Run Performance RX
Your Road to Faster, Stronger, Better You Begins Here
Rethink your Cross Training
So you’re a runner. And you know that if you want to be a better runner, you need to improve your
aerobic fitness and that you must run more. So, you run, and you run, and run some more. You see
some progress; your times get better, your endurance is skyrocketing… and then you run yourself
straight to the doctor’s office.
Yep, you got hurt.
Your doctor tells you to stop running and do some non-impact cross training. You limp over to the
bike or an elliptical machine at your local health club and start pedaling and keep building your
aerobic fitness. A few weeks go by and your injury seems to be ancient history, so you decide to go
for a run. Thirty minutes later you come back home limping again, but this time you are hurting
somewhere else. Now it’s back to the doctor, who sends you to physical therapist, who puts you on
the bike and tells you to keep doing your “cardio” as long as it is a non-impact in nature. Fast forward
a few weeks, you are feeling great, your “cardio” is through the roof because of your biking and you
are itching to get back on the road and have a good run. You lace ‘em up and hit the road just to
come back feeling like you have been hit by a truck. You’re hurting all over and that ancient injury
seems more like a new visit to the doctor’s office.
What is going on, you may ask?
When runners get hurt the first thing they are told to do is to stop running and do some sort of non-
impact cross training. Non-impact cross training continues to build your aerobic engine, but it does
little for your “exterior” – muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones. When you get back to running after
a prolonged hiatus, you have the engine of a brand-new Ferrari but your “wheels, brakes and
suspension system” look more like my 13 year old compact car’s than of that Ferrari you have
parked in your lungs. Your connective tissue is not ready to handle the same amount of stress as
your aerobic engine is willing to do.
Most of the running injuries are mechanical in nature, so to prevent the injury we need to take care
of our bodies in such a way. The best way is to add strength training (yes, that includes lifting heavy
weight) to your exercise routine in order to increase your relative strength (strength to weight ratio).
Increasing your relative strength decreases your chance of getting injured in the first place or getting
injured again (if you did get hurt and had not done any strength training prior to your injury).
Just because you have a runner’s knee, ITB syndrome or some other running injury doesn’t mean
that you can’t do some variation of squats, dead lift, and/or lunges. These exercises will decrease
your risk of getting injured again. You could also work on core stability, hip mobility, flexibility and
don’t forget your upper body too.
Strength training is the best cross training activity for runners. Don’t buy it? Here is a question: what
is one thing that every athlete, regardless of sport, has in common? They all lift weights (including
elite runners).
They can’t all be wrong.
Your Workout is Only as Good as your Warmup
I have had the privilege of working at a very busy health and fitness club and I got to
observe workout routines by many of its members. The one thing I noticed is how many
people do not warm-up properly or simply don’t warm-up at all, prior to their workout.
Now, I know what most of these people think – “I have a busy schedule and not a lot of
time to work out, so I am just going to hit it hard and get the most out of the time I have.”
That approach (skipping the warm-up) may sound like a logical thing to do, but it is not
the best approach. To get the most out of your workout you have to warm-up and warm-
up appropriately. Pulling on your foot and stretching your quad before you start running
on the treadmill (or outside) does not count as a proper warm-up. Squatting and
“benching”, or doing something that resembles squatting and bench pressing, 135lb for
10 reps, as soon as you get out the car, does not count as a proper warm-up (especially
if your 1 Rep Max is a 185lb half squat/bench press).
The purpose of proper warm-up should be to:
1. Increase body temperature
2. Increase muscle blood flow
3. Decrease muscle viscosity
4. Prime the nervous system for more strenuous activity ahead
5. Lubricate joints
6. Increase range of motion
7. Decrease the chance of injury.
There are three components of an ideal warm up:
1. Passive Warm-Up
Passive warm-up is a type of warm-up where you increase body temperature by
external means. If you are a member of a club that has a sauna you could spend 2-5
minutes in there prior to going out on the floor and doing anything more strenuous. You
may want to check with your physician before you do this; just in case you have any
type of condition where spending time in extreme hot temperatures would NOT be in
your best interest. If there is no sauna, you could take a hot shower prior to exercising.
It will increase your body temperature, wake you up and loosen your muscles,
especially if you are working out early in the morning. 3-5 min should be long enough.
No soap necessary. If you find showering before your workout a little odd, you could
choose to wear a heavy sweatshirt and/or sweatpants while you are performing a
general warm-up.
2. General Warm-Up
General warm up is a type of warm up where you increase body temperature by non-
specific movements. You could accomplish this by walking for 5-6 minutes prior to
running or biking for 5 minutes prior to your strength training session. Foam rolling,
skipping rope and static stretching fall in this category.
There has been some controversy, as of late, whether static stretching prior to exercise
is beneficial or not. Here is my take on it – If it makes you feel better, well, then do it. I
don’t know anyone who got hurt running or strength training simply because they DID
static stretching. Can you hurt yourself by static stretching? Sure, but, then I’ve heard of
people hurting themselves getting out of bed. And yet we are not debating about
whether getting out of bed is good or not.
Notice that it will take about 10 min (or less) to do both Passive and General Warm-Up
3. Workout Specific Warm -Up
Workout specific warm-up is a type of warm-up where you get the benefits of a warm-up
by doing an activity very similar to the workout itself. Easy running (some people refer to
it as Jogging), and/or doing running drills (Leg Swings, “Butt Kicks”, High Knees, Skips
etc.) prior to a more strenuous running workout is an example of Workout Specific
Warm-Up.
Doing sets (1-2) with 50% of the weight being used for working sets prior to the strength
training session is another example. You can keep the reps in 5-10 range depending on
the exercise. For Dead Lift and Upper Body Pushing movements I recommend closer to
5 reps and for Squat and Upper Body Pulling movements you can be closer to 10.
10-15 min of dynamic stretching drills would qualify as a workout specific warm up too.
Workout Specific Warm-Up is basically a rehearsal of the more strenuous exercise.
This type of warm up may be the most important part and you should pay a close
attention to it. During this time, you can decide to either proceed with your planned
(hopefully it is planned) workout or if you should make necessary/appropriate changes.
Apply these three (or at least one, if you are not doing any) components of an ideal
warm up to your next workout and I am sure you will notice a positive difference in the
quality of your workout.
