Eccentric contractions place the muscle tissue itself under greater stress than normal contractions, and take a lot out of your quads. This is why most runners don’t run long downhill races nearly as fast as they think they should be able to. It’s just very strenuous and tiring on the quads. Even worse, once the quads are tired, we often get lazy with our running form, and shift some of the stress off the quads, placing greater stress on the knee joint itself and on other muscle groups, which can lead to injury.

Good downhill training is essentially plyometric can help accustom the quads to eccentric contractions, increase muscle durability and capacity to return energy through elastic recoil. This can help runners develop a more efficient approach to both downhill running (on steeper terrain), and faster-paced running in general (on less steep or flat terrain). Downhill training can help prepare the runner’s body, and form, to “attack” the downhill sections during races without hurting their uphill strength and flatland speed.

Uphill training is great, and should not be neglected, but try to find some runnable downhills you can train on, and focus on staying low, fast, and smooth when you run them. Let your knee swing back fully behind the hip (full hip extension). Avoid extending the lower leg way out on front to pound the ground and break yourself. If you need to slow, or you’re getting out of control, try leaning back a little. If you can’t run a hill without overextending, to break your descent, find one that’s a little less steep, that you can run without all the braking and pounding. As you get faster and stronger, you will find that you can handle steeper dowhills at a more comfortable run, rather than a jarring restrained descent. There are limits to this, of course, but becoming a stronger, more efficient downhill runner can be key to running your best races.

Ways to train for the downhill run
Downhill run training

• Run routes with hills Long downhill routes with lots of 1-5% slope
• Run faster, shorter downhill repeats (up to around 1/4 mile) on 5-8% slope

Body weight training

• Lunges (forward and side)
• Pistol squats
• Core and hip abductor – to support better running form

Plyometrics jumping

• Drop jumping – jump off of step and spring immediately back up
• Scissor lunge jumping

Cautions:

• Don’t overdo it to start. Work into hill training gradually. Downhill running without can contribute to problems like iliotibial band syndrome and patellofemoral pain, muscle strains/tears, tendinitis/bursitis and ligament sprains. Any hint of theses, and you should back off for awhile to heal and work gradually back into your training again after consulting a trusted health care professional.
• Plyometrics also place the muscles and joints under great stress and should be approached cautiously. Keep the repetition number low and your effort slight sub-maximal to start.
• Even the body weight exercises come with some amount of risk, but for the most part will only result in some delayed onset muscle soreness.
• If you are still markedly sore from a previous workout, it’s better to wait another day or two to do the same exercises again. Delayed onset muscle soreness is due to micro-tears in the muscle tissue, further stressing the sore muscles may therefore slow healing/strengthening or increase likelihood of injury.

So, I obviously distinguish hill training from hill running in some ways, although both can be a valuable part of a training regimen. Still, I think it’s true that you can get additional benefits from focused, high intensity interval training or repeats run on suitable hills, or from running Fartlek intervals on hills, that simply running aerobically on a hilly route are unlikely to provide efficiently.

Intervals vs. Repeats vs. Sprints
Because people can be pretty obsessive about how the terms “Interval,” “Repeat,” and “Sprint” are defined, I want to establish up-front how I operationally define these things.

Although many simplified training systems don’t distinguish repeats from any other type of interval, in many of the more advanced training systems they are considered different animals. Whereas “intervals” are short to middle-distance runs at about around 10-20 seconds faster than 5K race pace (about 90-93% of maximum sustainable effort) in some training systems, “repeats” are intervals that are run 20-40 seconds faster than 5K race pace (say, about 95-98% of maximum sustainable effort). For regular interval training, runners should usually try to run very easy during the rest/recovery interval, but when running repeats, the runner’s exertion is usually too high to manage this, so walking and even standing for a bit is the rest/recovery method of choice.

Hill repeats are just repeats (95-98% of maximum sustainable effort) that are run on hills. Although I have seen/heard many people call them hill sprints, I distinguish the two. For me, hill sprints are very short and are a 98-100% unsustainable effort. This is a sprint, not a distance run. You are trying for good leg speed, full extension, and maximum push off. People run sprints with a different form and gait than they run distances, and you run these how you would run a 100 m race, not how you would run a 1 mile race. It’s a very anaerobic effort, so you cannot maintain it for long. Indeed, you should only maintain a hill sprint for about 8-12 seconds, and then your rest intervals between them should be complete, even sitting down or doing some mild stretching to stay loose, and last at least 2-3 minutes.

Ok, so such specific definitions may seem like splitting hairs, but theoretically, the distinctions are important, because the intensity of the effort for each of these different types of training is effective as better isolating specific key aspects of our physiology that are important in optimizing running performance. So, do you need to concern yourself with the details? Hell no. Can the concepts be helpful in understanding why you do the kinds of training you do (if you care to understand)? Hell yes. So, it’s to you whether you want to read any further.

Hill Repeats in Detail
For hill repeats, you want a hill that is challenging, but not so steep that you can’t maintain a gait that resembled your normal gait on flat ground. I find that to be a hill with a slope of between a 5-10%. That is, a hill that rises about 5-10 feet per 100 ft. of uphill travel. The hill I typically do repeats on is about an 8%, relatively steady incline.

