I then take you through a full progression of balance skills and some strategies for helping you to improve your balance.

Finally, I tell you about my “in-development” balance app that you are very welcome to use for FREE. You can register for a FREE account here.

You can also find the video over on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/RunTeachUK/videos/244990659957344/

I would love it if you could go over to my Facebook page afterwards and like the video. Also, please share with as many people as you like – thank you!

The post Live skills – balance appeared first on RunTeach.

Here is my FaceBook Live video that you can also find at:

https://www.facebook.com/RunTeachUK/videos/2609064432685975/

You may want to start a minute or so in as I had a few technical challenges at the beginning!

I would love it if you could go over to my Facebook page afterwards and like the video. Also, please share with as many people as you like – thank you!

The post Live Skills – Stance and Mobility appeared first on RunTeach.

• Arms across body
• Arms over and forward
• Arms over and backward
• Arms across body

Run on spot & go!

• Run on spot for 5 seconds
• Count down 3,2,1 go!
• Run for 5m to 10m (as space allows)
• Turn around and repeat
• Turn around and repeat

Backwards running

• Put down a marker as your stop line
• Check to see it’s clear behind you
• Run backwards, looking only straight ahead until you get to your stop line
• Walk back to start and repeat x 3 

Joint Range of Motion

Fast feet agility

Note: If under 14 years old, perform 10 seconds of effort to 30 seconds rest. If over 14 years old, perform 20 seconds of effort to 40 to 60 seconds rest.

• Left foot forward
• Right foot forward
• Left foot backward
• Right foot backward

Two-legged jumping

Note: If under 14 years old, perform 10 seconds of effort to 30 seconds rest. If over 14 years old, perform 20 seconds of effort to 40 to 60 seconds rest.

• Forward
• Backward
• Left
• Right

Single-legged jumping

Note: If under 14 years old, perform 8 seconds of effort to 20 seconds rest. If over 14 years old, perform 10 seconds of effort to 20 seconds rest.

• Left foot forward
• Right foot forward
• Left foot backward
• Right foot backward

The post Agility Session 1 appeared first on RunTeach.

You may come to the same conclusion as many other runners, and look to strength training for the answer:

Get stronger = run faster

Get stronger = less injuries

Get stronger = better endurance

That’s what you’ll often read online or be told by your running buddies or your club/group guru. But are they right?

Conduct a Google search for “strength training for runners” and you’ll get over 30 million results! Where do you start with that lot?

There is no doubt that most runners do need to get stronger in some areas, but just doing squats and static planks won’t cut it. From the mass of search results, you can become very confused about what exercises are actually beneficial for running for most people. So, I want to give you a starting point where you can progress from.

The starting point for any strength programme is to address the imbalances you may have. When you have muscles that are stronger than the other muscles around them, it can cause the stronger muscles to be overworked. Weaknesses can also cause other muscles to take on the job of handling the forces of running they were never designed to do. This can then lead to many of the overuse injuries we see in runners.

Now, you don’t necessarily need to get all technical about this, as you can start off by targeting the most common areas. But, if you do want to find out where your imbalances are, I can help you with my RunForm and RunTest assessments. For this article, I’m going to highlight what I believe to be the best place to start.

In my opinion, there are some essential areas that you should always start with, unless you have been told otherwise by a professional. These are:

• Hips
• Core
• Calves
• Single leg
• Feet
• Shins

I am in the process of writing about these areas in-depth, so for now let’s have a quick look at two of these to begin with as they are what I would consider to be a solid base to build upon.

I usually begin at the hips and go up and then down when I’m assessing imbalances. Looking at just your feet and legs means that you miss so much information that can help determine what’s going on.

The hip area plays a crucial role in what is a complex set of movements that allow us to walk and run. In fact, the gait cycle (the motion of walking and running) is automatic. We start it off with an initial movement and it completes without any extra input needed.

On the one hand this is great because we can focus on other things, but the downside is that if the coding of the movement is faulty it often influences poor movement both upwards towards the shoulders and down towards your feet – no matter how strong those other areas may be.

