COACH'D
Join us on COACH’D, a podcast where the some of the world's top athletes, coaches, and performance experts come together to share their stories, insights and secrets to what has made them successful in their own right.
Think of it as a "locker room" chat — unfiltered, raw, and real. We dive deep into all things athletic performance, wellness, science and culture.
COACH'D
Mani Ovola - "Nike Global Trainer. Redefining Running: Challenging Traditional Long-Distance Running Culture"
Join us as we chat with the incredible Mani Ovola, a Nike trainer whose journey from being inspired by the 2012 Olympic, he shares how his transformation led to a powerful philosophy: using sport as a lifestyle to inspire and develop others.
We'll learn how he's challenging traditional long-distance running culture with innovative approaches that emphasise quality over sheer mileage. We also dive into the role of physiotherapy in running and discover how integrating diverse data—like sleep and hormonal balances—can improve your training.
Mani offers his expert insights on what it takes to tailor your running journey, whether you're an elite athlete or a weekend warrior. We'll explore the significance of personalised training plans and discuss the art of balancing internal and external pressures. From injury prevention to the nuances of load tolerance and bespoke information, Mani's advice is designed to elevate your running experience. Plus, we touch on the often overlooked importance of strength training, revealing key exercises that enhance performance and prevent injuries.
In a world where data and technology are revolutionising sports, we explore the fascinating intersection of running performance and footwear innovation. Mani sheds light on the concept of periodising shoes and the resilience of East African athletes, offering a fresh perspective on running mechanics. We also take a closer look at the community-driven initiative, LDN SLCT, where personal stories of overcoming injuries become a testament to the power of community.
Join us for an episode filled with inspiration, expert advice, and innovative ideas that promise to transform your running journey.
Thank-you to our sponsors Iron Edge and VALD Performance.
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https://open.spotify.com/show/1YJMztpYSgnPusEXB3fWcc?si=FJsWITv7QdSCSgCt3lkElw
Join us on Coached, a podcast where some of the world's top athletes, coaches and performance experts come together to share their stories, insights and secrets to what has made them successful in their own right. Think of this as a locker room chat unfiltered, raw and real. We dive deep into all things athletic performance, wellness, science and sporting culture and sporting culture. Hear from those who have played, coached and built their way to the top with athletes from the field, coaches and medical in the performance setting, or owners, managers and brands in the front office, while also getting an insider's view on my own personal experiences in this high-performance world. If you're passionate about sports, curious about the minds of champion athletes or looking for information and inspiration on your own journey, coach is the place for you. Mania vola, welcome to coach yes, thank you very much.
Jordi Taylor:I'm excited to be here this is the the question that obviously everyone probably asks you, so I'm just going to get straight to the point and ask you what actually is a nike trainer and what does it mean to be a nike trainer? And thirdly, can you make me a nike trainer?
Mani Ovola:oh wow, those are three big questions, especially that last one um, what does it mean to be a nike trainer?
Mani Ovola:for me, I think it means that you um, you come to to to develop and help people, and I think that's one of the most important things. I think sport is a gift. We get to, you know, move our bodies and develop ourselves and push our limits. And being a Nike trainer means that you can give people insight into the things and philosophies you have around sport and how to develop them through sport. The power of sport is integral to, I believe, how we can live our lives and I think it's a lifestyle um. I think, no matter who you are, you can use sport as a lifestyle um. So being a nike trainer is about encompassing things that you're passionate about. I think you, you're a nike partner. You come to the table and you come to um the the relationship with your insights, and for me, it's a challenge. I really love the challenge.
Mani Ovola:I work with runners and long distance runners, supporting them to stay injury free and develop their performance. I think being a Nike trainer is humbling and every day is a. You know it's a learning experience. We know what it's like working with athletes at all different levels, maybe new to the sport, maybe started the sport six to eight months ago or have taken time away from the sport um, and helping them navigate, um. Getting back into sport and, you know, accessing the power of sport is is what I do and that's what I love. Um, being a nike trainer is, uh, yeah, it's a, it's a big part of my lifestyle and, yeah, I love it to be honest.
Jordi Taylor:Why are you wearing Adidas shoes then?
Mani Ovola:no, I'm joking swoosh for life.
Jordi Taylor:At the moment swoosh for life, but um well, yeah, I guess everyone looks at that being like well, nike trainer sounds awesome, like how do I be a Nike trainer or whatever that everyone looks at the end without the, I guess, the process of getting there? So what was that process like for you? How did that actually come about? Cause I think it's a pretty, pretty interesting story.
Mani Ovola:Yeah it's, wow it's. I think for me, it was all about being myself and as much as possible. I went to Nike event in London in the Nike store. Um started running. I was inspired by 2012 Olympics in London in the Nike store. Um started running. I was inspired by 2012 Olympics in London. Um ran a half marathon. I was like I never I ran a half marathon one hour 30, which I was quite proud of and is yeah, I'm gonna boast on that.
