- Run and run as much as you like.
If that's all you do, you are eventually going to reach
a plateau or even worse, pick up an injury.
Well, the key to running fast is about finding a balance,
so being strong resilient whilst following a well
thought out running program.
Well, today, we're gonna be focusing on strength
and the exercises I've chosen are designed to improve
your running strength and efficiency and this will
then decrease your chance of picking up an injury
as well as allowing you to take your running
to the next level.
(pop music)
But before you delve into this gym session, make sure
you've done a thorough warm up so whether that's
a little bit of a jog outside, it's time on
a cross trainer or a spin bike, anything that's just
gonna raise your heart rate and get your blood flowing
will do, and then in order to get the most out of this
session, you want to do a little bit of dynamic mobility
and some activation work just to ensure all of your muscles
are firing properly.
Running obviously requires strength in the legs,
and the squat will cover all of the major muscles groups
but to make it even more running specific, today we're going
to be coupling it with some jumps.
But before we move onto the weights, we're going to start
off with body weight.
So for that, I want you standing with your feet just wider
than hip width apart facing forwards in a neutral position
and then you're gonna squat down, tryin' to keep your
shoulders nice and open and your gaze forwards,
that will help with your posture but also with your balance,
and then coming straight back up.
And then repeat these around 10 to 15 times,
but increasing with the speed as you go,
because remember, this is still part of your warm up.
Right now we're going to add in some weights,
so you'll need a squat rack, and a bar.
Just note the weight of the bar, because they tend to
come in 15 or 20 kilo weights and you want to make sure
you've positioned it the right height so it's just below
your shoulder level so you can basically get in under
and pick it up easily.
For today's exercise we're going to be doing back squats
so the bar will rest across the back of your shoulders.
So you need to duck under the bar, and then take the main
weight across that fleshy part, and then use your hands
either side of your shoulder just to support the weight
and then stand up, step forwards away from the rack
and then you're ready to repeat the squats in the same
way you were doing it without a weight.
Now, today we're going to aim to do three sets
of 10 repetitions, you'll need to add weight onto
the end of the bar, whatever's appropriate, so you think
you can manage all of those sets
but it is going to be challenging.
And then take a rest after your first lot of 10,
but before you rush into your next one,
we've got another set of exercises to add in.
(pop music)
After each set of squats the idea is to back it up
by using the same muscle groups, but this time for
an explosive movement that's going to challenge your core
and your stability.
So you're going to step away into a little bit of a space,
and it's single leg to double leg jumps.
So you're going to start by standing one one leg
and so you're doing hop and you're basically going
to jump off that leg and as far forwards as you can,
landing on both feet together with nice bent knees.
And then you're going to swap to the other leg,
jump forwards again, landing with both feet.
And you repeat it five times on each leg,
once you've done that then come back to the squat rack,
take 60 seconds rest, and you're gonna repeat the whole
thing through twice more.
(pop music)
This is the most simple exercise that we're going to be
including today, but you might well be wondering why
on Earth I've got an upper body exercise
in a running strength program.
Well, let me explain a moment, because obviously when
you're running you're using your arms,
as you're probably aware of, but you might not realize
quite how big a part they play in propelling
you forwards and upwards.
So if you picture your body as a big diagonal going
across the back, so from your shoulder to your glute,
and when you're extending on one side, your opposite arm
will be back as well.
So your back and that diagonal is actually shortening
and those muscles are contracting, so we need to work them,
and one of the best exercises for this is the Lat Pull Down
or the Pull Up.
So it's going to be engaging those shoulder muscles,
and your back muscles
and just working everything that's posterior.
So, we're going to move to the Pull Up machine,
and for this, I'm actually going to use a wide handed grip
today, because that's really going to engage those lat
muscles more specifically.
Before you panic at the though of hauling yourself up,
unaided, don't worry there are several options in which
to make it a little bit easier.
One of which, is using an elastic band, something like this,
that you can pop one or two of your feet in, that will just
make your body feel a little bit lighter.
Another option, pop a bench or something underneath
that you can stand on, so that will help you on the
assisting up, and then if you bend your knees
so you've got your full body weight coming back down,
you can lower yourself very slowly so you're working
eccentrically until you get strong enough to pull
your whole body weight up.
And you'll find that some gyms actually have a pull up
machine, when you put in the weight to counteract
your body weight, and therefore you're basically pulling
less up, or if any of these options don't really sound
like your cup of tea, then you can go and find a Lat
Pull Down machine when you're keeping your body weight
in the same place, and you're pulling using your arms,
you just need to add the appropriate weight.
So once you've worked out which you're going to do,
you can then work out what weight or how many you can
manage but I want you to try to do three sets of as many
as you can, with that weight.
