In this video we demonstrate an excellent way to increase your hamstring’s range of motion with an exercise called the active isolated hamstring stretch. 

More 60-second strengthening and stretching exercises on Competitor.com

The post Monday Minute: Active Hamstring Stretch appeared first on Competitor.com.

The gesture will take place exactly one week after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Governor Deval L. Patrick, and One Fund Boston are calling upon Boston and all communities across the Commonwealth to join together in a Moment of Silence on Monday afternoon, exactly one week following the Boston Marathon bombings.

The minute of silence will take place at 2:50 p.m. ET to honor the victims of the attacks and their families. It will be followed by the ringing of bells throughout Boston and the Commonwealth. If you are not in Boston or surrounding areas, you can observe your own moment of silence wherever it is you may be.

RELATED: Running Industry Announces Run Now Coalition

Mayor Menino and Governor Patrick are humbled by the support shown by the public and the business community, and they continue to encourage everyone to visit onefundboston.org to make a donation to help the victims of this tragedy.

The post Moment of Silence For Boston At 2:50 PM EST appeared first on Competitor.com.

In this video, Tim Crowley and friends demonstrate the Side T Reverse Fly, a strength-training exercise for runners that combines the side bridge with the reverse fly. This exercise will build core strength and get your glute medius firing, lessening the likelihood of injury.

More 60-second strengthening and injury prevention exercises on Competitor.com

The post Monday Minute: Side T Reverse Fly appeared first on Competitor.com.

A few top trail runners share their racing wisdom. 

In a previous article I gave an overview of some of the whats and whys of trail running, with an eye on how taking to the trails can improve your performance in “conventional” races. But trail racing is an increasingly popular discipline unto itself, combining the strength and guts of cross-country running with a degree of agility and fearlessness normally reserved for gymnasts and their ilk. Here, the fundamentals of trail racing – its allure, its quirks, its intangibles and its don’t-forgets – are explored, with a slate of expert competitors brought into the mix to share their wisdom.

RELATED: Top Trips For Off-Road Running

On the matter of race-specific preparation, while it seems like a given that the best way to get ready to race on trails is to train on the types of trails the race will feature, it’s more nuanced than that. Says Sarah Dasher, a sub-24-hour Western States 100 finisher and the winner of last year’s Old Pueblo 50-Miler, wryly puts it: “Imagine going out for a road run where things constantly dashed out onto the pavement in front of you. That’s a bit what trail running can be like.” That is, every step run on even a moderately rough trail carries a greater risk acute injury than a perhaps hundred steps taken on a road or a treadmill, and anyone running on trails alone would soon find herself robbed of all semblance of foot speed. Therefore, figuring out how to allot your training miles is essential.

Stephen Peterson, an engineer, top-30 finisher at the venerated Dipsea 7.4-Miler (the nation’s oldest trail race) and longtime fixture on the New England mountain and trail-running circuit, has had success doing more than easy runs through the woods of Massachusetts. “I feel that training on trails gets you used to racing on trails,” he says. “I love doing tempos on the trails, especially trail hill repeats. Pace is unimportant; effort and feel are. I focus on maintaining or quickening the pace when doing repeats.”

Peterson admits that the right mentality, which may or may not be negotiable, is a sine qua non in off-road events. “A lot of being able to be a fast trail runner comes down to guts,” he says, “especially when it came to technical downhills.” He also cites the need to become exquisitely familiar with any trail course in advance. “I got burned in a 13-miler in California when I was catching the leader and was right there,” he recalls, “but we rounded a corner and had 20 yards to the finish line. I did not have enough time to react and lost by less than a second.”

Dasher believes that for the less innately gifted or bold, practice can mitigate natural hesitation. “Training on trails to race on trails is important,” she says, “because you want dodging obstacles on the ground to be second nature so you can focus on other elements of the race.” She adds that proprioception, or the sense of how moving parts of the body interrelate, is vastly more important in trail running than road running, especially if the course includes steep descents.