And it’s not simply a question of doing heavy weights or millions of repetitions. If you are not engaging the correct muscles for each part of the cycle, you will be asking other muscles to take the strain. A good example is when a runner is “quad” dominant. This is where they run by using more of the power from their thighs rather than from their glutes (buttocks and side of hips). This often leads to sore and tired thighs, overuse around the front of the hips (hip flexors) and on longer or faster runs, the thighs will tire out quickly. This is the classic “I’m not using my glutes” scenario.

In this instance, many runners will look to squats to help engage their glutes, but this isn’t always the right starting point. I believe you need to learn to feel your glutes to use them properly. And only when you can use them properly is it worth strengthening them. Otherwise, you’ll be strengthening an incorrect movement pattern and unlikely to be targeting the glutes in the way you want.

I have some simple but very effective glute engagement exercises that will get you started. They are about making brain/muscle connections and helping you to become aware of your glutes:

Isometric hip hike video

Isometric glute activation (banded) video 

These two exercises are best done with a little and often frequency. So, three or more times per day, but only a minute or so each time. Put the focus on feeling your glutes rather than just going through the motions. The repetition of good form is creating new pathways between your brain and muscles and with enough practice will begin to spill over into your normal walking and running.

To really do justice to feeling and strengthing your glutes, this excellent 12 week glute course, specifically created for runners, is a great choice. It has been written by James Dunne at Kinetic Revolution.

Like me, he believes in correct movement patterns and will take you through a self-assessment to find those imbalances and then how to correct them.

You can go directly to the course from this link.

In running, when I talk about core, I am referring to everything from neck to thighs. This part of your body is so well connected that when you get it all working together your running will improve amazingly!

The go to core exercises always seem to be the plank. While the plank is a great core exercise, we really want to make it dynamic so it becomes running specific. In fact, you want all of your core exercises to be dynamic so that you can take advantage of harnessing the rotational forces when you run.

You may have seen runners whose shoulders twist and turn with every step, or have run behind someone whose hips are bouncing up in a hypnotic trance. Both of these can stem from your core not being integrated, with each part trying to control movement at a local level. However, this is not how the body is designed. Your physical architecture is such that you need integration. You need your inner corset to synchronise with your outer corset; your low back to work with your glutes and hamstrings; your obliques to work with your hip flexors and glutes. If all this seems a bit too technical, then let’s simplify it:

You need to control the rotation of your hips, back and shoulders so that you create a catapult like power that you release with every step. You do this by engaging your whole core in the exercises you do. Here are some to get you started:

Russian twist

Dead bug

Pallof press (video here)

Dynamic plank variations (here’s Cori Lefkowith’s excellent selection)

 Essentially, any anti-rotation exercise is going to be great for engaging and integrating your core.

This fantastic book by Mary bond looks at an integrated core in terms of posture. I use a lot of the stuff she talks about in my coaching and training. Here is the Amazon link to the book:

In this article we’ve looked at two main areas for you address. But, it’s not just about strengthening them with weights. First, you need to move your hips, glutes and core properly. Then, you add endurance to those movements (i.e. moving correctly over a period of time) and finally you can add strength work.

If you read my previous article about marathon training, you’ll know that you can get a lot stronger just by your nervous system recruiting more muscle fibres without increasing muscle mass. Practicing correct movements is a form of doing this.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to deep dive into the areas above and into the other areas that I beleive are important for marathon and half marathon strength work: watch this space.

The post Strength training for runners appeared first on RunTeach.

And if your chosen marathon is a tough trail event, you are going to have some unique challenges that the road runners won’t have. Because of this, I’ve provided you with my top 5 tips no matter what type of marathon you are doing, and then added some extra tips for the trail marathoners. 

So, this first phase of training is all about building a base. It’s about getting you used to increasing your mileage and allowing enough recovery for your body’s tissues to adapt. There are lots of other things going on as well, such as improvements to your cardiorespiratory system and adaptation to utilising more body fat for fuel than you may be used to. So, with this in mind, here are my top 5 tips:

This may sound obvious if you already have a training plan, but you may be surprised to learn that there are a large number of runners who don’t follow a training plan.

