Strengthening your Gluteus Medius – to clam or not to clam ?
The Gluteus medius is situated on the side of your hip and controls the movement of your pelvis in the frontal plane. In English that means it control how much your opposite side hip drops when you walk or run. To feel what I mean, stand on 1 leg and let your other hip drop […]
Training to improve Strength, Power, Endurance and Flexibility for a marathon runner
This is an article I wrote for Personal Trainers and Strength Coaches on how to train a marathon runner. It is long and in depth with sample workouts given at the end of the article.
Hardmoors 2010 lives up to its name
Saturday approx 3am Guisborough Woods, 49 miles covered, race time approx 10 hours The darkness envelopes me as I run silently through the forest, only the beam from my headtorch illuminating the trail. It is cold but not uncomfortably so, five layers of clothing, two beanies and a pair of gloves are doing their job […]
Is running with a hand held water bottle slowing you down?
On my run today I noticed another runner carrying a water bottle in one hand and an ipod in the other. What struck me about this runner was the total lack of upper body movement as he run, no arm movement, no upper body rotation, nothing. Once the runner had disappeared from sight I imitated […]
Does static stretching improve your flexibility?
A while back I wrote a blog on stretching where I discussed the benefits of dynamic stretching in terms of warm up and injury prevention and the limitations of static stretching. I have just discovered some new research that further condemns static stretching. Before I discuss that I want you to think about why we […]
Plank or Crunches , which is the best core exercise for runners?
Core training for runners is poorly misunderstood by many trainers and coaches. New thinking and strategies are being applied that challenge conventional beliefs. If you are lying on the ground doing your core exercise then you aren’t effectively working your core for running. Here’s why. There has been a lot of importance placed on strengthening […]
Strength Training For runners Part 2
Hopefully you’ve read part 1 and are ready to take your training to the next level. This article gets a bit technical at the start whilst it explains a few important concepts but will leave you with a few ideas of how to change your exercise routine to give you the greatest benefit to your […]
Strength training for runners Part 1.
If you are looking for a simple list of the best exercises that you should do then stop reading now. If you want to understand in more detail the loads the legs are placed under when we run and how different exercises have different affects on the body and through that learn the types of […]
World Trail Championships 2009 Serre Chevalier
On returning from a two week holiday in Morocco I received an email confirming I had been selected for the Australian team for the World Trail Challenge. To be accurate I was the only member of the team and the only person who put in a nomination for the event, but I was told that […]
World 100km Championships
Five weeks ago I was in some of the best running from of my life. A typical training week was a 2 hour run Tuesday including an hour of sprinting up and down hills, Wednesday a marathon in under 3 hours, Friday 45-60km hilly run and Saturday 30km in just over 2 hours. My legs […]