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Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
Running the Distance: Unpacking the Marathon Experience
Victor shares his personal story of evolving from a reluctant runner to a marathon coach
Discusses the significance of understanding biomechanics in running
Explores common injuries beginners face and how to prevent them
Offers advice on nutrition and supplements for optimal marathon performance
Highlights the importance of mental fitness during running endeavors
Encourages listeners to seek coaching for better results and experience runner's high
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
Hello and welcome to another episode of Health and Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony. Today we have another great episode for all of you out today. Maybe for those that are not like me will enjoy this episode, and those that are like me, I would suggest tuning out now, because if I think about running, I want to throw my face through a wall, but without all kidding aside without further ado, let's welcome to the show, victor. Victor, it's just a pleasure to be on today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's my pleasure, it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I was doing some digging into you all about marathon running, training for it. It's definitely not my cup of tea. I'd much rather sit there and lift weights for three hours than pretend to run. If I can drive a car 13 or 26 miles, we're good, um, irregardless. Tell me a little bit about how you got into that realm and we'll go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I was the same. I didn't. Running wasn't my favorite thing. I was doing a little bit of boxing before, amateur boxing at around age 16, 17. And then, but even then when I was training, I loved the training for boxing but I did not like the running part because it would make us run a little bit. That was my least favorite part. Then I got into weightlifting and I liked that part, and every once in a while I would try a little bit of cardio, like doing a couple of miles on the treadmill. But it still wasn't my favorite thing to do.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until my sister asked me to join her to train for a marathon, a full marathon, that I decided, okay, it'll be nice to have that under my belt, and if she's done it, it can't be that hard. But at the same time I was working at UPS, so my job was very physical and as I started to run, training for that marathon, I felt more agile. I guess it seemed to complement the work that I was doing. So I started to like the running and then I experienced that runner's high and that's when I really started to looking forward to the long runs, because I would get into these runner's high where I was feeling euphoric, I felt great, I felt like I could run forever, but it was still.
Speaker 2:My mind was I was only going to do one marathon and over and done with. But right after I got done with my first marathon, I wanted to beat that time that I did the first one I think it was 342. And I thought you know what I can do better next time. So I registered for the next year and it was the LA Marathon at the time and then I wanted to qualify for the Boston Marathon and that took me six years of training before I qualified. By then I was pretty addictive to running and I'm still running marathons. Pretty addictive to running and I'm still running marathons. But once I retired from UPS, I decided to become a full-time coach, and that was about three years ago. So I've been doing full-time coaching since then.
Speaker 1:Awesome man, I knew I never experienced that runner's high. Maybe that's why it just never happened.
Speaker 2:It just never got me. Never happened because runner's demise is a better way of putting it. Every step sucks. It's pretty amazing. I mean you still go through that like you're high and then once so every once in a while you reach, uh, a wall, what they call. We hit the wall, or you start running out of energy and then it comes back and it's up and down, but you look forward to I sometimes look forward to running because I know I can get there.
Speaker 1:I love that. So there's two sides to running marathons, and I know you're a coach for it, so we're going to really dive into this right. The first side is biomechanically how how you're actually moving through a plane of motion, what muscles are activating, how they're activating. And the second side of that is mental fitness. It's the willingness to push forward. Okay, one more step, one more step, one more step to say that to yourself about three and a half hours, and then eventually you'll get to the finish line, depending how slow you're going. So I think the best place to start would be biomechanically, because I think a lot of people understand the mental side. They have a understanding. If I'm going to do this, I want to finish for myself. But biomechanically, how someone moves, I feel like a lot of people run wrong. Yeah, start with. What are some tips, what are some things you look for for somebody who is getting into running, wants to run a marathon and just kind of break down the biomechanics of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the biomechanics is huge. So the biomechanics is huge, the understanding because, you're right, a lot of people don't understand they uh, including myself. When I first started running it's like I thought you just go out and you start running. And even now I've told them some of my friends that I do coaching for running. Actually it was a friend of mine that did the boxing and was like people need coaching for running. He thought you just run and it's like when I started running I discovered that you can get hurt very easy if you just keep on running.
