I started Pilates almost exactly 1 year ago. It has not only improved my fitness and performance but also my feel good factor. Stuart Hayes does a little Pilates too. It’s about time you started too.
Video Courtesy Team Dillon Coaching
Runners are generally known to have stiff feet, hence their inability to swim (You can read more about foot flexibility and swimming here).
I used to run in full on motion control Adidas throughout school, until I eventually developed chronic compartment syndrome. I them had the operation, known as a bilateral subcutaneous fasciotomy which releases the overdeveloped muscles by cutting the fascia/sheath which encases them. Part of the reason for this is a muscle imbalance due to the raised heel on the common running shoe most of us know. Since my operation I have run in shoes with nothing more than a 4mm heel-forefoot drop; the Saucony racing flats and more recently the Saucony Kinvara.
The Development of Engineered Running
Standard running shoes have around a 12mm drop from heel to forefoot. Yet this style of shoe encourages us to heel strike, and land on a squishy marshmallow. Try stand on your heel and only your heels and then put a squishy marshmallow under that. You see how this developed?
Shoe manufacturers made squishy heels for “protection”, which led to instability and hence an uneven progression though the gait. This led to the introduction of “motion control” in the form of heel cups, arch support, pronation blocks and torsion bars. And so engineered running was born.
There are about 20 muscles within our foot and 12 muscles from our leg that attach to our foot. While wearing cushioned, “motion control” shoes only a couple of these different muscles are needed to facilitate human locomotion. That means that certain muscles aren’t working. The body then lets them shrink to maximize efficiency. This, coupled with the elevated heels, cause your calves will shorten too.
Arch Support
You may now wonder about arch support. Just ask any engineer what happens when you exert upward forces on an arch. It weakens the structure and can longer bear weight from above, which it was originally designed for. Basically if you want to destroy an arch, push up on it from below. An arch is designed to withstand forces from above, compressing it (and in the case of our feet) allowing it collapse and rise thereby not only providing natural shock absorption but also assisting in propulsion.
Shoes with arch supports prop you up and lead to weak, atrophied foot musculature. Your feet aren’t grasping, pulling, pushing, and flexing inside a pair of athletic trainers
The Argument against Barefoot Running
The argument against barefoot running is born out of making the transition too quickly. Remember the foot no longer has a cage of support and protection around it, and is forced to act as the interface between your body and the ground. The torque generated from pushing around all of your weight at speed and high repetition is a lot to ask of your newly awakened feet.
Many people make the transition too quickly, without allowing their smaller, weakened muscles to develop and function as they used to, or were originally designed to. All of the argument against barefoot running comes as a result of the increased injury risk with making the transition too quickly.
You will be using those calves much more now, go slow or you’ll risk developing antagonistic shin splints, calf strain and even Achilles problems.
We have been Barefoot running ever since we started walking upright. Since when did barefoot running become a bad idea? Perhaps since tarmac become the only surface humans could run on.
The barefoot running debate will continue and athletic footwear manufacturers will continue to make unnatural shoes. People may tell you how bad it is for you. Just get into it slowly and you will see how much your running will improve and how much more you will enjoy your running.
Companies like Saucony for example are decreasing the heel-forefoot drop and with good reason. If you are looking at making the transition to barefoot running, let’s talk and get you into a pair of shoes that will allow you to make the transition painlessly.
I will be testing the new Saucony Hattori soon and I will certainly keep you updated.
Strength training is severly underated by most triathletes. Here a great article by Matt Dixon.
Regarding the value of strength training as it applies to endurance sports, and to provide a valuable response I should clarify exactly what I think of when discussing strength training. I think there should be very little debate as to the value of strength training in improving endurance performance—this being specific exercises and movements that improve stability, mobility and functional strength that directly correlate to movements made in your core sport (swim, bike, run). Functional strength is one of the four pillars of performance I base my training philosophy on, with the other three being the core sport, recovery and nutrition.
These four pillars are ranked equally in importance for every athlete and provide a balanced approach and platform from which to make gains. I would, therefore, argue that functional strength is critical throughout the season—not just in the offseason (or pre-season as I call it). The preseason is a perfect time to make functional strength your priority and to set you up for next year.
