There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
Train Smarter, Not Random: System-Specific Adaptations. Part 2
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Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work. Hence the name. There is a a method to the madness. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gildan Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. Good morning or good afternoon or good evening whenever you are listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1:This is part two of the Specificity podcast and I think this is. I'm really looking forward to this because this is information that I think is really important and I like digging into the science and doing a little bit of research prior to podcasts, prior to emails. I mean, I have the information, I know the topics, I know all that, but I also like to pull out like statistics and things. It's pretty cool and you know, I love to learn, as I've said. So I always like going back in and reviewing stuff that I have learned before. So it's important for that reason because, as I said, that you know I like to do it and that's important. And it's important because it's information that you really need, because too often people are simply training the way they see other people training or they're being misled by people who are maybe trying to be nice to tell them to do certain things, and we have to learn that, like we are our own people with our own goals and our own bodies, so we have to really do what is absolutely best for us, and that is a big part where specificity comes in. So in part one of this, if you missed it, I mean you could probably listen to this and be absolutely fine. But if you want to go back, just go to the previous episode, because I talked about all the different body systems and then specifically the ones that are impacted by specificity. So you might want to get a little bit of a say, anatomy and physiology lesson there or, as I said, you can just continue to listen. But that's what part one was, was really talking about the bodily systems and I spent a lot of time on the skeletal system and on the endocrine system, nervous system and, of course, cardiovascular and muscular system, which are a huge part of specificity. But today I'm going to get into like the real specifics, so the specifics of specificity, of specificity, and I'm going to talk today about like the cardiovascular side of things or the different modes of cardiovascular training, where people really have to understand specificity. So, as I said yesterday, the simplest way to explain it is to say that if you want to run faster, then you need to run Right. So that's at the simplest roots of it.
Speaker 1:And all that came about, by the way, like this was kind of discovered with specificity with VO2 max, way, way back. Specificity with VO2 max way, way back. I should have done my research on this one, but I do think it was in the 1970s. They were measuring Frank Shorter's VO2 max and he is was at that time an elite marathon runner runners, one of the greatest the United States has ever had, and he was an icon in running. He's still around, but I mean, he was definitely an icon in the 1970s and they measured his vo2 max, originally on an exercise bike, and they were kind of blown away that his vo2 max wasn't that good. Like I don't quote me, chat, gbt it when you hang up and find out for sure.
Speaker 1:But I believe his original numbers were in like the fifties, on the bike that is. And that's a good number, like we'll take it. But for an elite professional runner, distance runner, it's not like Lance Armstrong's was 87, for example. So like they get into the 80s, these elites, and that's kind of where they expected his to be, but it was in the 50s. So then they got smart. They're like, well, he's a runner and he's on a bike. And some people of course were like, well, that shouldn't matter, vo2's, vo2. But the others, maybe the I don't want to say smarter people in the room, but maybe the ones with I don't know more curious, said well, maybe if we tested them on a treadmill we would get different results. And they did, and they did get different results. And then I believe his numbers well, I know his numbers were way higher than what they got on the bike and I believe it was closer to what they expected, being at the elite level, which really started getting them into the principle of specificity and how much it matters.
Speaker 1:So you know, before that a lot of people were saying, well, cross train, cross train, which is true. I mean, cross training means that you can do different activities to get the same results. Like you can bike and improve your cardiovascular fitness, you can run. You can do different activities to get the same results. Like you can bike and improve your cardiovascular fitness, you can run, you can improve your cardiovascular fitness. All this is true. You can swim and you can improve your cardiovascular fitness.
Speaker 1:But prior to digging into specificity, they thought like cycling might make you a better runner and running might make you a better cyclist, and so on and so on. And it doesn't. Does it all improve your fitness? Does it all get you to an improved cardiovascular system? Of course it does. So if you're cross-training to improve your health and fitness, awesome, and I suggest it. It's a great way to do it. There's more variety, maybe less risk for overuse, injuries it's great. But if you're trying to get good at one thing, then you have to focus on the principle of specificity. So that is what I'm going to do today. I'm going to use running as a great example of how to understand specificity and, as you see, just in that example alone, it's just more complicated than if you want to do this. You've got to get better. So we're taking a system itself and saying that's not even true, like you can't just do cardio and then be good at all cardio. You have to do specific cardio and we have to do specific things.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this came up because there's a great conversation about somebody who was following somebody who was really into rucking. Okay, and rucking, and they may not have called it that, but that's what it is. That's basically running or hiking or jogging with a backpack and they have, you know, different weighted backpacks. I think they have 20-pound weighted backpacks. I think they have 20 pound weighted backpacks now because rucking's become really popular. They have 40 pounders, probably even heavier, and rucking is great. You know, it kind of starts a little bit with the military, like military guys.