Speaker 2:Our bodies can only handle so much. So it's kind of like weightlifting, in the same sense that you know you're using the same muscles over and over. They fatigue and they break down or you tear muscles. So it's progressive. If you're going to do a marathon and you're new at it, best thing to do is get a training plan and follow that training plan slowly, progressively, and dedicate the time needed for the training and slow you know it's a slow process, getting a pace that's right for you when depending on your fitness level. But it's a progressive thing. You're not going to go out every run and run your hardest. You're going to have some runs that are hard running. You're going to have some runs that are slow and that's how you build your endurance and you start adding. Most programs will start adding one mile or 10% a week to their mileage so that you can progressively build that endurance.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned common injuries inside of running. What are the most common injuries you see?
Speaker 2:I think for beginners it's usually the shin splints. They start to experience shin splint and usually because they are running a little bit too fast for the time that they've done it. So let's slow down if you're experiencing shin splints. And then the other ones is the calves or ankles a lot of sprained ankles, and Achilles is another one. So calves and Achilles tears are very common. Again, it could be due to a weakness in the muscles or just overuse at one time.
Speaker 1:You know, just not allowing them to build those muscles or their strengths yeah, I gotta say shin splints is definitely the first one that's preventing me from running for years and just understanding what shin splints is. So I think a brief explanation of that for those that don't know because I get asked this question all the time what the hell? Shin splints? It's micro fractures inside of your shin bone. So the reason they freaking, hurt so much, is because you're fracturing the bone inside the shin. Why is it caused? Yeah, a couple different ways to cause shin splints, but the most common is it's how you're running.
Speaker 1:When you run heavy is, I guess, the quote they use like the fancy term where if you ever hear someone running on a treadmill, it's boom, boom, boom. Yeah, pounding Foot isn't dorsiflexing. Dorsiflexing meaning, if this is my hands, my foot for those watching video, but otherwise just flexing upwards. So I take my toes and try to point it towards the ceiling. That muscle that runs over the shin bone is called the anterior tibialis or your atib. It controls dorsiflexion and people just don't train it. They work a lot of the antagonist muscle you mentioned, your calf or your gastrocnemius is the antagonist to the A-tib. So if you're overworking, your muscle is getting super tight, right, you can imagine the calf muscle.
Speaker 1:Getting super tight, your toe is going to point down. It makes it even harder to do any sort of dorsiflexion while you're running and just overuse of that is going to really make it hard to do so training your. A-tib is the easy fix.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then posture. You know, when you're running, having the proper posture, the perfect form and landing with your forefoot instead of heel striking and I think that's the number one thing that, especially if they're running like a downhill and they're landing their foot in front of them, then exactly what you said you mentioned, you know you hit that heel and that shoggle straight up those shin splints. It's straight up in a lot of other areas. People have back pains. All kinds of bad stuff happens when because you're basically hitting the brake, when you're going down, every time you land, whereas if you can land in the center of gravity, you're going to minimize that impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of what you said. A lot what we learned in school right, heel-toe, heel-toe. But realistically that's not how you want to run whatsoever. So a lot of people try to train themselves to run heel-toe and they realize, oh shit, this hurts a lot. When you mentioned you want to land with your whole foot flat and this has been a big push recently with, like, barefoot shoes is teaching people don't land on your heel, that's going to send pain straight up through your knee and through your shin bone, will let the impact take over your whole entire foot and then you flex your way through that.
Speaker 2:So teaching people how to run, because if you run wrong, the wrong way, over and over again, especially 26.2 miles, you're just gonna destroy your body absolutely yes and and like again, uh, landing in the center of gravity, and minimize that and also the time that that foot spends on the floor will minimize or will prolong the energy, because if the shorter, you know, if you're tapping the floor, you're not putting all that weight on the foot because it's just tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then using the muscles because you were talking about what muscles you use, and I think engaging when you're doing 26.2 miles is learning to engage all your muscles, but especially the quads, the calves and the major ones, of course, but then you're using all of them. You're using your abdominals, even your arms, when you're swinging. But if you do it more consciously, where you're not focused on the legs, if the leg starts to hurt, you know, then just focus. I do a lot of counting my cadence when I'm running, so I'll start to count with my arms. You know my arm swings instead of the steps that I'm taking and that, just I feel like it sends the energy more towards my arms instead of all towards my legs. But it's those little things that over 26 miles is going to make a huge difference, because you are trying to engage all of your muscles differently and so it's not one muscle gets over stress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you mentioned posture as you're running, so can you explain a little bit of how you, how your posture should look, based upon walking, jogging, running? Yes.
