After I read 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferriss early last year, I tried a whole bunch of things: deadlifting, ASR Speed, and…his fat loss diet slightly modified.
4 Hour Body’s diet was actually quite involved. But I didn’t do it all. I only did 2 things: I took the supplements and I removed all sugars and white carbohydrates from my diet.
When I started, it was about a month from the LA Marathon 2011. Normally I drop weight pretty significantly about 1-1.5 months before a big race. After a long period of training, and the build up of distance towards the end as I peak, my body sheds weight like crazy. I usually get down to about 147 lbs. right before a marathon or Ironman. After the race, I gain it back within 2 weeks and I’m back to about 150 lbs.
I discovered something significant with this diet. I dropped weight to the marathon, but then I kept dropping weight through the race and plateaued underneath my typical race day weight!
Since then, I have not trained for Ironman; nor have I kept up significant endurance training either. BUT my weight has still stayed down around 142-146 lbs WITHOUT any kind of long distance training.
What have I learned from this? Something pretty significant.
When I eliminated all sugars and white carbs, I removed all things like soft drinks, candy, ice cream, pies, white rice, bread, pasta – everything processed like potato chips and cookies. I only ate things that were natural and I had to cook in order to eat, or I ate it raw.
I learned that the body can lose the ability to burn fat simply because of the presence of more easily accessible sources of energy. Remember that sugars are most easily metabolized into energy; next comes complex carbohydrates, and then last are fats. If my blood stream were constantly filled with sugars and carbs, then why would my body ever want to burn fat? IT DOESN’T HAVE TO. So it stores fat and it just sits there. However, if I eliminate the sugars and carbs, my body has no choice but to relearn how to metabolize fat more effectively. Thus my weight and my body fat percentage has come down to an all time low.
Think about what is typically filled with sugars and carbs: stuff that is made by big companies with huge marketing machines. Big factories who take stuff and load it up with stuff that only tastes good. You love eating it. In fact, you may be mildly or wildly addicted to it to the point where you can’t even let go of it.
But filing your body with all these easily burn-able energy sources just means that we store fat more and more and then we become overweight and then obese.
A while ago, I had thought that it was all about calories in versus calories out. So yes that is true to a degree. I took my calories out level to the level of Ironman training in order to drop my weight significantly. But now I know that is not accurate – it isn’t quite necessary to burn calories at the level of what you take in, or the other way which is to limit calories in. These can work but can also be very difficult to sustain.
It is much simpler in concept to remove sugars and white carbs, thus depriving your blood stream of all this easily burn-able energy source and thus force your body to find its energy source elsewhere, or relearn how to metabolize fat more effectively.
This is also much harder in practice.
I’ve found that most people just don’t have willpower to enact such a change. They’ve been duped by the marketing machines since childhood and that eating this crap is so natural that they can’t stop.
I read recently that 75% of the US population is now considered obese. This is insane. All I can say is, stop being duped by the marketing machines of big food companies. Build your willpower and eat better by eliminating the crap they are selling you – you’ll be thinner and healthier as a result.
I first learned about the different energy systems in the book 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. He had inserted an ultrarunning/marathon program by a Crossfit practictioner named Brian MacKenzie (see Super Running: Is Crossfit Endurance The New Way To Train? who had crafted his training program based on training the 3 energy systems present in everybody. Crossfit founder Greg Glassman wrote about it in one of his Crossfit Journals entitled Metabolic Conditioning.
Then in the course of roaming around the net, I found reference to it in a presentation by Joel Jamieson, a MMA fighter trainer based in Washington State. Check it out in his post Truth About Energy Systems FREE Video. He also discusses it in his interesting book Ultimate MMA Conditioning Guide to fitness for MMA, Jiu Jitsu and Combat Sports by Joel Jamieson.
Is it Alactic or Phosphagen, or Lactic or Glycolytic, or Oxidative or Aerobic, I’m not sure which terms are the right ones. But it’s interesting to see people developing athletes with all 3 energy systems in mind and how they interrelate.
