Good times coming up in southern California...
Thanks to Under Armour for the killer new custom kit. Love it!
Jul 12: Carlsbad Triathlon
Jul 18: CA Multisport Off-Road Du
Jul 19: Playa del Run Aquathlon
Jul 23: Tri Club San Diego Aquathlon
Jul 26: Pacific Coast Triathlon
The KEY ELEMENTS OF A DYNAMIC WARM-UP:
1. Great POSTURE.
2. Fire up your GLUTES, then use them, always.
Here are two options.
[NOTE: Click on exercise names for a link to videos of the exercises.]
a. GLUTE BRIDGE. Lying on your back, bend your knees to 90 degrees, keep heels on floor while pulling toes to your shins. Use your glutes to raise your hips so they are in a straight line with your knees and shoulders. Keep hips parallel to the ground. Hold for 2 seconds. Release, then repeat x 10.
b. LATERAL LUNGE. Start with great posture and your feet wider than your shoulders. From there, squat your hips down and over to the right while keeping your left leg straight. Keeping your feet flat on the ground, use your right glute to push you up to your starting position. Repeat on the left side x 10 total.
3. OPEN UP your joints and STRETCH the muscles around them.
b. HIPS AND KNEES. Try these two options:
KNEE HUGS. Standing with great posture, grab one knee with both hands and bring it up toward your chest, while maintaining balance on the lower leg by firing the glute. Release the knee and step forward with that leg. Alternate legs while stepping forward for 10 yards.
FORWARD LUNGE WITH A TWIST. Lunge forward with one leg, while keeping hips, knees, and ankles in line and hips parallel to the ground. Forward foot should be planted firmly on the ground to activate your glute. Hold that position strong while first reaching UP with the arm of your lower leg, then reach the same arm to the outside of the forward leg to get a rotational stretch. Hold stretches for 2 second each. Face forward once again and return to standing using the strength of your forward leg.
c. ANKLES AND FEET. Do the all-important Calf Raise and Calf Stretch.
This will not only warm up your calves and the muscles and ligaments of your ankles and feet but will also stretch out your plantar fascia and prepare it to take on the forces of your running stride.
CALF RAISE AND STRETCH. Either keep it simple by raising your calves up and down while standing in place OR find a wall or a large tree trunk and while facing it, stand three to four feet away with both hands on the wall. After doing a posture check, lift one leg just off the ground and raise the other calf by coming up all the way up on your toes. Hold that positon for 2 seconds then release and push the heel of that foot into the ground to get a calf stretch. Then bend the knee and continue to stretch. Repeat 10 x on each side.
4. Put it all together with some MARCHING and SKIPPING.
You’ve moved all your parts, now its time to get the heart rate even higher, and give YOU control of your movement instead of gravity.
a. Forward March. Maintaining great posture and keeping your upper body as quiet as possible, march forward by bringing each knee up one at a time. Keep your toes pulled up toward your shin and hit the ground directly beneath your body, on your midfoot, each step forward. Drive your elbows back and keep them at 90 degrees throughout the drill. 2 x 10 yards.
b. Forward Skip. Same as the march except you alternate with one foot bouncing on the ground while one hip drives up as in the march, then both feet bounce together, then the opposite leg, then both feet. Repeat. 2 x 10 yards. Or something similar, as long as you are actively changing the direction of force on the ground and getting your heart rate up while keeping great posture and opening up the hips!
THE TWO MINUTE VERSION WOULD LOOK LIKE THIS:
1. Glute Bridge OR Lateral Lunge
2. Forward Lunge with a Twist OR Knee Hugs
3. Forward Skip
You’re committed. Your mind is strong and will only get stronger. Make sure you give your body the best chance you can give it so you can do all that you’d love to do with it. Because you can!
Be great.
WHAT IS A DYNAMIC WARM-UP?
It is one that challenges every bit of YOU that you use to run.
Your body is a machine, YOUR machine, and there are lots of moving parts. Your cardio capacity is certainly a driving factor in your performance, but your ability to get the most from your cardio endurance is highly dependent on your body’s ability to transfer your effort efficiently, from head to toe and on to the pavement, during each and every running stride. A dynamic warm up coordinates all of your moving parts: muscles, ligaments, joints and cardio, by challenging your flexibility, mobility, strength and stability all at once because that’s what you ask of yourself when you run, right?! Doing so is pivotal in getting you to the finish line as fun, fast, and pain-free as possible.
