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Lead Stories: Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Mix Up Your Music (Part II):
Playlists for Strength Training, Yoga, and Stretching

Posted September 5th, 2007 at 12:33 PM by Courtney Albon

Section: Motivation, Music

Yesterday, we brought you two new music playlists to add spark to your running and walking routines.

Today, we’ve got more - music that will boost you through your toughest strength training sessions and your relaxing yoga sessions. Both playlists are approximately an hour in length.

Strength Training

• Lifehouse, Spin
• The Fray, Cable Car
• Nickelback, If Everyone Cared

Read the rest of this entry at our partner site: HerActiveLife.com

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ASK FLASH: When should runners get strong?

Posted May 13th, 2007 at 3:01 PM by Joshua Flash Gordon

Section: Running & Training, Columns, Training Tips, Health & Fitness, Exercise, Ask Flash

Need advice? Injured? Confused? Overwhelmed? Bored? ASK FLASH!
ASK FLASH is a free advice column to help you with all of your running, fitness and nutrition inquiries. To ASK FLASH — simply fill out the form at the conclusion of the column.

Welcome back to ASK FLASH! I apologize for the brief hiatus…as lucrative as the running advice industry is…law school exams beckoned. A pleasure to be back and still standing! On to the questions du jour…

As a side note, in order to gain a foundational understanding of functional training and why I believe so strongly in it, I highly recommend Mark Verstegen’s three books as part of any runner’s reference library.

Q. Hope all is going well with you! Ran a great 10 miler this weekend. I finally broke an average pace under an 8! Very exciting! Anyway, I wanted your opinion on leg strengthening during a reverse taper. I really haven’t worked on them for over a month and a half with Nashville Marathon training and all. I am running SD in June and wasn’t sure if I should continue to avoid that or not. When I do work on my legs I do things such as leg curls, extensions, press, lunges and then floor exercises such as hydrants. Stick with these low weight, high rep? I know the machines are more isolating the muscles. Is there anything else you could suggest? I have also been using the half balance ball thing to strengthen my ankles and core. I feel as if my legs have been neglected and do not care for that :(
~ Legs from Strong Pumping Station Arkansas

A. Nice to hear from you! Sounds like a great run - you are cruising along well.
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Strengthen quad muscles to help your knees

Posted May 7th, 2007 at 11:30 AM by Jeanie Rebb

Section: Running & Training, Injury & Rehab, Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab

Doctors have known for many years that having weak quad muscles (in the front of your upper legs) increases risk for damage to the cartilage in your knees. A study from Purdue University shows that strengthening these muscles slows down knee cartilage damage and may even improve knee function (Arthritis & Rheumatism, October 2006).

The researchers placed 221 adults in their sixties and seventies either on a program of strengthening their muscles in their upper legs or just moving their knees in a series of range-of- motion exercises. The subjects exercised three times per week (twice at a fitness facility and once at home) for 12 weeks. This program was followed by a transition to home-based exercise for 12 months. Older people weaken naturally with aging, but the range of motion exercisers lost more strength than those who exercised against progressive resistance. The strength training helped retain joint space, signifying that this group had less loss of cartilage.
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Hill Repeats vs. Weight Training: Which training workout is more important?

Posted March 16th, 2007 at 11:30 AM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

I wholeheartedly agree with the value of hill repeats. Too many runners overlook them and focus almost entirely on intervals and tempo runs. Hard hill repeats provide both strength and cardio-respiratory development; making them an essential ingredient of any serious runner’s regimen. In addition, as many easy and long runs as possible should include some hills, rather than being completely flat.

Hills are a great resistance training tool for strength development … and not just in the form of structured hill repeats. Let me explain:
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Cross-transference can help you maintain conditioning while recovering from injury

Posted March 5th, 2007 at 8:45 AM by Jamal Walker

Section: Running & Training, Injury & Rehab, Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab

Most athletes are so afraid to lose conditioning that they get very frustrated when they are injured. They can maintain fitness by using a training technique called cross-transference, and so can you.

