more important than your sore knee.

You have to consciously tell yourself to “man up” and ignore the danger signals.

And it is exactly what Struan did.

Struan is a soldier and an ultra runner.

He was training for the Hardian’s Wall coast to coast ultra and had popped in a few times to keep the niggles at bay.

Race day came and I messaged him the day after to see how he got on.

“Hurt my hip at mile 15. Told myself to “man up” and get on with it. Finished in a disappointing 14hours”

 

It was a perfect example that you can develop a manual override that works just like your automatic one.

As a soldier, especially an infantry soldier like Struan, this is part and parcel of your training. 

Every single soldier I’ve worked with is able to do it.

They all have a place they can go so they can keep on trucking.

And it highlights that it is a very trainable ability.

It’s not that they don’t feel the pain, it’s that they can ignore it.

Now let me say this ignoring pain just so you can finish a race will always come with consequences.

That said…

There are lessons to be learned from what squaddies go through in their training.

You can take the general principles of their training and apply them to your own.

That is to say you make your training progressive.

The squaddies are exposed to increasing demands in ever more challenging environments.

As the demands increase so does their mental toughness and ability to switch the pain off.

For you as an everyday athlete, this still applies. 

You might not want to tackle the Hadrian’s Wall Ultra or go into battle but developing the ability to block out the pain is an asset.

One that you develop through gradually increasing the demands of your training.

It’s like the idea of boiling a frog.

If you drop a frog into boiling water it’ll jump out.

But put it in a pan of cold water and slowly heat it up…

It’ll happily sit there until it dies.

It’s why you start any programme well within your capabilities.

If you jump straight into a heavy duty programme of crazy, hard sessions you won’t last long.

Very shortly you’ll either quit because it’s way too hard or you’ll get injured.

But start off slowly and gradually build up the volume and intensity.

Until you get to the point where you’re sitting in the metaphorical pan of boiling water.

That is how you build your ability to suffer…

To tolerate long, intense runs…

To not say fxxx that to near max loads in a back squat.

And to not only tolerate them but benefit from them.

Now I’m off to do an easy session as I blasted myself with some intervals yesterday.

The Most Important 2 Minutes Of Your Day

We’ve all seen those annoying posts on Facebook or Instagram. A load of shite about morning rituals and how important they are?

That you must meditate for an hour before the sun comes up. 

And get in a killer workout before getting ready for work.

Prep all your food for the day before a bird has sung a single note.

In other words, get up before you went to bed. 

And then you realise that it’s all written by someone who doesn’t have a life. 

Don’t get me wrong, there’s value in making a point of doing all of the above…

If you can make it work.

The meditation and meal prep are big time savers, not time wasters.

And if you have the ability to train first thing in the morning then your workout is done and dusted before “the day” can de-rail it.

In fact rituals and habits play an important role in how successful we are in pretty much anything.

And your training is no exception.

Yet one of the most important habits or rituals you can have is often overlooked.

And they are, perhaps, the most important 2 minutes of your training day.

Let me explain…

You can turn your legs to jelly on hill reps…

Sweat so much on the Erg you look like you’re actually rowing on a lake..

Cranking out the reps in the gym for a burn so deep you look like the “Human Torch”…

None of it matters if you don’t get this part of the session right.

Well, I’m exaggerating a bit but it is important.

Be it a hard or an easy session the last few minutes are every bit as important as the rest of the session.

You see, once you’ve done the hard work you want to calm things down as fast as possible.

Because the good stuff, the adaptations that make you stronger, faster and generally harder to kill only happen once you’re finished.

It’s the recovery period between the sessions that you make your gains.

And we want to get into the recovery zone as fast as possible.

To do this finish your run with a couple of minutes of gentle walking.

This should see your heart rate drop below 100 bpm.

Then once you’re inside you want to lie down and pop your feet on a seat and breathe.

Nice and gently, in and out through your nose. 

Pause after the inhale and again after you exhale.

Or spend some time in the “Child’s Pose”. 

A couple of minutes spent in either of these will bring your heart rate right down.

Flipping the off switch on the production of all the hormones associated with exercise and flipping on the switch for all those that help you recover.

Give it a try after your next session it’ll help speed up your recovery.

Running Repairs – a guide to successful running

One of the great things about running is that it doesn’t require any special equipment or gym membership. A bog standard pair of trainers, you really don’t need to be spending £100+ on shoes, shorts and a t-shirt and off you go. Unfortunately, running injuries are ridiculously common.

The big issue that is often forgotten about is, and let’s be honest, running is hard work.

Running at a moderate pace you are looking at 1200-1500 steps in a kilometre.

On an easy run, the forces that we absorb are around 3 times body weight on each foot strike. Or around 320,000kg, strictly speaking, it’s 320,00N but we’ll stick to a measurement we can all relate to.

Continue reading “Running Repairs – a guide to successful running”