THE GOALS OF A DYNAMIC WARM-UP:
THE KEYS TO A DYNAMIC WARM-UP:
THE ELEMENTS + EXERCISES OF A DYNAMIC WARM-UP:
.......COMING TOMORROW!!
I had a blast hanging with and filming the Jelly Belly Pro Cycling Team during the 2009 Tour of California. This was one of my favorite videos. It gives a great (and entertaining) behind-the-scenes insight into the morning routine of professional cyclists. Although slightly unique to each team...there is still the basics of eating, packing up and not missing the bus. For more of the same click HERE.
I love doing new things and this weekend was full of them! I knew I'd be in for an epic weekend with the gang I was hanging with. It didn't disappoint. AND I'm happy to say I'm all in one piece as I sit here on Sunday evening looking back on the weekend.
Learned a lot. Worked out a lot. Ate a lot. Survived the challenge. Loved every minute.
Here's how it went.
Headed up to Big Bear, a great little mountain town that's just a 2+ hr drive from San Diego. I joined a couple people from Intense Cycles and the three of us, along with off-road racer Slater Fletcher and his wife Monique, stayed with none other than uber adventure racer, Big Bear local and super host, Team Sole's Paul Romero. All of us were looking forward to a weekend full of everything and anything outdoor adventure. Have to mention that Paul's other half, super Karen Lundgren, is off in Sweden competing in the epic 1100km adventure race, Explore Sweden. Her team, Team Sole Herkules, is currently 3 days into the race and have slept only 8 hours. Part of the course so far has included a 300km MTB. Unreal. Then there's Paul's son Jordan Romero is on a quest to climb the Seven Summits of the world, the tallest mountain on each continent. He's climbed FIVE so far. Coolest kid.
FRIDAY = DOWNHILL MTB + KILLER CORE
We went straight to Snow Summit Ski Resort. Paid $20 to take ski lift up and ride the trails down over and over for a few hours. Less work, more play! Mom was happy to know that I used a full-face helmet and knee and elbow pads. I was in a little over my head at times, but never I'm-gonna-die type stuff. I was on a new bike: Intense had brought me a demo bike to use that was more suited for downhill...heavier and more inches of travel (bigger shocks.) As usual, I got more and more comfortable as the day went on. Sweet part of the day was the cafe at the top of the mountain where we all stopped to eat. Delectable tri-tip and pulled pork sandwiches in the sunshine. Heavenly. I made it through the day with only a couple cuts and scrapes which I was thankful for. In the end I was thinking that I DID miss the climbing. That somehow downhills are a lot sweeter to me if I've worked HARD to earn them. Good feeling. Here's a few pics...
In the spirit of the upcoming Tour de France, here's another video from my travels there in 2007. This video shows how the stage winner and all other jersey wearers end up on the podium with their jerseys already printed with their team logo just minutes after the stage finishes.
Here are four movements that I consider fundamental to injury resistance and performance that I have recently witnessed athletes unable to do. Can you?
1. Back bend (Spinal Flexion + Extension)
2. Single leg balance
3. Squat jump
4. 90/90 stretch
THE BACK BEND
I ran with a local running group not too long ago. After the run I was taking them through some functional stretching. One thing I’ve come to like to throw into my routine, which I’ve borrowed from the sun salutation in Ashtanga Yoga, is the back bend. The sun salutation starts standing and the first movement is to put your arms straight overhead and reach backward, creating a fluid bend in your back, your whole back that is: upper (cervical), middle (thoracic) and/or lower (lumbar).
Watching the runners attempt a backbend was painful to watch. The majority of them, were standing, with hands on their hips, and their back bend was barely anything more than a simple tilt back of the head at the neck though it looked like they were really trying, and possibly even feeling, like they were doing a back bend.