Let’s begin our discussion on functional strength by identifying what it isn’t. A proper functional strength program does not entail hours and hours of heavy lifting at the gym with traditional exercises such as bench presses, leg presses and bicep curls. While these types of activities have a place in health and fitness, it is highly questionable as to how they relate to endurance performance, and the vast majority of athletes I work with can achieve proper stimulus and benefit by using their own body weight.
Functional strength is not simply a series of static abdominal exercises and core work, such as crunches or situps, which have value as preliminary exercises and rehab but will not provide optimal performance gains in endurance sports.
To be truly effective, functional strength training should include these characteristics:
Lateral and stability training: Exercises should work on the stabilising muscles in the lower back, abdominals and hips, with plenty of focus on lateral movement. Triathlon is predominantly linear in nature so training with lateral exercises will help provide support, prevent injury and allow you to maintain your form and biomechanics when fatigue sets in.
Functional exercise: Many of your functional strength exercises should directly correlate to movements you will make in the core sport(s). Movements should be dynamic and teach you to engage the prime movers in the exercise in conjunction with the core muscle groups in the abs and lower back.
Graded unstable environment: As you progress in any exercise you should be able to evolve the exercise to be done in a less and less stable environment. Simply engaging muscles in a stable movement pattern will have nowhere near the benefit or correlation to the real world. This being said, it is critical to progress only when you have mastered the proper movements in the more stable environment. I am often amazed at how many people are keen to complete the most advanced exercises before mastering the simple ones.
Mobility: Endurance sports are not simply about pure strength. Functional strength should include exercises that aid in strength through movement patterns correlating to the core sport, as well as aiding continued improvements in mobility and range of motion at the joints. A perfect example is the anchor of running: the hips. For our runners and triathletes, hip mobility is a central focus, with the aim of maintaining and improving strong but mobile hips. To achieve proper muscular recruitment and biomechanics, the hips have to move freely without restriction. A proper functional strength programme will provide specific strength but also improve mobility.
You can add tremendous benefits to your training and performance by creating space in your training schedule for at least two functional strength sessions a week. Notice I did not say “add in two sessions.” These sessions should be as much of a priority as your core sport, and the long-term gains are huge.
Whatever approach or system you employ to aid functional strength, it is a worthy component of every training plan. Functional strength exercises prevent injury, increase body awareness and control, improve power production and are a great platform for improved biomechanics. Don’t take this part of your training lightly—it is as important as any swim, bike or run.
Taken from http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com
A great article from www.runnersworld.com by Amy Burfoot, 2004
As a teenager, I loved to run barefoot on the Connecticut beaches, splashing through the waves. A few years later, I often ran without shoes while training for the college cross-country season, completing workouts that were the hardest, fastest, most puke-able, and yet most enjoyable of my life.
Those are strange bedfellows: extreme effort and high pleasure. I have wondered if someone was spiking my Kool-Aid, a popular sports drink of the time. Then I close my eyes and recall how my friends and I snuck onto Shennecossett Golf Course as dusk descended. How we giddily removed our shoes, and felt the fairway underfoot. How we ran an undulating six-mile fartlek loop, sprinting and jogging, sprinting and jogging, the summer sweat cascading off our bodies. How we finished, not another gasp of oxygen in our lungs, and flopped onto the 14th green. The kinesthetic memories are fullblown, from the slight chill of the grass on my feet to the heaving chest and the lightheaded dizziness of the effort. Was it the barefoot running that made the memory so vivid?
Famous runners had gone barefoot before us, of course. In 1960 Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila, the greatest Olympic marathoner of all time, won the first of his consecutive gold medals sans shoes in a world record 2:15:17. My high school coach, “Young John” J. Kelley, was the leading American finisher (19th, 2:24:58) in that 1960 Rome Olympic Marathon, and his descriptions of the torchlit race have always entranced me. Except the part about the stones.
“On the ancient Appian Way, we had to run on huge, rounded cobblestones that were completely unyielding,” Kelley says. “They had no ‘give’ at all. I remember that I was afraid of slamming down too hard on them, and I still can’t imagine how Bikila did it.”