Not every trail veteran, however, agrees with the trail-runs-as-high-end-workouts approach. Dave Dunham finds the opposite to be true. “I have a lot more difficulty in training on trails than I would in a race,” says the Boston-area native, a renowned record-keeper who numbers close to 200 off-road events among his nearly 1,200 lifetime races. “I think my mental focus is heightened during a race, or maybe I’m just fearless during the excitement of the race.  I constantly think about where I’m going during a training run but rely on instinct during a race.” Dunham says that he doesn’t practice running fast on trails, but puts in at least 50% of his running off-road.

Dunham agrees that scouting a course in advance is important – and not just from a natural perspective. “Reviewing any topo-map or plain-map info can help me visualize the race,” he says.  If he can’t scout a course in its entirety, he’ll always run his three-mile warmup over the last 1.5 miles of the course. “I want to have a good mental picture of the last part of the course,” he says, so I can plan a kick.” (In snowshoe races, he’ll even place a large stick in the snow a half-mile from the finish so that he can really have an idea of how much he can kick; there’s no reason you can’t do this even with no snow on the ground and while wearing ordinary running shoes.)

Dasher adds that checking out the course ahead of time helps greatly with pacing. “Trail races commonly gain 1000 feet in just a couple of miles,” she notes. “A climb like that can feel like forever, if you don’t know when the end is coming.” She says that it also helps to practice on the course if there is some especially tricky or unique part, such as the Dipsea, which includes a set of about 1,000 uneven stairs that runners climb and sometimes descend.

Finally, if you’re a front-runner, you might opt to take risks on steep and rocky descents that rank-and-file runners may not in order to keep your position. But such behavior is hardly the sole purview of the top finishers. Dasher was recently en route to a third-place finish at the Zane Grey 50-Miler, and at about mile 18, when she hadn’t seen another runner in about an hour, she got a surprise. “Some young guy came absolutely barreling down the hillside at me, yelling ‘on your left!’” she recalls. “So certainly, people take risks in race situations. I’m just not one of them!”

The post Trail Racing: How To Become An Off-Road Animal appeared first on Competitor.com.

Try this challenging and mentally engaging multi-pace workout.

A few years ago I had the privilege of collaborating with Brad Hudson on a training book entitled Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon. Brad was a top runner back in his day, with a couple of 2:13 marathons on his resume, and is now a top coach based in Boulder, Colorado.

I learned a lot from working with Brad. One of the things I learned was the value of multi-pace workouts. Most workouts target one or, at most, two paces. For example,  your typical long run is done at a single, steady pace. Your typical interval workout targets two paces: a fast interval pace and a slow warmup, recovery, and cooldown pace. But there’s good reason to perform some workouts that target three or more different paces.

Such workouts can be used to provide a small dose of running at several intensity levels when that’s what fits best into a given week of training, to train your ability to “change gears” during a hard effort, and to provide a literal change of pace in your training that is mentally refreshing yet also physically productive.

RELATED — Workout Of The Week: The Short Fartlek

Brad’s 1-2-3-2-1 workout is perhaps my favorite multi-pace workout amongst the several he taught me. It is run by time rather than distance and is therefore conducive to being done on the roads, which is what it’s really designed for. The numbers in the name of the workout represent minutes. After warming up with some easy running you get down to business by running one minute at roughly your 5K race pace. The you jog for one minute. Then you run for two minutes at roughly your 10K race pace. Then you jog for two minutes. Then you run for three minutes at roughly your half-marathon race pace. Then you jog for three minutes. Having “climbed the pyramid”, you now descend on the other side and finally cool down.

When you start this workout for the first time it seems like it’s going to be easy, but, trust me, it gets harder and harder. It gets especially hard if you run too aggressively out of the gate. One minute is not a long time to run at 5K pace, so it’s tempting to run faster. But one minute is not a long time to recover from such an effort, either, so you can quickly dig a hole of oxygen debt that you can’t climb out of if you run the first fast minute too fast.

One thing this workout teaches you, and another reason it’s so demanding, is that there’s not a huge difference between 5K and 10K and half-marathon race pace for the typical trained runner. For example, suppose you’re a runner with a 5K PR of 20:00. So your 5K race pace is 6:26 per mile. According to McMillan’s Running Calculator, in this case your 10K race pace is 6:41 per mile (only 15 seconds per mile slower than your 5K pace) and your half marathon pace is 7:04 per mile (only 38 seconds per mile slower than your 5K pace and 23 seconds per mile slower than your 10K pace).