Jordi Taylor:I think anyone will be proud of my first half marathon.
Mani Ovola:Um, it's the 100 meter jeans that helps me um. So I did my first half marathon and I started to explore what running means to me and how physiotherapy integrates into running the sport, in my opinion, long distance running as a sport, in my opinion, utilizes very little data and we do focus in on time. So you know a lot of data is about, you know PBs or time over distance, rather than also utilizing data from sleep metrics, jump height, cadence, you know plyometrics, hormonal balances. I think there's a lot more data for us to explore in long-distance running and I think elite sports such as football and the NFL are doing just that. And I think long-distance running can start to think about how it evolves and how we really inform training. Because in long distance running there's a, there's a quite quite a big culture around more is more, so the more miles you do, the better you're going to get. But I think more efficient is more and that's what I'm trying to um push, push in the culture and trying to create.
Jordi Taylor:How do you go about that? Because it reminds me of swimming, like any sort of stopwatch. Sport is all about, obviously, pbs and getting a little PB, and that's pretty much it Like swimming. You've got maybe four key events a year, so you have your tapers, you have your primes, trying to essentially hit your best times in these key events, but then the rest of the year is train in the morning, train in the pm, all year round. Flog yourself and, like you said, more is more. Where does that quality come in? Because to tell a swimmer in my opinion, well, from my experience to go from doing 16 sessions a week to nine, it's like blasphemy. Yeah, I can imagine it. Imagine be the same for for the athletes you deal with in in the like long distance endurance space as well for sure I think you need to.
Mani Ovola:Proof of concept is the is the only thing you need to create proof of concept, and I'm working on a project right now where I'm going to be using force plates with a group of runners and providing data on output force, providing a strength program curated and personalized, and working on that strength program through time to either regulate load, try and reduce some load or increase load, depending on which races are coming up and if we can get markers for performance through the cycle, and I'm going to put a report together. I think that's the only way. But you have to prove. You know the proof is in the pudding, so we have to show that this is actually possible. We know that long distance runners have, you know, gone away and done strength work or plyometrics and said, yes, my time has improved. And we know there's clear evidence that running economy improves. But you can't expect individuals or athletes or governing bodies or groups or teams to take your word as gospel. You have to show, and that's what I'm trying to work on at the moment.
Jordi Taylor:How do you plan on doing that? Because obviously I think you you're in a good place. You've combined your passion with your job, yeah, which is very, very good place to be in, but also with a trend that just seems to be just skyrocketing everywhere. Like london tonight is pissing down, rain and cold and there are still people running. Like everywhere sydney, everywhere people are running, maybe not so much a winter, but as soon as summer rolls around, like it's, you're dodging people at the moment, like it's, it's a big trend at the moment.
Jordi Taylor:Obviously there's pros and cons to that, because you're seeing all these people that go and buy their nike vapor flies, um, over here and run like four k's a week, yeah, yeah, and probably just shaking your head. Carbon fiber means nothing when you're running six minute k's, but then you've got obviously the, the top of the top guys and girls are just dominating, yeah. So, like, for you, like where does that sort of place you as as a practitioner and with, like, obviously, your work with nike, because you've got probably both ends of the spectrum. You've got these high level athletes, but if you're planning that the general population with the same brush as them, you're probably gonna miss the mark a little bit so, like how are you approaching it from top all the way down to recreation?
Mani Ovola:that's a really good point. I think um I speak into um a few people at a conference we've just attended together and you know they were talking about the um the need to bear in mind that some of the factors around strength and conditioning may be things we can't influence. So the non-contractile tissue capabilities that people will just generically have and be better at some of the abilities of, you know, the higher level athletes to run more consistently, do more rhythmical running, more steady running and recover. So I think it's about bespoke information. I don't think one size fits all. I think we try and cater to all runners by, you know, giving them as much blanket information as possible. And I think that's the biggest thing that I'm trying to say is we can't have blanket information, we can't have blanket training plans, because everybody is different, everybody experiences internal stress. So you know, no matter who you are, even some elite athletes, you know they may have a sponsorship agreement, might be on the cards if they don't perform as well, or they may have family, you know challenges or they may be traveling or they may have an illness. They're still being exposed to internal pressures and they've got to manage those internal pressures and stresses, you know with the external pressures and stresses, and I think it's not to say that they're completely different to the general public, but there is there is some similarities. But we also need to say they have a lot more time, they have a lot more you know advantages and we have to treat everybody with bespoke information. So, in terms of the general public, think there's a, there's, there's some key principles we can think about. General public can do more plyometrics because we can develop their stretch shortening cycle, their tendon stiffness. They can.
Mani Ovola:Most individuals are not getting enough sleep. I think sleep is a superpower. So if you're watching this, dive into your sleep. Um, the amount of males at the moment who are kind of suffering from reduced energy deficiency syndrome is spiking, um, and we know that if you stay fit you'll get better. So my big thing is don't get injured like, let's reduce the amount of injuries that are happening running. We know from lots of different literature injury rates can be from 16 to 85 depending on who you are and and I think personally, as a physiotherapist and somebody who's trying to reduce injuries, allow people access to sport.
