For those of you in the midst of heavy training sometimes its easy to overlook the symptoms of over training. For some guidance on this Mark Sisson of the Mark’s Daily Apple blog has just posted an excellent article explaining these symptoms which range from losing leanness despite increased exercise to suddenly falling ill a lot more often.
His post can be read here.
A recent article in the New York Times outlines recent research which makes that case that flexibility should not be considered a cornerstone of health and fitness.
In fact, the latest science suggests that “extremely loose muscles and tendons are generally unnecessary (unless you aspire to join a gymnastics squad), may be undesirable and are, for the most part, unachievable, anyway.”
Do you agree or disagree? The full article can be read here.
As athletes we’ve all gotten bad advice before. So it seems fitting that endurance sports writer Gina Kolata of the New York Times has written about this phenomena in her most recent article…
=================
THE talk, at the Expo Center at the Boston Marathon this year, had an intriguing title: Using Biomechanics to Predict Running Injuries. And the lecturer, Dr. Thomas W. Vorderer, a podiatrist at the division of sports medicine at Children’s Hospital, one of the Harvard hospitals, spoke with great conviction.
You can prevent injuries, Dr. Vorderer said, or, if you get them, can make them heal if you learn the right way to stretch and if you stretch regularly. And you should also learn the right way to run; in general, he said, runners should strike the ground with their heels first. If they strike with their midfoot or forefoot, he said, they are just asking for injuries.
A great article from New York Times writer Gina Kolata:
================
IF anyone ever wondered whether it was talent or sustained systematic training that makes athletes so good, they need only look at Joshua Gordon, a professional mediator in Boston.
Mr. Gordon ran cross-country in college before stopping completely to take up baseball. Six years later, in 1999, he decided, almost as a lark, to run the Boston Marathon. He joined a program to learn how to run longer distances, a process that involved gradually increasing the length of his runs and focusing only on distance, not speed.
He finished the marathon in a little over four hours, not especially fast for a man of 24, but he did meet his goal. “I was thrilled,” he said.
And so he found himself edging back into running, entering shorter races, 5 and 10 kilometers. He tried to train on his own, but he never did particularly well until he decided to start serious, rigorous marathon training with the Boston Athletic Association. He received coached track workouts once a week, four to six coached runs of 18 to 23 miles along the marathon course, and he had a group of skilled and talented athletes to run with.
A new study shows that manual-resistance exercises work just as well as weight-based exercises. Written by Matt Allyn and published on Active.com.
=========
Building muscle and strength doesn’t require a gym membership, or even weights, according to a new study from the University of Texas-El Paso. In a new test of manual resistance exercises, where a training partner provided the resistance, researchers found the strength training to be just as effective as using weights.
During a 14-week period, the scientists monitored 84 college students who were assigned to either a traditional program of weights-based exercises, or manual resistance workouts. Both groups were given six exercises and performed eight to 12-rep sets two to four times. By the end of the study, the two groups showed no significant differences in strength development.
Written by Gina Kolata and published in the New York Times, March 25, 2009
===============
WELDON JOHNSON first tried caffeine as a performance enhancer in 1998. He was not a coffee drinker but had heard that caffeine could make him run faster. So he went to a convenience store before a race and drank a cup of coffee.
For the first time in his life, he ran 10 kilometers in less than 30 minutes.
“I remember being really wired before the race,” he said in an e-mail message. “My body was shaking.”
From then on, he was a convert.
Mr. Johnson, a founder of LetsRun.com, would avoid caffeine, even in soft drinks, for a few weeks before he competed in a race, wanting to have the full stimulant effect.
“It may have been a huge placebo effect, but I swore by it,” Mr. Johnson said. “Having a cup of coffee exactly one hour before the race was part of my routine.”
Or maybe it was not a placebo effect.
Caffeine, it turns out, actually works. And it is legal, one of the few performance enhancers that is not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Christopher Kelsall’s latest interview is will Kiwi athlete, coach and author Keith Livingstone. Keith is a Lydiard method enthusist, and has just published a book on the famous training method titled: Healthy Intelligent Training (H.I.T). This is a long interview, but if you are a fan of the Lydiard method then it is well worth the read.
Note: this interview was originally published on the Flotrack website and is reproduced here with permission from Chris.
=============================
(c) Copyright – 2009 – Christopher Kelsall
Keith Livingstone, from New Zealand recently published a new book about an old training method, writing it in today’s language. He has taken the famous training method of the late and incomparable Arthur Lydiard and modernized it so everyone can understand the theory and application fully in a book he calls, Healthy Intelligent Training or H.I.T for short.
It’s the new year and time to plan your 2009 training and racing scheduale. In a recent posting from Trifuel.com, triathlete coach Matt Russ offers steps for athletes to plan a successful racing year. He recommends dividing races into A, B, and C races in order to plan a calendar that won’t leave you overwhelmed…
=======================
This is an excellent time of year to consider what you would like to accomplish athletically in the upcoming New Year. As with many things, planning is the key to accomplishment for your race season.