Speaker 2:When you're running. Well, basically, when you're running, you should have a little bit of a forward lean, but not hunched, because once people get tired, what they tend to do is to start hunching and their head starts to go lower. So this the head's so much heavier than the rest of the body, it's in proportion, you know. So it does create this pressure on the back when they start to look down because they're fatigued, and you'll be surprised of people don't realize what they start doing once they get tired, until someone tells them hey, you're like bent over or you're running to the side like this, and they're not aware of it just because something started to ache. And so, upright, with a little lean forward and preferably looking straight at the horizon, because people do tend to start to look down when they go fatigued and then their head follows.
Speaker 2:Then arm swings also. If you're running low jog, you don't have to swing your arm. The faster you go, the more arm swing you want to do, especially on the uphills. Then you really want to even short run, but you want to really move those arms to help you balance out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think pushing arms can help you go if you're doing more of a sprint type of thing, Switching in from an aerobic straight cadence running to more of an anaerobic sprint without oxygen, full out, 100 feet to the finish line go. You're showing off to everyone at the end that didn't watch you on the 26 miles, they're just watching the 0.2.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you have walkers, because a lot of the older clients I deal with will practice the walk run method and I've done marathons where I've done better with taking those walking breaks. I did a full marathon in Colorado where I ran every mile and I walked at every mile. I walked about 10 seconds and overall my time was better than some of the other ones. And it's just that time to recover. And when you walk, you know why, say again, do you know why? I think just the, the recovery time is what I've and it gets the time to your muscles to recover from that.
Speaker 1:so you're in colorado, you said right. So it's high altitude. Oh, yes, yeah. So that high altitude actually promotes not working. Instead of crib cycle, which is the energy cycle you're using from running long distances, you want to switch, which is what I mentioned before, to more of an anaerobic cycle, something that's shorter, so not using the oxygen to promote, promote constant energy, and it's the altitude that really prevented you from staying in the steady state cardio and pushing you more into an anaerobic side of it, which is it's funny.
Speaker 2:you say that it's just so true, like when you think about like oh shit, yeah yes, yes, and but in people who start training with incorporating some runs into their walks seem to injure themselves a little bit less than people that don't practice that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can definitely see that. I guess another common ailment, injury it's all in the same relative, but a meniscus issues. So at the end of part of people's knees you're always like, oh yeah, it's at many hertz. Um, different things can cause. But I think over what's the proper way to put this stepping too far or reaching too far with your foot, as opposed to not like you don't want to go 100, reaching as far as you can.
Speaker 1:So why don't you explain a little bit as far as pace is what everyone calls it generically, so what should be a generic like how do you know where to pace at and what does your stride length look like inside that?
Speaker 2:well. The pace is the speed that you're running at, which is going to be different for everybody, and it's your fitness level, but something that you can start to measure what you can handle in the track. And there's some formulas that really work really well. For example, there's something called the Yasso 800. So that's 800 meters on the track and somebody discovered that whatever you do, 800 in time, you can do a marathon in that time. So, for example, if you can do the um eight hundreds in four minutes, you could probably do a marathon in four hours. So four and four minutes and hours. So then you can start, but you have to be able to do it like eight to 10 times in a row with a little bit of a break. So if you can do each time sticking to those four minutes eight times in a row, then you're probably going to be able to run a four-hour marathon. However, you can use that then to start pacing yourself for that speed.
Speaker 2:Then the stride is how far are you going to stride? For most especially men, we have too long of a stride, so we're landing our feet in front of us instead of on the at the center of gravity. The most efficient that's found out is between six revolutions per minute. So if you double that, 160, 170 to 185, something like that. So having that keeping that high, high revolutions per minute for most people is going to give them a perfect stride.