Because hill repeats are difficult to run, it’s a good idea to keep them relatively short. 200-400m, maybe 600m tops, although I’m sure there are elite runners that do upwards of 800-1000 meter hill repeats. I’m not an elite runner, so I keep it at what I can manage.

Uphill and downhill repeats. My repeats are run in both uphill and downhill directions, like a circuit. Usually I run 400m hard uphill, walk around for a sufficient rest period, then I run back down the hill, concentrating on staying low, smooth, and fast. Running uphill at this intensity really puts the hurt on the slow-twitch muscle fibers and also recruits the fast-twitch fibers to some degree. These are the fibers specialized for endurance activities. Hill repeats is like a strength workout for them. It also pushes you past threshold very quickly, so it is also good training for improving aerobic capacity.

Running downhill repeats is not the greatest workout to improve aerobic capacity, but it has some strength and running form benefits that are difficult to get from other types of running. First, running downhill causes what are called eccentric contractions, particularly in the quadriceps muscles, in which the muscle must contract while simultaneously extending in order to control forward momentum. This type of contraction is what makes downhill running more tiring and difficult than runner’s expect, and if you’re not used to it, also contributes to delayed onset muscle soreness following downhill runs.

Hill Sprints in Detail
Hill sprints should be done on a higher grade, to create extra resistance when you extend your hip behind you, and push off forcefully with your quad muscles and calves, but the incline should not be so steep that you can’t maintain rapid turnover.  For most people, this will be a grade of between 10 and 15%, give or take a little. That is, 10-15 ft. of elevation gain per 100 feet of travel.

Being a very forceful effort, hill sprints involve much more effort from the stronger, fast-twitch muscle fibers than hill repeats, and thus provides some real brute force strength benefits for the legs that can be useful both for the final kick to make ascending steep hills easier. Short sprints up a relatively steep hill like this are an effective way to build the kind of strength you need to be a more powerful all around runner, and it also also does it’s part to increase lactate threshold and produces some improvements in aerobic capacity.

Whereas hill repeats can comprise an entire workout, hill sprints are usually added into a workout. Runners might do them at the end of an easy run, or in the middle of a run, if an opportune hill exists along a running route. It’s a good idea to be adequately warmed up before charging up the hills.

Fartlek on Hills
A runner who would like to mix it up, or who doesn’t like structured interval training, can always get the above benefits by turning hills into hard-run Fartlek intervals on a normal hilly running route. If done regularly, and with enough intensity, there is no reason a hilly Fartlek run every week or two wouldn’t be sufficient to get the fully benefit of running hills, but I think it’s probably more interesting for most people to alternate between a structured hill workouts and hilly Fartlek runs from week to week, or even to combine a Hill Repeat or a Hill Sprint workout each week with a run in which some uphill and downhill Fartlek intervals are included. Why not? Whatever keeps it interesting, right?

Precautionary Statement – EASE INTO HILL TRAINING
It’s wise not to rush into higher intensity workouts, or workouts that place much greater stress on bones and soft tissues that aren’t ready for it. Running uphill tends to encourage for forefoot strike, for example, and to place greater stress of the calf and Achilles tendon, and also on the plantar fascia. So, if you have been running on flat ground, and not regularly doing much speed work, and particularly if you are heel striking or midfoot striking runner, you should probably start out with only one to three Hill Repeats or Hill Sprints, and also keep your intensity a little lower the first couple of hill training sessions. And once your intensity is comfortably up (say the third week of hill training), then start increasing the number of repeats and/or sprints you run in each workout, gradually.

Also, stop immediately if you sense any cramping or unusual ache or pain.

Conclusion
I once read that Arthur Lydiard (famous New Zealand running coach) claimed that within 4-6 weeks of adding a weekly hill training, runners often see a marked improvement in their typical aerobic paces, sometimes upwards of a 30 second improvement per mile. I was skeptical of this claim, but after 8 weeks, it appears as though that’s about how much my aerobic training paces have improved, and this improvement has been accompanied by some significant gains in my 5K and 10K times as well. So, color me impressed.

One drawback is that people can injure themselves more easily with hill training if they start into it too quickly, particularly with the hill sprints. So, if you want to start doing these kinds of hill workouts, and have largely avoided hills previously, I’d integrate these things into your routine gradually, and also initially, you may want to build a little extra recovery into the schedule following these high-intensity hill workouts. You don’t want to screw up your training by tearing a calf muscle, or worse, so give your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints a chance to adapt and strengthen by proceeding rationally.

If you don’t already do some form of high-intensity hill training, and you think you might have something to gain from it, I recommend giving it a try. Ease into it, and then do it consistently for a couple of months. I think the results may surprise you.

Technorati Tags: fitness, hill training, running, training

What is VO2 Max?

VO2 Max is a measure of the amount of oxygen a person (or animal) consumes when exercising at their maximum rate during a sustained exercise activity. It is expressed in units of mililiters of O2 per minute per kilogram of body mass (i.e., weight), or L/min x kg. If you take body weight out of the equation, it’s just the total volume of oxygen used per minute, but the number has less utility in assessing fitness, because in addition to fitness, body mass itself has an impact on overall oxygen use. This is why VO2 Max is corrected or normalized to body mass by dividing L 02/min by weight in kg.