While Bikila was making Olympic history, England’s Bruce Tulloh was running European record times from 1955 to 1967, almost always in bare feet. He ran 13:12 for three miles on grass, and 27:23 for six miles on cinders. Later, Tulloh taught in Africa, coached, wrote books, and ran solo across America (2,876 miles, albeit in shoes). At 68, his mind is as sharp as ever, and he is ever eager for a good barefoot jaunt. “I’ll be running on the beach at Devon this weekend,” he said in early summer. “The only reason that more people don’t run barefoot is that they’re afraid to be unconventional.”
That wouldn’t apply to either Charlie “Doc” Robbins or Zola Budd, both important contributors to barefoot running. Robbins, winner of two USA National Marathon Championships in the late 1940s, completed 50 straight Thanksgiving Day Road Races in Manchester, Connecticut, before calling it quits two years ago. Most Thanksgivings, Robbins went shoeless, though he would resort to a pair of socks if the temperature dipped below 20 degrees.
Budd set a track world record in January 1984 when, just 16, she ran 5000 meters in South Africa in 15:01.83, more than six seconds under Mary Decker’s existing record. (Too bad Budd is better known for her fateful collision with Decker in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic 3000 race. Decker was thrown horribly off-balance, and twisted and fell to the infield grass.)
Interest in barefoot running seemed to wane until 2001, when Michael Warburton, an Aussie physical therapist and 2:42 marathoner, published an online paper titled, simply, “Barefoot Running.” (You can view the paper at the sports science web site sportsci.org.) In his section on running economy, Warburton points out that the extra weight of shoes on your feet is much worse than a pound or two around your middle. Weight on your feet is subject to constant acceleration and deceleration (runners call these movements “strides”), which have a high energy cost. According to Warburton, research has shown that 100 grams of extra weight on your feet decreases your running economy by one percent. Simple math says that two 10-ounce shoes will make you more than five percent less efficient. That’s a big deal. When you add five percent to Paul Tergat’s marathon world record 2:04:55, he’s a 2:11 guy, which doesn’t net him enough for a warm bowl of ugali in the Kenyan highlands.
But we don’t think much about running economy when we buy a pair of new running shoes. First we want protection from harmful objects. And then we expect cushioning and/or motion control–the stuff of injury prevention. But this is where things get strange, because scientific studies have had a hard time proving that shoes represent a big step forward from the naked foot.
To learn what’s going on inside the body, which, after all, is where we runners develop all our stress fractures, Achilles strains, and so forth, a medical team needs to take measurements from–ouch!–inside the body. I’ve actually seen this take place in a biomechanics lab, and it’s a blood sport. The combatants typically include a mad Ph.D. scientist and several grad students (a.k.a. the “volunteers”) desperate to finish their degree work. (“Sure, I’ll be happy to let you drill a metal accelerometer into my shin bone before my next treadmill run,” says a grad student.) The results of several of these intrusive experiments have shown little change in shock absorption or motion-control in shod versus unclad feet. This apparent difference seems hard to believe. All that foam padding and all those posts, bridges, and dual-density midsoles have to be doing something, right?
Of course they are; they’re deceiving the body. Here’s an explanation, based on your body’s proprioceptive abilities–that is, the way it can communicate up and down all pathways. When you run barefoot, your body precisely engages your vision, your brain, the soles of your feet, and all the muscles, bones, tendons, and supporting structures of your feet and legs. They leap to red alert, and give you a high degree of protection from the varied pressures and forces of running.
On the other hand, when you run in socks, shoes, inserts, midsoles and outsoles, your body’s proprioceptive system loses a lot of input. “This has been called ‘the perceptual illusion’ of running shoes,” says Warburton. “With shoes, your body switches off to a degree, and your reaction time decreases.”
The way I see it, there’s a simple explanation for the high IQ of barefoot running: We descended from the trees to walk and run this planet’s surfaces six million years ago, and we’ve had time to get really, really good at it, from the soles of the feet to the top of the brain.
By now, you might be worried about your Reebok stock or your friends who work at the local running store. I wouldn’t sweat it too much, at least not to judge from the number of bare feet I saw at my last big road race (zero). Even though a guy named Ken Saxton is running a marathon a month this year (barefootrunning.org), I doubt his preference will take off the way instant messaging, low-carb diets, and The Apprentice have.
Besides, many podiatrists think it’s dangerous. “Most of my patients aren’t worldclass runners,” says foot doctor Stephen Pribut, DPM. “It wouldn’t make sense for them to risk getting twigs and glass in their feet. And I think some soft surfaces increase plantar fascia and Achilles problems. Of course, what doesn’t kill you might make you stronger.”
