Archive for January, 2010

Running Drills

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Running drills are a great way to improve your running efficiency and ultimately reduce the chance of getting an injury. There are many different drills you can do to improve your overall technique, stride frequency and stride length.

Below I am going to outline 4 key running drills that can easily be build into your weekly running schedule. Two to work on your stride frequency (how fast you turn your legs around) and two for stride length (how far you go with each stride). All drills should be done over a flat 20m – 30m section of ground and each drill should be repeated 2 – 3 times each.

Fast Feet

The idea behind this drill is turn turn your legs around as quickly as possible.

  • Short fast steps (imagine you are riding a little clown bike)
  • Keep your chin parallel with the ground (look straight ahead)
  • Drive your arms forward

Butt Kicks

Again the idea with butt kicks is to get your heal to your butt as quickly as possible over an over again.

  • Stay upright with a slight forward lean
  • Continuously flick your heal back kicking your butt
  • Keep your chin parallel with the ground (look straight ahead)
  • Drive your arms forward

High Knee

The idea with this drill is to drive off your back leg and get as high in the air as you can.

  • Stay upright with a slight forward lean
  • Drive hard off your back leg bringing your knee up to 90 degrees (the idea with high knee is to get as far off the ground as possible. Get high.)
  • Make sure when you lift your knee up your foot stays parallel to the ground
  • Drive your arms forward
  • Keep your chin parallel with the ground (look straight ahead)

Bounding

When completing the bounding drill the idea is to go as far as you can with each bound.

  • Stay upright with a slight forward lean
  • Drive hard off your back leg bringing your knee up to 90 degrees (the idea is to go as far with each bound as possible)
  • Make sure when you lift your knee up your foot stays parallel to the ground
  • Drive your arms forward
  • Keep your chin parallel with the ground (look straight ahead)

If you can add drills into your running routine once a week and consistently practice these drills you will start to become a more efficient runner over time. Efficiency = speed.

When practicing drills make sure you are not tired and try to perform them as well as you can. Perfect practice makes perfect so if you are feeling tired and you do not complete the drills properly you will just reinforce a bad habit and risk getting injured.

Ben

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Training Diet

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Training places high demand in athlete energy requirements. Whether athletes train for endurance, high-intensity or stop-and-go sports, the fundamental nutritional requirements for each are similar. Day to day eating strategies are more important than focusing attention to eating before & after competition, as skills adaptations occur in response to training, not competition. A well balanced diet that provides essential nutrients required to meet training needs will have the biggest impact on your success.

Benefits To Athletes

  • Optimal adaptation from training
  • Enhanced recovery between training
  • Achievement and maintenance of an ideal body composition
  • A reduced risk of injury and illnesses
  • Consistency in achieving high level competition performances

Fluid

  • Essential for effective body temperature regulation
  • Intake before, during and after exercise help to ensure hydration during physical activities
  • Intake with meals, in between meals and throughout the day is important in maintaining well hydrated

Carbohydrate

  • Should form the basis of your meals
  • Major source of energy during moderate to intense exercise
  • Intake before, during & after exercise can help improve performance by maintaining blood sugar levels and providing additional fuel to hard working muscles
  • Many carbohydrate rich foods are also valuable sources of other essential nutrients

Protein

  • Should be included with every meals
  • Essential for growth and plays an important role in the adaptation to exercise
  • Provides building blocks for the formation of new tissue including muscle, and the repair of old tissue
  • Combined with carbohydrate and consumed soon after exercise, promotes muscle recovery

Fat

  • Required in small amounts
  • Provides essential fatty acids and facilitates fat soluble vitamins metabolism
  • Provides insulation and shock absorption for body organ especially under strenuous physical activities

Vitamins & Minerals

  • Required in protecting body immune system associated with physical activities
  • Reduce free radical damage produced during strenuous physical activity
  • Specific mineral such as calcium is required to promote bone health and iron is required to prevent iron deficiency anemia associated with physical activities

Jon

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Recovery 101

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Any endurance sport is tough and the training for such an event can be demanding. Maximising your recovery from training will maximise what you get out of the sessions you are doing. This is crucial for all working athletes who are busy juggling a job, family and training as you want to get the most out of the time you commit to your training plan.