Mani Ovola:My big thing is I keep you, keep your injury free, um, there's no need to try and do double sessions like the norwegians. I mean I think you could tap in probably to better quality intensity sessions with good fueling. Those are two big errors I find in the general population, simply because of time, you know. Getting enough carbohydrates we're looking at 7 to 12 grams of carbohydrates per kilo. Very few runners are getting that that type of carbohydrate load before their sessions and and very few runners are doing sessions that maybe are intense enough from what I'm experiencing are intense enough. And then getting the recovery days to ensure that those runs are absorbed and that they can hit the next two runs in a good way. So for me it's just picking out things that I know people can benefit from and I think it's a it's a complex. You know it's a complex situation and it's.
Jordi Taylor:it's great and I love that more and more people are running um, I guess, at the end of the day, like the barrier is so low to running right, like it's a pair of shoes and away you go versus like, and then that's the same for yourself as a yeah, as a very high level runner and me as an absolute nafty. It's still the same level. But if that was like, say, liverpool, there's a big barrier of entry to go and play for liverpool versus running. So I think, yeah, anyone looks at that and go, I can do that, yeah.
Jordi Taylor:And then you're getting those subsequent things that you're mentioning there around, just lack of education, lack of understanding, and where probably you see better than anyone else, it's probably the tolerance to load, not only the running side of things, but then also in the gym. So you're I'm going to make an assumption here and please tell me if I'm wrong but your battle with runners in the gym is probably the exact same for when they first started running Is their load tolerance is either so low or they're just such a new stimulus not used to it, so they go too hard too soon. So instead of just starting off their first sessions, you know two sets of something, they go straight to four and they have to try to push really hard because that's what they deem is a hard session. That's going to improve them versus hey, movements, movement. Let's build your tolerance to low, just like it is laying down the foundation for your runs over time. In three months time let's look back and see how far you come, not in three days time, yeah. What are your thoughts on that?
Mani Ovola:I think there's uh, there's a complex myriad of things going on. I think we have a women's sport which is blowing, uh, blowing up, and I think there's some talk there around exposure to um sports that um, you know, are challenging from a gravity perspective, especially in the early stages. So a lot of women I talked to have not done multi-directional sport at a young age, so their bone density had not been developed. So if they're in their mid to late 20s they're being exposed to lots of running with, you know, a skeletal system that maybe cannot manage that amount of load.
Mani Ovola:I think there's also some thoughts around yeah, definitely sleep cycles, stress, response to training load, and I think also there's some discussion around contraceptive you know, pills and medications and how that affects the bone density as well. Ultimately is also something we have to be aware of, along with, you know, strength work. I think strength work is a lot of people do get worried about strength work because of the soreness and and, and it's about getting the right information for you. But also, I think people in the long distance running space can be quite, um, you know, type a's. They're like, they're kind of with restrict we want to achieve.
Jordi Taylor:They're like swimmers. They look at the like swimmers. Look at the black line at the bottom of the pool. Yeah, forever. Yeah, like you've got to be a special character to do that and like I don't know about you, but I think you're a special character to be able to run all day. Yeah, I'm bored after five minutes it is.
Mani Ovola:It is very I find it quite cathartic and I think there's a there's an element of like you get the self-efficacy because you achieve something. You said that you're going to do something and you achieve it, and I think, as a runner, you have this thing, that you get a level of self-confidence and a level of like self-efficacy and self-assurance that you can do something that you said that you were going to do. And I think that's the most powerful thing beyond, um, kind of like you know, low barrier to entry and all that is people get into flow state. They get this sense of achievement by being able to tick off weeks after weeks of training and it's quite powerful. Um, and going back to your question and point about the gym, I think they find it hard to adjust. So if they can't do the same as they did a week ago or two weeks ago, it feels like a failure.
Mani Ovola:And I think, as long distance runners, we need to make sure that we're not feeling like that.
Mani Ovola:We need to achieve 80% of everything over the period of time to get us to race day as fresh as possible instead of being lethargic and burnt out, and I think there is a real problem with people feeling like they're undercooked.
Mani Ovola:I feel like there is a big challenge around people wanting to perform at their best, but almost all of the time and it's it's something you know I try and manage with, with, with all the athletes I work with um currently working with a young person who's exactly the same, you know, quite high level, top 30 in the uk, and he's just every day. He's just like I gotta, I gotta do this. You ask him what, you know what pace he ran a workout. He'll tell you immediately. He knows exactly what pace every session finishes at um and I'm trying to work on building his cadence so that we reduce some of the stresses on his skeletal system. Um, but he can never tell me his cadence, you know. But he can always tell me what speed he runs at um and I think we've got to try and develop a way to be a lot more accepting of um ebbs and flows, almost like a weekly periodization.