Speaker 1:One of the guys I trained for a while his goal was to get into West Point. That was his goal. That was him and his dad's goal for him and I worked with him. This was five, six, seven years now. Thankfully I can say he got into West Point and he graduated.
Speaker 1:But his goal was to get in and meet the physical standards, because he already had the SATs and grades and he was very close in the physical. But there was a couple of things he needed to do and he gave me his list of everything he had to do. It was pull-ups and push-ups and there was fast running involved, meaning he had to meet a mile time or a mile and a half. Honestly, I don't remember which one it was, but I know it was a middle distance event and he had a rucking event. So he had to cover a certain amount of distance with a certain amount of weight and the weight had to be on his back and he had to hold something like a gun style. You know, whatever the weight that is, he had to carry that. So there was all these things that were very specific to what he had to do.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of cool, honestly, about the way the military academies prepare people is they actually know their shit. Like he was showing me some of their stuff that their exercise physiologists, you know, want them to do and I'm like, yeah, they're spot on. Like they really get specificity. Like you want to be better at pull-ups, you have to do the pull-ups. Like that's great that you're doing pull-downs with 150% of your body weight, but maybe there's some transference there. But if you want to get better at pull-ups. You better like, get better at pull-ups and you better get better at rucking. And then you better get better at running without weight. You know regular distance run and you better get better at pushups. Like they just were spot on with what they needed. And then we can take that a step further and say they were spot on with what military guys need. Right, because you know if they're fighting, you know at war, you know God forbid, but that is what they are paid to do. If they are, you know, I mean 300 pound bench press isn't going to help them, but pull-ups are, because if they've got to get up and out of places quickly, they can. Running certainly is right, rucking certainly is. They've got to get from place to place. I mean rucking might be the absolute most specific thing that they're going to be called on to do into action, like they're always moving and they're always carrying things. So you know For sure it is a great activity.
Speaker 1:But the debate it wasn't a debate, it was a question. It was, but does that make me a better 5K runner? And the answer is no, and in fact it's the opposite Could potentially make you slower, and that is because of specificity. So to be good at any endurance event, it comes down to three things VO2 max, your lactate threshold or anaerobic threshold, and that is the point to where your body produces lactic acid and gets rid of it. So the more fit you are, the more you can tolerate lactic acid. That is the anaerobic threshold. It's not that you produce less, you don't. Your body gets more accustomed to getting rid of it. So that's what the lactate or anaerobic threshold is. It's called the same thing. And if you ever hear the term ventilation threshold, it's the same thing. It all means the same thing. And then, finally, there's running economy, which is the biomechanics side of things.
Speaker 1:So let me back up, because I think I explained OBL-A very well onset of blood, lactic acid accumulation. But VO2 max is just the maximal amount of oxygen your body can produce in a minute and it is based on your body weight. Now sometimes people think so if I carry more body weight, it's going to improve my VO2 max. But no, that's not it. What happens is to improve your VO2 max. What we need to do is work at intensities close to your VO2 max, because remember specificity so if your VO2 max is the maximal amount of oxygen your body can produce in a minute, then the only way to improve that is to work close to that specificity, to be a great 5k runner or to even get better at 5k is then you have to improve your VO2 max. So the way to improve your VO2 max is to train close to your VO2 max.
Speaker 1:Now, what VO2 max really does, then, what happens when we train close to it, is the left ventricle of your heart actually gets a little bit bigger, and if it gets bigger, it's able to pump more blood on contraction, all right. So when the heart gets a little stronger, it pumps more blood per beat. If it pumps more blood per beat, then it's improving what we call cardiac output, which means more blood per minute, get it. And so if we're pumping more blood per minute and our weight stays the same, we're improving our VO2 max. So that is one of the things we have to have to be a better runner, better walker whatever better power walker, better skier, better swimmer. All these things is VO2 max. Obl or lactate threshold, as I said, is the second thing, and that means that our body gets more accustomed, it gets trained to being able to deal with more lactic acid. And then the third thing I want to spend the most time on is running economy or biomechanics. It's critical. Those are the three things that make us better at things.
Speaker 1:Vo2 max is very genetic. There's only a 10 to 15% improvement we're going to get in our VO2 max, so it doesn't go up a lot. So somebody like Lance Armstrong was born and made 86, was born and made like 86. Well, do the math. Look where he started that right. So it was already elite before he ever trained. So there is just a genetic component with it. That's, you know fine, doesn't mean people can't get better, but it does mean if you're going to win seven tour de frances, you probably better have the genetics for it.