It is true that there are other factors related to athletic performance that prevent VO2 Max from being a very good way to compare different athletes for the purpose of predicting performance, as is frequently pointed out by exercises scientists and the more coaches and trainers with a background in physiology. Because all else is not equal among runners, a strong runner or one with a high lactate threshold and a VO2 Max of 50 can on any given day beat a weaker runner or one with a low lactate threshold and a VO2 Max of 60. Indeed, lactate threshold pace is a better predictor of finish order in a group of athletes in a race.

This is not to say, however that VO2 Max is unimportant on an individual basis for predicting performance and assessing changes in fitness and condition for individual athletes. This is because, if you are not comparing one runner to another, but instead comparing VO2 Max in a single runner at two different points in time (say, before and after a period of intense training), VO2 Max is a very good predictor of performance. So, the lesson here is that VO2 Max is important in determining performance of endurance athletes, but it not useful for comparing athletes one to another.

Improving VO2 Max

Through training

The straightforward answer is that an optimal combination of aerobic running and interval training at a pace a few seconds faster, or at higher intensity, than 5K pace will do the trick. Assuming that the runner’s weight doesn’t change during the training period, changes that result from this type of training can be directly attributed to improvements in muscular strength and running economy. Underlying these changes may be increase vascularization in the muscle tissues, and an increase in the metabolic machinery in muscle cells that are responsible for conversion of fuel (carbohydrates and fats) to energy.

Through weight management

The second way to improve VO2 Max is only important for people who are above their optimum race weight. Recall that body mass (weight) is in the denominator of the units that VO2 Max are expressed in, and in Junior High School (though the information doesn’t stick if you don’t use it later–I’m a geek, so I use it!), it that if you decrease the value of the denominator (the bottom number) in a fraction, the entire fraction becomes a larger quantity. So, for people who are carrying extra weight who want to improve both their speed and endurance, losing weight can be far highly effective.

It works like this:  Let’s say a person uses a total of 3600 ml of O2 per minute during maximal running exercise.  This is determined largely by their physiology, so doesn’t change much, even as their weight moves up and down a few pounds.  It’s the amount of oxygen used to do a particular amount of work (in the physics sense), although you don’t need to deal in physics jargon to understand that if you wear an extra 10 lbs. around your waist, you’re not going to be able to run as fast as you otherwise would–and that’s the important point here.

Now, let’s examine this a little more closely. Let’s say this same person weight 72 kg. (about 160 lbs.). Our VO2 Max is calculated as follows:

VO2 Max = 3600 ml O2 / 1 min. * 72 kg. = 50 ml/min*kg

Now, Let’s say the person reduces their caloric intake a modest amount for a month, and trains only enough to maintain their condition, losing 5 kg.. In that case, their VO2 Max still improves:

VO2 Max = 3600 ml O2 / 1 min. * 67 kg. = 53 ml/min*kg

So, Just from losing weight, we see this person’s VO2 Max (and thus their ability to move their body mass further in a given amount of time by running) has improved.  Further, since they were on a maintenance workout plan, all of the improvement can be attributed simply to weight loss.  Further, weight fluctuates 2-4 lbs. during the day for a variety of reasons, which means that VO2 Max actually fluctuates as well, changing by around 1 unit. This might explain why some people feel like their training goes better early in the day. They may not being carrying the extra baggage of several daily meals and snacks and accompanying excess water weight early in the morning.

What’s that? You don’t believe a 2-4 lb. fluctuation can have much of a noticeable effect on your running performance? Consider this: Researchers have actually measured the effect and found that running pace changes in proportion to our body weight, almost perfectly. So, if I weight 160 lbs. and I gain 4 lbs. with no change in my strength and condition, I can expect my average training paces to decrease by 2.5% (4/160 = 0.025 = 2.5%). Thus, if my 5K pace is 7:30 to start with, losing 4 lbs. will improve my my 5K pace to about 7:18-7:19. In a 5K (3.1 mi.) race, that’s a 33-36 second improvement!

Anyone seeking to improve their performance by losing weight should be careful, however. There are risks.

Know your limits

Of course, not everyone can afford to lose any more weight (there is such a thing as being underweight). If a person is already underweight, muscle tissue begins to be consumed by the body and performance can be adversely affected. So, there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to weight loss, and each person has an optimum race weight based on their frame, bone structure, muscle mass, muscle types, and other genetically influenced aspects of physiology.

Though imperfect, body mass index (BMI) is a decent way to determine if you can afford to lose some weight to improve your VO2 Max and running performance. Most people can safely shoot for a BMI that approaches the low end of the “normal” range for BMI. Elite endurance athletes are often below this, but the average person may not have the knowledge, experience, or resources available to maintain such a low BMI and remain fully fit and healthy.

The moral of this story is that if you train right, and if you optimize your body weight, you can achieve significant gains in performance, but you should also be aware of and comfortable with your limits. The truth is that we are all probably capable of performing much better than we ever thought possible, if we can master this stuff, but many of us don’t really have that level of ambition–and that’s ok. It’s still possible for those people to use these tactics to help reach whatever goals they set for themselves.

