Run Strong

272 Pages·2005·2.63 MB·English

by  Kevin Beck

Run Strong
Kevin Beck
Editor
Human Kinetics
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Run strong / edited by Kevin Beck.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7360-5362-X (soft)
1. Running--Training. I. Beck, Kevin, 1969-
GV1061.5.R85 2005
796.42--dc22
2004024284
ISBN-10: 0-7360-5362-X (print) ISBN-10: 0-7360-8269-7 (Adobe PDF)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-5362-4 (print) ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-8269-3 (Adobe PDF)
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Run Strong
Contents
Introduction vii
Chapter 1 Improving Stride Mechanics 1
Jack Youngren
Chapter 2 Creating Leg Turnover and
Raw Speed 25
greg McMillan
Chapter 3 Devising an Efficient
Training Plan 41
Joe rubio
Chapter 4 Stretching Your Range
of Motion 59
Mark elliott
Chapter 5 Gaining Ground Through
Upper-Body Strength 83
Michael leveritt
Chapter 6 Boosting Economy Through
Lower-Body Strength 101
colleen glYde Julian
Chapter 7 Aligning and Balancing
the Body 133
chris chorak
iv
Chapter 8 Fortifying and Supplementing
Your Energy Levels 145
kYle heffner
Chapter 9 Revving the Cardiovascular
Engine 173
John kellogg
Chapter 10 Peaking for a Key Race 189
gwYn coogan
Mark coogan
Chapter 11 Making Your Recovery
Count 203
Pete Pfitzinger
Chapter 12 Retaining Fitness While
Recovering From Injury 225
scott douglas
Selected Readings and Resources 239
Index 247
About the Editor 257
About the Contributors 259
v