Speaker 1:And I don't want to hear anything about the doping. I get all that, but they all did it. He was still elite. Anybody at that level is absolutely elite. There's not any doping effect that's going to change an 87 vo2 max. So yes, he and many cheated and no, it's not cool, but at the same time they are all elite. So when people say I wouldn't have done that without it, that's not true. That just means none of wouldn't have done that without it. That's not true. That just means none of them would have been doing it, and he's still the one because he was just that much more fit.
Speaker 1:Now the ventilation or anaerobic threshold is very trainable, like if we spend time at our lactate threshold, we will get our body more conditioned to being able to tolerate more lactic acid.
Speaker 1:So if you want to be a better 5k runner, but all of your runs are easy, you're not training specifically to that system. So you know you do what so many of these little kids do, or so many of these people who are inexperienced in these races do, right. It's kind of like when my dad used to tell me my eyes are bigger than my stomach and I order too much food than I can't eat. It's the same thing. So it's we run in a 5k, we see everybody, we get excited. You know the guy bangs the gun and we fire out and people run like they've been doing 5Ks their whole life and they haven't. And in a quarter mile they're walking right.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of the same thing, like, if you haven't conditioned yourself to hold a steady fast pace, you're not going to be able to hold a steady fast pace, and I get it. That's very subjective. What's steady is steady, but what's fast for one person is slow to another, and vice versa. So that's subjective. But if you're going faster than you think you can because the gun goes off, you're probably not going to hold it unless you've been doing that in training. So that's where, again, specificity comes in. So we're going to have to run close to that intensity that we want to run in, if not at that intensity and sometimes above that intensity, so our body can do what it needs to do to improve our VO2 max. All right.
Speaker 1:So running economy means like what your muscles, your joints and your frequency of your legs and all those factors like how much you weigh does impact running economy. The more you weigh, by the way, the worse your running economy is. So actually you'd say, well then, wearing a backpack and running is going to improve my running economy. But no, because what it does is it slows your gait down really bad. It changes your contact time on the ground, meaning that the studies have shown like if you're carrying more weight like a backpack, then your contact time actually slows down. To run faster, you want faster contact time, right? It's crazy that these Garmin watches and I think Apple watches do it too. But they can measure that they can tell you how long your foot was on the ground. The fastest runners have the shortest amount of contact time. It's kind of like when I've coached people and I still do some of that, but I used to do a lot of it for running Like it's like running on hot coals, like you have to think that in your mind you know, put down, pick up, put down, pick up, put down, like it's a pat pat, pat, pat pat.
Speaker 1:It's not really this elongated slow motion, it's quick frequency and that is part of running economy. Not only are you turning your legs over quicker so you can go faster, but it's actually using less quad, because the slower the ground contact time is and the longer your stride is when you're running faster, the more eccentric contraction there is when your foot lands, which means your quads are going to fatigue. So if we make the load heavier, what we're actually doing is conditioning our body to have a slower contact time, a longer stride, which is counterintuitive. But it goes against distance running and we're training it to essentially go slower and cause more fatigue, even when we take our backpack off. Because the central nervous system, which I talked about yesterday, needs to be trained as well. It wants the same speed that you're going to do and, if anything, you need to learn to move quicker and not slower when it comes to all forms of running even slower jogging. We should learn to have a shorter stride, less ground contact time, but maybe elongate a little bit less so we slow down.
Speaker 1:The other negative thing that rucking pack does to improve your 5k mind you don't be sending me an email saying rucking's great, because I'll 100% agree with you it's great for rucking. It's great for carrying heavy loads and learning how to train that way. It's great for people that can't run. They can power walk, but the difference with running just affects their joints. Everybody's different, or maybe you just like it, so it's great for that, but it will not make you a faster 5k runner. The second thing that makes it very, very counterproductive is the fact that it changes the load on your body. So when you're wearing a backpack, what it does is it puts the weight on your upper spine, which then shifts your weight towards what we call your posterior chain. So instead of slightly hunched forward, lifting your knees, you end up more of a heel striker and more of a back of your foot to heel striker, like, maybe you can condition yourself to not be a heel striker, but what you end up doing is at least your midfoot and back is hitting the ground, and that is not conducive to running a faster 5k.