The one thing to note is in Joel’s presentation, which was about how the aerobic system kicks in to supply energy pretty quickly, within 15 to 30 seconds. He found that without bringing back roadwork and other similar types of training to develop the aerobic system, his fighters were running out of steam in their fights. When he brought that training back, his fighters did much better and were able to maintain higher intensities for a longer period of time.
There is a lot of controversy about high intensity intervals and whether or not they can develop your aerobic endurance for a given length of time without actually having to put in that much time. Crossfit’s position is that you don’t need to train for that long; you can get there with their training methods by taking their classes. Joel tried it and it didn’t work; his fighters needed more classic aerobic work.
Still Joel’s book and Crossfit principles are very interesting in developing more overall body strength and designing the training to reflect stimulus of each energy system. In looking back through my training, I can see where I’ve either left out stimulus of 1-2 energy systems, or I haven’t trained them properly, meaning I did train them and then the energy system atrophied by the time race day came because I moved on towards aerobic system development.
There is much to learn here and when I get the chance I will apply them in my own training.
OK so I’m a believer and now I’m going to give it a try. For the last 4 weeks, I started barefoot running, or more accurately running in Vibram FiveFingers. My favorite is the Sprint but it doesn’t look like they make those any more since they are not on the Vibram site – they may have been replaced by the Seeya.
The Sprints are great because they are easy to get my feet into and have the strap across the instep to give a little assurance that they do not fly off when I run. Otherwise, I would have bought the Classics. Well, we’ll see when I have to buy new ones…
So I chose to start out REAL slow. I went out running 10 minutes only, with 30 seconds running and 30 seconds walking. I did this only twice a week. It was definitely enough to start – I was already having minor adaptation issues.
My sports medicine guy and I have been talking about the potential adaptation issues that may come up when starting barefoot running. Of course I began to exhibit some of those issues.
The arch of my foot began to be sore intermittently. My flexor hallucis longus (click on the little 15) was very tight on and off, starting from my foot arch, running around my ankle, and up the back of my lower leg up and into the calf.
My sports medicine guy and I talked about springs. Recent research is starting to show that we store a lot of energy in our muscles and utilize it to help us move when we release that energy. When we run barefoot, we want to run on the balls of our feet. This makes our arch structures work harder, harder than they are used to because we’ve been walking in shoes for decades. Plus, we’ve probably been heel striking so much and our nervous systems for walking have totally wasted away. So I’ve been waking the nervous system up in my feet and legs, to get them slowly to adjust to running barefoot. But during that adaptation process, it can mean tight and sore muscles. And if I ran too much too soon, then it could mean all sorts of problems that could take weeks or months to recover from.
I read The Barefoot Running Book First Edition: A Practical Guide to the Art and Science of Barefoot and Minimalist Shoe Running by Jason Robillard which had some great advice on how to start out. But I chose to start out even slower than that. But also, they advised staying as relaxed as possible.
After 4 weeks I’ve managed to get to 15 minutes of running, with 1 minute of running and then 30 seconds of walking. When I ran, I focused on relaxing to the max. I ran with my feet just gliding over the road, with each step I made sure I placed my feet gently down to the ground to minimize contact forces as much as possible. I made sure my legs were moving exactly the way I wanted them to.
Every week I see my sports medicine guy who works my muscles with ART and Graston technique. He gets my tight muscles to release and make sure they are loose and functional again. My enemy is the buildup of this tightness with no release, which will surely cause problems later. When I cannot see him, I hit my muscles with rollers and my own Graston-like tools.
After only 4 weeks, I feel that I am just gliding fast across the road. No more stomping, or relying on the cushion of my running shoes to compensate for muscles which refuse to absorb shock any more. In fact, I feel that my stride has improved a lot when I do not run in shoes, meaning the path that my legs move through when I run.
I will report back after a few more weeks of this. I hope to be running upwards of 1 to 1.5 hours by the end of the year, and also hitting the track for sprinting as well.