Speaker 2:And that's why I count my cadence, because I was taking too long of a stride, landing my foot in front. And then when I started to, okay, can I increase it little by little. So it's not a drastic change and it messes up my form. So, just um, I was doing, for example, I would count with one foot and I was doing about 75. So I started to increase okay, can I do 80? And then the next time I would go for a run, can I do one more stripe per minute and one more until I was doing about 192. And that's when I was doing really much better times at the end of a marathon without spending more energy.
Speaker 2:And I know I forgot you had referred that to injury, or, yes, to injury to the knees. I think that was the same. So, yeah, the shorter try. I think it's going to make it more land in your center of gravity, so that all the pressures coming from everywhere you know well distributed rather than onto the knee. And and then there's so many variables there where just the slight little bit of weight variation puts that pressure on the knee in different ways that it's hard to see in the naked eye, but it's happening over and over and over. Then there's also the strengthening of the muscles that contribute the most to the knee, like your quads and your hamstrings. Everything that you strengthen is going to help prevent knee injury. The stronger you have your core, the stronger you have those legs, the less likely you are to. On top of perfect form.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then as far as training goes, let's say you're working on your quads, your hamstrings, your abdominis. Yeah, the thorough speculation right now is sitting in more of a muscular endurance from training for like a marathon or training for running. So meaning high reps, low weight, is going to be way more ideal. Sticking inside different energy cycles, working more of your slow twitch muscles and not really diving into the what we call just lack of a better word power lifting. For those that don't know, like the quick, that fast twitch muscles, what do you, what do you see? As far as programming goes for somebody, what should it, what should it look like inside of a gym and on the track for when they do start running?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna lean towards maybe seasonal like if you're going to lean towards maybe seasonal Like if you're going to be wanting to develop a habit of running different marathons, maybe you're not just wanting to do one then having the season where you work more on the strength Like, for example, if you're not going to be running a lot in the winter then that's a good time to hit the gym and start working on those muscles, those calves, the quads. Some dynamic stretches, you know, like lunges with weights, are perfect for that as well. And then cross-training. One of the reasons why a lot of marathoners turn into triathletes is because they do a lot of cross training, because that is going to strengthen, but you still have to do some weights a little bit, but a lot of, uh, a lot of improvements can be made by incorporating the biking and swimming.
Speaker 2:And that's when I started doing it and I noticed a huge improvement, because I picked up the book that's titled Run Less, run Faster, and in that book it was giving you only like three to four workouts of running a week and then the rest cross cross training with swimming and biking, preferable with some weights, and once I was doing that as well, I might as well do a triathlon, since I'm already swimming and biking, I got into triathlons. I signed up for an Ironman and, coincidentally, when I was training for the Ironman is when I qualified for the Boston Marathon Because I noticed I was getting so much faster. It's like, oh, I'm going to try now, because I noticed how fast I was getting when I was training for the triathlon.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's definitely a hard gig to do. God, swimming yet again. You'll never catch me doing that Biking I would do. Swimming only has to do with like I'm jumping into a body of water. I can't see the bottom. A shark's going to come and eat me. It has nothing to do with any capacity beyond that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, there's a lot of panic around swimming, not just sharks, but even cold water. I experienced cold water panic that I didn't know I had it. It's like I was swimming in open water, I was doing okay and everything, but one day went to this triathlon in Walla Walla, washington. It's a reservoir, but the water was super cold. I got there and like, okay, just relax, relax. And every time my face would go in the water.
Speaker 1:It would be the same thing, I couldn't catch my breath.
Speaker 2:I couldn't catch my breath. And then I researched it and it's like oh, I guess it's pretty common, you got to get in the cold. For people who suffer from that, you just get in the cold water. And even on race day day, what I've done in the past is if I'm in a hotel before race day and I know the water is going to be cold and they don't let us get in the water, then I fill up the tub with super cold water and get in there in the morning and just start to learn to relax, relax oh man, my worst nightmare.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about the other side of it. Obviously I'm not going to get into the mental side. We've done a bunch of episodes on that. But as far as leading up to and day before for nutrition and supplements, anything that you find particularly works with what kind of foods you're eating, or any kind of supplements that you notice a lot of marathon runners to take for those interested, yeah, some of the newest things that I've seen that people are working really well, that are a little bit different.