Jordi Taylor:Well, it's like again like you know they they play one game a week, or two games a week, like they're not playing every day.
Mani Ovola:Yeah, and and.
Mani Ovola:Yeah, it feels like sometimes every day is game day yeah, sometimes runners feel like every day is the champions league, yeah, every day is the grand final, or you know, it's, it's, and I get it. Um, and also things like internal stresses. So if somebody has a stressful day, they'll go out for a run. They're like, oh well, I went a bit faster because they're getting out the stresses from the day, but it's good.
Mani Ovola:I practice that push and pull coaching. So it's all about developing people to accept where they're at, realize that there's a journey and there's a path, and I direct them on that path and say, look, at this point you can start to push. At this point we just need to be ticking, ticking the sessions over until we get to to to race day. But it's hard because you've also got, you know, social media, which shows people's workouts, or Strava, and somebody will see somebody do a workout. And you know, get really hooked and dialed in workout. And you know, get really hooked and and dialed in um I I have people quite regularly tell me how much, how much, how many miles I've run every week over the last two to three weeks.
Mani Ovola:Yeah, yeah, um, and I think it's quite interesting, you know, because they they're looking for me to to give them signs of something they can do um, but we know from literature that if you're hitting around 12 hours of endurance activity, you're in a really good place. Not miles, by the way, 12 hours, just to let you know, and it's the efficiency and the effectiveness of those 12 hours. Once you're in about 12 hours of endurance work, you're really going to develop. And also we have to take into account athletic age. You know those things you've been doing from 12 to 21 and how your skeletal system has has become robust and tendons and some people might be slightly further ahead. So you just take your time and you, hopefully you know, catch up, just make yourself as injury-free as possible.
Jordi Taylor:That's what I say to people all right, strang and conditioning side of things. What do you find the biggest barriers are with runners you mentioned, like soreness before calf raises, just do calf raises.
Mani Ovola:Like why is it so hard like just find a step and do calf raises? That easy dude is like the bane of my life. But we were just straight leg or bent leg. We're just at a conference with seth uh o'neill, one of the greatest researchers. I really like him.
Jordi Taylor:He just gets to it um, he was the last guy on the last day, right?
Mani Ovola:no, no. So for neil's tendon talks about tendons. Yep, is that saturday? I think it was saturday. It was definitely Saturday because he left Sunday and we had a drink Saturday evening together.
Mani Ovola:I think that there is merit to do calf raises, bent, but I don't think that you will bias a specific muscle. I don't see that as something that is know widely known in literature. From my knowledge it's. You can bias the muscles if you have straight leg or bent leg. I think it's the amount of load.
Mani Ovola:Seth o'neill was saying that if you do um a calf raise, body weight is you're pretty much just walking. So load the calf raise, put some weight on your shoulders and you know if you don't have weight, a backpack and put some books in there, and I think we don't have enough ways of developing that lower end, that lower aspect of the leg. So there was another speaker at the conference we just went to who was talking about tib post and I see a lot of tib post dysfunction in long distance runners, a lot of lack of inversion strength. So that's something I'll be loading quite heavily. So if you are working with long distance runners tib post, tib anterior load it heavy. Put actual weight on the foot anterior, load it heavy, put actual weight on the foot.
Mani Ovola:And then mechanics of hip knee ankle just making sure that people are able to load hip knee ankle, because if there is a person with any soreness or previous injury at the knee, I find that they're really just stiff at the knee, they don't like bending the knee and they tend to hinge forward from the torso. So yeah, those are the key principles I look for. I find very few long distance runners can back squat body weight or above. I find that I get to about 70 to 80%, quite low rep range zero to four rep range, just because they get too sore and the kind of nervous system quite low rep range, zero to four rep range, just because they get too sore and the kind of nervous system is just too affected by doing lifts above four reps. They just get too sore. So I keep it quite low rep range, quite low sets and ensure that they have maybe 48 hours just to and you can form a hormonal response as well off the back of that.
Mani Ovola:Like, obviously you have the strength adaptations to it, but like that's probably the thing that runners don't get is a lot that like growth hormone response to lifting heavy yes, but it's slightly blunted as well because of the amount of anaerobic training they do and some of the some of the track sessions and intervals these long distance runners do gives them a bit of a stimulus as well. Um, it's managing all of that and I think, from my perspective, I try and get them jumping. Jumping is one of the things long distance runners do not do. Often they don't land a lot and often and well in my opinion, um, and core stability, extensor strength those two things are very much neglected. We have a glute hamstring developer in the facility I work at and I just basically get to touch up I stand by it and people are.
Mani Ovola:People are, you know, queuing up behind me because I'm using it constantly. I'm using it weighted um so I get athletes to carry plates and um, you know, having thought about some of the, you know, hip flexor development and development around the hip, and you know, just creating that stiffness around that area, I'm using the glute hamstring developer in um, just creating that stiffness around that area using the glute hamstring developer in supine, for me is very key with long-distance runners.