If you are one of those runners that doesn’t have a plan, I would strongly suggest that you find one you can follow. Some good ones that I’ve seen online are from the Virgin London Marathon team and the one from Bupa. These are both 16 week plans, and while the structure is pretty good, they don’t include any strength or precision work which I believe is vital. They also don’t really include much speed work at any point of the plans: something from my own experience is important as you transition into the next phase of training (approx. 4 weeks time).

One set of plans that does include speed work is from The Running Clinic, and I also like this one because it displays the different phases. However, it is a 20-week plan so you may need to adjust to suit your time frame.

There are also some great books on Amazon with plans. Here are is a selection:

If you already have a plan, make sure it is right for you. We are all different and life often gets in the way of training. There is no point in trying to follow a plan that has you running 4 or 5 days per week when you struggle to get out more than 3 days. Missing sessions or cutting runs short can lead to frustration, guilt, and being underprepared.

If you can’t find an off the shelf program that suits, you could consider getting a personalised plan from a coach such as myself or someone else you can trust. Alternatively, if you are interested in the mechanics, you can learn a little bit about recovery and adapt your off the shelf plan to suit your needs.

Ideally, you want to get into the habit of sticking to the plan as written. Most training plans have been designed in a specific way to take you through all of the adaptations and progressions that you need to reach your race day goal.

Getting into the habit of sticking to the plan in this first phase and not giving yourself excuses such as the rain, wind or cold is very important for the later stages of training.

However, if you have to miss the odd session or cut them short on occasion, that’s fine – you need to be somewhat flexible. As mentioned above, this can lead to feeling guilty and underprepared so it is vital that you reflect on how you feel about this. If you notice that you are getting into the habit of missing runs or avoiding certain types of runs, you need to take stock: are you on the right plan? Does something need to change, and if so what?

Use this first phase to learn how you are adapting to both the distance volume and the number of runs and make changes where necessary. Don’t ignore it as it will come back to bite you later! And that brings me to my next tip…

If you pay attention, your body and your mind will let you know what’s going on. Running a marathon is hard and your body and mind need to adapt to the stress you are going to be putting on them. While it may seem that it’s all physical stress, think about those last 6 miles or so when you may need to dig deep and push on. This part needs training as well, which is why it is so important to also push hard in training. To clarify, I am not saying you need to run fast/hard all the time, when injured, over-fatigued or go beyond what your plan tells you – it is simply that pushing on when you could easily give yourself an excuse to quit will really help you in those final stages on race day.

But the flip side of that is knowing when to calm it all down. Training for a marathon is tiring, there is no getting away from that. But there is being tired and there is being exhausted. Being tired is normal, especially as you progress to longer and harder sessions. Being exhausted though, is not good.

When you get over-fatigued you are more likely to get injured. This can happen due to poor decision making, overuse by pushing through when you should be recovering, and a general lack of control when your nervous system is tired. Knowing when to tone it down comes with experience, but even if this is your first marathon you can tune in to your body and mind. If you are in any doubt then ask. Either ask me a question here, or ask someone else you can trust – don’t suffer in silence!

A great way to learn about your body and mind is to keep a running diary or log. After a run, write down how it went and how you felt, how you slept the night before, eating and drinking etc. I have notes on every run I’ve done (some more detailed than others) going back to when I started in 2009. The notes can be as detailed as you want: the main thing is to capture enough so that when you look back it will be of help to you the next time you do this session, race or workout.

If you know me, then you know this is one of my favourite mantras. Whenever you subject your muscles, connective tissue and bones to repetitive stress such as running, the tissue breaks down. Most runners understand this in a weight training context, but don’t seem to relate it to running. But it is exactly the same process – your body doesn’t know whether you are lifting weights or running on the road or trail. All it knows is that it’s being put under stress.

And whenever your body’s tissues are broken down, they need to have adequate recovery to repair and get stronger. It is during this recovery phase such as sleep, less intense sessions and active recovery (massage, foam rolling, cross training, lighter sessions etc), that the repair and strengthening happens. And it’s not just your muscles, connective tissue and bones that need this: your nervous system also needs to get stronger.

