Episode #152 how to build a body that can handle more miles without pain

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Transcript

0:38

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the pod. So I'm gonna be so real with you that I, this is the second time I'm trying to record this episode. I recorded this and it was around 16 minutes long, and then I got done. I was like, wow, that felt so good. Like I feel like this is gonna be such a good episode. And then. The recording software tells me there's some type of error and my recording's not there. So had a snack, had some water. Gonna regroup and we're back at it. So maybe this next time I record will be even better than the last we can only hope. Also, I am double recording, so I have my microphone and also my phone. So worst comes to worst. I'm at at least gonna have this episode. Recorded on my phone via voice memo, so. Regardless, we're gonna have this episode anyways. Today I'm going to talk more specifically on how to build your body up to be able to handle more miles without pain and why strength training is so important for running. I'm gonna get into the nitty gritty science behind it a little bit more so you guys can better understand. Why been yapping about this? So. Okay. Every time your foot hits the ground, your body experiences, ground reaction forces. And when we run, this can be two to three times your body weight per foot strike. So if you think about how many foot strikes you have across a mile, two miles, three miles, four miles, that's literally thousands of foot strikes, and that is a lot of force put on your body and. This is why strength training is so important and your forces are absorbed through the foot and ankle and then distributed up the leg. So it'll obviously hit foot and ankle first, then go up to your knee, your hip, and then your spine. And if we're looking at the load share across these forces, the foot and ankle. It can absorb about 50 to 60% of the initial impact the knee, 20 to 30%, and the hip 10 to 20%. So as you can see, that foot and ankle area is the primary shock absorber when we run, and I think it's the most neglected. Area in the strength training community, and most recreational runners are not even aware of this. And I bet you're not even including foot and ankle exercises in your programming. You don't know if you have limitations in the foot and ankle, and that is super important, especially when it comes to pain, weaknesses, or poor mobility in the foot and ankle can increase the stress. On the knee, hip, or lower back. So this is another thing, if you have those limitations, you know, starting at the foot when we go for a run, this. Pain can also show up in another area of your body. So your back pain, the reason for that could be a limitation at the foot and ankle. It's not, oh, my back hurts, so it's just my back. That has an issue, right? What's going on below the back that could be contributing to this pain manifesting in your actual back. And this is where. Traditional physical therapy can often fall short because they are, they can only treat one area at a time. So if you come in for back pain, they're really only gonna look at your back. They're not going to consider anything below the back. So like your hip, your foot and ankle, your knee, like they're not gonna look at that stuff. Be like, and I'm talking about traditional insurance-based physical therapy. Okay? So you are missing out on so much. When you only look at the site of pain and not consider the whole body. And a lot of people, if they go to traditional physical therapy for a specific lower body issue, they will come out with a diagnosis like it, band syndrome, runner's, knee, and think like, oh, this is just the way that it is now, when in reality. The reason that your IT band is hurting, why your knee is hurting is likely due to other areas of the body. And there's actually so much that you can do to work on that. And it's not just, oh, this is just the way it is. No, there's much more to the story and there's actually probably a lot that you can do. You just have to know where to look, and this is where. Having a coach, having somebody assess you comes into play. Because we can look at that larger picture and say, oh, here are the puzzle pieces that I believe are related to your X, Y, Z issue, and here are the exercises your body needs. Here's, here's an area of strength that your body needs to begin to work on this issue. So yeah, there's that. Now I wanna get into areas of the body to prioritize. If you run right, I'm gonna assume you are doing some sort of strength training, or maybe you're not at all, and you're wondering like, well, what areas do I need to focus on to improve running to be a stronger runner? So I'm gonna talk through, through that here. And I'm going to start from the bottom up. So starting at the foot and ankle we are, we need to look at, okay, range of motion for your ankle dorsiflexion. Are you able to have four and a half inches of range with your ankle? If if it's limited? That's an area of opportunity because again, when we're running. And our foot strikes the ground. If our ankle is limited with range of motion, that is going to cause some compensation to happen to make up for that lack of range. Look at big toe extension range of motion. This is under, this is like a hidden gem, I suppose when it comes to leaving str, leaving opportunity on the table. Do. Can your big toe extend? Is it super uncomfortable? Does it even hurt? Do we, is that something we need to work on? Because again, if your big toe is not