Other considerations

Improving VO2 Max can really improve individual performance, but once the optimum weight is reached, there are other tactics that, if previously neglected, can be more effective for further improving performance. They include strength training, and threshold or tempo training to improve lactate threshold. I’ve talked about these things in other posts and will likely post about them more in the future. The primary methods for improving strength for runners include a variety of hill training body weight exercises, and weights. Lactate threshold, or the pace/intensity at which lactate begins to build up in the muscles and blood, hindering performance and ultimately forcing us to slow or stop entirely, is best improved through threshold or tempo training–essentially running slightly higher than lactate threshold pace/intensity in 3-5 minute intervals (tempo intervals), or for longer sustained periods right at lactate threshold.

Serious athletes use all of the above training methods to improve and optimize their running performance.

Active recovery is a popular concept in training for runners today, and yet many people will call any run of any intensity a “recovery run” if it’s done the day after a hard workout, or even later the same day. So, many people will go out for an easy run, then run progressive splits escalating to a tempo pace or better in the final mile. Or they may just do the whole run at a moderate to high-intensity effort. It’s natural for people to run faster if they feel like it.

If the idea of active recovery is correct, however, it’s important to keep a recovery run at a “recovery” pace. Recovery pace turns out to be about as slow as you can stand to run, but not so slow that your stride is abnormal or choppy. The idea is to keep a good range of motion and your standard running form, to get the heart rate up just a little and the blood circulating in those torn down muscles from the previous hard workout, but not to run at an intensity that would further stress or tear down muscle fibers.

An obvious difficulty with this is that some people just are not in good enough condition to accomplish those goals when they early in training. People early in training should probably use passive recovery until their condition improves and their muscles strengthen a bit, because running at even slow paces may hamper more than speed/improve recovery for them.

For folks who have been running for awhile, though, active recovery may help speed recovery and further develop or maintain aerobic benefits gained in other training. This article by Matt Fitzgerald on active.com suggests a plausible reason for the apparent fitness benefits of active recovery. According to Fitzgerald, many of the fitness benefits of exercise accrue essentially in proportion to the amount of activity performed after the onset of fatigue. An active recovery run, after a long or difficult workout would be entirely in a fatigued state, so theoretically would provide fitness benefits as a result.

Active recovery. All the cool kids are doing it.

Excerpted from FoCo Runner Blog.

Technorati Tags: active-recovery, running, training

What is it?

Patellofemoral pain appears to be due to some soft tissue irritation in the knee, due to pressure and rubbing of the patella in a groove at the bottom end of the femur  (at the knee). It is not always known why this irritation occurs mechanistically speaking, but it often coincides with increases in loading on the knee through running/jumping like activities. There is some evidence which suggests tightness or lack of flexibility in the outer quadriceps muscle (vastus lateralis), weakness or insufficiency in the inner quadtriceps (vastus medialis), or a combination of these things may contribute for people with certain anatomical and gait characteristics. The above mechanisms are thought to cause irritation because they hypothetically result in an imbalance that causes the patella to be pulled more forcefully toward the outside of the knee as it slides up and down it’s track/groove in the femur.

The more forceful rubbing against the outer side of the groove in which the patella slides during flexion and extension of the leg at the knee joint. It is thought that this rubbing, particularly in people who have a popping or crackling when extending the knee under load, which indicate some amount of roughness in the cartilage on the back of the patella. The friction of this forceful rubbing is thought to cause inflammation that can spread and radiate to surrounding soft tissues, and causing pain, particularly when running downhill or walking down stairs, often on the opposite side of the kneecap from where side of the rubbing. There may or may not be obvious swelling.

What to do about it

The primary treatment recourse today is a regimen of icing after activities that cause the pain to flare up, and a series of strength and flexibility exercises intended to loosen the forces applied on the outside of the patella by the vastus lateralis and some think by excess tightness in the iliotibial band (although this is less certain), and to strengthen the vastus medialis muscle so the forces on the patella are better balanced during activities in which the leg is forcefully and repeatedly extended under load. Exercises that I have personally used when experiencing patellofemoral pain include well sits, leg extensions, slow quarter squats, slow step ups (8-12″ step), and slow step downs, and bridge pose (yoga). Quadriceps and hamstring stretches are also thought to be useful, as are hip abductor exercises. I also do iliotibial band stretches, although these actually stretch gluteus and hip adductor muscles and not the iliotibial band itself, because it is not a pliable tendon, but rather a thickening of fascial tissue that does not elongate measurably or in any enduring fashion in response to stretching (see previous post). Tension on the iliotibial band instead results from tightening/contraction of the gluteus medius and hip adductor muscles and also indirectly by tightness of the lateral quadriceps musculature that the iliotibial band  is stretched over along the outer thigh.

Recent evidence also suggests that patellofemoral pain sufferers might prevent symptoms or experience relief by modifying their running form and strengthening the hip and core musculature that supports improved running form. As a practitioner of a modified midfoot/forefoot running form intended to remedy a variety of biomechanical problems, I have found that there are things I can do while running to reduce patellofemoral pain when it flares up, so I can add my own anecdotal support for the benefits of improved biomechanics as well (also, see my earlier post, which refers to research results on this subject).