In the Total Immersion forums, a user asked about where should hand leave the water for recovery. I thought it would be useful to repost my response here:
Regarding when/where the hand release should happen, I think you should think of it this way:
1. In general, the longer the hand is in the water (and assuming it is moving, hopefully straight back!), then it is still contributing to forward motion. This is good. Therefore, your goal is to have as long a stroke length in the water as possible, as traced by your hand.
2. Having said 1., it is very dependent on tempo and your ability to move your hand underwater faster, which involves strength and endurance.
So in order to move your hand through water which is a much heavier medium than air, it will require more strength – to do that over time requires endurance of your arm muscles.
Faster tempos thus give you less time to travel that distance from catch to where you’d want to exit the hand out of the water (and you still have to move the hand back forward in recovery).
NOTE: It is possible that if you move your hand TOO fast, then it may slip and you are not gaining the most benefit of the stroke back but in actuality wasting energy moving your hand back as fast as possible, but not maximizing your potential forward energy given that your hand is slipping and not gripping water as well as when it is moving slower.
3. Given your fitness and skill level at a moment in time, you may be able to swim at a faster tempo BUT in order to keep up with the tempo you have no choice but to exit the hand sooner, which may mean that you exiting at your waist or even above. Attempting to lengthen your stroke length underwater of your hand may be difficult to impossible to maintain because your strength and endurance may not be high enough. Thus you have no choice but to exit sooner.
4. You can also play with speeding up the arm forward after it exits the water to help you lengthen the stroke portion underwater. But you may reach an upper limit of how fast you can move your arm forward given your current fitness and skill level.
5. During a race, you may find that you want to sprint but simply cannot get a faster tempo without exiting sooner. This will also vary based on your fatigue level which will change during race conditions.
BTW, play with faster tempos and where you exit the hand; you may find that even though you are shortening your underwater stroke length, your overall speed is still going up, when compared to attempting to keep the same stroke length. This is evidence that some other part of your stroke is falling apart a bit as you try to speed up AND also try to maintain stroke length.
For example, a little while ago, I was playing with this and faster tempos and found that when I exited sooner, I had a bit more time to execute a better spear + 2 beat kick and got more speed. When I was rushed due to a longer stroke length, it became messier and I was actually more slower overall! So this is yet another thing to work on….!
Train to lengthen the underwater stroke portion via the same methods prescribed by TI – proceed measurably and slowly, increasing your tempo bit by bit over time. Use the tempo trainer religiously!
Well it’s been almost a week since I ran the LA Marathon last Sunday. Last year, I ran it in a rainstorm and nearly went hypothermic (see LA Marathon Race Report 3-20-11: Misery Redefined. I had hoped to redeem myself this year but it was not redemption I got.
The forecast was for rain again and my brain just sulked at the prospect of running it yet again in cold rain. Saturday before the race, the rain came down midday and I looked out the window at cloudy, wet skies and really was not psyched to run at all. If I had woken up to rain race morning, I was determined to just stay home and quit.
Here was my first rookie mistake: how can you run a race when you’ve already psyched yourself out before it even started?
Training before the race had not progressed well. About 2 months before, I was doing some Turkish Get-Ups with kettlebells and managed to strain some muscles in/around my left quad at the knee. This set off a chain reaction in my nervous system where if it started to get sore, my fascia would clamp down on my knee – first my left, and then a complementary reaction in my right knee. I never let the strained muscle heal completely; my time was short to the race and had little time to take off. So I trained through it. However, it was exacerbated by the fact that I added weekly mileage too fast. Normally I would add about 15 minutes each week. During this build, I decided to just add about 25-35 minutes each week. Looking back, I’m sure that this build was too much for my strained muscle and it kept bothering me, creating tension that would arise in response to high stress during the latter part of my long runs.
Second rookie mistake: Adding too much mileage during the training build.
This all caused my nervous system to flare up. By the time race week came, my quads were in a perpetual state of flex. Never felt anything like it. I did no running at all in the last week just to let them calm down. They finally came down to some semblance of relaxation before the race, but they needed a full detraining to reset them from flexing too much in response to race stress.