Jordi Taylor:Do you think there's a point of diminishing returns for runners, that they become too strong in any of those areas? Have you seen that yet? Like, you mentioned the percentage of body weight as an example with the back squat, is there say, let's go heavy calf raises and let's say they're three, four times body weight? I'm talking like extreme, like let's talk like the? Um, some of the track and field athletes, um, there's been some great research out of the uk around some of the the calf loading that they've done in the different positions, the pele position and so on, so forth. Have you noticed that there is a point of diminishing returns for some of the runners you work with? You know, let's say, if they're doing a GHD ISO hold weighted at, say, 20% of body weight, like there's no difference between 30 seconds and 60 seconds, anything anecdotal or even just what you've experienced.
Mani Ovola:So I was very much a person who loves doing strength work, and I think one thing that I would say is um, I love a bulgarian split squat, passionate about it, but with long distance runners, once you get to probably about 40 of body weight, I don't find it useful.
Jordi Taylor:um like the residual fatigues is too high they just, they just can't do it either.
Mani Ovola:It's just just not worth the. You know the juice isn't worth the squeeze. You're better off yeah, you're better off just loading them to 40% and keeping them consistent over time. And I think that there is a kind of hunger at times for once I get runners into strength work there is a hunger to chase the numbers, but the numbers are only useful if you're hitting your training block and actual running, because we're using the strength to get you to be able to run and be feeling good when you run and you know, being effective and improving the quality of your sessions. So if you have that, it's just the quality of your sessions being consistent over 12 weeks and you staying injury free.
Mani Ovola:It's not really about us trying to get your back squat to 150, 50 of your body. It's just not just. You're gonna, in my opinion, you're gonna become, you're gonna become extremely fatigued. You get to a point where you're sore most of the time. Uh, the, the muscle soreness is not worth it in terms of time and it's the consumption of food as well, like the amount of food you have to consume to make sure that these sessions are beneficial, I think is pretty high and I know obviously we've got this um evolution and revolution of hybrid athletes and people running and lifting. And we have a few athletes in in our, in our community, in a running community I founded in london and, yeah, they've had to cut down.
Mani Ovola:They always say I can't do, I can't do legs, I just I'm exhausted. I can't do any anaerobic or high speed interval training because the amount of consumption and calories burnt by doing a heavy, heavy strength session and just leaves you really tired, heavy legged and you don't end up pushing yourself in the interval sessions to your maximum. So if you're looking to run under three hours, um in a marathon, it's very difficult to do that and get 150 body weight um of back squat, um. And if you are doing that, maybe you're just maintaining your back squat once you've got it to that point and then hitting a marathon, a marathon cycle. So yeah, that's what I'd say about law of diminishing returns. In terms of strength work, I'd say general rule is 40 to 80 percent. I'm not sure I've really worked with anybody doing above 80 percent of certain global movements more bespoke movements and specific movements around the calf. More bespoke movements and specific movements around the calf. Um, sure for those shorter, shorter distance runners, but marathon runners there's and there's.
Jordi Taylor:They're notably not as strong and do you find they buy into the strength program because they know it's designed to supplement their? No, they're running, no, no opposite, like a typical athlete. Oh, she's a typical. Well, they want to do the sport. I get it like you want to do the sport.
Mani Ovola:I mean it's also, how do you fit it in if you're working and doing everything you're doing and seeing family and trying to have a life?
Mani Ovola:It's, it's tough.
Mani Ovola:I think there are very few people who really are just obsessed and they will do it and they will buy into it and they will know and have a really good internal I call it an internal metronome or internal kind of compass of when to do certain things.
Mani Ovola:They'll tell you exactly which exercise to do, why they feel they need to do it. For instance, if they do like an interval session and their achilles becomes a little bit irritated and they have a bit of um, you know, a little bit of like an inflammatory response from a track session, they'll tell you exactly which two exercises to do and they will do them and they'll come back to you five to seven days later and say, yeah, the Achilles is not irritated by the way. They've continued to train the whole time with high quality and they're very few and far between. I've seen maybe five to ten people in like eight to ten years of when they're just on it and they can tell you exactly what exercise helps and it's because they've just done the exercises for so long and they know exactly what to do and they're great to work with um and it's it's tough because they just everyone's trying to feed and do everything to maximize themselves in the sport um.
Jordi Taylor:But I think when you've had a lot of sporting experience and you've got a good athletic age, you just know what to do and when you mentioned before, like your testing protocol, you're putting out with the force decks or force plays, I should say what, just maybe at a global perspective, just what are some of the key things you're looking at there and how are you communicating that to the athlete to get their buy-in to, I guess, continue on with, I guess, the strength training side of things whilst preparing?