You may find recommendations for straps or bands. Nobody I know has used one of these and become convinced that they do any good whatsoever, particularly when positioned below the patella. I found it worsened my symptoms to position one of these straps so, but wearing a strap above my kneecap seemed to help. Still, I wouldn’t recommend using a strap of any kind off-hand. They may help some people, and if you want to give it a shot, you are free to. I just don’t have a lot of faith in the below-knee strap based on my own experiences and those of other runners I know.

The good news

The good news is that for most people the pain goes away without more drastic surgical “smoothing” of the cartilage on the back fo the patella, or release (cutting) of lateral ligaments that attache structures such as the iliotibial band to the patella. That’s good news, because the surgeries are often ineffective anyway, and require a length rehabilitation.

The ‘other’ news

It’s really unclear as yet whether the typical treatments are any more effective than pure rest and recovery. Some studies suggest it is, but more, well-designed studies need to produce similar results before this conclusion can be asserted with greater confidence.

Summary

If you suffer from patellofemoral pain, you don’t have to sit around with an ice pack and feel sorry for yourself. There are some exercises and stretches you can do, and some possible improvements to your running form, that could very well help vanquish your pain. One thing for sure is that these modes of treatment have other probable benefits, and likely won’t hurt you, even if they actually do little or nothing more than simple rest can accomplish.

As with any knee pain, it is still prudent to get an official diagnostic, because more serious ligament and meniscus injuries can easily be confused with the more common patellofemoral pain. This is not a mistake any of us would want to make.

Technorati Tags: biomechanics, injury, injury-prevention, overuse, PFPS, running

If you have read some of my earlier posts on the subjects of biomechanics, feet, or shoes, you know that I suggest people pick out shoes that are -LESS- stabilizing than those recommended at running shoes and most experts based on visual assessments, and even gait analyses. Recent research indicating that certain types of common running injuries increase with increasingly supportive shoes (e.g., see here) are what drives this recommendation, but it is also supported by a recent study done by the Army.
The U.S. Army has been using the visual foot assessment approaches to determine what type of running shoe soldier’s need, and recently sought to determine whether the approach is effective for reducing running-related injuries (see New York Times Health blog here). The results were not good. While the assumption of most was that this assessment approach was useful for getting people in the right shoes, and this logically should reduce injury rates and other running-related problems in the legs and feet, the data indicated the opposite. Runner’s who has shoes designed for their specific foot shape-type actually had a greater rate of injury occurrence.

As I have noted previously, this mirrors my personal experience. I was told that I overpronate and needed stability shoes, but when I used them I was never comfortable and had a variety of little aches and pains and some problems with ITBS. The week I switched to neutral shoes was the week all of the nagging discomforts I had from running dissolved, and they have stayed gone.

The funny thing is that if you ask people what the most scientific way to pick shoes is, they would probably tell you that it’s to have your feet assessed and to choose shoes on that basis. This is objective and criteria driven, but the reality is that there is nothing scientific about it. Science is, after all deductive. It depends on observation ad data. Now that experimental studies have given us truly scientific observations on the effects of assigning shoes based on visual foot-type assessments, we are finally able to see that the flaw with the visual assessment approach is that it is inductive. We do it, because it seems objective to us and makes sense if we make certain assumptions. Through scientific study, we are now evaluating those assumptions and finding that they are invalid, and given that… we are beginning to see that yet another thing that seems completely logical, doesn’t make sense, because of an invalid assumption was didn’t even know we were making.

The key invalid assumption in this case is that forcing our foot anatomy to fit some imagined ideal we will necessarily reduce stress and injury in the legs and feet. A still deeper assumption is that we actually know what the ideal foot should be like, and that should actually be questioned scientifically as well, rather than assumed based on how we think feet should work best.

Our lives are filled daily with objective, but inductively-reasoned explanations and rationales, each based on a variety of assumptions about how the bits and pieces work or fit together, and it represents a general lack of scientific literacy that simply because these things use objective measures and standards, they are scientific and factually based.

I will now step down from my soap box.

Technorati Tags: biomechanics, injury-prevention, overuse, research, running, running-shoes

When I started running, my left foot seemed to overpronate a little, such that the recommendation of the running store experts was “mild stability shoes.”

“Okay,” I said. “Show me your mild stability shoes and I’ll pick some out and be on my way.”

Since I wanted lightweight trainers, I ended up in Asics Gel DS Trainers. Nice lightweight shoes, really, but soon I developed ITBS, and then the outsoles wore through to the midsole of the Trainers in less than 300 miles, and I was looking for other options.
I began to research ITBS, and discovered essentially that the most effective way to deal with it, long term, is to strength the core and hips and get a better handle on your running form. I’ve written extensively about my research and treatment methods for ITBS on my other blog (http://www.be-fit-now.com – far more technical than this one). So, I set about strengthening my core, my lower abs and glutes, my “hip abductors,” and also began to study up again on running biomechanics and running form.  Soon, I was teaching myself ChiRunning.