able to get the range that it needs, especially in something like running that can cause issues. Next up, looking at your foot's ability to move at all, can it pronate, can it supinate? How does it feel? And, you know, adjusting accordingly. Do we need to add in specific exercises, working on this and going from there. And then progressing a little bit to pogo hop variations. This is where training Trics comes into play. And I'm not talking about doing crazy high box jumps. I'm literally talking about practicing, jumping and hopping around. So, doing, you know, two-legged poke hop variations in different directions side to side. Can you do single leg poke, hop variations in different directions and side to side? When we look at running, it's essentially single leg hopping for thousands of reps, right? And so why wouldn't we train this in the gym to be stronger since we are doing it? While we run. Next up, looking at calf strength. So if you wanna do a fun test here to look at your single leg calf strength, do a set of body weight calf raises max effort on your right side and on your left side. I would suggest putting your foot on the side of a plate or a slam board or something to get a little bit more range in that calf. But seeing, okay, where is my cap strength at? If you want A benchmark minimum is gonna be 20 reps side to side. I like to see closer to 30 reps side to side. It is between 20 and 30 reps to be able to do on each side. Body weight as like a minimum strength benchmark. Okay. So are you able to hit that benchmark? Are you not able to hit that benchmark? If you're not, we need to be adding in cal phrases to your training and strengthening up those calves and doing different variations so bilateral. Single leg. You can train different areas of the calf by manipulating different things, holding a dumbbell, training them heavy. Again. We use our calves so much when we run that having them strong is only going to benefit you and make you a stronger runner. Okay, so getting into next part here, adductor strength. So your inner thigh strength, the adductors are so important when it comes to stabilizing the hip and the pelvis and also supporting our knee. And what I find is that adductors are typically weak on people. They typically forget to train these. And so if you don't do anything for your adductors right now. Start to build up some strength there. Where you can start is if you have access to a cable machine, you can do a lot of different variations here with working the enter thigh. And a lot to utilize if you have a cable machine. And then if we're looking at like baseline adductor strength, if you wanna benchmark research supports. A 62nd Copenhagen Hold. So straight leg, Copenhagen, hold both sides. Can prevent injury, have less injury? I believe the study was done on soccer players where like, if they were able to do that, they had less injuries throughout the season. So again. The strong adductors are only going to benefit you when it comes to your running. And obviously if you've ever done a Copenhagen Hold or tried to, it is very difficult. So if you don't train your adductors, don't go out there and try straight leg Copenhagen. Start small, start with bent knee variations or even like, you know, laying in a side plank. Raising one leg up. And then also using a cable machine there for some adductor exercises as well. But, and then working your way up to being able to do that Copenhagen home level. But if you're listening to this and like, wow, there's no way I could do a copen complaint plank. I don't train my inner thighs at all. This is your polite nudge to start.'cause again, it's only gonna benefit you and support your body better. Next up we're looking at hip, internal, and external rotation range of motion. So. This is something that I see as a need in a lot of the runners that I assess. So how you can test this for yourself is getting down on the floor seated and with both of your knees bent in this 90, 90 hips switch position. Okay? So one leg is going to be in the front bent. The other leg is going to be bent also and more towards behind you. Now that front leg, your knee should be on the ground, and that is your hip external rotation. So if your knee is not able to be on the ground there, then you need to work on your hip external rotation. Where I see the most need here in a lot of people gonna be that back leg, the hip internal rotation. The ideal scenario is you're able to sit up tall. That back butt cheek is on the ground and there's like no space between your butt cheek and the ground. And a lot of times what I see is the back butt cheek is not on the ground. The person's kind of leaning over and they're feeling a lot of pressure or like a pinching in the front of your hip. Or sometimes even like on the. The side of your thigh in that position. And what that is telling me is that your hip is having a hard time being internally rotated. So you could really benefit from doing some hip internal rotation exercises. And if you put those in your warmup, you're actually gonna move a lot better in your workout. And. Yeah, you're gonna move better, feel better overall. So check your hip, internal and external rotation, and if there are needs there, add in some exercises for your warmup. And next up on the list we have lateral hip strength. So the side of your butt, basically your hips, the side of your hips. That is going to be important for running or it isn't important for running. So how you can kind of check this, test it on yourself, get in a side plank on the floor, lift one leg up to the side. Are