TRANSCRIPT
Let’s talk about running.
I wish someone many years ago when I started running showed me this. This makes so much sense. This video is for anyone who is about to start running or started running and want to take running to the next level. It applies to any endurance sport as well, but we’ll focus on the running today.
My name is Leszek Stelmachowski. I’m the head coach here at Fitness Soul. And today we’ll talk about running.
This is running 101.
Running is amazing, it’s cheap and it’s accessible and everyone can do it. And we all should be doing some kind of running. As a coach, I hear a lot of times that someone’s saying to me I hate running or it’s too hard and I was there as well until I found this and I spent a lot of time to digest the running to see how to make running easy and accessible and how to make good progress in running.
My background is not in running. I’ve been into the team sport like handball for many many years but then I got into the strength and conditioning what that may mean doing this for the last 15 years and I did a couple of IronMans and events and that’s how I think about the running.
So the question people ask me a lot is how do I train for running? There are plenty of different ways of doing this. So today will focus on the easiest way of raining. And this form of training is used by many many professionals and they’ve been using this form with my athletes and they always getting good positive results . So it’s called the 80 20 rule. 80 20 running or polarized training.
What what does it mean is that you want to spend 80 per cent of your running in very low zones in zone 1 or 2. So when you think about zones you’ve got zone 1 and 2 the cardio zones and zone 4 and 5 and those zones are anaerobic zones and we cannot spend too much time in them. So the idea is that in 80 20 running that we spent 80 per cent in zone 1 and 2.
One of the best way of establishing those zones is simple thing; go out and the run but only breath your nose and if you do this you be able to spend time in zone 1 or 2 the cardio zone.
You can obviously use the HR monitor and you can check the zones but this is more complicated. Stick to this stick to breathing through the nose for 80 per cent the next.
The other 20 per cent should be used for Zone 3 4 and 5. So those are the places where you push yourself and where you get tired. So Zone 5 is a spring thing last which can last 15 seconds. Zone 4 it’s something up to 10 minutes zone 3 It’s your temper running. What people do, and I see them all the time they are going for a run and they always spending time in Zone 3 which is too fast for being good for us cardio zone and to slow for sprint. Basically be spending the time in the grey zones which way not developing anything. So for the beginners I would suggest spent a lot of time in zone 1 and 2 but breath through your nose it might be very hard to start with. And everyone is like when I started it I couldn’t even jog.
But over time your body will get used to get better in breathing through your nose and your body will be able to get more oxygen from the blood and every so often do a sprint. So I like it farflek training styles. So when I go a run nice and easy and then every so often I pick up the target somewhere and I just sprint as fast as I can to this place. It’s not that structure but it’s it’s nice and easy for the brain.
The other ways are the intervals but that’s you don’t need to think about this now. When we talk about 80 20 zone. 80 20 rule there is a BOLT test which is always there. You can look at the Patric McEwan book it’s called oxygen advantage which explains the BOLT test but the idea is to see how well your body deals with the oxygen and how well your body can use the oxygen.
So to do this you basically you breathe out through the nose you pinch and you hold until you feel the first urge of air. If you never have done this before, it might be 10 seconds and it’s considered to be very bad. But you can train by breathing through your nose all day. Patrick even asks people to put the tape on the mouth whenever you running or when they sleeping when you practice this their BOLT test will go up and you’ll getting you will get much more efficient as a runner.
So that’s one thing. 80 20 rule. That’s how you should train. Now, the technique a lot of people ask me what is that good technique. And there is a technique to running because. We think that you know we are born there is that this book Born to Run. Well, it was true but not now. A hundred years ago two hundred years ago where we’d been on our feet all day when be walking up and down and doing things and we’d been mobile and strong.
Yes everyone could run really well. It’s not so much now unfortunately because our jobs force us to sit for long periods of time and sitting in creates a lot of problems like shorten hip flexors, not activated glutes, very stiff ankles, shoulder moved forward like this.
A lot of people do this, they sit for eight hours and they just stand up and they try to run. And obviously the technique won’t be good and it’s not very good to do to try to run this way. You need to learn how to run properly and how to run properly. This a couple of things. First of all, you need to stay nice and tall all the time when you run the second thing you’re trying to keep the shoulder blades back. So it’s a natural posture.
Then you’re trying to use the momentum the gravity to use momentum so you want to lean forward not from the hips but from the ankles and you want to keep the cadence quite fast so your feet don’t spend too much time on the floor. And it’s very easy to say that but it’s hard to achieve especially if you’ve never done this before. There are forms that are practice drills you can do like skipping and stuff.
But again I think we need to step back a little bit and look at your general strength so that we’ve got their strength and mobility here. Before you start running or before you do any activity you need to be strong enough to be able to hold your posture because if you cannot, for example, stand nice and straight and you cannot walk nice and straight you shouldn’t be running because you’re putting yourself into the risk and talking about the risk of running.
Injury. That’s huge around the runners everyone. There’s a study saying that 9 out of 10 runners will get injured within next year. 9 of 10. That’s super crazy. It shouldn’t happen but this is because our technique is not good and our technique is not good because of the strength and we lacking strength and mobility. So what I mean by strength and mobility?
We can think specific and then everyone likes to do specific strength and mobility which is like just for runners to activate this little muscle down the muscle there. But don’t you are the beginner. You don’t need to think about this you need to have the nonspecific strength and mobility. So you need to be able to do human things like sit down on the chair and pick up something from the floor maintaining the posture. Do a couple of pushups be able to stand on one leg and this kind of things.
With my runners with people I train that’s what we spend 90 per cent of the time with them on no specific strength. Sometimes we’re going into the specific but I’m not teaching many pros here and honestly, I see that people are lacking with their basic strength.
Mobility comes next to strength. So, first of all, you need to be strong to hold the position and then you need to have the mobility in your joints and in your body to be allowed to get into this position.
And once you’ve got this then the technique is much easier to obtain and if your technique is good then your injury risk will be very low and you’re going to run and you’re going to enjoy your running .
Add to this 80 20 rule and you’re ready to go and. That’s it. This was a running 101
Enjoy it go out and you got any questions just let me know. There would be some more videos about a specific strength and mobility and also the technique and I will look at them how to train and the 80 20 rule in there and more details later.
For now on, enjoy your running.