Add to that the fact that I wasn’t sleeping well in the weeks before all added up to a heightened nervous system that always ready to go, but never let me calm down enough to recover. There was also stress in finding time to run 3 hours; winter training meant reduced day time hours, as did responsibilities with my family. I managed three 18 milers but I usually like to do at least one 20+ miler, if not two, before a marathon.
Heading into Sunday morning, I woke up at 330am, wishing that it was raining so I could just call it quits. But the roads were dry so I got myself up and prepped, and drove out to catch the bus to the start.
The race itself was not very eventful in memory. I was not psyched to start, so I went out easy although I hit the half way mark past 1:50 so I was on pace for a sub-4 hour finish.
As for the rain, it turned out to be a nice sunny but cool day with whipping winds but thankfully no rain at all. I was very happy to be wearing a cool waterproof running jacket by REI called the REI Airflyte Running Jacket with eVent Fabric. Although it was not raining, the jacket was very breathable and it cut the wind amazingly well.
The sub-4 hour time was not to be. My nervous system acted up at around mile 16 when muscles around my right knee started tightening up. This lead to successive tightening up and down the kinetic chain, into the anterior tibialis and up my inner quad up to my hip. There was also stiffness and pain in my right foot arch and around the inner ankle bone.
The tightness in my right leg soon caused a reaction in my left leg in nearly the same places although not as worse. Soon it became painful to even move my right leg in running form; I had to stop and walk every few steps to calm it down. Then I would run and it would tighten up again. I tried to find some movement pattern where it would not flare up in tightness and pain and tried to vary it in little ways, but to no avail. This went on all the way to the finish line where I finished in my worst marathon in years at 4:46.
Well, no such luck with redemption. But it’s OK. I resolved to semi-retire after this race in any case. Having kids and being back in the work force just made long runs too hard to manage. I already gave up on triathlons and Ironmans, and now I’m passing on marathons and focusing on my swimming and half marathons, Total Immersion swim coaching, and my strength building work. Time for new challenges and phases in life….
Back in April of last year, I wrote a post on Deadlifting for Faster Running. A reader commented and asked: 10 months on, how have you progressed?
It has been an interesting 10 months for sure! After the LA Marathon 2011, I found time to concentrate on weightlifting and to try out ASRspeed.com which has worked pretty well. I had to back off ASRspeed and lifting when I managed to get into the NYC Marathon 2011. I raced that and then got back onto ASRspeed and strength development.
I started with a measly deadlift max of 175 lbs and now I’m at 215 lbs. My goal is 2x my body weight which makes my goal 290 lbs for 2 reps. In reading a lot of strength books like Easy Strength by Pavel and Dan John, I have found that if you can deadlift 2x your body weight, then you’re a decent athlete. OK so now I have a goal. Still, I wasn’t a very strong kid and never had any real strength training – only bodybuilding which didn’t do diddly for my ability to generate power for things like running.
In other strength metrics, I regularly practice jumping up to an 18″ plyo bench. Still not too impressive, but for a skinny guy like me it’s pretty good.
The real measure of success was my running. I used the 200m distance as a measure of sprinting speed.
When I started running 200m for time, I did it in 45 seconds.
I then altered my running form which was to adjust my body lean to get my center of gravity forward of my legs. This magically dropped my speed to 39-40 seconds in one session.
Subsequent strength work and using the ASRspeed protocol then slashed my 200m time to 34-36 seconds where it stands now – and that’s even after running 800s in between the 200s in a structured workout.
I am gratified that Barry Ross’s theories have proven true for myself. In the past, I have dabbled in weightlifting for triathlon but was going about it all wrong.
I hope to see even more improvement in speed as I approach my goal of 2x my body weight in the deadlift.
Mike McCloskey, a Total Immersion swimmer, wrote to me regarding some tips on training for a Early Vertical Forearm or EVF.
Here were my replies: What drill(s) can you recommend to entrain a high elbow catch, or, which one(s) helped you the most?
In answer to your question, first see my old post: Total Immersion: Learning the Early Vertical Forearm – Training, Training, Training
You really have spear as horizontal as possible and you may not even know if you’re spearing lower than you should without looking at video of yourself. Spearing horizontal makes the elbow high and allows an easier EVF.