It wasn’t long and the combination of improve strength in my core and hips and my new running form that I noticed my feet had straightened out when running. No longer did my toes have a tendency to point outward.  I had trained myself to engage the appropriate muscles to straighten them out.  Further, my feet did not overpronate as much while running. Sure, if I relax and walk around, they still have a tendency to want to do so, but when I run, they now seemed trained to swing straight and true.

Another thing that changed was that my knees had stopped flexing and rotating inward and rubbing together like they used to. This despite a switch to a neutral training flat! Pretty cool. So, the recent research that points to weakness in the muscles of the core and hips that control what our legs do while running and walking as the source of some overpronation and other correlated biomechanical problems appears to account for my problems.

A lot of people latch onto success stories like this with a sort of religious zeal, and assume that results like mine would apply more generally to everyone. I’m a little more cautious with my inferences, however.  I’m a sample size of 1. You can’t conclude anything from that with confidence. Anyway, there are people whose feet are so flat and who overpronate so severely that it is unlikely that their entire problem can be solved simply with core and hip strengthening or simple changes in their running form.

I think for a lot of people it is certainly true that we pick up running in our 30′s or 40′s after years of, well… not running, and some of the muscles we need to support good form have simply atrophied, or gone soft. Not only that, some of the nerves that coordinate what our muscles do during our stride become uncoordinated with disuse as well. That’s why after years off from running, you feel so floppy and uncoordinated when you finally try it again. It feels unnatural until you begin to get stronger muscles and nerve/muscle (neuromuscular) coordination. Our problem at that point is that because so many key muscles are weak, our form is not very good, and we use different muscles, preferentially and my theory is that the patterns and balance of strength and coordination in our running muscles therefore re-develops in sort of an off-kilter or unbalanced fashion, leading to stress on some muscles and tendons that go beyond what they were designed to withstand, or perhaps are able to withstand in their relatively weakened state.

If my theory is correct, then making the decision to begin running again should probably be followed not by strapping on some running shoes and heading out the door, but instead by some assessment of core and hip strength and a couple of weeks of good core and hip exercise to get the muscles you need to support good running form on the road to fully recovery from the inactivity they have suffered on the couch. During that time, most people would be well-advised, I think, to learn what they can about running form, so they can attempt to put some of that advice to use when they head out on the road with a new pair of running shoes.

Speaking of running shoes… My personal philosophy is that people working on their strength and actively improving their running form should probably go with a shoe that offers slightly less stability than they think (or are told by experts) they need. Over time, this can help strengthen some of the muscles and tendons needed to run without as much excess support.

In reality, I have run into people who instead choose to go with shoes that are MORE supportive than indicated by the degree to which they overpronate… If a little stability is good, then even more must be better, right? Wrong, I fear! Pronation of the foot is key for absorbing some of the shock of running, and is quite normal.  If you wear shoes with more stability or motion control than you need, they may be so supportive that they reduce the healthy, shock-absorbing component of your pronation, and result in greater shock being trasmitted up the leg to the knee and hips. There, this extra shock may contribute to a handful of acute injuries or overuse injuries/syndromes.

So, back to my original question… Is it up to you, or up to the shoe to solve problems with your running biomechanics. I think the reality is that it’s probably up to the runner when biomechanics are only mildly off-kilter, but when it’s severely so, it’s probably up to both the runner and the shoe. I’d caution against anyone relying completely on a magic shoe to fix the difficulties they have while running. I think that’s a recipe for pain and will probably lead to premature retirement from the sport for many people.

Like many things in our body, the prevailing paradigms for years have said our physical structures and movement patterns are completely genetically determined, but recent results have led experts to questions this. It turns out that our bodies are capable of adapting to some degree, both in form and function, when they are required to do so. We can learn new motor patterns, and improve our gait through learning, then training – at least to some degree. The evidence of our ability to improve our physical form at various tasks and the body’s ability to adapt to these changes over time so they become second nature has always been in front of us, if we chose to look for it. I’m going to get in trouble for saying this, but girls who at first threw like… well, girls… have learned to raise their elbows and throw things more effectively (I have been struck by things thrown at me thus). Just as a dancer or a gymnast can practice maneuvers that at first feel unnatural or uncomfortable until they are second nature, we can also improve our running through practice. It’s worth a try anyway for many of us.

Happy running!

Technorati Tags: biomechanics, fitness, health, injury, injury-prevention, overpronation, overuse, running

First off, there are basically three key places in a person’s nether regions that bear pressure while cycling with a normal bicycle saddle. Two of them are what are commonly called the sitz bones (ischial tuberosities, technically). The sitz bones are a thickened protrusion from the bones at the bottom and back of the pelvis. Each of us has one to either side of our…  well, our anus (bunghole is one nontechnical term).

These bones are basically built for bearing weight, and the distance between them varies from person to person depending on the width of the pelvis. Women tend to have a wider opening at the bottom of the pelvis than me, and so in women these bones are typically further apart than in a man of similar size and stature – and this is the reason why the wide part at the back of women’s bicycle saddles are wider. However, even within each sex, there can be enough variation in the distance between sitz bones to make some saddles more comfortable than others, and this is why some saddle manufacturers offer different widths, and you can find pressure pads you can set on in bicycle shops that measure the distance between your sitz bones for appropriate sizing. I suggest people use these to pick out a saddle that is the right width, if the following information proves not to be useful in alleviating saddle pain.