It surprises most people to hear that exercising one leg or arm helps to maintain strength, endurance and power in the other limb. A review of 16 well-controlled scientific studies shows that strength training of the opposite limb strengthens the inactive muscles by about eight percent, equal to about half the increase in strength of the trained side (Journal of Applied Physiology, November, 2006).
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Expand your comfort zones; improve “running strength”

Posted December 22nd, 2006 at 6:15 AM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

Running strength isn’t quite as definitive as VO2Max or lactate threshold. It’s a bit ambiguous. However, as I view it, it has two components: physiological and psychological.

The physiological component is related to running economy, but it is also different. I think of both running strength and running economy as sub-elements of a broader subject that I call running efficiency.

Running economy is a measure of how efficiently you use oxygen while running at a specific pace. Improving running economy means that you can physiologically sustain a faster pace at a given percentage of VO2max, or a given pace at a lower percentage of VO2max, for a longer distance.
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Type 2 Diabetes: How diet and exercise could save your life (PART 4)

Posted December 20th, 2006 at 2:05 PM by Megan Hueter

Section: Health & Fitness, Exercise, Weight Loss

This is the final installment of a four part series. Part 4 is entitled: “Type 2 Diabetes and the Benefits of Resistance Training”.

Attention type 2 diabetics: studies show that adding resistance training to your exercise program can enhance its benefits and improve insulin control. With a total change in lifestyle (through education about type 2 diabetes, adherence to a strict diet, aerobic exercise and resistance training) you can restore you body’s sugar to a non-diabetic level.

The treatment goal for type 2 diabetic individuals is to achieve and maintain near to normal blood sugar levels and optimal fat levels in the body. With exercise the body becomes less resistant to insulin. Aerobic exercise is commonly prescribed.
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Use different types of exercise for fitness and muscle strength

Posted December 3rd, 2006 at 11:00 AM by Hariz Siddiqui

Section: Health & Fitness, Exercise

You can’t train for heart muscle fitness and skeletal muscle strength with the same exercises. To strengthen your heart muscle, you must exercise vigorously enough to speed up your heart rate and keep it elevated for a while. To strengthen your skeletal muscles, you need to exercise against increasing resistance in short, hard bouts. Read the rest of this entry »

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You don’t know “SQUAT”: Part 2

Posted November 6th, 2006 at 4:00 PM by Jonathan Faccone

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Cross Training

This is the second and final part of my series on beginner strength training for endurance athletes. Make sure to also go back and read Part 1.

We understand WHY strength training is important for runners, but now we’re left wondering HOW to start a program.

There are so many variables and concerns in commencing a weight training regimen. Unfortunately, many people choose not to properly research what they are doing; nor do they have the money to spend on personal trainer. The good news is training programs do not have to be complicated, nor they should they (especially for beginners). When starting a training program it is best to keep it simple because, that way, it will allow you to focus on the fundamentals and make it easier for you to stick with it.

For endurance runners, one great exercise to start with is the one-leg squat. Owen Anderson, of Peak Performance Online, believes this exercise is great for runners because it:

Mimics the basic biomechanics of the footstrike portion of the running gait cycle, and therefore can dramatically improve running-specific strength and coordination.

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You don’t know “SQUAT”: Part 1

Posted November 3rd, 2006 at 9:00 AM by Jonathan Faccone

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Cross Training

I’d like to begin by clearing up the misconceptions concerning the importance of strength training in an endurance runner’s training regimen. Some runner’s feel that strength training is not as important as their endurance training. Others, fearful of putting on additional mass, believe that it may hurt running performance.

However, both notions are far from the truth. Several studies have shown that strength training can be incredibly beneficial to performance and help with injury prevention.

According to Owen Anderson of Peak Performance:

Recent scientific research has linked strength training with a 4 percent improvement in running economy, reduced heart rates while running, and improved race times at distances ranging from the 5K to marathon.

In addition, Wayne L Westcott, Ph.D. and fitness research director, believes that injury prevention might be the most benefit of weight training. Read the rest of this entry »

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