Total Body Transformation Training Blog

The Run/Walk

It's almost an overused phrase -- "you have to walk before you can run". When you are trying to get ready for your first distance event an apt variant is "run and walk.. just finish". This month's CookingLight fitness article ('betcha didn't know CookingLight had a personal trainer column) was about a woman preparing for her first half marathon. Like Denis and myself, her coach recommended that she start a program of walking and running, eventually building up to the ability to jog for 30 minutes continuously. That was the prep program.

The training program for the (half) marathon had the woman doing four workouts per week, with one long "run" during the weekend. What was interesting was that the long run was really an interval. 3 minutes of running, one minute of walking to start the first week and then eventually building up to a 5/1 run/walk pace. The fitness trainer said that depending on the terrain and your fitness level you can just substitute a light jog for the walking part -- or not.

During the race, the trainer advocated the same pacing strategy -- run a little, walk a little. Her point was that finishing the first marathon is the prize. And the run/walk combination will take far less stress on your body and leave you with plenty in the tank come the home stretch and last few miles. Depending on how you feel you can jog the last half hour... or just continue to run and walk. It's gotton you this far.

Pull and Push

In planning my workout today I knew what the end would be, a 30 minute walk/jog, especially since my ankle and hip were feeling much better today. Normally when you mix strength training and cardio on the same day, the cardio workouts follow the strength training and are a supplement, not the main event. This comes from the bodybuilding emphasis that most strength training routines are based on. In training for a marathon and trying to build a habit of running, priorities need to shift away from lifting weights and toward building cardiovascular and neural endurance.

Today's workout is called "pull and push" and it mixes cardio, upper body training, and more cardio. Here is the basic format:

Row 5000m
Round of 15-10-5 reps of

squat clean 95 pounds

upright press 60 pounds

Walk/Run 30 minutes

Rests between the strength rounds are to be kept to a minimum ideally. You want to finish the entire workout in under an hour ideally as well :-) This workout really alternates between where is shocks the system. The rowing is a whole body stressor with emphasis on the thighs and back. The squat clean is a pull that requires lower body strength but really hits the deltoids and chest. The press is for the upper back and shoulders. The treadmill finishes the leg workout. Pushing yourself to finish this in one hour and make the treadmill work a challenge is a great cardio and strength endurance training for the day.

10 Minute Solution

Covert Bailey did a correlation of cardiovascular training "patients" and concluded that cardiovascular fitness is improved with as little as 8 minutes of sustained interval training that puts the heart in the cardio training zone during the peak periods. Later, olympic track and field coaches showed that 10 minutes of training at 80% or more of VO2max was enough to promote improvement in highly trained athletes.

10 minutes does not seem like a lot. It is too tempting to do too much. But diminshing returns steps in. This doesn't mean that the entire workout takes 10 minutes. In addition to warm up and cool down there is sustained effort intervals that move the heart rate up and gets your system approaching VO2max. 10 minutes of interval training at that point when you are fully warm and moving is real work and produces sustained athletic performance.

Foot Bone's Connected to the Ankle Bone...

Running, or even brisk walking, was not an option today. Still, a 6000m row was a good 30 minute cardio workout and didn't have any impact.

This past weekend calluses on the right ball of my foot started to tear. Started. In an act of sheer stupidity I decided to complete the job without using clipper of any kind. Once the calluses were ripped off the blood came, followed by the pain. Nu-Skin may disinfect and cover the wound, but my foot still hurts as hell to walk on.

If there was any doubt as to the fact that our body moves as a whole unit and not a bunch of piece parts, I now have proof to the contrary. With the ball of my right foot in pain I tended to walk (gingerly) on the side of my foot. This strained my right ankle, causing more weight to shift onto my left side -- the home of the knot in my hip from working out and running so imbalanced yesterday. So today was an easy day - just back and forth on the rower.

Stretching the Lower Back

Lower back injuries are common with runner's, weight lifters, athletes, and couch potatoes alike. Contrary to popular belief, pain in the lower back is often not an issue of being "warmed up". Most lower back injuries are caused by a combination of three things:

a weak lower back from a musculo-skeletal view

weak abdominal muscles

weak hamstrings

Runners with any of these three weaknesses in strength or flexability run the risk of back injury and discomfort. Here is a simple stretch favored by boxers, wrestlers, and rowers to help stretch and strengthen the low back, abs, and hamstrings. Properly done, this should really exercise the hamstrings but since most runners have thigh muscles overdeveloped relative to their hamstrings, it does.

Standing up straight, bend over from the hips and bring your palms to the floor just in front of your feet. Your feet are hip width apart and your palms are about in line with the tops of your toes. Your knees are bent deep. Keep the hands flat on the floor and stretch your legs straight slowly. Keep the head down and don't be afraid to raise your glutes up and to the back. You'll feel a stretch initially in your hanstrings and then in your abs and low back. Ideally you want to straighten your legs and still have your hands flat on the ground with your glutes pulled back. Now reverse the movement bending the knees and legs. Repeat slowly for sets of 8-10.