Mani Ovola:yeah. So I think the key thing we're looking for is benchmarks and like viewpoints from a conditioning perspective. So we're talking to you about really finding out what do your legs do when you're running and how much output can you, can you, produce? So we're doing a mid-thigh pull, we're doing an isometric um, calf, uh, like extension. So ankle iso. And then we're also going to do a drop jump.
Mani Ovola:So, looking at your system, capacity, uh, elasticity, and we're just explaining to people. There's the hardware, the legs. You know that's your external system. How well is that working? Because you can work on the internal system all you like, but we know that the largest risk is you having a problem with the external system. So let's find out how well is that working and what can we do to improve it.
Mani Ovola:So I'm not just giving you exercises that are going to waste your time as well by getting the data with being, you know, bespoke I really use that word um a lot with runners, because you need to curate your running. You need to be bespoke with your running. You need to make it a craft. Every other sport, I feel, has now this like slight craft about what they do. We've got huge, you know, details around gps, xg in football, all these like amazing stats. In running we have, you know, our cadence, step length, some strava stats but I think there's so much more and sleep scores we can dive into those a bit more and how much people are getting deep sleep, how much they're they're really pushing and and able to develop their neuromuscular system, what their jump height is, how, how does that then?
Mani Ovola:How does that change over time? If we give you more training, does your jump height change? Does it get better or does it? Does it reduce? You know what is your ankle isometric forces. Does it? Does it change? Does it actually change? As the season goes and we, we do more, more races and you run more track and you're in spikes, does it actually get better or does it? Do you start to decrease? And do we need to bring your training back a little bit? And I think we need to start really diving into that, because we've seen just recently, this weekend yesterday, a woman break two hours ten minutes in the marathon in chicago, and that's the first time ever and I think there's some some stuff we can delve into and I think there will be in our generation a man run under two hours in a marathon. You heard it?
Jordi Taylor:here first in nike.
Mani Ovola:Obviously, of course, obviously of course know, and I'll probably be there in the sidelines, yeah.
Jordi Taylor:You mentioned it before the running community. You created London Select. Yeah, tell us, like, why you created a group. Yeah, uh, and two like it's pretty big success. So, yeah, like some of the successes you've had within that community and, yeah, why you keep doing it, because you're gonna be ready to play I think I think there's london select was all about, uh, making decisions that benefit you.
Mani Ovola:So during covid I was running through hyde park and I would run at 5 am in lockdown because the sun was rising, set me up for the day, gave me something to do and then obviously you're in lockdown, you have to go back home, all that kind of stuff. I'm like people were asking me were you in Surrey, why are you in Surrey? And then I looked into the research and there was just some interesting things about you know, as a black man, I run under three hours. I've done Boston Marathon and there's there's not very many, um, black men from London that I met who had run under three hours. Um, and it just inspired me to think, well, can I develop people, can I help people get better? Um, but then also look into research.
Mani Ovola:A lot of the black community don't use public parks in in big cities, inner cities, because actually a lot of the properties that communities are ethnic communities are not close to parks. So London Select we met in Marble Arch and we run around Hyde Park and that was something quite important to me. It's one of the most important things is getting people out early on a weekend. You know good, positive, um, and you know effective habits, lifestyle habits, um. London select is about selecting a lifestyle that benefits you. It's not about being teetotal or anything like that, it's just you know doing the things that benefit you and your lifestyle and your sport, um, and we meet 8 am on a saturday morning so some people come after their night out, um, not in their clothes, they come in nikes, obviously. But it's about my purpose. I guess my purpose has always been about enabling people to do what they wanted to do.
Mani Ovola:Just a bit of background. I had a ankle fracture osteogonin fracture for two years as, uh, between 16 to 19, and I didn't know what it was. And I went to university and my lecturer diagnosed it in the first kind of week and it just gave me that feeling of like this is what I would like to do, because I was accessing care and nobody could tell me I had an osteogonad fracture, because it happens in 13% of the population, very unlikely to happen in footballers. I was playing football at the time or soccer, and you know, going and trying to receive care and get support was. It was quite difficult and I guess my thing is when somebody has an issue or problem, I'm quite passionate about trying to help and trying to get them the access or trying to get them back to the sport. Quite passionate about trying to help and trying to get them the access or trying to get them back to the sport.
Mani Ovola:Um, you know, I always love the stories of people getting back onto the pitch after an acl or after something, because you, I've probably experienced that quite an early age and it gives me that um, hunger to, to feel like, well, I experienced it and I know what it's like. Maybe I can help somebody not experience it or get through that journey. And recently well, not recently, but one of the cases I had was a person who for two years had foot drop and you know, my thing was like something not right and ended up the person had Parkinson's and I, for two years we were going to different GPs. I sent her to Queen queen square, the, the neurological center, and she ended up having a diagnosis and one of the youngest people tagged parkinson's at 27, and it was like, you know, that gave me the hunger and the, the real drive to keep doing what I do, just keep supporting people and, you know, inch a little bit better, find more effective ways to play sport and find more effective ways to access sport.
