Something slowing you down? Reversed Training and Muscle Pliability to the RESCUE!

 

When I decided to go into teaching and coaching, I took a trip to visit the old high school coach that made a huge impact on my life. His first words to me were—“You didn’t learn a dang thing did you? Why do you want to leave a life in broadcast journalism for a life with no weekends and no summers for which you don’t get paid?”  I said to him—“For the same reason you chose to do it, coach.”

He told me the key to success in education and coaching was to never stop learning because you are never dealt the same hand every year; using the same methods and strategies each year will lead to failure. He looked at me sternly and said “read, evaluate, revise.”

Due to his advice, I have a large library of books on running.  Books that study form, nutrition and wide variety of training techniques.  

Oftentimes, runners’ performances plateau not because of what they do, but because of what they don’t do. And one of the things that many runners don’t do when they start running as adults is work on their basic speed. They never become fast runners.

What happens if runners turn the traditional model of distance running training on its head and train speed first before training endurance? What happens when runners train at the right speed rather than at the right distance?

Over the next several weeks, we will look at this new method for adulthood running. We will focus on reverse training and muscle pliability (softening the muscles versus hardening and stretching them--The Tom Brady way). 

There's no doubt as we get older, we lose speed and are susceptible to more injuries.   We stick with the old training formats, strength training, and flexibility; but to no avail we end up injured or getting slower.  

The list below are the 6 deadly sins of training that is found consistently in each of the books and are the primary issues that are "reversed" in reversed training.

****Reversed Training is not recommended for races below the 10K distance. 

1.       NOT ENOUGH RECOVERY: You can't maximize yourself as a runner if you're doing a lot of other activities (Orange Theory, CrossFit, etc.) Many athletes try to train for races while also doing activities like this. When training specifically for a race, try to focus on the specificity of training and taking classes like this after your race is done….However, it’s important that you pick a plan that includes strength training and some cross training such as swimming or biking.

 

2.       TOO FAST ON EASY DAYS: Plug in a recent race result into a VDOT calculator to find out what your easy pace is. This is the pace you'll run for 80% of your training. Many athletes need to go even slower than this. Easy pace = more recovery, more aerobic development & increased ability to go hard during your hard workouts!

 

3.       WRONG TYPE OF WORKOUTS: 10 x 200m shouldn't be a staple workout in marathon training. 16 miles at marathon pace shouldn't be part of 5k training. You want to do the RIGHT workouts for the race you're training for. Additionally, you want to avoid running your workouts too hard. We want to aim for 80-90% effort on workouts and save 100% all-out efforts for race day! Hold back a little so you have something left in the tank for race day!

 

4.       NOT ACCUMULATING ENOUGH OVERALL VOLUME: Similar to the above training mistake, many athletes don't do enough volume during the week. They may only do a couple 3-4 mile runs and then a big 16 mile long run on the weekend. Marathons reward consistent volume and having more runs in the 60-90 minute range will give you a HUGE advantage on race day.

 

5.       TOO MUCH FOCUS ON THE LONG RUN: Long runs are super important, but they aren’t the end all-be all. Just like one run isn’t going to ruin your training, one run isn’t going to make your training. Overall volume is more important than just the long run each week/ Your weekly volume needs to support the long run (no more than 30% of your weekly volume should be in your long run)

 

6.       NOT ENOUGH OF THE “little” BIG THINGS: Sleep, good nutrition, less or no alcohol, muscle pliability based strength training (upcoming blog entry) 

O