If you are a recreational athlete and your goal is simply to complete your events, then you only need to train one aspect of fitness; endurance. This entails planning enough time to slowly build your mileage to within about 10-15% of the distance of your goal race. Note that many overuse injuries are caused by too much mileage too quickly. Do not increase your duration more than 10% per week and take at least every fourth week as a rest and recovery week. During a rest and recovery week, you should cut back your mileage by at least 25%, reduce your overall training volume, and add in an extra rest or active recovery day. If you are a runner, take a day of non-impact cross-training in place of a run.
Getting the modivation to exercise, smack in-between Christmas and New Years, can be challenging. But there are ways in which we can be active without beging active. In other words, forget that interval workout and try going for a hike instead. For more ideas, Mark Sisson, who blogs about fitness and nutrition on his blog, The Daily Apple , suggests 10 ways to stay active during the holidays. Check out his post here .
New York Times fitness writer Gina Kolata writes about exercise and colds is her latest article….
==============
YOU have what seems to be a really bad cold. You are coughing and sneezing, and it is hard to breathe. Should you work out? And if you do, should you push yourself as hard as ever or take it easy? Will exercise have no effect, or make you feel better or worse?
It is a question, surprisingly enough, that stumps many exercise physiologists and infectious disease specialists.
Science and fitness writer Gina Kolata has written a great article on the importance of relaxation and and how a lack of it can ruin performance. Published October 1st in the New York Times .
============
LIKE so many people around the world, Dr. Michael Joyner was transfixed watching Michael Phelps swim in the Summer Olympics. But while many of us focused on Mr. Phelps’s world records, Dr. Joyner, a competitive Masters swimmer and an exercise researcher at the Mayo Clinic, noticed something else.
“I have never seen anyone so relaxed in the water,” he said.
Relaxation. It is a trait that is often underappreciated, coaches and athletic trainers say. Yet it can make the difference between doing your best and not doing well, between feeling dragged down or soaring. Coaches search for better ways to teach it. And many athletes, including some of the world’s best, work on it constantly. An ability to relax while pushing hard, exercise researchers say, is one reason why winners win.
Another great article by New York Times columnist Gina Kolata.
INVESTIGATORS have begun two large studies of stretching, asking about its effectiveness in much the way scientists might ask about a new drug or medical device. They’re actively recruiting thousands of volunteers to participate, in the United States and elsewhere, and randomly assigning participants to use the method, or not. That is the only way, researchers say, to detect the subtle effects that most treatments and exercise interventions might be expected to evoke.
The studies are being done independently, one by researchers based in Norway and Australia and the other by a group in the United States.
The studies are not identical, reflecting perhaps the different views of stretching worldwide. People in Norway and Australia stretch for different reasons than people in the United States and do slightly different stretches. Yet exercisers and coaches everywhere, the researchers report, tend to have passionate convictions about the merits of stretching, or lack thereof.
By Sandra Mcculloch and published in the Victoria Times Colonist
Combine technology with a treasure hunt, set the venue in a B.C. provincial park and you have a new venture announced yesterday by the province, the B.C. 150 Secretariat and the B.C. Geocaching Association.
Geocaching is a recreational activity that’s growing in popularity, with hundreds — perhaps thousands — of geocachers on the Island. The sport involves the use of a handheld global positioning system receiver to locate hidden caches, typically small objects stored in watertight containers.
Clues are posted on a website so others can go out and hunt for items. Anyone finding a cache is supposed to log the find in a notebook, exchange a new item for the found one, and report the find on a website.
To celebrate B.C.’s 150th anniversary, members of the BCGA have placed limited-edition commemorative coins in 100 provincial parks.
Written by Christopher Kelsall and published Tuesday, March 18, 2008 on Flotrack (thanks again for this Chris!).
Steve Osaduik is hunting down the Olympic standard, contesting the May 25th ING, National Capital Marathon in Ottawa, Ontario. This is absolutely his last chance to qualify for Beijing 2008.
Eric Kiauka has his sites on the steeple. Last week he ripped a personal best indoor 3000m in 8:05. He did this at the home of the Huskies at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“25 hours straight through the night and we only stopped for gas,” says Eric describing his drive from Vancouver to Flagstaff with Osaduik.
What does a character runner do after pulling an all-nighter? Go for a 30 minute run immediately upon arrival!
Steve’s well documented knee issue is nearly behind him and is getting better all the time. Watch for my upcoming editorial on the unique treatment Steve received that helped in his turn around.
Written by Tara Parker-pope and published March 11, 2008 in the New York Times.