What this means in the context of a 1-2-3-2-1 workout is that you have to run two minutes at a pace that’s only slightly slower than the pace you have to sustain for just one minute and three minutes at a pace that’s only a notch or two slower than the pace you have to sustain for two minutes. That said, the paces are different, and in doing the workout you will want to be conscientious about running at three distinct paces in the segments of different durations. The first time I did this workout I made the mistake of running all of the fast segments at more or less the same pace, probably because I was so unaccustomed to doing multi-pace workouts.

The 1-2-3-2-1 format is actually the moderate version of this workout. Brad’s top runners more often do a tougher 1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1 version of the workout. Do the moderate version when you’re in base training or just want a secondary high-intensity training stimulus to supplement your primary high-intensity workout of a given week. Do the harder version as your primary high-intensity workout of the week when you’re already in pretty good shape.

Because even the hard version of this workout is relatively short (17 minutes of fast running, 17 minutes of recovery running), it makes sense to pad it with a long warmup and a long cooldown to enhance the endurance-testing dimension of the session. This is not a focused workout designed to maximize your ability to run at a specific pace. It is a balanced workout designed to give you a little of everything, and adding a long warmup and a long cooldown (12 to 24 minutes for each) gives it a little more of the thing (an endurance challenge) it is otherwise lacking.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of numerous books, including Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress, 2011). He is also a Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. To learn more about Matt visit www.mattfitzgerald.org.  

The post Workout Of The Week: Brad Hudson’s 1-2-3-2-1 Fartlek appeared first on Competitor.com.

Learn how to utilize fat as fuel, improve efficiency and better gauge intensity by training in the right zones. 

When you think of an easy run, thoughts of runners cruising down the sidewalk, rocking out to the beat in their headphones at a comfortable clip probably come to mind. Unknowingly, however, most runners don’t really run all that easy on their easy runs. After a few warmup miles, many runners start to feel good and begin pushing the pace without even realizing it. What started out as an easy run may end up being a push to simply get it over with as quickly as possible.

To help runners and other endurance athletes keep their easy runs easy and their hard workouts at the correct intensity, more and more coaches are relying on heart-rate training. Trapper Steinle, personal trainer, endurance coach and metabolic technician at Lifetime Fitness in Centennial, Colorado, encourages this type of training. He emphasizes that structured workouts in specific heart-rate zones will help increase an athlete’s metabolic efficiency, a fancy term meaning the body’s ability to burn fat as fuel.

RELATED: Three Heart-Rate Monitor Mistakes Everyone Makes

During exercise, the body utilizes two primary sources of fuel, namely carbohydrates and fats. Unlike carbohydrates, which are limited and break down rather quickly, fat breaks down slower in the body and releases more energy. Plus, the amount of fat athletes can store is virtually limitless, even in the most slender of individuals. By teaching the body to burn more fat than carbohydrates, endurance athletes will be more efficient over longer distances. This translates to faster times and better performances. For many runners, it also means easy — but tedious — training.

To determine an athlete’s metabolic efficiency and identify their target heart-rate training zones, Steinle uses treadmill and bike tests. Athletes wear a  heart-rate monitor, along with a mask that measures expired CO2 and O2. After a warmup, the athletes run or bike at an increasing level of effort until near exhaustion. The machine calculates ventilatory data and correlates metabolic efficiency with different heart-rate values.

RELATED: Using Heart Rate To Measure Overtraining

Analyzing this data typically confirms the biggest problem for many athletes: they aren’t extremely efficient at utilizing fat as a fuel. When runners continually push their body hard in training, they teach their bodies to rely more on carbohydrates as fuel. This isn’t a desired adaptation according to Nicole Clark, personal trainer and triathlon coach in Westminster, Colo., who identifies training too hard as one of the biggest mistakes an athlete can make.

“Athletes are often feeling great in the beginning of their training block,” Clark says, “and it is easy to push too hard on light days, which can lead to injury, illness or overtraining.” To combat this problem, Clark advises all endurance athletes to train with a heart-rate monitor to gauge intensity.

