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Hospital for Special Surgery: Strength Training for Triathletes

On Friday I was lucky enough to present at the Hospital for Special Surgery's "Treating the Multisport and Endurance Athlete" symposium. While I often speak about the ways that strength training can reduce the risk of unjury, the HSS audience was made up primarily of physical therapists, who are already quite aware of that. After all, they're the ones treating patients with the injuries that are caused by muscular weakness and imbalances. Instead, I focused on the performance enhancement angle. While there are still some coaches who argue against strength training for their endurance athletes, I'd humbly suggest that most runners, cyclists and triathletes can benefit from some (not much) time in the weight room, and that much of the resistance from my peers and colleagues who don't see the benefit is born out of a lack of understanding of the potential benefits as well as the best training methods. 

Here are a couple of key slides from the presentation.

In both cases, the runners showed improvement in running economy (the metabolic cost of going at a given speed) independent of any improvements in VO2 or lactate threshold. In other words, with the same oxygen consumption, the runners were moving faster after strength training than before. While at first glance it would also appear that exlposive training is of greater benefit, I would caution against reaching that conclusion based only on this data. In fact the difference in subjects - male vs. female, x-country runners vs. road runners - may have also accounted for the difference. What is clear is that both groups benefited from strength training.

These studies are particularly interesting as well. Cyclist who added strength training to their existing riding saw no improvement in time trial performance or time to exhaustion. Those who cut back on their riding did see an improvement. Since most riders decrease their mileage in the off-season, adding a resistance training program in the winter months seems like a perfect complement to the decreased saddle time. 

While nothing is going to replace the necessarily miles for runners, cyclist and triathletes, these studies are cause for optimism that strength training can be an effective supplement to keep endurance athletes healthy and get them faster. 

Introducing Woman Redefined

Because someone had to get the talent in the family, my sister Rachel has created the new website Woman Redefined. They're looking for submissions from women about athletics and fitness. Here's more about the site.

Woman Redefined began as a look at words commonly used to describe women. We wondered if words like “shallow,” “pushover” and “underhanded” couldn’t be used to our advantage. Our goal was to take negative terms and cast them in a positive and athletic light.

We decided to broaden the project to include stories of women who have redefined themselves in a way that is related to fitness, athleticism or the outdoors.

We hope that you like what you see. If you are a woman, we would love for you to share your story.

 

 

Maui Oceanfront Half Marathon Race Results

Thankfully there was no snow at this weekend's Maui Oceanfront Half Marathon. That allowed City Coach's Adele Laboz to return to racing with a clock time of 1:40:22, which was good for 2nd place in her age group. Plus, Adele also continued the trend of runners submitting artwork.

Manhattan Half Marathon Race Results (Sorta)

 

Saturday's Manhattan Half Marathon was supposed to begin the season for us. Unfortunately, Mother Nature wasn't in a very cooperative mood, and blanketed Central Park (and the rest of our fair city) with a few inches of snow. In the interest of safety NYRR turned the race into an untimed "fun run". That didn't deter Luke McCambley from running an impressive (albeit unofficial) 1:18:30. That's a swift time under any circumstances and even more so considering the conditions. 

 

And not only is young Mr. McCambley a fast MOFO, he's talented too. Check out his artistic representation of the day as well as his overly critical commentary. 

Bridget McKenna, Jessica Purcell-Zebrak and Steve Zebrak each ran the race as well though they chose to stick with the "fun run" theme rather than racing it. 

Gallowhat?

I woke this morning and planned on a happy and productive day. Then I opened my internet saw this in Men's Health Magazine:

Gain speed by walking

Add a walking break of 30 seconds to 2 minutes after each mile you run. This prevents muscle fatigue, says Jeff Galloway, an Olympian and the author of Running Until You're 100. "I typically see my runners drop at least 13 minutes from their marathon times because fatigue is so drastically reduced," says Galloway.

I know I've been down this road before, but since publications are still writing about Gallowalking, I'm still rebutting it. In the past I've quoted authorities like Pete Pfitzinger and others who point out the flaw in Galloway's theory from a scientific point of view. I've also pointed out the fraudulent nature of some of his claims. For instance, he tried to attribute one of Ronaldo da Costa's marathon victories to walking breaks. (In fact, what Mr. da Costa did was slow down at water stations.) 

Well, here's another attempt by Mr. Galloway to make up his own facts in order to support his flawed method. Galloway referred to the 2008 winner of the Sunburst Marathon and said "the winner of the Sunburst Marathon walked a few steps every two miles". Nice try, Jeff.

Here's the response from the winner himself.

"Just to set the record straight - I was the winner of the Sunburst Marathon mentioned by Jeff Galloway in the Runner's World interview. Galloway tried to use me to support his silly racing strategy by saying that I walked to in the race...For one thing, I ddn't walk. I came to a complete stop. For another thing - I would never take these breaks while I was actually trying to run a fast race. He mentioned that runners improve by 13 minutes! Funny that the Sunburst Marathon was 13 minutes slower than my best. (Maybe he got the directions on the 13 minute factor turned around

"I was using the race as a training run...I did run the race at 5:30 pace every 3 miles then stop and take a break after each set...The reason I did it that was was so I could recover from the run and continue on with my training that week. 

"All my best marathons from my PR of 2:18:30 to sub 2:30 were all RUN without stopping or walking."

Once again, Galloway tried to support his flawed theory with incorrect information. As I've said before, walking breaks are advisable for someone who is undertrained and will be unable to run the whole race. (See Tara Parker Pope of the NY Times, who originally called it the best strategy to run a faster marathon and then after her 7-hour marathon conceded that it was best suited for those who were undertrained.) But to suggest that it is the fastest way for a trained runner to complete a marathon is simply not true. 

Happy Holiday

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. - Dr. Martin Luther King

So Damn Lucky

I post this video for the Dave Matthew's Band's So Damn Lucky at year's end for three distinct reasons.

1. The title perfectly describes how I'm feeling nowadays. I have a great family including a beautiful baby boy and wonderful wife, terrific friends and teammates, and I love the work I do with City Coach, JackRabbit and Nike Run NYC. Asking for more would be plain greedy.
2. In many ways, I am like Dave Matthews. Allow me to explain. Dave gets a lot of the credit for leading an successful and popular band. No doubt, he is an integral part of the group and helps hold everything together. But let's not pretend that he's the most talented one there. He has assembled an amazing group of musicians - some of whom are virtuosos, and others who are just perfect for that ensemble - into a group that is greater than the sum of their parts. While Dave may be the nominal leader of the group, and the one who gets the most attention, he benefits from the talent of those around him. They complement him when he's on, and they pick him up when he's off his game. (For instance, his voice is shot in this recording, but the band is on point, and no one in the audience minded.) And clearly he loves what he does. Similarly, I have been lucky enough to surround myself (past and present) with colleagues who help me do my job, and athletes who make me look good and allow me to do something that I enjoy so much. I hope that I bring something to the table, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe that the success of the brand or team would happen if I didn't have an awesome group of co-workers, clients and athletes around me. (My old music teacher and mentor, Sam Ulano, used to tell me it's easy to be a good teacher when you have good students.
3. I love the song.

I wish all my friends, family, athletes and colleagues a healthy and happy 2012.