Running Tips - The Basics
 Running Tips - The Basics
Training consists of stressing a particular physiological
system followed by rest to allow it to re-build itself stronger
than before. Both the stressing and the rest are
important. Often we forget the rest part when we first
start running, or are keen to do well in some race. You
must also not just stress everything! You just stress the
particular factor that is important to the sport you are training
for. This is called exercise or training specificity.
Running well requires four major components to be
trained. These are VO2max, Anaerobic Threshold, Aerobic
Endurance, and Efficiency. There of course many other
factors but the above four cover 80% of running related
performance. I will briefly describe what each factor means
and then cover the types of training that stress that aspect of
running performance.
VO2max
This represents the maximum amount of oxygen per kilogram of
weight that a person can use in converting fuel to energy.
As there is a direct correspondence between oxygen usage and
energy consumed it represents the practical upper limit of energy
available to an exercising muscle. This upper limit is
largely genetically determined but training can increase it by up
to 20% of non-trained capacity. To train this upper limit
you will need to performing near it. This means running
quite fast. Interval sessions with 'on' times up to a
maximum of 5-8 minutes are the best mechanism for this. If
you run near your upper limit for some time then your body will
make adaptations and try and increase it. Running
longer than about 8 minutes, you won't be running hard enough
(close to your VO2max performance) so you won't stress this
system.
Anaerobic Threshold (AT)
This is the point when the oxygen a muscle requires is not
completely provided by the air that you breath. At this
point your muscles switch from purely aerobic (with oxygen) to
anaerobic (without oxygen) operation. Lactic acid starts to
build up, you go into oxygen debt and if not corrected you stop
producing energy and you stop running ! Pain is also
usually involved. This switch over point is normally
expressed as a percentage of your VO2max. The aim is to
increase the percentage at which we start operating
anaerobically. It can vary from about 50-60% of VO2max for
untrained people to 90% of VO2max for elite athletes. This
is the speed that most long distance racing is done at. We
try and juggle a race so as to go fast enough not to create too
much lactic build up so we stop. Training this system
involves running right at this cross-over point, or at about 15k
race pace. The training run is called an AT run, threshold
run, tempo run or time trial and involves race pace running for
between 20 and 40 minutes. Of course there should be a
warmup before and a cool down after.
Aerobic Endurance
This has got to do with how well we utilise the fuel that we
are provided with for running. Without going into too much
detail there are two main sources of fuel. The most
efficient is glycogen (sugar) and the longest lasting is
fat. We try and teach our bodies to conserve as much
glycogen as possible whilst becoming more efficient at using fat
for fuel. Running fast uses almost exclusively glycogen as
fuel whilst running longer than an hour must utilise some
fat. Hitting the wall in a marathon usually occurs when our
glycogen stores are depleted. In extreme cases, as our
brains use glycogen for fuel, we can collapse, act delirious
etc. It pays to become better at using fat and learning how
to conserve glycogen as much as possible. This factor is
trained by running for long periods of time (greater than an
hour). The body says 'gee I'm running out of glycogen and I
don't like this I had better do two things- get better at using
it and store some more of it.' There is an optimum speed to
stress this system and it can be worked out, but the basic
thing is to run for a long time, it doesn't matter how slow you
go.
Efficiency
This has got to do with how many other muscles you are trying
to provide energy to with the air that you breath. The more
wasteful you are in terms of extra muscle activity, movement etc
the less oxygen is available for moving you forward faster.
All of you muscle activity should be focused on moving forward,
not side to side, up and down, or keeping upper body tense etc
etc. If you look at a world class runners head you
will find it doesn't bob. Next time you are out on a
training run look at your shadow on a wall ! Some other
pointers are:- Keep the height of your feet above the ground only
enough to move them forward. Don't have exaggerated rear
kicks. Have the optimum stride length and frequency.
Relax your upper body. Use you hands and arms to a purpose,
don't just swing them wildly. Don't bounce from side to
side like a boxer. There best way to improve this is to
bring it into your conscious. Start thinking about your
running posture then focus on correcting one thing at a
time. Keep at it. Bad habits are hard to break.
When you are correcting a habit make sure you run with the new
habit in all runs until it becomes ingrained. Practice
doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.
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RunCoach