The post Get In The Zone: The Pros Of Heart-Rate Training For Runners appeared first on Competitor.com.

This excellent exercise targets a variety of muscle groups.

“If you only have the time for one exercise, this should be the one you do,” said Gareth Thomas, a Los Angeles-based coach who has trained Ironman champs Chris McCormack and Kate Major. “This exercise targets so many muscle groups—it’s like squats combined with a shrug.”

The exercise is a repeated motion called “cleans” and looks something like Olympic weight lifting, without the body-crushing poundage or final overhead push. “Start with very light weights,” Thomas said. “Technique is absolutely critical, so get a trainer to watch you if you can.”

RELATED: Mobility, Mechanics and Movement For Runners

How to Do Cleans:

Start with 10 repetitions and work up to 30 repetitions with light weights for an endurance strength workout, or five to 10 repetitions with heavier weights for a strength and power workout.

1. Begin with the barbell on the floor in front of you with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart and your toes underneath the bar.

2. Squat down to pick up the bar. Then, keeping your back flat, drive with your legs to a standing position.

3. As the weight passes your knees and your legs are almost straight, shrug with your shoulders to pull the bar up the front of your body to the top of your shoulders, keeping the bar as close as possible to you.

4. Slowly lower the bar down the body to waist level, then repeat.

See the exercise in action in the video below.

The post Get Strong With The Clean Workout appeared first on Competitor.com.

Get better, faster results by trying something new in your training. 

There’s an old way to do almost everything. For example, listening to cassette tapes on your Walkman, connecting to the Internet with a modem, and wearing leg warmers on the treadmill would all be considered by most as old ways of doing things. There are also old ways to train, which may prevent you from seeing the results you want. Over the following pages, we offer up some new ways to spice up your workouts and get better, faster results.

Old Way: Long, easy run
New Way: AT/LSD combo run

If you’re an advanced runner with a history of long runs on your legs, making the long run of higher quality by combining long, slow distance with acidosis (lactate) threshold pace helps you break past plateaus. These runs simulate the feeling of the marathon, use up muscle glycogen at a faster rate, and train your legs to run fast when they are fatigued. Run about 12 to 16 miles, with the first 10 to 12 miles at an easy pace and the last 2 to 4 miles at acidosis threshold pace, which corresponds to your fastest sustainable aerobic pace (about 10-15 seconds per mile slower than 10K race pace for most runners). 

RELATED: Ditch The Long, Slow Distance

The post Training: The Old Way vs. The New Way appeared first on Competitor.com.

Unlike normal situps and pushups, this non-traditional core training exercise teaches your body to be in better balance and triggers the most important core stabilizer muscles. The Palloff Press will help strengthen your center of gravity, which in turn lessens the likelihood of injury.

More 60-second strengthening and injury prevention exercises on Competitor.com

The post Monday Minute: The Palloff Press appeared first on Competitor.com.

Follow these easy steps for a great race experience.

1. Don’t eat, drink or wear anything new on race day. Stick with what has worked—shoes, socks, clothes, food, gels, drinks—while you were training. Reward yourself with new shoes or try new gel brands after your race, not before it.

2. Start hydrating with water or a sports drink as soon as you wake up on race morning. Continuing sipping periodically from a bottle until you get to the starting line.

3. Eat something light and simple for breakfast 2-3 hours before your race. If you normally drink coffee to start your day, do the same on race day. If you normally don’t, don’t start in the hours before your race.

4. Be prepared to adjust your race plan on the fly and go with the flow. Circumstances such as weather and how your stomach feels on race morning are beyond your control.

5. Warm up and do a variety of drills before you get to your starting corral. You probably won’t have time or space to do anything but stationary drills, like running in place or jumping jacks, once you’ve entered the corral.

6. If it’s cool and you’ll be waiting for a long time, consider wearing an old long-sleeve T-shirt or sweatshirt you can throw to the side after you start. Or cut three holes in a plastic garbage bag and wear it until the starting gun sounds.