So if it's just pure pull ups, it's basically as many
as you can manage for three sets, and then take 60
to 90 seconds rest between each to make sure you progress
this as the weeks go on.
We're now going to be moving the focus to the posterior
chain, so those muscles at the backs of the legs.
Predominately your glutes and your hamstrings.
And we're going to be adding in some stability
and activation work by stepping it up a little bit,
and making it a single leg.
So for this, we're going to start with a pulley machine,
but if you don't have one of these don't worry,
I'm gonna cover an alternative option in a moment.
But you want to start off by putting your hands along
the end of this and sliding it down to the ground,
and then pop the weight onto, a very light weight
to start with until you've got the idea for the exercise.
And then, standing with the pulley in one hand,
take a large step back, facing the pulley.
Once you're nice and stable, then I want you to take
all of your weight onto the opposite leg, so you're holding
it in one hand, standing on the opposite leg.
Have a very mild knee bend in that side if you need to,
and then you're to think about pivoting from your hips,
so the pulley will naturally drag you forwards and down,
with this front hand, and then your spare leg is going
to go out behind you, your spare arm will follow for
balance as in front.
You want to imagine a straight line going from your head,
shoulders, hips through your knees and ankle on that
balancing side, so it's pivoting through the hips,
once you reach as far as you can manage in a controlled
fashion, pulling yourself back up by squeezing your
glutes and your hamstrings until you're back in the standing
position and then repeat that eight times through
on one leg, and then swap the pulley into your opposite
hand, swap the weight onto your other leg so you're still
on the diagonal, and then repeat it eight times through
for that side, and take a rest, and you want to try and do
three sets in total, so make sure you've got the
appropriate weight for that.
But if you obviously don't have the cable as the option,
then you can use a kettlebell or a dumbbell to do pretty
much the same exercise, although instead of being pulled
forwards and down, the weight's actually going to pull
you straight down to the ground.
So your arm with the weight will go down,
but this time you're going to have to control your shoulder
and your hips even more so to make sure they stay level.
And you're still pivoting through that weight bearing leg,
and you want to imagine a straight line still from
your head, shoulders, hips through to the ankle
of the non weight bearing side.
And you'll find this exercise when you're doing it with
a dumbbell, a kettle bell, or with the pulley,
it will really fire up your glutes and your hamstrings.
(pop music)
To finish up, we're going back to the upper body to help
keep you strong and balanced throughout.
Now for this, I'm actually going to be combining
two exercises so that we hit all
of those major muscle groups.
Now for the bench press, I want you to use dumbbells,
because that just helps to fire all of those smaller
stabilising muscles around your shoulders.
So it makes it a little bit harder, but also far more
functional and the crossover to that dynamic movement
of running is far more noticeable than if you were
using say a bench press machine or even using a bar.
So, before you start, pick two dumbbells of a weight
that you think you can manage three sets of eight reps for,
and then lie back onto the bench, taking the dumbbells
with you, and then hold them, relaxing your hands
just above your armpits so your elbows are going down
towards the ground so the dumbbells are parallel
to your body, from there you're going to push up and away,
and rotate 90 degrees so that when they reach the top
they're almost touching, and then bring them back down.
You're going to repeat it eight times and then take a rest
before moving on to this next exercise.
Well now, it's on to the reverse bent over flies,
and for this exercise you're going to need two dumbbells
much lighter than you've previously been using.
Trust me, I actually go as light as two kilos
for this exercise.
It's harder than it looks, so you're going to be
standing up, with your feet hip width apart,
a bend in your knees and you're going to have a bend
at the hips so that your torso is somewhere between
horizontal and upright, somewhere in the middle.
And from this, you take both the dumbbells,
you're holding them in front of you, with a bit of a bend
in your elbows, so it's a soft elbows is a good thing to
think, and from here, you're going to take your hands out
and apart so you're rotating through your shoulders
and taking them apart as far as you can control whilst
maintaining good posture in your shoulders,
but also keeping that same degree of bend in your elbows,
and then bring it back to the middle.
Now for this exercise, we're doing higher reps,
so I want you to target 10 to 12 reps,
hence why it's a light weight and you're also
using smaller muscles around your shoulders.
And then, take 60 seconds rest after that,
head back to the bench press and you're going to do
the whole thing three times through.
These exercises are designed to make you go faster
in the long term, so make sure you build them into
your program nice and gradually and it's not unusual
to feel a little bit of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)
either the day or even two days after.
So consider this when you are planning your weekly training.
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And if you want a video on how to run faster,
without training anymore, well that one can be found
just here, and if you want some running tips
from a pro tri athlete Emma Pallant, you can find that
just down here.