As a symbol of health and wellness, nothing surpasses the simple push-up. Practically everyone remembers the actor Jack Palance performing age-defying push-ups during his Oscar acceptance speech. More recently, Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor whose last lecture became an Internet sensation, did push-ups to prove his fitness despite having pancreatic cancer.
“It takes strength to do them, and it takes endurance to do a lot of them,” said Jack LaLanne, 93, the fitness pioneer who astounded television viewers in the 1950s with his fingertip push-ups. “It’s a good indication of what kind of physical condition you’re in.”
The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs. It requires the body to be taut like a plank with toes and palms on the floor. The act of lifting and lowering one’s entire weight is taxing even for the very fit.
This a great posting I found on bodybuilding.twentyninethings.com about over training and how endurance running as training is pretty much useless for all sports except for distance running.
================================
I sometimes wonder if there are any prerequisites at all to getting a job as a college strength and conditioning coach. As the owner of my private athletic training company I have had the opportunity to work with athletes from numerous colleges and universities across the country and have witnessed their disgust with their schools strength and conditioning programs. Some athletes, such as those attending Arizona State, are fortunate enough to have outstanding strength coaches and tremendous programs that they need not look elsewhere for help. Others are not so lucky. Every August I try to send my athletes back to their respective schools as one of the strongest, fastest, and most well conditioned players on their team. Come December I see the unlucky one’s come back to me weaker, smaller and slower. These athletes have the misfortune of training under some Neanderthal strength coach who hasn’t learned anything new about weight training since the release of Pumping Iron. There have been countless advances in the field of strength and conditioning over the last ten years, yet very few people seem to take advantage of them. It is inexcusable that in 2004, a college strength and conditioning coach does not have a thorough knowledge of exercise and nutrition and can not properly prepare their teams for competition. If your athletes are losing size and strength, slowing down, and becoming more injury prone I think it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
But research has not confirmed that notion. Most studies have found that in moderate amounts, caffeine has only mild diuretic effects — much like water.
Written by Matt Fitzgerald and published in Triathlete Magazine
Last summer one of the brightest young American long-distance running talents to come along in a generation decided to train for his first 26.2-miler. As part of his ramp-up for the New York City Marathon, Dathan “Ritz” Ritzenhein ran a half-marathon tune-up race. He blazed to a 1:01:25 clocking and a third-place finish at the highly competitive Great North Run in England.
Given the fact that he achieved this performance without any taper and with a full month left to take his fitness to peak level for his assault on the Big Apple, Ritz looked set to run perhaps the best debut marathon ever by an American runner.
That’s not what happened. After a strong start—running all the way from Brooklyn to Fifth Avenue with the race leaders—Ritz faded badly in the final miles, crawling through Central Park to a disappointing 11th-place finish in 2:14:04.
This sort of thing happens all the time in distance running, and in triathlon, too. Athletes turn in a highly promising tune-up race performance only to fall flat on their faces a few weeks later in the peak race they really care about. In other words, they peak too soon—or not at all.
A great article (or rant if you want to call it that) written by Chris Kelsall (here’s a link to his blog). A warning however, it may be considered offensive – reader discretion recommended.
===========================================
The B$ factor explodes this time of year; wicked fulminations of unadulterated bovine excrement are disgorged, exciting the masses. Myths are created, lies are spewed and the marketing that festered all year in the advertising cesspool, may now be leeching into your television set, internet, radio, billboards, magazines, competitive events, newspapers, buses, windows of mini-vans (as tax write-offs) and anywhere, where messaging may be promulgated.
I am fully in support of creative advertising methods and stimulating marketing concepts, it’s become a bit of an art, Andy Warhol notwithstanding. For all of you who made a New Years resolution a couple months ago, centered on weight loss, exercise increase or breaking a vice, here are just a few prevaricators to avoid:
Jenny Craig
Jenny Craig is one of the good players in the mastodonic weight reduction racket. However; the nicest of the scammers, is still a scammer.
From the Bermuda Sun Online Edition, published February 27, 2008
Red Bull. That stuff really gives you wings, man. It’s not the nugget of nutritional advice you might have expected from an Ironman World Champion. But Chris McCormack insists it’s what finally pushed him over the finish line to win the Hawaii event – the most gruelling athletic test in the world of sport. McCormack was on the island this week along with Xterra off-road triathlon ace Melanie McQuaid to give a series of clinics and talks to local athletes and youngsters.
Aussie McCormack finally achieved his dream of winning the 2.4mile swim, 112 mile bike and marathon at Kona last year, after six years of trying, completing the course in eight hours, 15 minutes and 34 seconds. If it’s possible to imagine anything more extreme than that. Then Xterra triathlon is it. It’s not as far. A breezy Olympic distance (1.5k/40k/10k) triathlon. The catch is it’s all off-road – ocean swimming, mountain biking and trail running.
Trainharder.com | Contact | Entries (RSS)| Comments (RSS) | © Copyright 2007 - 2008