7. Have realistic expectations and seed yourself honestly in your starting corral. While it’s exhausting to have to jockey past lots of runners in front of you, it’s even more disheartening to by passed by an entire wave. If you start at the front, you’re more likely to go out too fast.

8. Familiarize yourself with the race venue and route well before race day. Know where to park, drop gear, use the bathroom and enter your specific starting corral. Err on the side of arriving too early than too late.

9. Try to find your own space on the road, but expect to be cut off or sideswiped by runners early on and throughout the race. It happens in every race, often when you least expect it.

10. When drinking from an aid station cup on the run, pinch the cup at the rim to avoid taking too big of a gulp or soaking yourself. For half marathons and all longer races, drink something at every aid station, even if you don’t feel thirsty.

11. In a half or full marathon, take sports gels early and often. Start by taking one 20 minutes before the start of the race to top off your glycogen stores and continue taking them every 3-5 miles. It’s hard to stave off a bonk once you’ve already hit the wall. Make sure to practice drinking water and taking gels in your training so your gut is accustomed to it come race day.

12. Try to run a consistent pace throughout the race, but err on the side of running slightly slower in the first half of the race. Your pace may slow a bit as you shorten your stride running up hills, but use your arms to help you to the top of the hill and expect your pace to increase slightly as you take advantage of the “free speed” you get from lengthening your stride while running downhill.

The post 12 Simple Tips For New Runners appeared first on Competitor.com.

What’s with all the spandex?

You’ve probably seen fellow racers wearing tall compression socks, calf sleeves, thigh highs and full tights, wondered what they’re all about and whether you should get some, too. These garments are based on a concept medicine validated long ago: that compression clothing increases blood and lymphatic flow. In sports, compression garments are meant to improve performance and expedite recovery. Although there isn’t yet a consensus among experts if compression apparel really works, research has shown that it just might do what manufacturers say it does.

The post How Compression Apparel Works appeared first on Competitor.com.

In this video learn how to strengthen your lower body while increasing hip mobility. Adding this exercise into your weekly strength-training routine will help smooth out your running stride and reduce the risk of lower leg injuries.

More Monday Minute exercise demonstrations on Competitor.com

The post Monday Minute: Dumbell Reverse Lunge appeared first on Competitor.com.

The key to enjoying the benefits of running is learning to enjoy the activity of running.

Running is probably the world’s best form of exercise. It builds fitness, increases health, promotes a healthy body weight, and can be done just about anywhere by anyone. Runners will also tell you that running is highly enjoyable. However, running does not make a great first impression on many beginners, who experience the exertion of running is as unpleasant. In fact, according to the 2011 Runner’s Survey conducted by Running USA, the perceived “hardness” of running is the number-one barrier to becoming a runner among non-runners.

There’s a Catch-22 here. You have to enjoy running to do it regularly and you have to run regularly to be fit enough to enjoy running. How does a beginner negotiate this paradox to become a runner who enjoys the activity and its many benefits? Learn how over the following pages.

RELATED: Beginner Runner’s 10-Week 5K Training Plan

The post Running 101: How To Become A Runner appeared first on Competitor.com.

Meb Keflezighi says staying positive and stretching are the keys to overcoming and avoiding injury.

Sooner or later, it happens to all of us: injury. Perhaps you’ve felt your hamstring pop as you rounded the track, or you’ve watched your ankle balloon after slipping on a trail, or you’ve let the twinge of shin splints lead to stress fracture.

When these types of injuries happen, sometimes it’s hard not to let the disappointment settle in. After all, you’ve just watched many months of work melt away into nothingness.

But being injured doesn’t have to be a negative experience. Instead, it can be a time where you get to enjoy the activities and hobbies that you can never quite squeeze in during your normal training/work/life schedule.

RELATED: Dean Karnazes’ 3 Tips For Injury-Proofing Your Body

When Meb Keflezighi, the Olympic Marathon silver medalist in 2004 and 2009 New York City Marathon champion, fractured his pelvis at the Olympic Marathon Trials in November of 2007, he could only get around by crawling and didn’t know if he would ever run again. But instead of dwelling on the injury, he used the extra time on his hands to read, spend time with family, and catch up with friends.

“You can’t change what it is,” said Keflezighi, who won the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials earlier this year and went on to finish fourth at the Olympic Games in London.