Here’s the thing. When we sit on out bicycles (recumbents aside), we are typically leaning forward to some extent, and when leaning forward, many people’s core will completely relax, allowing the pelvis to tip forward.  When this happens, the point of highest pressure moves from the two sitz bones and the wider, flatter rear portion of the saddle, to the pubic bone, to the front of the pelvis, which then rests on the narrow extension to the front of the seat. If you are feeling pain (and or numbness) in front of your…  well, anus (bunghole), but in the area of your genitalia, it may be due more to the way you are sitting on the saddle and how the saddle is adjusted than a fault of the saddle itself.

Here are my suggestions, before you throw a bill down for a new, heavier saddle with a lot of extra high-tech cushioning or special cutouts that may or may not be doing anything.

1. Tuck your butt in a little (engage the abs a little bit) and learn how to sit on your sitz bone, even as you’re leaned forward. This should not be an inordinately difficult thing to do. If you have to exert an unreasonable amount of effort to do this, you may want to look at adjusting your saddle angle and/or position.
2. Check yourself now and then throughout your ride, particularly if you notice discomfort or numbness developing in your perineum or pubic region, and readjust your position. You may need to scoot back a little on the seat and re-tuck your but a little to plant the sitz bones squarely on the wider part of the saddle.
3. Let it ride a while. Give yourself a week or two to adjust to the saddle now that you’ve learned how to position your rear end on it properly. If you find that you slide forward a lot and tend to have to make corrections and obsess over your butt to keep your position, you may need to adjust your bike fit, including the reach (seat position and/or stem length) and/or the seat angle. Also, take a rest day between rides, or extra rest if you overdo it and end up with a very touchy tushy.
4. Adjust your saddle (if needed) position and/or stem length and/or seat position. A seat that is slanted slightly forward may seem to raise the back of the seat up to hit your sitz bones a little better, but it also creates a ramp that will lead you to slide forward onto your pubic bone, so a level seat is generally a better option (there is no golden rule, however – you have to experiment and choose what what works for you). Even with a level seat, you may find yourself scooting forward, particularly if your bike geometry stretches your reach. In this case, you can adjust your fit a little so you are riding in a little less aggressive position. Some things you can try are include: a) a shorter stem, b) moving the saddle forward. If you choose the ladder, you may also need to re-adjust saddle height a small amount to account for any changes in distance from saddle to cranks. A third option, which may be combined with a shorter stem, is to flip the stem over so that the handlebars are raised slightly (not all stems are reversible like this), or to raise the stem/handlebars a little (requires sufficient steerer tube length for threadless/clamp-on stems).
5. Give it 2-4 weeks during which you try all of the above, as needed, during which you start out just riding until you begin experiencing discomfort, and gradually increasing your mileage. By the end of this period, assuming you’ve been able to follow these instructions and do not have other issues to contend with, you should be able to ride indefinitely with improved form on your sitz bones.

A thing to remember is that it should not be strenuous to maintain good body position with the sitz bones firmly planted on your seat during a long ride. If you are on a road bike and ride hard down in the drops frequently, or on a tri bike, down on the aero bars, you needs may be a little different than those of the average recreational/fitness cyclist, but this information should still be helpful to you.

If you are exerting a lot of energy and effort to keep your weight primarily on your sitz bones, and begin to develop any additional pains or discomfort, just relax a little… Make sure you’re bike fit is working for you. If after following this procedure your saddle is still a pain in the butt at the same point in each ride, and you haven’t increased the distance you can ride comfortably, you can still change out your saddle. You are also free to adopt the philosophy that says you shouldn’t have to adjust to some darn bike seat, and just throw some money around to get a more comfortable one to start with. In that case, many people still find themselves in pain when they push their mileage up, and often still face an adjustment period during which the above method can help.

Riding comfort is all about you. Things have to work for you. Above all, you should be willing to experiment a litte and choose some options that work based on your experience. No golden rules, or silver bullets. Such things only work if you assume that all people are equal in every way, but it doesn’t take x-ray vision to see that we are not.

Technorati Tags: bicycling, fitness, recreation

The link below is to the abstract (short summary) of an article published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine which demonstrates that learned changes in gait  to reduce the severity of the problematic features of running gait is associated with reduction and pain and improvements in function of the knee of people affected by patellofemoral syndrome. An additional benefit fo the retraining was a noted 18% reduction in the instantaneous and 20% reduction in average load rates at the knee.  Load rate is the speed at which a load is presented to the the knee, in this case – or a measure of impact force transmitted to the knee due to the foot striking the ground under load.

The results support the assertion by many that learned improvements in biomechanics of the hips, where many of the problems that underlie patellofemoral and other pain or overuse syndromes experienced by runners, not only result in reduced patellofemoral pain, but also in improved function (shock absorption) along the entire kinetic chain involved in running gait.

I can provide the link to the publication’s abstract here, but in order to see the full article, you will likely need to visit a University library or purchase a full-text version from the publisher (sorry).

The effect of real-time gait retraining on hip kin… [Br J Sports Med. 2010] – PubMed result.