Introduction
The elegance and athletic appeal of running lie in its simplicity. I’ve covered
twice the circumference of Earth on foot in direct and indirect pursuit of vari-
ous finish lines, but long before this I chased school buses, pets, and dropped
report cards on windy days. Few of us have slam-dunked a basketball or sunk a
hole in one, but almost all of us have run.
Some of us, wondering just how far we can push back our personal limits,
never really stop. Along the way, we discover that a one-dimensional approach,
no matter how dedicated we are to it, is not enough to carry us over the hump.
As we grow as runners, we look outside the comfortable groove of singularity
toward everything the best runners are doing.
We find ourselves at an unprecedented point on distance running’s time line,
as the worlds of coaching and exercise science become increasingly fortified with
top-caliber athletes. These erstwhile competitors are introducing a variety of
focused approaches and special areas of interest, creating a lively smorgasbord
of advice that’s high tech, yet easy to understand and build into existing training
programs, all with the aim of making runners stronger and better prepared. As
a result, this book contains detailed routines developed and put into practice
by the very best men and women runners of our time and refined through
careful study.
The aim of this book is simple: to help you develop and maximize your
running performance. The basic principles governing performance in distance
running have been known for a long time, and they haven’t changed. Similarly,
various means of strengthening the mind, body, and spirit—from ancient physi-
cal arts promoting flexibility and relaxation to cutting-edge training adjuncts
such as core-muscle conditioning—are established elements in the power-
building arsenal. But as athletes such as marathon world-record holder Paula
Radcliffe are hammering home, successful integration of traditional training
methods—from weight training to drills to time management—in an attempt
to run farther and faster is an exciting, burgeoning field. This book represents
the first concerted effort by experts to help strength-seeking runners use and
exploit these principles.
The opening chapters provide a background in the most essential elements
of running—stride, speed, and training variations. Jack Youngren’s enjoyable
treatise on biomechanics serves as a springboard to the rest of the book, which
includes straightforward advice from top coaches and experienced competi-
tors Greg McMillan and Joe Rubio on how to develop speed in the context of
building aerobic endurance.
vii
Introduction
The middle chapters include some of the most comprehensive and specific
guidelines available for strength and flexibility training for distance runners.
Mark Elliott, the high-performance manager for Triathlon New Zealand whose
charges claimed gold and silver medals in the men’s 2004 Olympic triathlon,
offers a host of pre- and postworkout routines aimed at staving off injuries
and keeping the legs fresh. Michael Leveritt and Colleen Glyde Julian serve
upper- and lower-body strength-training routines germane to distance runners
and tailored to individual athletes’ ages, overall workloads, and goals. Chris
Chorak provides a compelling blend of science and spirit in her discussion of
body alignment and muscle balance.
The next two chapters reinforce the “knowledge is power” credo too often
ignored in a sport touched more and more by claims of the latest and great-
est shortcuts to success from the less than earnest. Kyle Heffner supplies a
straightforward chapter on the pros and cons of dietary supplements, while
John Kellogg, leaving no stone unturned, describes precisely what’s needed for
long-term cardiovascular—and competitive—development.
Finally, the last three chapters explore the inextricable link between body
and mind in getting and staying healthy and preparing for competition. Olym-
pians Gwyn and Mark Coogan share strategies for preparing to race, two-time
Olympian and exercise physiologist Pete Pfitzinger offers detailed tips on how
to integrate cross-training into a running regimen and consistently recover
quickly from workouts, and Scott Douglas, the wry former editor of Running
Times and coauthor of several popular running books, explores ideas for staying
fit—and sane—when the injury bug bites.
All of the book’s contributors are impressive, not because of their advanced
degrees or their world-class backgrounds, but because of their pure and indelible
enthusiasm for the sport and all it encompasses. By treating running as a multi-
faceted and lifelong discipline, they have become not our masters but our peers.
And because they can teach as well as relate, they too are part of our strength.
When I first undertook this project, I saw it as an opportunity to create a
resource that, with its carefully considered orientation and holistic approach,
was not available to runners. Although I feel that this goal has been met, I was
unprepared for the sheer energy, personality, and outright class the contributing
authors brought to the project. I am excited to be part of providing a forum for
previously unpublished but enormously knowledgeable athletes and coaches such
as Greg, Joe, and the Coogans to spread their wisdom, motivational powers,
and strength, and I am honored to help frame the contributions of some of the
sport’s preeminent voices, such as Pete and Scott. Most telling of all is that I
learned a tremendous amount in the course of assembling this book.
Best wishes, and run strong!
Kevin M. Beck
viii
Chapter 1
Improving Stride
Mechanics
Jack Youngren, PhD
The chapters in this book are filled with excellent, easily understood advice from
experts—practical steps that you, as an advanced runner, can take to increase
your fitness, improve your running, and help reduce your risk of running-related
injury. In fact, this book contains page after page of some of the most practical
advice ever assembled on supplementing your basic training plans.
This chapter, however, is an obvious exception. In the following 20 or so pages,
the only scrap of information you’ll receive that you can apply to your own training
is a basic forewarning: Get out of this body-busting sport while there’s still time.
Okay, that may be overstating it, but let me elaborate. You will learn in the
chapters ahead how to stretch, implement weight training, and construct a rea-
sonable training schedule—endeavors aimed at keeping you from succumbing to
the range of potential pitfalls that accompany the act of running. In this chapter,
however, I save most of the practical stuff for last and begin by describing in
detail the biomechanical particulars of the running motion. It will seem that in
so doing I am painting a picture of an act so ridiculously complex that you will
be forced to reach the same conclusion that I have: It is absolutely astounding
that the haphazard Rube Goldberg devices with which we hit the roads and
trails are able to keep our running careers afloat and flourishing.
I include a discussion of the safety factors involved in designing the human
machine, and point out how various aspects of this contraption (e.g., two kid-
neys, a regenerating liver, and a rock-hard skull) are overengineered to ensure
that we survive a million possible contingencies. If one of these contingencies
is a controlled, daily pounding of the joints that lasts for weeks, months, and
years, though, your body is going to need a little help. This chapter outlines
some of the physical challenges of running and explains some of the tricks your
body employs to adapt to intelligent increases in the stress that long-distance
running produces. The ways in which you can in turn help your body are found
in the remaining chapters.
1
Youngren
Since we are discussing biomechanics, I will provide some practical steps you
can take to increase the mechanical efficiency of your running stride, an issue
that goes beyond injury prevention. However, if you are looking for a step-by-
step guide to turn yourself into a graceful runner, this isn’t it. If you’re looking
for ways to make the most of whatever stride your deity of choice graced you
with, well, then there’s hope. So let’s step into the world of controlled kinetic
and dynamic chaos governing the various elements of your running stride.
The term biomechanics itself invites us to think about the human body as a
machine. So in discussing the biomechanics of running, are we suggesting that
the human body is a running machine? Although watching some world-class
athletes running smoothly and effortlessly at ridiculously fast speeds can make
it seem so, the human body was not designed with efficient and injury-free run-
ning as the prime consideration. It’s not that asking a person to run is akin to
trying to get a toaster to play a DVD; it’s just that for many runners, injuries and
performance limitations stem chiefly from problems related to biomechanical
issues. Many features have evolved in human anatomy to make bipedal walking
and running much easier than it is for our nearest relatives, chimpanzees—noto-
riously inefficient perambulators. Still, evolutionary pressures have certainly not
weeded out of the human gene pool everyone incapable of turning out regular
100-mile training weeks.
Biomechanics at its core involves a lot of mathematical equations, a keen
comprehension of the principles of physics, the ability to construct and analyze
force diagrams and vectors, and the capacity to drop into conversation terms
such as net angular impulse and peak extensor torque. Thus, experts in biomechanics
make excruciatingly tedious dinner companions. I once sat in an undergraduate
physics lecture that was interrupted by a student who stood up in the middle of
the auditorium and announced, “I’m dropping this class. You’re too (expletive
deleted) boring.” Inspired by this example, I’ve elected to omit equations and as
much jargon as possible from this chapter. What I do cover is the components
of the running stride and the biomechanical issues related to running efficiency
and stresses applied to the structural components of the lower body. I provide
just enough scientific jargon that you’ll be able to impress your future physical
therapist when you discuss how you ended up with Achilles tendinitis.
One term I frequently use throughout these pages is running economy, which
is simply the metabolic energy required to run at a certain speed. Usually, we
measure energy consumption in terms of the rate of oxygen consumed because
this is the easiest way to estimate the metabolic cost of performing an activity
that is primarily aerobic. A highly economical runner, therefore, is one who
requires relatively small amounts of oxygen and energy to run at a given speed.
A runner’s biomechanics are a chief determinant of his or her running economy;
it follows that stride mechanics are closely tied not only to injury prevention
but also to improving competitive performance. Later in this chapter I cover
whether runners can increase their running efficiency and therefore run faster
at a given energy expenditure.
2