And taking part in these types of activities can help you stay positive—something that is important in the healing process.

“The more you think positive, the better,” Keflezighi said.

So instead of focusing on how the pain in your knee will prevent you from qualifying for Boston this year, try learning a new language, watching your favorite comedy, rereading your favorite book, calling an old friend or catching a baseball game—do those things you love to do but can never find time for when you’re out on the roads.

Of course, all of this forced positive thinking can be avoided if you don’t get injured in the first place.

“Rule number one is don’t get injured,” Keflezighi said.

To accomplish this, Keflezighi has some tips, the most important of which is stretching. In Keflezighi’s eyes, stretching is crucial to injury avoidance and a key ingredient to his long career.

“The most common mistake is people don’t stretch,” he said.

Stretching is easy to forgo. After all, most runners are pressed for time, and once a workout is done, they neglect stretching and then hurry off to work, to pick up the kids, or to wherever else they’re presence is required.

But Keflezighi says that doing this can lead to injury—and it’s especially bad when you finish a run and then immediately jump into a car.

All it takes is five minutes, Keflezighi says. In fact, you’re better off cutting your run five minutes short and stretching than forgoing the activity altogether.

Keflezighi also recommends 15-minute ice baths, core workouts and running drills to work on form and efficiency.

“It’s the small things that make the biggest difference,” he said.

****

Courtney Baird is freelance journalist based in southern California. She ran Division 1 cross country and track and now competes in triathlons as an elite age-grouper.

The post Injury Avoidance 101: The Little Things Make A Big Difference appeared first on Competitor.com.

If you really want to improve, you need to break out of the jogging rut.

Most runners are essentially joggers. They do all of their runs at the same, steady, moderate pace. They might go a bit slower on their longest runs than they do on their shortest ones, and a bit faster on their best days than they do on their worst days, but they make no conscious effort to vary the pace of their training.

And that’s fine, as long as it works in relation to your goals and preferences. Specifically, if you enjoy jogging and if improving your race times is not especially important to you, then by all means, keep on jogging. However, if running at the same, steady, moderate pace all the time gets to be a little too monotonous for you, and/or you’re willing to put more effort into improving your performance, then you should incorporate pace variation into your training.

Even the most highly competitive runners jog most of the time. Easy running is great because the more of it you do, the fitter you get, and because it’s not terribly taxing you can do a lot of it. Faster running is more taxing, so it can only be done in small amounts. But a little goes a long way, especially when faster running is layered on top of a high volume of easy running.

RELATED: Speed Workouts For Beginners

Most competitive runners do two faster workouts per week. Some also add a small amount of faster running to a third workout—for example, a few wind sprints at the end of an easy run. This weekly schedule has become standard because it works better than any alternative for the majority of runners. If they do less, they don’t get as fast or race as well; if they do more, they burn out or get injured.

All fast running is not the same. There are a few speeds exceeding the natural jogging pace that competitive runners routinely hit in their training. It’s good to hit them all because each contributes to fitness development in a slightly different way than the others.

What’s often referred to as “tempo” pace is only moderately faster than your natural jogging pace. To find it, start at a jog and imagine shifting one gear up, pushing yourself just a little but remaining comfortable.

The next faster pace is known as threshold pace. This is the fastest pace at which you can remain fully in control of your breathing. At your threshold pace you’re breathing deeply, but not straining to get enough oxygen. For highly trained runners, threshold pace can be sustained for about one hour in race conditions. For beginners, it’s closer to a 30-minute maximum pace.

Faster still is VO2max pace. This is the pace at which you breathe as hard as you can. Actually, it’s the slowest pace at which you breathe as hard as you can. For most of us, it corresponds to the fastest speed we can sustain for six to 10 minutes. It’s very uncomfortable, but you can get used to it. VO2max running is almost always done in interval format. So, instead of going out and running six or seven minutes straight at this pace, at the end of which you’re completely exhausted, you might run 5 x 3:00 at VO2max pace with a 3:00 rest interval of easy jogging after each segment. The rationale here is that you can do a much greater total volume of VO2max pace running if you break it up into intervals than you can if you do one block straight to exhaustion.

