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Fitness Systems
Silver State Athletic Center
5680 Morgan Mill Road
Carson City, NV 89701
Phone: 775 883 3500
Fax: 775 841 5233
Before You Run
By Lucas D. Wold www.CarsonCityFitnessSystems.com
Running, especially in races, is a fun way to improve your fitness levels. (It isn’t however, the best way to lose fat. For that sign up our FireStorm Program) Here are a few tips to keep you moving fast and injury free:
- Stretch the chest muscles before you run. These can be tight and will pull you into a hunched position as you run, making it harder to breathe.
- Strengthen your gluteus medius, a small muscle designed to pull the leg away from the midline of your body. This will help you to keep your knees in line and also reduce joint pain. The simplest method is to perform a few sets of “fire hydrants” during your warm-up. Get on your hands and knees, now just lift one leg out to the side, just like a puppy peeing on a fire hydrant. Repeat with both legs.
Fire Hydrant
- Loosen your hip flexors with deep lunging stretches. These muscles on the front of your thigh can tip the pelvis forward, causing low back pain while you run.
Hip Flexor Stretch
- Run quietly. You shouldn’t hear thudding while your feet hit the ground; a thud means you’re braking your movement with each step. Aim for a tapping sound. (You’ll hear me yelling “Light feet! Light feet!” whenever I coach runners.)
- You shouldn’t be able to see your socks. If you can see your shins while you’re running, you’re taking too long of a stride.
- Nothing will ever “toughen up” your knees. Protect them from injury by training on a more forgiving surface, even if you’ll be racing on the road.
- Every so often, train on nice soft grass in your bare feet. This increases your proprioceptive abilities and allows your ankle to regain mobility. (Plus the grass feels really nice between your toesies)
- Hill sprints are one of the safest ways to build lower body explosiveness. Either loop around or walk backwards down the hill. Walking backwards downhill provides a great stretch for the back of the legs. So, sprint up, walk down backwards. Fun!
- Towing parachutes is a highly overrated speed exercise. The parachute moves all around, never pulling evenly. It is much better to pull an empty weight sled or old tire. Too much resistance ruins running form however, so keep it light. (Never more than ten percent of your bodyweight for speed training.)
- Another method to increase your speed is to use diminishing rest periods. Decide what timing split you want on your next race. Then run intervals at that speed or faster, with an active recovery between each interval.
- Calculate your average training speed, and compare it to your desired racing speed. Increase training speed until they match up. After all, how will you run 5 minute miles in a race if you average 8 minute miles in training?
- Strengthen your upper body. Pushups, pull-ups, and bodyweight rows will all improve your running ability. Really.
- Listen to your favorite tunes while you’re at the track or on the trail. Nothing gets people going better than good music.
That’s it! Lace up those running shoes and get moving!