Technorati Tags: biomechanics, health, injury-prevention, running, training

Advocates of biomechanical techniques such as ChiRunning and The Pose Running method, have been encouraging runners to run with a midfoot or forefoot strike for the last several years, even before the current heightened furor over barefoot running and midfoot/forefoot strike. Indeed, this type of foot strike is integral to several running forms, most of which appear to be derivative of one another when you take a close look at them.

The furor over midfoot/forefoot striking today seems almost inseparable from the barefoot/minimalist movement, that has begun to inspire a range of less substantial, less supportive, less heavy shoes from major manufacturers. Everyone from fitness instructors to major shoe manufacturers want to cash in on this trend. But in cashing in, scientific hypotheses and theories about efficiency improvements have been incorporated into marketing rhetoric as if they are established fact, while the reality is that little detailed research has been done that shows definitively that barefoot running is inherently better than running in shoes, or that less shoe is better than more shoe, or that midfoot striking is more efficient than heel striking, etc…

This is not to say that these things aren’t true. It’s just that they have yet to be conclusively demonstrated, or if they have, the results have not been broadly disseminated in any public forum that I am aware of. This is also not to say that I disbelieve many of the claims. Indeed, I believe that midfoot/forefoot strike is more efficient than a heel strike, but that the efficiency is not, per se, due to which part of the foot strikes the ground first, but how we use other muscles and joints when we learn to run efficiently with a midfoot/forefoot strike. In other words, I believe that our scientific foot fetish has led to an inordinate focus on just one small aspect of running biomechanics that should be viewed as a diagnostic of overall running gait, but not the only important aspect of running gait.

I also think that the term “efficiency” is somewhat loaded. Most people think of locomotor efficiency from a purely organismal metabolic perspective. More work for less energy. This may not be how the efficiency gains are realized, however. They may instead be reflected in shifts in how much each running muscle is used during each part of the gait cycle. One explanation of ChiRunning form, for example is that it shifts the hard work to the stronger muscles that are structurally better suited to handle the load. You don’t have to be a physicist to realize that moving 160 lbs. a fixed distance involves the same amount of work no matter how it is accomplished or how fast it is accomplished. This doesn’t mean that all approaches and rates would feel equally strenuous. Another way to explain this is that you can use a fulcrum with a long-armed lever or a short-armed lever to move a big rock 2″, but it will always feel easier  (require lower intensity exertion) to accomplish this work with the long-armed lever, assuming all the other variables are equal. What is every joint in your body but a lever, some with longer handles than others, and some with stronger muscles attached than others.

Good running form tries to give you the mechanical advantage by distributing the work more equitably among the muscles and levers of the body, and also attempts to reduce wasted energy. If we bend at the knees and use our quads to lift a 40 lb. bag of potting soil 4″, it may seem easier than doing so with your lower back muscles by bending at the waist, or with your calves by lifting from your ankles. You see how this can work?  The same amount of total work is being done, but some muscles just have more fibers to recruit in the process, or more slow-twitch fibers as opposed to fast-twitch fibers. Some muscles can do the task aerobically and sustainably, with less perceived effort, while others may require an anaerobic effort that can’t be sustained for long.

Overall, running with a midfoot strike and a gait that more equitably distributes the work among our running muscles may help us run more sustainably than a running form that results in an inequitable division of work among the running muscles. The form that allocates work among muscles optimally, and in proportion to their capacity to do the work, should be the most efficient. At this point, I don’t pretend to know which form or which specific aspects of form are most important for optimal endurance. I think people largely have to determine this for themselves by trying things out and seeing how they work for you. We each have limitations due to slight variations in our anatomy, or due to muscular strength imbalances or inadequacies that have developed due to periods of inactivity that sometimes have lasted for years on end. Optimal form now may therefore differ from optimal form after 6 months of core yoga or pilates, for example, because some key muscles will have been strengthened and their ability to contribute to optimal form may be improved. Running is some pretty cool stuff, but it’s a whole body activity.  We shouldn’t forget that.

Of course, these ideas just add to the mix of other unsubstantiated ideas out there, but what I present here is based on first principles and can be validated with scientific study in the laboratory. If your coach, or whoever else is telling you to run or do any activity a certain way cannot explain to you clearly and specifically why (assuming you care to know)… I might suggest you consider finding someone who can. Personally, I would rather the person instructing me in such things actually have a sound rationale to support their claims–something beyond case studies of people who tried their technique and “felt” like it helped them.

As an aside, I haven’t addressed the claims that one running technique or another will reduce your injury risk here. I believe this may be a legitimate claim, but there is also the possibility that new form simply exposes you to a new set of injuries for a time – at least until your body fully adjusts to the transition in form and redistribution of work/stress that goes along with it. To my knowledge, there have been no studies yet published that clearly show that people using one running form are any less likely to suffer a running injury than those using another, although there is some evidence in the scientific literature now that using shoes that are more supportive than necessary does cause mechanical stresses in leg joints that contribute to higher rates of certain injuries and/or overuse syndromes.

Technorati Tags: barefoot, biomechanics, exercise, fitness, foot strike, forefoot, midfoot, running, training