Your next gear has no conventional name other than “speed”. It’s really a range of speeds faster than VO2max pace and slower than a full sprint. Runners usually incorporate speed work into their training in the form of intervals ranging between 200 and 400 meters in distance, or between 30 and 80 seconds in duration. For example, Nike coach Alberto Salazar like to have his athletes run 7 x 300 meters with jogging recoveries after each interval.

The fastest training pace is a full sprint—the fastest speed you can sustain for no more than 20 seconds. Even most competitive runners do no real sprinting, but they should, because it’s a terrific power builder and it’s fun.

The title of this article is, “How Fast Should You Run?” Perhaps you’ve noticed that I still haven’t answered this question. I’ve made the case for running at a variety of speeds, but what you need to know is exactly how fast you should run your threshold workouts, your VO2max intervals, and so forth.

There are two complementary ways to find the right pace for each workout. The first is to let the workout itself guide you. For example, an appropriate threshold workout for many runners consists of 20 minutes at threshold pace between a jogging warmup and a jogging cooldown. Those 20 minutes should feel challenging but not exhausting. Your breathing should be heavy but controlled. If you run this workout using these guidelines and monitor your pace as you go, then whatever pace you wind up running is your current threshold pace. You can then use that numerical information to help guide future threshold efforts. Note that this pace will improve over time as you get fitter.

There are also various systems that prescribe appropriate target paces for individual runners based on their current fitness level. These require that you enter a recent race time or estimated current race performance capacity. They then run a calculation and spit out target paces for various types of workouts. The best workout pace calculators are very reliable, but they should not be treated as gospel. You still need to listen to your body when running appropriately formatted workouts and either speed up from your target pace or slow down as necessary. My favorite workout pace calculator is that created by coach Greg McMillan.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Running 101: How Fast Should You Run? appeared first on Competitor.com.

In this video we show you an exercise called the thoracic spine extension using a foam roller. This exercise improves posture and helps to make your arms more efficient while running.

More 60-second strengthening and stretching videos on Competitor.com

The post Monday Minute: Thoracic Spine Extension appeared first on Competitor.com.

In this video, four-time Ironman and TRX instructor Steve Katai shows us the torso rotation, an excellent core strengthening exercise for endurance athletes that specifically targets the obliques.

More 60-second strength-training and injury-prevention exercises on Competitor.com

The post Monday Minute: TRX Torso Rotation appeared first on Competitor.com.

In this video, Tim Crowley and friends show us the lateral squat walk, a great exercise for runners that strengthens the glute medius and improves lateral stability.

More 60-second strengthening and stretching exercises on Competitor.com

The post Monday Minute: Lateral Squat Walk appeared first on Competitor.com.

Add this exercise into your routine and use less energy to run.

Running is a form of jumping. So it’s not surprising that jumping exercises—also known as plyometrics—have been shown to improve running performance. Specifically, jumping exercises enable the leg to function as a stiffer spring when the foot makes contact with the ground during running. As a result, it takes less energy to run.

RELATED: How To Execute A Proper Plank

The box jump is an effective jumping exercise that many runners use. To do it, you need a sturdy platform that you can jump on and off—preferably one that’s height-adjustable, like an aerobics step. The optimal height depends on your height and jumping ability, but most people find their sweet spot between 12 and 24 inches.

Face the step while standing on your right foot only with your left knee slightly bent. Squat down slightly as you naturally do when jumping for height and leap onto the box, landing on your right foot. You may also find it natural to swing your arms back and then forward while jumping. Immediately jump backward down to the floor, again landing on your right foot. Complete 10 to 12 jumps and then do 10 to 12 more on your other leg.

This piece first appeared in the October 2011 issue of Competitor Magazine.

The post Improve Your Explosiveness: How To Do A Box Jump appeared first on Competitor.com.

In this video learn two exercises utilizing the TRX suspension trainer that will increase leg strength and improve power through the glutes, making you a more explosive, less injury-prone runner.

More 60-second strengthening and stretching exercises on Competitor.com

The post Monday Minute: TRX Lunge & Lunge Hop appeared first on Competitor.com.