Mani Ovola:And performance for me is for everybody. I believe performance is all of ours and we can always try and dive into it a little bit more, and performance is key. I think without performance you don't feel an age, it's like an edge. I think for the human spirit, performance is an edge. It gives you that hunger, that drive um, and that's what I try and drill, drill into people at london select and anyone I can talk to next three to five years, like because running has blown up since since lockdown and covid.
Jordi Taylor:Yeah, where do you see the sport as a whole from the top level? The average punter will still be as big as what it is. Will get bigger. Do you think it might fall off like a lot of trends do? And where do you sort of see your role playing in between both of those sort of populations?
Mani Ovola:The next three years, I think you will see a very high spike in performance running. I think the the data and the tools we have outside of running in other sports will start to, I think they'll start to creep into running. Running will be, in my opinion, a little bit more data driven. It'll be. There'll be there'll be faster and faster times. So right now, boston marathon reduced their their good for age time by something like 25 minutes or something like that. So it's going to get more and more competitive. Um, and I think that's that's. I think that's a great thing. What will happen with that innovation? Because when there is competition, innovation has to happen.
Mani Ovola:In my opinion, there'll be more people in in in footwear. That is, you know, performance orientated, but I think they'll use it in a different way. Just for instance, I, I run marathons, which we haven't talked about, but I ran a 244. Get in there, get in there, I want to break tub 230. So we'll see, we'll see how that goes. Maybe when I do, I'll come back on the podcast. But, um, I think footwear can be used in so many different ways. I think we think the carbon fiber plate and the responsive foam is almost godlike, but I think there is a navigation to be had around developing your calf muscles and your actual tissue in non-carbon, non-responsive foam shoes and then transitioning once you're stronger, and getting the adaptations and development um of the more high-end performance shoe carbon fiber plate shoe. So I think there's this we need to use the shoes as tools and I think that doesn't get.
Jordi Taylor:That doesn't happen. There's no quote-unquote like periodization of shoes. I know in basketball that started to become a bit of a thing with ankle rolls and things like that. They all transitioned to high top, low tops, no shoes, to certain scenarios and things like that. That's not a thing to your knowledge in running.
Mani Ovola:No, I'm one of the first few people to speak about it. I need to actually probably talk about this a lot more.
Jordi Taylor:Sorry to cut you off because we spoke about this um when jonas came over um, jonas do do obviously um world world famous speed coach. Yeah, I asked him the question around um for our athletes in sydney this was new to me from being from queensland is, in queensland it's just normal grass, but in sydney there's turf like astro artificial and grass and a lot of the rugby league athletes respond really poorly to turf, really poorly, because they're so used to playing on grass. And then a lot of athletes are actually the inverse. They are so used to playing on astro that when they go to grass, yeah, they sink, they don't have any elastic qualities. It's very different, like two completely different running styles.
Jordi Taylor:And then obviously the inverse for the, the rugby league guys is an example. And I asked him what's his experience been of that and he didn't really have a solid answer. He just basically said, look, it makes sense, like there's nothing really to it more than that. And then I dove into a little bit more research and I'm going to forget the person. It might be JB Moran, it might be someone like that, but they had done extensive research on that and they actually um periodized surfaces with track athletes. Yeah, so concrete all the way through to like soft grass to sand. Yeah, and that was part of their periodization plan was not only the volume but also the surface that they used yeah nothing.
Jordi Taylor:I'm saying obviously surfaces, but shoes is very much the same thing. It's just on your foot yeah, I mean it.
Mani Ovola:I don't know why people aren't thinking about this, and I'm not sure. I think people want to dive and and and get to a point where they're maybe running as fast as possible, as soon as possible. But what we have to think about is how you exposure is. I think exposure is probably like nine tenths of the law. We know that right.
Mani Ovola:You expose somebody to load and and and they respond in different ways and we need need to expose people in a gradual way, and I think exposure also means that if I'm exposing you to more forces with less support, what that means is you're going to be more robust as time goes by, and that's one of the reasons why a lot of the athletes from East Africa are probably a little bit more robust. They have better ability to tolerate bending moments from their bones and their tendons are more elastic. Because they're just being exposed to a lot of kind of load from an early age, their footwear is probably not as cushioned and their terrain is a lot more und undulating. They're running 10 miles to school at a young age.
Jordi Taylor:I don't know the the name of the tribe, everyone's seen it.
Mani Ovola:Yeah, yeah, like you want to see a pogo, you want to look at an rsi like that's off the charts well, I'm from uganda as well, so I've run in uganda and you see school kids like running next to me and they're just having a laugh like struggling um. And yeah, I think exposure is such an important thing and if you're exposed to things at an early age, if you know if your exposure changes, um over time, it's just really I think it really can point us into a different direction. We need to not be afraid to maybe like be a bit more. You know, not think about more is more in terms of the amount of training we do, but maybe more is more in terms of the quality and the intensity of one session and how that then feeds into the other sessions. So if you are doing a hard session with less carbon, less responsive shoes, you know you're doing that session. You give yourself a four to five day window where you know you can do slightly easier running. Or you put on the carbon fiber plate because you know you've done this harder session and you might be a little tender and sore, and then that can just give you kind of like almost a bridge to bridge you between one point to another.