Ideally the vertebrae will all be moving freely and you can achieve a fluid curve from your hips through to your head. It’s common to have decreased mobility through a certain section of the spine, especially if not actively practiced. That said, it is also easy to maintain a healthy, mobile spine, by regularly doing some back flexion and extension while on the floor on your hands and knees, similar to a cat stretch, for example. In yoga, the cobra and downward dog, among others, are great options as well.
Can you do a proper back bend?
SINGLE LEG BALANCE
One day a friend of mine, 2:13 marathoner, finally gave in to my
continuous chatter about “core stuff” as he called it, and let me take
him through a couple basic principles and movements. We didn’t get far.
I asked him to balance on one leg: standing with one foot on the floor
and the other raised at the hip with the knee bent at 90 degrees and
ankle dorsiflexed (pulled up toward the shin) as in running.
He couldn’t. He tried and tried.
Finally he gave up and said, “What does it matter? I can run a 2:20 marathon out the door, right now.”
Simple answer. Number one: You have no guarantee that you’ll stay
injury free to even get to the start line or finish the race. That’s no
fun! Balance, stability, and all the rest are a big part of an injury
resistant body. It’s completely possible to achieve that for yourself.
The bonus is, the training that helps with injury resistance is the
same training that makes you more efficient and therefore more powerful
as an athlete. They go hand in hand. So answer number two is: You could
be running 2:20 with less effort OR running faster with the same
effort.
Win-win-win situation!
Can you? Not only balance, but keep an eye on your posture and alignment of your shoulders, hips, knees and ankles. Are they symmetrical? Tilted? Aligned?
As importantly, the next step necessary for efficient performance, would be doing a proper one-leg balance squat. One that is functional, in control, and with your body weight properly dispersed from your head to your toes.
Finally, mastering efficient and stable one leg elastic exercises, like the single-leg linear box hop is key to overall injury resistance and performance, especially in ground-reaction type sports like running.
SQUAT JUMP
The other day my cousin, just prior to shipping out to start his Air
Force Special Tactics Officer training for the next two years, took me
through my very first full kettle bell workout. He was a great
instructor. He taught me the moves and the principles behind them. It
was a great workout. Just after we finished, I was thinking about how,
if I was to think about this workout from a Performance POV it was
obvious that the major thing that was missing to make this a complete
workout was some elasticity. We had incorporated some flexibility,
mobility, strength, stability and even some cardio, but nothing
elastic. I mentioned this to him and he was game for doing some. Squat jumps are a great way to get a quick set of elastic movement into a workout and keep that system fired up for you.
My cousin is incredibly strong, smart and athletic. We had just done
upwards of 100 kettle bell two-arm swings and yet he could not
coordinate a squat jump. I was surprised, but not really. Nothing
surprises me anymore! The movement, although seemingly simple, requires
triple extension of the hips, knees and ankles. When done properly, the
power and coordination comes primarily from the hips and glutes not
from the legs. It should be initiated through the hips and followed
through by coordinating the extension of the knees and ankles to do the
movement properly with the least amount of effort and the most power.
Typically people think of their legs when they go to perform a movement
like this, however it’s much harder and less powerful trying to control
the entire body with the legs than it is the legs with the body.
90/90 STRETCH
This came up because I had overheard a triathlete asking a local
triathlon coach about how to rotate better in the water while swimming.
After she got some advice on drills to do in the water, I asked her to
come over and do a 90/90 stretch which is a great way to see how much
rotation you have in the spine under a bit of a load (similar to
rotating from the hips and then pulling in the water.) She had none. No
kidding. Yes, the spine could rotate, so she had mobility, but when
asked to maintain some pressure at her knees and shoulders, there was
zero rotational stability and strength.
Remember it’s the body that is doing the sport. Proper technique can
only be achieved with a body that’s capable of performing the proper
technique and this, more often than not can and should be achieved on
land regardless of sport. You may feel what you think is rotation, but
rotating your whole body from side to side is not what you’re looking
for. Rotating through the spine will help you swim more efficiently.
Go move well!!
My race nutrition routine has evolved over the years and continues
to evolve, especially as I adventure into new sports, distances, and
race environments. It seems though that the basics continue to stay the
same.
I’ve learned from other athletes and professionals, from literature,
and from my own experiences in training and in racing. I’ve especially
learned from my mistakes!