Next, watch Dave Cameron’s video. This is an excellent dryland exercise. I used to do it all the time just standing around until it was burned into my brain. It doesn’t completely make it easy in the water, but it does help a great deal.
Some drills/focal points to try:
1. Leave your patient lead arm out there as long as you can before you stroke. This doesn’t directly train the EVF but it does train critical timing and helps you resist the temptation to just stroke back with the non-spearing arm.
2. Attempt Dave’s dryland drill in the water. Keep your current spearing arm out there as long as you can, and as you spear the other arm, bend the elbow of the previously speared arm before stroking back.
3. Extend the upper arm of the previously speared arm, as you spear the other arm. This helps train you also to not just pull back the arm while you initiate the EVF. You want the EVF to complete before you start stroking back.
4. A variant of 3, open up the axilla/armpit of the previously speared arm, as you spear the other arm. Feel a big circle form from your armpit, arcing to the elbow joint and down the forearm as the forearm drops down, but the upper arm does not because you’re extending the armpit.
5. Swim forward by using the momentum of the spearing arm only, plus the hip drive and the 2BK. Resist the temptation to pull back the stroking arm for as long as possible and try to get as much forward momentum with the spear/hip/2BK. As you spear, just drop the other arm’s forearm down but do not stroke back until the last possible moment.
6. A variant of 4, use the hip drive of the spear to open up the axilla/armpit of the opposite arm. In essence, use your hip to powerfully open up the axilla and dropping the forearm down into EVF. This really helps cement the body’s role in creating the catch and the subsequent stroke.
He then asks: 1) You point out that Shinji hardly uses EVF except for races, because he feels it is too tiring for general use. Do you feel the same way and do you only use EVF for ‘special occasions’? My motivation for entraining a good EVF is in large part to train the lats to take over some of the work my rotator cuff and deltoids have been doing, therefore, HOPEFULLY, to reduce shoulder stress. But if in fact EVF is more rather than less exhausting, in particular for shoulders, maybe I’d better look elsewhere for shoulder relief.
I think you can train your body to do just about anything. I also should ask him exactly why he thinks it’s tiring for him as I’m not really sure. When you watch videos of Shinji, you’ll probably notice that his catch is not as aggressively “forward vertical” as Sun Yang’s. Still, his form is impeccable and his speed shows – he told me he swam a 1:04 100m in a Masters meet! Wow!
After doing EVF training for almost a year now, I finally think I have the hang of it and will be extending it to at least Alcatraz crossing distance (~1.2 miles).
As for reducing stress on your rotator cuff and delts – I’m not sure EVF will in itself make that better. More likely other TI aspects will have a greater effect on your shoulder joint and muscles.
As mentioned in one of my focal points about not resisting the stroke back – you should try some laps where you try to swim *with barely any stroking energy* at all. This forces you to rely solely on spear/arm drop/hip drive/2BK to send you forward, as your other arm just kinda hangs out there. You’ll be amazed at how fast you can go without relying on the stroking arm. It’s a great way to fine tune the non-intuitive parts of swimming propulsion.
Doing this also helps EVF because now your arm is just hanging out there and you have time/space to let your forearm drop down.
And of course your shoulder muscles and joint is saved since you’re swimming faster without using shoulder muscles to force your way through water. 2) In reply to the deep vs. shallow spear, early last year (or so) there was a thread on the TI forum discussing a video of Ian Thorpe, and I pointed out that his hand entry was fairly deep and steep, surprisingly TI-like, but immediately thereafter his hand came back near the surface so his forearm was nearly horizontal. Next, the forearm moved down again into a vertical position for the catch. I wondered if this ‘dolphin-like’ down-up-down motion was intentional, and Terry replied that it merely reflected Thorpe’s great ability to relax his lead arm. I never got that part, for the reason you mention elsewhere, i.e., a deep angle of entry makes it hard to bring the elbow back up, because the forward motion puts pressure on the forearm opposing that motion. In the face of that pressure, how could simply relaxing the arm allow it to ‘float’ back up?
