- Morning, Trainiacs.
We are headed to a place that I spend
it seems like a good 83% of my waking hours, Pan Am Pool,
to do what is surprisingly a very intense workout.
How'd you like that backwards walk?
I'm not just a pretty face.
Now, that workout involves
this tiny little gutter lane here,
a super cool aquacising belt
and some waterproof headphones.
It's water running.
By popular demand, I'm gonna tell you guys
how I was so very impressed with H2OGo and Fluid Running.
It's intense.
(energetic electronic music)
Woo, straight up, that was an honest workout.
That was 52 minutes, all water running.
It was intense.
There was some really good Taren grimace faces out there,
like you know the face that I make
in the slow-mo videos like.
(grunting)
Also, probably be a pretty good thumbnail like (grunting).
Because there's a kids' swim meet going on
on the side of you,
we're gonna have to talk about water running at home.
Deal?
Deal.
Lotta kids are looking at me funny right now, lots, lots.
(door creaking)
So Trainiacs, before you start saying hey,
you know, this water running,
it does not seem like a very good workout.
Well, this Fluid Running workout,
it was named one of the 20 best workouts in America by,
I think it was Men's Health Magazine,
and Alberto Salazar, who is probably one of the best known
running coaches in the world,
says that he gets his elite, his professional runners
to run about 25 to 33% of their total running time
in the water.
Still with me?
Wanna hear more?
Let's go.
Now, the reason why the workouts are so good is
because Jennifer has a very unique, to her,
at least it was like new to me,
running technique for water running.
All of the water running that I did last winter
while I was dealing with the achilles injury,
it really didn't tax me,
and I was like oh yeah, I dunno.
I guess if you're like 70 years old,
this would be a good workout,
but Jennifer reached out to me
after having watched those videos from last year,
and she said hey,
you know, I think we could probably give you a bit of a hand
with your running technique.
Lemme send you out some stuff.
In her technique, she guides you through it
in all of these audio files
that are in her Fluid Running app,
and it's not just like water running where you're painting
the bottom of the pool,
but it's also like cross country skiing,
and then she's pushing you on to go sprinting
at like alright now, we're doing 90%,
now 95, now max effort, now we're doing big cross country.
And all of it paired together,
I did that 52 minute workout today,
and at one point, I checked my heart rate
and I think it was 170.
170 in the pool!
That's really hard to do because with all the water pushing
on the side of your body,
it's hard for your heart to pump as fast
as when you're running on land.
and you're not bearing any weight,
and getting up to a heart rate of 170,
that's pretty intense.
It's a good workout.
So let's say you get all this at your pool
or you get it from Fluid Running,
and by the way, none of this is sponsored.
She sent this out to me,
but I was legitimately impressed with the workout,
so that's why I'm sharing it.
What do you do?
Well, number one, you have to make sure
that you put the belt like way low on your waist
so it's not in the way of your arms.
You tether yourself so that you don't float away,
and you pair whatever Bluetooth headphones you've got
to her app, which has nine different workouts in it
and, I think, 10 different how-to videos
that reinforce proper technique,
and the workouts last somewhere in between,
I wanna say it's like, the ones that I've done,
45 to 60 minutes, and Jennifer herself
is guiding you through all of the workouts,
pushing you harder than you probably would push yourself,
so you're gonna get a good workout.
Because she's breaking up the workout
into 15 second, three minute, 45 second,
minute and a half intervals,
the workout actually goes by really quick.
Last year, when I was doing the water running,
half an hour felt like hours.
Today, that 52 minutes, it felt like a 52 minute run.
Now, there are a few downsides to this.
Bring it in for some of these.
Number one, the workouts are fairly pricey.
They are $20 each.
I don't know why they are priced at $20,
but just kind of like knowing a little bit
about doing things online, that does seem pricey.
Second thing you're going to give up is muscle durability.
Your body needs some of that weight bearing
to increase your muscle durability
towards the end of a long race,
especially when you start getting
into half Ironman and Ironman.
That's why this shouldn't be the only running that you do.
It should supplement the running that you do,
just taking a little bit of the load off
of your weekly mileage.
You're also not going to build the efficiency
and all the movement patterns
that you will build by running very frequently
throughout the week.
If you run a lot, even just small amounts,
your body will start getting used to the feeling
of running, and because you're doing the motion
over and over and over,
what's known is that you end up building
a more efficient method of running.
Because you aren't necessarily running
with the exact same stride as when you're running,
you're gonna be giving up a little bit
of that efficiency building.
And then the last thing is something
that the Stryd running power meter measures
that I don't think this is gonna build up
is in that Stryd running power measurement
is a measurement called leg spring stiffness,
and this is very similar to muscle durability,
strength endurance running,
how long can you run without your form breaking down,
and you need to have very strong legs
that can perform a repetitive movement
under load over and over and over,
and if you're not building that load,
I'm not sure if you're going to be able
to build that leg spring stiffness
to carry your good technique through to the end of a race.
That's why I say it's a supplement to your running,
not your main running.
However, I do have a theory that because the water
is 800 times more dense than air,
you're putting more load on your body
and it's almost like heavy gear work on the bike,
which then does create more durability in a bike stride.
So I actually wasn't able to find any science
on whether that's the case or not,
but I think the theory, my theory,
and I'm a Canadian, so our science is like
Mr. Dressup and Fred Penner,
but I'm not sure which side of the science
water running falls on for that.
Water running, who's it for?
Well, it is for people like me
who want desperately to put a big focus
on improving their running
but every time they increase their running mileage,
they get injured, people like me.
You end up taking a little bit of load off your body
doing a movement that's fairly similar,
you build up your peripheral fitness with the arms
and get some nice snappy arms,
which help drive the hips,
which then helps drive your feet.
You do end up building a little bit of muscle strength
in similar movement patterns to the run
but not exactly, and you take a huge amount of load
off your body and decrease your likelihood of injury,
allowing you to run a little bit more
with less pounding on your body,
hopefully, we will find out, improving your run.
Or if you're already injured,
in which case, you can't run at all, this allows you to run.
So there you go, Trainiacs.
If you aren't already subscribed,
hit that subscribe button below,
and if you subscribed,
thank you for not being one of the dozens of people
who yelled at me while I was in the pool.
I was in the stinkin' gutter lane.
Nobody's in the gutter lane.
Holy smokes.
Later.