This a-little-medicine-is-good-for-you perspective is shared by a number of other podiatrists, physical therapists, and coaches. Their theory: Modern man does spend too much time in shoes, and this weakens many of the foot and leg structures. To correct this, you can walk barefoot around the house, do simple foot strengthening exercises, or run a few barefoot miles a week on safe, secure surfaces.
And then put your shoes back on before you hit the pavement. Even Abebe Bikila gave up his barefoot ways. Four years after winning in Rome, he wore Pumas in the Tokyo Olympic Marathon. He won again, despite having had an appendectomy 40 days earlier, and set a new world record, 2:12:11.2. Apparently, the shoes didn’t bother him at all.
For athletes, sports persons and fitness enthusiasts alike, the key to improving physically often lies in finding the perfect fuel to build muscles quicker, and the perfect rest / recovery for muscles after training. This week we have heard about the lengths two groups go to to speed up muscle recovery. Both Tour de France cyclists and professional tennis players cite using ice baths to aid muscle recovery after intense training sessions.
Andy Murray is once again in the limelight at Wimbledon, with all of Great Britain wishing him victory. Few people realise the torture he puts himself though off court to ensure that he has the best chance of winning.
Ice baths have been shown to increase recovery speed of muscles, tendons and bones after training. During workouts, muscles experience tiny tears, which are then repaired again, and made stronger. A 5 minute ice bath helps to speed recovery. The cold causes blood vessels to contract first, almost stopping blood flowing to the limbs. However, as soon as you leave the ice bath, blood flows back to your limbs quickly, bringing fresh supplies of oxygen which quickens recovery.
However, the process is torturous at first. Only the lower half of the body is treated, so they really only help athletes that do a lot of leg work. Runners, such as Paula Radcliffe, have also been known to take ice baths. Some say that just taking one ice bath a week is enough to improve performance.
Ice baths are certainly not for the feint hearted though. If you plan to start taking ice baths to aid muscle recovery, we strongly recommend that you do not do it alone. Ask a partner to provide moral support and be prepared to provide assistance too.
Source: http://www.motleyhealth.com/fitness/faster-muscle-recovery-with-ice-baths#ixzz10uhWGdby
As athletes our training schedules, competitions, opponents, coaches and other related events and people form a very significant part of our lives. For this reason dealing with an injury is, on a smaller scale, similar to dealing with a significant loss.
An injury can be a traumatic time for an athlete when returning to full fitness becomes a waiting game. The lack of control and the uncertainty can get the athlete feeling depressed and anxious.
There can be 5 stages involved in the injury process:
This process can vary in several ways depending on the seriousness of the injury and the personality of the athlete.
Although not competing in the physical aspect of the sport relative to the specific injury, the athlete can use that time to focus on other aspects of the sport.
One of the biggest things in injury recovery is goal setting. These goals need to involve objective measures. Graded sport specific movements can be replicated in several ways which will contribute to rehabilitation. These activities mean that the athlete starts by performing basic sport specific drills with no contact and slowly progresses towards to full fitness.
On the other hand is the mental side of recovery. Visualisation should be employed in ensuring that the athlete is not only physically ready to return to competing, but also mentally. Fear of re-injury can range from mild concern to maladaptive psychological disorders and outcomes. Visualisation involves three processes.
Emotional Visualisation creates internal states of positivity. By using past success and/or ideal future outcomes these states can be achieved. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Become completely relaxed. Allow your mind to drift back to one of your best sporting performances. Rather than being in that race, become a spectator witnessing your amazing performance. Pay attention to every visual detail of the experience. Be wowed by your very own performance.
Physical Visualisation allows you to recreate the sport specific movements without moving a muscle. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Become relaxed and notice the physical sensations of your mechanic as if you were competing, paying attention to how each of your technical actions physically feels whilst adding sight, sound and taste elements.
Fast Healing Visualisation allows you to catalyse the healing process. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Become completely relaxed. Drift towards the injured part of your body and shine a bright magical light on that body part. Feel it healing you. Feel that part becoming stronger. Notice how the pain subsides.
Do all of this with a smile on your face!
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