That video is here:
Thorpe’s spear is the shallow I was talking about. I was only talking about the part of the arm when it is underwater and not about the steepness of the entry. you need to end up with a more horizontal extended arm than angled downward, which is where TI beginners may start when they first learn balance in the water.
The angle of entry is defined by the path of a cocked arm as it touches down into the water. You should not be extending the arm before it hits the water. But once it enters the water, you control the depth of where it goes. You want to drop into the water and immediately shoot it horizontally forward. So you are changing the direction spearing arm.
Thorpe is amazing actually – his hand is actually shooting higher than horizontal but he retains enough control to never break the water surface which is bad. This can get a tiny bit more elbow height! 3) In reply to your point #5 (resist the temptation to pull back) … it’s been subconscious and so deeply engrained … but at least these drills have brought it to consciousness. Even when I use what I imagine (no video or other observers yet) is something closer to EVF, and definite catch, than before, I can feel the lats engage and push water back. But that’s a forward step for now, I think, because it’s my bigger less fatigable lats doing the work my shoulders were doing.
There are lats engaging but also connecting your stroking arm to your body’s rotation will also lend authority to the stroke back without wiping out muscles. It’s a hard concept to grasp but once you have the coordination, I think one day you’ll email me back and say “Dave, so THAT’S what you meant by coordinating the stroke back with body rotation!”
Another way to look at all this is, you’re changing the timing of your arms in the stroke cycle. When you first learned TI, and usually Shinji teaches this first, you spear and stroke back at the same time. This timing is easier to master. Once you get this, then it’s onwards to EVF. NOW you’ll have to change your timing. The spear now happens first and is on its way forward, as the other arms drops into EVF and THEN strokes back. The timing is now shifted. So one manifestation is the fact that you need to resist stroking back so soon in order to change that timing….
I’ve pretty much come to the realization that gluteal amnesia has been a major cause of leg problems during my running and cycling.
All we have done all our lives is just sit around. Surely that is what I have done up to now. I sat in class, I sat to study, I sat in front of a TV, I sat in my office in front of a computer for countless hours. And all that resulted in my glutes forgetting how to fire. The fact that my glutes are not participating in any of the kinetic chains related to running or cycling means other muscles are overworked, get injured faster, cramp up during a race, and a host other problems.
By reactivating the glutes, the whole kinetic chain of muscles works more efficiently and better, being more resistant and tolerant of heavy and long efforts. By the way, you’ll also run/cycle faster too; isn’t that our real end goal?
To combat this, I started on a program of getting my glutes to activate in the kinetic chain again. Here are the things I’ve done:
1. First, I learned how to Hip Hinge. Hip Hinging is critical for performing the exercises that will activate the glutes. If you can’t Hip Hinge, any potential exercises you would do for glute activation endanger your spine and back so make sure you learn how to do this.
Prevention of proper Hip Hinging can be the result of a nervous system which is unused to letting the hips hinge like that, and tight and/or weak muscles in and around the hips. It is possible that a program of stretching and physical therapy is required to help speed the muscles and nervous system to allowing this movement to happen.
I managed to figure this out on my own, but there are a number of exercises to help pattern the movement. Here is a good one:
I practice Hip Hinging whenever I can, especially if I am squatting down like when I’m playing with my kid. Or if I’m reaching down for something on the ground. Or going from standing to sitting. I make sure that my hips are hinging correctly in any kind of squatting type movement.
2. I then had to learn how to flex and tighten my glutes. Pavel describes this as “closing off the sphincter.” It’s not a bad way to start learning, but ultimately the glutes are to the side of the sphincter but you can start figuring out what nerves to fire in order to flex the glutes. I practiced flexing both at the same time, and also each one side separately.
3. Next come exercises to engage and activate the glutes, whereas previously they were completely inactive and other muscles were taking up the load. The core exercises I use, in terms of movement, are the deadlift, Bulgarian single leg deadlift, and the Romanian single leg deadlift.