Mani Ovola:And there are some elites who do it. I've seen some elites choose and change shoes and the most common thing is changing shoes on a track. So you know, you see somebody do their, you know their first type of their first intervals with carbon fiber plates and then they might use a track spike. But for me, I think there is a big thing around navigating footwear and using footwear as tools and I think in time, I believe, we'll have some data within footwear. So it'll tell you your cadence, it'll tell you your flight timewear, so it'll tell you your cadence, will tell you your flight time. I think it will tell you your um overall, maybe run performance. Do you do?
Jordi Taylor:you remember the nike? This is way back when I was still in school. Yeah, it was in the free runs and it was a little sensor, yeah, in the bottom of the shoe. Yeah, what do you remember? What like metrics that gave and why that was discontinued? I don't, you don't. No, I have not, I can't remember, but you know what I'm talking about, right.
Mani Ovola:I know, but yeah, there was a little foot pod in the shoe.
Mani Ovola:Yeah, bought it off eBay yeah, I can't remember, but I think there will be some like we've got things that foot pods now, but I think we can advance foot pods and I think there'll be something around um that. And I think there's something called the duty factor, which I learned this weekend, which is basically like your correlation between your cadence and your um step length, and I think that will be something we need to start thinking about and looking at because that can guide us into better programming. I think programming of long distance running could. It could improve to then optimize and allow more conditioning, and if you can condition and develop your body, you become more efficient. If you become more efficient, you can train more effectively and maybe train even less in terms of trying to get more volume, but that's a viewpoint that is quite contentious.
Jordi Taylor:I think a lot of coaches out there Well, and one more thing before we wrap up that I was just sort of thinking of as you were going through, like footwear and things like that, and we haven't touched on it yet. But running mechanics I know that's something you're also quite big on. How again, like the, the entry to barrier is so low. Again, like the entry to barrier is so low Everyone knows how to run. We could argue that's true or not. I'm sure you've seen some pretty funky styles. But in that endurance space, how important is mechanics? And how often do you regress athletes back and go back to some of those basic things in your drilling and things like that prior to running?
Mani Ovola:That's a really good question, I think, um, I've changed my thought process. So initially I would always say running is like a fingerprint everybody has a different one and you will self-organize and run. But I genuinely think running is a skill and I've evolved my thinking because I've looked at a lot of movement, iq and a lot of coordination and a lot of jumping and I call it like the, the foot conversation with the ground and a lot of foot conversations, communications one way, so it's down, but no responsiveness back and that can be because of loading and bracing. And the one young person I'm working with, he braces a lot on his affected side and you look at most people, especially around medial tubular stress syndrome, runner's knee, they will brace and that bracing happens for months on end. And that bracing happens for months on end and I think we need to be aware that that ground contact communication will change what happens in the arm and it will change what happens in the hip, it will change what happens to the kidneys, it will change what happens on the contralateral side as well as the side that's affected.
Mani Ovola:So I definitely think kinematics and the way we look at runners and their running technique and gait, that will be unpicked more and more. The one thing that I'm not sure about is how they interact with the internal energy expenditure and and what that means, because we can look at improving somebody's mechanics and and making them look like we feel is better and is a good ground conversation, but then what does that mean for their energy expenditure and and and how does that affect their concentration? You know, over two hours, three hours, four hours, how does that person get through um a race? So I think there's some questions to be had and probably a research paper to be done.
Jordi Taylor:Not by me.
Mani Ovola:I'm out as well, maybe calf muscles I think that's my big passion at the moment.
Mani Ovola:Calf and tib post is, for me is one of the hardest things to rehab. But it's also like I think we can unpick that in the long distance population. And I would say, going back to kind of load and how much exposure individuals can tolerate because of the constant um contractions, small contractions over long periods of time. You know the average person will do 160 steps in one minute and the way we, the way we train, that I think needs to evolve and I'm not sure the exact answer, but I think the way we train that I think needs to evolve and I'm not sure the exact answer, but I think the way we expose calf exercises, calf strength, calf loading in long-distance runners needs to evolve to be maybe slightly impulsive and work on the impulse rate and how that happens over time to build that strength over long, long periods of time. So that's something else we need to think about over the next three years. So lots of work to do, lots of work to do.
Jordi Taylor:I appreciate it, brother. It's always good to catch up. Beautiful, beautiful London weather.
Mani Ovola:Yeah, yeah, we're going to get through this winter, but it'll be good. It'll be good. Lots of training time. This is where you build all the miles and get fit um before the spring. That appreciate you me. Thank you, man, appreciate your time.