In fact, adaptations to muscle mass to get stronger often takes six or more weeks. Connective tissue can take much longer. Normal microdamage to bones can be repaired and adapted to between 8 and 12 weeks. But, strength gains can happen much quicker with the nervous system. This is because it can instruct muscles to recruit more fibres and motor units in a muscle, making it stronger without increasing the physical size of the muscle. This is often why you can see strength gains in just a couple of weeks. your nervous system ca also take advantage of better movement skills (see my next tip) as it will recruit muscles that work well together.

Whether it is better motor recruitment, bigger mass, stiffer connective tissue or stronger bones, adequate recovery time is critical. Stress is cumulative and if you don’t allow time for it to be adapted to, you are heading for injury and misery.

The cumulative stress mentioned above can cause you all kinds of niggles and pains. Maybe you do the right thing and recover well and start adding some strength work. But, if you are not moving well in the first place, you are at risk of loading areas of your body that are not designed to handle that load. Because running places so much force on your system, learning to move well is essential to reducing cumulative stress in compensating areas.

For example, runner’s knee is a very common complaint. This is particularly true as you start to increase your distance and/or speed. The thing is, in almost all cases, the pain of runner’s knee is caused by improper movement. Just resting and adding strength work is not going to help over the longer term. Yes, strength work can help and you may get away with it but if you are not moving correctly then you are just making incorrect movement patterns stronger. At some point the piper will need paying!

I would recommend at the very least, getting some video of you running so you can see any obvious areas to address. Of course, what I would really suggest is that you get a professional to assess you – and I don’t mean a running shop for a shoe-selection gait analysis (as good as they are for shoe selection – they won’t tell you anything else). In the assessments I do(RunForm and RunTest), I place a lot of emphasis on correct movement. I strongly believe this is important for all runners at all abilities and for all types of running, but it is critical for higher volume and/or higher intensity running.

Yes, marathon training is tough! Yes, marathon training is tiring! Yes, you may feel like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew…

But if you can always find something to smile about, even when you are being battered by the weather or hurting in those last miles of a long run, you’ll progress so much quicker.

Run with friends or a group. Find some appropriate music, if that’s your thing. However you do it, learn to enjoy this phase of training and it will take you through to the future phases with a sense of accomplishment and excitement!

Running trails can be very different from road running. The terrain is likely to be uneven and often there are steep hills and other obstacles to negotiate. All of this takes the precision aspects of running to a different level.

Balance, balance, balance!

My top tip is all about balance. In fact, I’m going to wrap up everything into this section and include everything single leg.

When running on trails, you are going to be relying a lot on foot stability, leg strength and balance. The amount you will be calling on these things will vary with the terrain, but you can be certain that if the ground is going to be uneven at all, then you’ll need good skill in these areas. You’ll also be calling upon core stability and strength to help control your movement as you go up and down hills and across unstable ground.

I’ll write more posts looking at these areas in more detail, so for now here are a few I’ve done to date:

Better night vision

Foot strengthening (also contains links to related articles)

Core stability 1, Core stability 2

Injury

https://www.trailandkale.com/tips/running-first-trail-race/

https://trailrunnermag.com/snowball/technique

The post 7 Do’s of marathon training – base phase appeared first on RunTeach.

While over pronation and collapsing knees (known as knee valgus) is often down to a number of factors including gluteal and abdominal activation and strength, one area that runners often overlook is shin and foot strength.

The muscle down the front of the shin, called the tibialis anterior, plays a very important part in stabilising our ankles and feet. We have other posts (shin strength, shin splints, ankle testing) that go through some exercises to help strengthen this muscle, and here we add another one.

This is an eccentric exercise and means that we pay attention to resisting the relaxing movement of the muscle rather than the contraction. Make sure you have the volume on for the videos.

Direct strengthening of the feet can also help provide stability and reduce excessive pronation. If you already have flat feet, you’re naturally starting in a more pronated position. The towel grab exercise in the video below is great for general foot strengthening.

The post Stabilise your feet appeared first on RunTeach.