It would be highly advisable to rehearse the movements with only body weight before you try extra weights like dumbbells, kettlebells or barbells. Go to a gym and perform the movements in front of a mirror multiple times. Make sure your form is perfect each time. Then once you have some mastery of the form, then you can move on to using weights.
If you don’t rehearse the movements with body weight only, you could really hurt yourself. This is what happened to me when I tried to find my 1 Rep Maximum in deadlift and didn’t have proper form nailed down. The moment I stopped and found help was the day after I hit a max and my back was bending down due to the heavy weight, and my back was very sore for 2 days afterwards. This was completely avoidable. I could have really messed something up badly in my back.
This is why I mention this now before I list some demonstration videos of the deadlift, Bulgarian single leg deadlift, and the Romanian single leg deadlift which all show weights being used. But read onwards to see how each one is done, and practice them without weights first, and master the form before adding weights.
4. After I get the hang of Hip Hinging, then I started into deadlifting via Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Body, Pavel Tsatsouline’s Power to the People, and Barry Ross’s Underground Secrets for Faster Running. My blog posts on this subject are: Deadlifting for Faster Running and I also give a description of deadlift form in Deadlifting is HARD (and Dangerous). A great video on form is here:
The key here is to squeeze your glutes at the top of the lift. This really helps the body learn how to engage them during the lift. Later, you can attempt to maintain flexure of the glutes all the way from the bottom of the lift to the top. If you can do that, your glutes are on their way to be activated.
5. I also started doing some single leg exercises to isolate the glutes on each side. The first is the Bulgarian single leg deadlift. Check this video out:
Key point again is to squeeze the glute at the top of the movement, a bit awkward with this exercise, but still doable. Also, there is a temptation to flex the quads in an attempt to get up. Resist this and focus on the glutes instead. You will be amazed that you can get up by using more glutes, and without doing what feels more natural which is to use your quads.
This is also a great balance exercise, so do each movement deliberately and slowly so that you don’t lose your balance and tip to either side.
Start with no weights, practice/master the form, then try very low weights, like 10-20 lbs and move up from there. A lot of people like to use 2 dumbbells, one in each hand. I like to use one dumbbell, held by the hand that is opposite the leg that is forward. This provides a bit more stability challenge to the core and body which I like.
I started with only 4 reps with body weight each side and my glutes were sore the day after! So start with low reps and body weight, do only one set on each side to start and then move up from there.
6. The second glute isolation is the Romanian single leg deadlift. Check this video out:
The person in the video is using two dumbbells which you can graduate to after you practice and master form without weights. Once again, I like using one dumbbell for more of a balance/stability challenge, the dumbbell held by the hand opposite the leg that is placed on the ground.
Key points are, keep that slight curve in the back and do not let it curl forward – very bad! You can bend the knee of the leg that is on the ground. Watch your balance, use your leg behind you to help counterbalance your body going forward. Maintain focus on your glutes during this movement.
Again, I started only with 4 reps with body weight on each side. Start low and move from there. Always maintain strict form; fatigue is the enemy of form! If your form falters due to concentration/focus or fatigue, stop immediately and take a break.
The bigger brother to the Romanian single leg deadlift is using a barbell with both legs on the ground, bending down with the bar and then standing straight up while keeping both legs in a slightly bent, braced position. I would recommend mastering the dumbbell version first and on one leg before attempting this one. This move is much more advanced and requires more mastery of bracing your upper body and back against the stress of a heavy barbell held with both hands. I do not think it is necessary, however, in a program to help runners or cyclists. The single leg deadlift is more than adequate.
7. This one is really tough but awesome. It’s the Natural Glute Ham Raise. Check this video out:
This move is REALLY HARD. The first time I tried it I could not even lift my nose off the ground at all! If you try from the high position and lower yourself down, you’ll end up face planting for sure. To do this move requires not only strength, but also activation of a chain of muscles down your back, glutes, and hamstrings that you’ve probably never ever used before. But as Barry Ross says, people with strong hamstrings never ever get injured during running. So this is worth aspiring to. For a better process to mastering this move, see this video which shows the Assisted Glute Ham Raise using a pole or lat pulldown bar:
Much safer to start with as you won’t faceplant and embarass yourself in the gym!