Speaker 1:We know now that heel striking isn't true. They taught that in the 70s for some ridiculous reason. Actually, let me tell you a quick story. It's not that ridiculous. They did it to sell shoes, so, like Nike was famous for that. So they padded up the heels and they're like you know, try running without shoes on your heels and see what happens. And so people didn't like, man, that hurts, right, because there's not a lot of tissue back there, it's all on your calcaneus, on your heel bone, and so it hurts. And oh, but slip these on. You throw on these comfortable running shoes. Now everybody's heel striking. Well, they've sort of admitted. Well, other people blew the whistle, but you know that essentially was a marketing campaign to get people to buy these fancy, you know, jazzed up running shoes. Now they've switched it and said everybody needs to, you know, be a midfoot runner, because now they're selling. You know what the heck are they called now they are, well, the things in the bottom of the shoe. They're making everybody go quicker in the middle and I don't remember the word, but in any event. So, anyway, don't fall for all that marketing BS. But the bottom line is that's where it all came from.
Speaker 1:We don't want you on your heel when you're running faster. Whether you're jogging, whether you're running, whether you're sprinting, you're not supposed to be on your heel. You're supposed to be midfoot, right Midfoot, and if you're sprinting, you your heel. You're supposed to be midfoot, right Midfoot, and if you're sprinting, you're on your toes. That's just the way you're going to go faster. So it's not economical to run on your heels. You're going to cause, you're going to cause knee pain I mean, that's one side of it but you're also just not going to go faster because you're really going to contract your quads and your quads are going to give out.
Speaker 1:So wearing a heavy backpack or any weighted backpack is just going to throw off your biomechanics. Put you back on your heels, straighten out your spine, because how on earth are you going to sit there and bend forward with 40 pounds on your back? So it's going to change your entire posture, a posture that is not meant for running. I mean, they're really not meant for that, like they're meant for hiking, they're meant for walking. That's sort of the idea. I mean, yeah, the military guys job a little bit with that, but mostly the rucking is about traveling long distance with weight and getting economical at that and getting efficient at that. They are two different things, all right.
Speaker 1:So kind of to wrap that up, what we have to remember is that when we want to run faster and I'm not talking about the VO2 max covered it, not talking about the anaerobic threshold covered it, not talking about the running economy covering it and finishing it up with this is that it all comes down to stride rate and stride length. Okay, stride rate, how quick you're turning over. Stride length, how far you get out To run faster. They both have to improve and each person is different in exactly which area that they're more dominant at, but the bottom line is to get faster. We all need to increase our frequency. We know that we're going to have a certain stride length. We're just going to have that. Again, your watches can measure that. So stride rate faster with stride length, which is already there, is going to equate to faster running. The engine is what takes you there and the engine is your VO2 max. The lactate threshold is what takes you there and the engine is your VO2 max. The lactate threshold is what keeps you there.
Speaker 1:But the one you have the most control over which I think is so cool, which is so under trained in the endurance world is running economy. We can do drills to improve it. We can do drills to work on our form and know what to do with our arms, how to lift our knees, how to lift our toes, how to get quicker turnover. We can do drills to do it. And what was so funny when I was finishing up my research on this last night is that one of the drills that is recommended is the total opposite of rucking. It's running downhill, because to increase your stride, turnover, run downhill. You can't do that with a ruck, by the way. I mean you could, but you're probably going to turn into a boulder and start rolling downhill. I don't recommend it. But it's the opposite of what you think. You don't want to make yourself heavier. If anything, you want to make yourself lighter and work on turnover, be smooth, like the best drills to get faster.
Speaker 1:And I think running economy is cool because we have total control over it, like it's something that we can practice and it's fun to practice, like for me when I run. I always work on that. Like certain parts of my run, even on an easy run, I'll say wait a minute, what are you doing? Are you lifting your knees? Are you lifting your toes? Are you dorsiflexing, like these are important things and you know one of the reasons I mean we all slow down as we get older and that's okay, at least we're still going.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the things that we lose is that running economy and I have, I mean, shoot, I've run five K's in the 19s before, when I was in my forties. Well, not now, you know, and it's going to slow down. But I can promise you one of the big things we lose that is correctable is the running economy things. We can do things in the gym or we can do things at the track, or we can do things in the street to improve our running economy, like doing strides where we work on, say, 100 yards of just really thinking about that running on fire example, where you're just like really trying to lift your feet and lifting your toes. Like we can do drills to improve how quickly we turn our legs over. As we age, we start to lose some of the fast twitch muscle fiber, so we start to lose the things that helped us move our legs quicker. We can work on those things. So if you you want to improve you're running All right, any sport, but running this one's very specific to that.
Speaker 1:It's not about rucking and putting on heavy weights. It's about thinking about specificity and doing the exact motions you should be doing to make yourself faster. All right, hope that helps. Please share this with other people and I will see you next time. Thank you for listening to today's program. I ask you to please follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and please select automatic download, because that really helps the show. Now I want to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product. They have the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great people with a great company. If you have any garage door needs, please give them a shout at 386-222-3165.