Speaker 2:Of course we use different kinds of gels and all kinds of other stuff, but the more natural, less preservative stuff I tend to like better Potatoes for carbs, for example. You can take them. I usually just boil them in the morning and take them with me about an hour before the race. They work really well. Chia seed for hydration. You can mix it with your favorite juice a little bit, or just with water with some kind of sweetener. Chia seed has a little bit of carb, has carbs, and it also provides some nutrients and you can use it on your runs nutrients, and you can use it on your runs. The other one is beads. Beads and bead juice seem to really work for endurance workouts and for endurance races.
Speaker 1:I'm a great fan of that Full chuck full of vitamins.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and something about the nitrogen. I guess they're high in nitrogen and that really helps. My sister loves that. She's always she does a. She has an air fryer so she puts them sliced and eats them.
Speaker 1:You know why she does it that way, right? No, why she's trying to beat the competition.
Speaker 2:I get it.
Speaker 1:God dad jokes it's a good one. Yeah, I've also heard a lot of people dive into. I saw no vitamin B complexes. It's like your B12. A lot of people do tend to take, or your B6 and then magnesium post-race.
Speaker 2:Yes, and if you can get some tests where they can detect if you're low on some of those, that's a big plus. You know where you can supplement. But yeah, b12, you know, like they have. I remember taking those five-hour energies. I don't do that anymore because they get my heart rate a little too high but they do make a difference and I don't know if it's the caffeine or the, but I suspect it's also the B12.
Speaker 1:Probably both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the combination.
Speaker 1:Caffeine is one hell of a drug man?
Speaker 2:Yes, and you have to be very, very careful because it is a diuretic. So when you are, when you're running for long distances and you take a little bit of caffeine, you first you have to be careful that you're not pushing yourself too hard, too fast, and the other one that you're hydrating very well because you don't want to shit yourself halfway through the race.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really, I've seen it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, that and and dehydrated and cramping, cramping like crazy, and that'll ruin.
Speaker 1:That will ruin your race and then what about those that, uh, eat a ton of carbs the night before? Truth to that, false to that. That's always been a thing growing up Carb load the night before a race.
Speaker 2:I say, unless you've done it a ton of times and it's worked for you, then do it. But if you've tried it during training because you should do what you do in training and you're not going to load- much more than you did.
Speaker 2:when you're training, I tend I used to load up and then my best bet is to stick to what I've, the portions and everything, to what I've been training with. Yeah, I don't. I don't see this huge benefit of people who just go over second plate of pasta is going to actually make you overfilled and be heavy on race day.
Speaker 1:I would say it's probably worse because you're going to throw off your sleep cycle, which is probably the most important thing for you just to be rested. And because you're so freaking bloated, you're just going to sit there and go oh, I can't sleep. Or if you do sleep, you're not in deep REM sleep, repairing your muscles and getting ready to go before race day. So yeah.
Speaker 2:I think you're right. I think that the one athletes have done the best are the ones that stick to a kind of regular diet, that you don't change too much. A little slight changes because you are going to push yourself a little harder, but not a whole lot. Don't do anything too drastically different.
Speaker 1:Totally agree. Anyway, victor, we do want to start wrapping the show up, so I'm going to ask you two final questions at the end. First one is if we were to summarize this episode in one or two sentences, what would be your take home message?
Speaker 2:Get a training plan, follow the plan. Get a training plan, follow the plan. Watch your posture. Get a coach if you can, because it's going to help you definitely run a better race and experience that runner's high. It's amazing Once you do, you're never going to want to not run again.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:And the second question how can people find you, get ahold of you and learn more about your program. They can go to eym coaching. I have a training plan that they can download for free and get them started. And also, if they want to get a hold of me, they can just leave a message there or book a call with me love it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for coming on, victor. Thank you for guys listening to this week's episode of how the fitness redefined. Please don't forget, share, share the show, subscribe. It's the only way we do grow. We don't write ads or anything else. Don't forget, fitness is medicine. Until next time, thank you, outro Music.
