- So what I wanna look at here is your arm carry.
My arms aren't a long way away from my sides.
(upbeat electronic music)
Mornin' Trainiacs.
Solid, solid swim just now, intense,
highly productive, I'll show it to you later.
Right now, I wanna go into the office
and I made the lovely Mel follow me around
and film me running with a shirt off, lucky gal.
We should be able to have some footage in there
that I wanna show you running trick,
technique, drill, form, something along
those lines, that'll help you be a more
efficient runner, put more of your energy
goin' forward, and help you when you start
fading at the end, keep you goin'.
Hello, Trainiacs.
Well, it's getting to be nicer outside,
it's a little bit easier to go out and get...
Workout footage that looks a little bit
better than me just standing on a treadmill
or on the bike trainer, so we've got
a fair bit more footage to look at.
Yesterday, I went for a easy, mellow run,
which, if you're a regular viewer of the vlog,
you already know, and I forced
the lovely Mel to come out and videotape it.
So what I wanna look at here is your arm carry,
and as much hoopla as there is about midfoot,
forefoot, heel striking, about cadence
in your running stride, about twisting
your body, not a lot is made on your arm cadence,
how fast, how you hold your arms,
where you hold your arms, but the fact
of the matter is that your arms are actually
a really good way to drive your body.
So it's kinda shocking that more people
don't pay attention to how they hold and
pump their little digits here.
So what we're gonna do is show you a little bit
of my running form and keep in mind that
I don't have the best running form.
One of the biggest complaints that I have
about my own running form is that my hips
aren't flexible enough, because I spend
decades sitting at a desk, so I've
got a really short stride, and I've also
got 30 inch inseam legs,
and I'm well aware that I'm out of shape.
We've talked about this.
It'll get there by the time Austin comes around.
Okay, so looking at the first few things
about the running stride, the first thing
that I wanna show is basically where my hands are
in relation to my body, and you take a look
at this, and you can see from the side,
like, right there, as we go back
and forth, that my arms aren't a long way
away from my sides.
Doesn't really matter exactly where they are,
but what I mean to show you with this angle
and this angle here, basically, my arms
are kind of held in a neutral position.
I'm not squinching them in, but I'm also
not kind of putting them out, trying to use
up a whole bunch of energy by pumping those arms big.
Basically, you just wanna let 'em sit in a neutral
position, and wherever's comfortable for you,
which might be a little bit further out,
might be a little bit tighter in,
but it's comfortable, you don't wanna be using
up energy holding your arms in a certain way.
Second thing that I wanna show you,
going from the back angle here,
is how my elbows aren't
pulling back, and they're also not pushing forward.
If anything, my elbows are just a hair in behind me,
because you can see my back muscles kinda
squinching in a little bit.
The reason that that happens is because
you want your chest to be your center of gravity
moving you forward, and not your arms out front.
We've got an angle of that right here.
That is about as far out as my foot
gets out in front of me, and that's kind of a function
of me not having huge mobility in my hips and glutes,
but my foot isn't way out in front
with my center of gravity, my chest being
in behind it, and then I have to push myself
forward over top of that foot,
but you can see that I'm nice and upright,
and that most of my mass in the lower body
is typically behind me, because what you want
is your momentum to be carrying you forward.
Second thing that you can see at this angle
is the angle of my arms, again, you want them neutral,
you don't want them tensed up,
past 90 degrees, you don't want them hanging down
by your belt line, you want basically
a 90 degree angle, if you sit or stand
at any sort of just neutral position,
your arms will wanna be in a 90 degree angle,
because it's the least amount of pressure
to put on your elbows and your shoulders,
so you can see that as I go through,
my arms basically stay at that 90 degree angle.
Finally, the last angle here that I wanna show off
is that my hands rarely cross over
the center line, if your hands are going over,
and you're going across your center line,
that means that a lot of your momentum
is going sideways, you want it going
basically forward, but that doesn't mean
you need to be pushing it forward,
you should just be moving in a small
little movement that is keeping all of the
momentum going forward, and not across your body.
Just a majestic beast.
Now, here's the thing that is really important
to know about your arm carry.
It's critical, it's very important,
you don't wanna be losing momentum going
forward by going across your body,
you don't wanna be tiring yourself out
by just how you're carrying your arms,
and the cadence of your legs is driven
a lot by your arms, mm-hmm, I know, yeah.
Wouldn't think it, so a lot of pro triathletes,
what they'll recommend is when you start
fading towards the end of the race,
don't be arguing with your legs trying
to tell them to go faster, focus on moving
your arms faster, and by nature,
it'll pick up the cadence in your legs.
I need a new signal for smart things.
Every second day I'm doing this.
That swim this morning was just divetastic, woo!
We did dive start, 50 meter, max effort
on four minutes, and we'd walk back
down the edge of the pool and just
sit and wait and recover, like, lactic acid
was in my molars.
There's not really a whole lot of reason
to be doin' dive starts.
Except for showing off our extra studly figures.
♫ I wear Speedos
(upbeat electronic music) (water splashing)
♫ Why do people look at me when I'm wearing my Speedo
I have a lot of hamstring problems,
and it's hard to actually fix
and stretch the hamstring well,
so those floor sweepers are very good
for a kind of, like, a nice dynamic.
I think it's kinda like nerve flossing is what it's called,
making the nerves in the hamstring move back and forth,
degunk, scientific term.
The hop off the bike was left-handed.
So, the thing about those dive starts, Trainiacs,
is, how intense were they, by the way?
Is that they're not necessarily going to benefit
you a ton throughout the endurance
portion of the steady paced effort
in a swim, but there are times where you're
gonna have to suck it up and do a ton of hard
lactic acid pushing, typically that's at the
start of a race, when you wanna Pam,
get out, and hammer it, basically, to the first turn
or get on the feet of somebody faster
in front of you, when you start getting
faster in a race and the swim portion
is not necessarily just about survival,
and it's more about tactics and positioning,
you're gonna be speeding up, slowing down,
speeding up, slowing down, speeding up, slowing down,
and you wanna be able to swim through that point
where the lactic acid starts making your muscles
seize up, and it feels like you're swimming through cement.
Plus, we just look cool in the pool diving
in with Speedos, I tell ya.
I don't know how the women of the world
contain themselves some days.
Just sayin', just sayin'.
All right, Trainiacs, I'm out.
See ya!