8. I’m not in love with other movements on the ground but you can try them and see if they work for you. I’ve tried these: Bridge Exercise Quadruped Hip Extension Single Leg Bridge Exercise
I haven’t found them to be as effective as the deadlifts and glute ham raises. Nowadays I mainly use them when I’m travelling or not at a gym, or just want to switch things up. There are many others that you’ll find if you search on the internet.
9. After you start on a program of glute activation, now you need to integrate this into your daily life or else they’ll just get amnesia again!
First, stop sitting. Stand or squat if possible. Hard for sedentary workers, but do what you can. Sitting is the enemy of activated glutes.
Second, whenever you squat or bend down, practice your hip hinging. When you bend or stand back up, focus on the glutes as you come up. Resist flexing the quads to get up. Keep activating those glutes!
So far so good. I’ve been doing all this since about March this year and things are looking up. My speed on the low end is climbing, and I think the glute’s contribution to the kinetic chain is showing in the speed increase as well as less muscle problems.
Chris McDougall is the author of one of the most awesome running books ever, “Born to Run”. I’m a big propenent of running on the forefoot and I’m trying to perfect my running mechanics to make myself run injury free and also with maximum efficiency. This simple exercise/drill called the 100 Up helps with training your nervous system and muscles to run with more efficient and injury proof form.
I’m going to start to incorporate this simple exercise/drill into my weekly routine.
This is a bit late but finally getting to this!
To recap, the build to this NYC Marathon was only about 2 months. Very short, but I got there without too many problems in my muscles.
NYC was very chilly, although there was a warming trend. The morning of the marathon was still very chilly – 42 degrees or so! I got out there early as usual. Nearing the start of the race, I of course butted my way up as far to the front of the line as I could get. But with 45,000+ people racing, I realized that the field was going to be full no matter where I would be – there was just too many people.
Everything was going great until I hit mile 18.5. Here is a screen shot of my pacing from my Garmin 305 watch.
I was at a very fast pace, just racing by perceived effort to the edge of my threshold pace. But as my pacing showed, and what I remembered from the feeling in my legs which were getting tighter and tighter, I was slowing down bit by bit.
I did manage to hit mile 13 at 1:43, or about 1:42 at my chip time. This was on pace for a sub-3:30 finish, assuming I could hold that. But of course I could not.
At about mile 18.5, I cramped which ruined my day. You can see the HR drop on these graphs, along with my pace.
After that, it was a constant cycle of walk about 2-3 minutes until the cramp spasm goes away, and then run until the cramp started again.
I still managed a 4:02 chip time but it wrecked my 3:30 goal time.
Observations and learnings:
1. It is possible for me to build to marathon fitness in only 2 months. It verifies my previous coach’s teachings, which is that you can build to endurance racing fitness by ramping volume only in the last few months of training, rather than maintaining a volume program for longer periods of time.
I would not recommend this to beginning marathoners. I think there are many variables that make it possible for me to have built successfully to marathon fitness in so short of time, not the least of which that I have now many years of endurance racing under my belt.
I signed up for the LA Marathon 2012 in March next year. I hope to build, starting Jan 1 so I’ll have about 2.75 months to build to that race. This is still not the typical 4 months or more that I usually like to have to build to a marathon, but having done so with NYC I feel confident that I can do it again.
2. The cramping problem is one that I have faced for many years. At the NYC Marathon, the day was relatively cool so temperature was probably not the factor in making me sweat too much and lose too many electrolytes. I also was taking electrolyte pills, about 1-2 per hour. My best guess is that I did not have enough strength to maintain my level of effort over the full 26.2 miles.
To remedy this, I am back on my Russian strength building program and hope to be deadlifting over 200 lbs by the time Jan 1 rolls around. I need to be stronger at a 3:30 pace or else I will risk cramping again.
I am back on my ASR Speed program and will be working on my speed, as well as strength building, until the new year. Then I hope to use a fast build to the LA Marathon, like the one I used for the NYC Marathon.