you able to hold it? Can you do reps there? You, again, you can go to the cable machine for some exercises that target this area as well. But just taking a look at, okay, do I do anything to strengthen my lateral hip? If the answer is no, add in some exercises. Again, only gonna benefit your running. And then next up on my list, I'm on the last two here, or last three, sorry. Is single leg strength in general. So oftentimes what I see is people not doing single leg exercises in their strength training, and that is really a must for runner. So if you are somebody who runs. You need to be doing a lot of single leg strength exercises.'Cause again, remember running is essentially a single leg hopping from side to side. So single leg exercises are going to be super important. And you wanna make sure you don't have a large strength discrepancy from side to side. So what I mean by that. Is like, do you have one leg that is significantly weaker than the other example? I have seen clients before, like their left leg is 75% weaker than their right leg. Okay. Obviously we're going to be feeling some pain and some issues there, especially if we're running because if we have one leg that's doing more work than the other and compensating for that, it's gonna show up in some irritation. So. A way that you can do a test for single leg strength. Side to side is gonna be doing a box, step up test. So your box height, you want this to be slightly above the knee. And then you want to find a weight that is around a medium weight, or you can do at least five reps, but no more than 12 reps, and you're gonna be doing a max effort set on your right leg rest until recovered max effort set on your left leg. Now the quality of these step up really matter a lot, so you wanna make sure that you're pushing through. The working leg. So the leg that's on the box, you wanna primarily focus on using that leg to push yourself up and trying to minimize the push off from your opposite leg. You don't wanna double step onto the box. So just really making sure this is a true test of single leg strength and you wanna be controlled on the way down. So. You wanna do that max effort testing set, and you're gonna find out pretty quick whether or not you have one side that is a lot stronger than the other. So if you have, you know, if your left leg can do three reps, but your right leg can do like 10 reps, that's gonna be a problem, right? If your side to side is like within three reps, you're doing the same weight on both sides. Within three reps is fine. We are never going to be like perfectly symmetrical as human beings. So some asymmetry is gonna be normal, but if we have a discrepancy larger than three reps we're gonna wanna close that. Like close that discrepancy. We're gonna wanna strengthen that weaker side. So that is really valuable information to know. And, next up using tempo in your strength training. So tempo is important for getting more time under tension, right? So that means that your muscles are working for longer and it's a way to. And get more time under tension without doing more weight or more reps. So and we're also building control, having better movement quality. These are all things that are super important when it comes to strength training. And I see too many people rushing through the reps not thinking about mind muscle connection and. This really matters for results. And so it's only gonna benefit you to use tempo and your strength training. Really focus on my muscle connection. Are you feeling the exercise in the right places? Your results are going to be better and your body's going to feel better. And then the last thing I have is building up additional strength and capacity. So what I mean by this is continuing to focus on getting stronger and increasing your body's capacity. And when I say capacity, your the ability to do more physical work is only going to benefit you when it comes to not only the gym and your running, but like real life. We live lives that are stressful. We have families, we have commutes to work, we have stressful jobs. We have. You know, relationship dynamic stressors all these different things, and that is a load on your body and goes in that capacity bucket. And a lot of people don't realize that. But. It matters. And when our body has a larger capacity, we're able to handle more, not only only in our workouts or runs, but just in our life. And so if you are somebody that wants to be resilient and be able to handle your life better utilize stress management increasing your strength and capacity in the gym is going to help you do exactly that. All righty. So that is it for this episode. I hope that this was valuable for you. I feel like there was a lot in here, but I hope that you found value in this episode. And if you're listening to these things and you feel overwhelmed by like, oh my gosh, she gave so many good nuggets in here about. Being a stronger runner, how do you utilize my strength training to be a better runner? And you don't know where to start. Joining my mini program is going to be for you. Okay. So. That will give you a starting point of like, okay, here's where your body's at, and here's what's going to be most advantageous for you to start doing in order to start feeling better. So details for my four week mini program strong enough to run will be in the link in the description, along with the length to sign up. And if you have questions, DM me on Instagram or shoot me an email. Alrighty. Thank you for making it this far, and if you found it valuable, send it to your friend. Talk to you next time.