Below are a few things you can look at doing to increase your recover rate from training:

Ice and Cold Water Therapy
Most elite athletes will tell you that stretching and massage on a regular basis will keep their muscles long and in good condition. Keeping your muscles long and knot free is essential when you are trying to train hard day after day.

Just remember to keep it light after a hard training session or race as deep massage can slow recovery especially if you do not get regular massage.

Off Road Running
Running is a high impact (not quite like rugby) sport. One way to help reduce the impact on your joints and tendons is to run on grass or on softer surfaces. By staying off the road I have found that this reduces post training muscle soreness and allows me to train harder more often.

Stretching and Massage
After a run, run a cold hose over your legs (especially your shins) or sit your legs in a swimming pool or bath. This is an effective way to reduce fluid build up. You can also use ice but make sure you wrap the ice in a wet towel to avoid ice burn.

Elevation
Elevating your legs after training helps to reduce fluid build up. Combined with Cold Water or Ice Therapy this is very effective.

Contrast Therapy
Contrast therapy is where you hose down or soak your legs in cold water (like ice or cold water therapy.. see above) and then jump into a hot shower or a spa pool. Once you feel your legs heating up and are red with blood jump out and put them back in the cold water. Repeat several times.

Nutrition
It has been said that within 30mins of finishing training you should eat to start replacing all the nutrients that you lost while exercising. I usually find this hard to do especially after a hard session so I tent to take a shake with a mix of both carbohydrate and protein. Many companies make these recovery shakes including SIS, Hammer nutrition and Power bar and you can get them at most cycle shops. If you also find eating hard after a session then I definitely recommend that you try one of these.

Compression
The use of compression socks and tights is the latest trend in recovery. The pressure that compression socks put onto the veins, arteries and muscles helps push blood through narrow veins; therefore, increasing the flow of blood and returning it to the heart as it should.

Relaxation and Sleep
This is my favorite form of recovery. Aim to schedule harder sessions on days when you can relax and aim to get more sleep. It has also been proven that short sleeps of up to an hour after training can help increase recover by increasing circulating hormones.

Ben

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New Years Resolutions

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Burn FatWell here we are in 2010 already (happy new year by the way) and if you are like me, you may have made a resolution to lose a little bit of fat (a little bit more than before the holiday season started in my case) and trim up.

Here is what I plan to do to get the fat down:

1. Spend more time in my fuel efficiency zone
Exercising at a very low intensity is a great way for me to burn fat. By spending time doing my training at this low intensity early in the year, my body becomes more efficient at metabolizing fat and essentially makes me a more efficient and faster (not to mention leaner) athlete in the long run. When I combine this with step 2 (see below), I become a fat burning machine and not only am I effectively burning fat when I exercise (at any intensity), I am burning a higher amount of fat when doing nothing. This is what will help me reach my goal.

You can retrain your body using a few simple techniques to become a fat burning machine.

2. Try to eat organic and less processed foods
This for me is a tricky one and is most definitely a work in progress. I have a very sweet tooth and am struggling to replace my soft drinks with water and my chocolate / sweets and fast food with less processed, less surgery foods.

Foods such as cheese, whole milk, butter, french fries, burgers, sweets, energy bars, and soft drinks are what are known as energy dense foods as they are very high in calories relative to their size or volume. This has been a typical diet of mine for the past 20 years.

Now that I am older (and wiser I hope) I am trying hard to change my nutrition habits to eat more nutrient dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, fish and lean cuts of meat. I am hoping that along with the weight loss benefits, I will see an improvement in my energy, complexion and focus.

So far the plan seems to be working, since 1 Jan when I started this, I have already lost 4mm of fat and am feeling a little more energetic. This doesn’t sound like much but it is pretty good in just 1 week. I am now at 61mm of fat and the goal is to get back down to <50mm by 21 March (half ironman). We will see how it goes.

All the best to everyone for a happy, healthy and safe 2010!

Ben

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