Every Human Motion is Muscular
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By Roger Burrows
As featured in the December
2002 issue of Running Times Magazine
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Every human motion is muscular. If your "cardio" is your motor,
your muscles make up your power train. Stronger muscles transfer greater force
to the ground, and reduce the amount of wasted energy. When you watch the
unfaltering rhythm of an elite runner, you are watching gifts of genetics and
dividends of training. But you are also watching muscles hard at work.
How often have we said admiringly that
elite runners "look like
they are hardly touching the ground."
The compliment has considerable truth: they are definitely touching the ground
for a shorter time than most of us. The shorter the ground contact time, the
quicker the next stride happens. Now multiply even a few hundredths of a second
per stride by every stride in a 10K!
During each stride, the weight of that
elite athlete’s body is supported by muscles that contract instantly to provide
a solid platform for the next forward drive. This is muscle strength, pure and
simple. The strength allows the twin actions of support and drive to take place
almost simultaneously.
The rest of us need more time to absorb
the impact of each landing, and to gather ourselves for the next push. We may
have the lungs of an elephant, and the mileage of a Greyhound bus, but when our
present level of strength can’t handle our "cardio," energy squirts
away on each stride. All runners perform much the same muscular actions;
stronger muscles perform them quicker.
How Do I Gain Strength?
First, you have to want to get stronger.
Some emotional commitment is necessary, because you are literally going to have
to "train to your weakness." There are no shortcuts.
Moreover, traditional strength training
has not been the average distance runner’s idea of a good time. This is often
because they are steered in the wrong direction by visions of muscle-bound
behemoths pumping iron. The best returns come when strength training is a
natural and expected part of your program, targeted to your aspirations. The
suggestions that follow are designed to achieve that seamless fit, and dispel
the musclebound image.
You then need a weight room, and a
knowledgeable buddy, coach or weight room supervisor. They can show you the
proper form for the exercises. They need to know, and appreciate, that you are
first and foremost a Distance Runner, and that you wish to use their expertise
in the quest for your specific running goals.
Fortunately, you can rely on the fact that
a productive strength training program for distance running is simplicity
itself. If you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, overwhelmed or confused by
jargon, macho-babble or attempts to dazzle you with the sophistication of the
program and equipment you allegedly need, seek advice elsewhere.
You need a few manageable exercises that
target muscle groups important in running. You need to do them consistently,
and to advance according to a simple, clear progression. You can do all that is
necessary in about 40 minutes, twice a week. If you find yourself spending any
longer in the weight room, you are either waiting for equipment (occasionally
inevitable, but you may want to look for a quieter time, or a quieter facility),
socializing (OK if you have the time) or wasting time (not OK).
As for any new activity, you begin gently.
You also "hang in there" through a period of adjustment that lasts at
least a month, maybe longer, as your body grows accustomed to new loads. Exercise
scientists call this "adaptation." Adaptation time at the beginning
of a new activity is critical. Trust yourself in the first few weeks if you
feel a little out of your element, tired or uncoordinated. This feeling is part
of a natural adaptation cycle.
Machines or Free Weights?
That is not the question.
The equipment debate is a perennial one in
the strength-training biz, and
there is no really definitive answer. It
is more productive to ask what equipment best meets your goals.
Strength machines are invariably made by
people who want to sell them. We therefore expect to hear their benefits
extolled by those with justifiable pride in their product. They will tell us
that the machines’ design isolates actions, and ensures a slow, controlled
movement of the load.
For many purposes, these are indeed
advantages. A strength program based on controlled, isolated actions is better
than no strength program at all. If you feel safe and comfortable on controlled
resistance machines, but vulnerable and uneasy even looking at the bars and
weight discs, hop aboard the machines. Use them to develop some basic strength
and confidence.
But in two or three months, re-read this
and the accompanying article. By then, you may feel ready for some strength
training which is more directly related to your real goals. To do so, you will
want to expand your horizons, from machines that control your muscular actions
to equipment that you control yourself. You will recognize that some machines
continue to serve your needs. But you will also recognize that other equipment,
both traditional and modern, often does a better job.
The Muscular Actions of Running
Like any trainable body system, muscles
respond to training by adapting to the specific requirements placed on them.
The steady, controlled muscle contractions that machines are designed to permit
improve the muscles’ ability to perform (guess what?) steady, controlled
actions.
"Don’t I want my running to be steady
and controlled?" I hear you cry. Yes, you do, but let’s separate your
ability to maintain a pace from the muscular actions that allow you do so.
As you run, the muscular actions are
anything but steady and controlled. Several hundred times a kilometer, the
weight of your body drops to the ground from a height of several inches.
Conservatively, the impact is equivalent to roughly double your weight; pick up
the speed, and you’re getting close to triple. If muscles from your feet to
your hips (and actually up into your trunk), did not dynamically contract every
single time, you would crumble.
This instant tightening of a muscle to
resist a load is known as an "eccentric" contraction (pronounced
"EE-centric" in this sense). Physiologists can take you into their
labs and easily show you how the muscular energy required for an eccentric
contraction is greater than in a "concentric" contraction when the
muscle is asked to move the same load.
Once the "anti-gravity" muscles
have supported the weight of your body on each stride, they are joined by other
muscles to drive you forward. Muscularly, the drive is a piece of cake compared
to the landing, but it still has to happen quickly and powerfully, thousands of
times per run.
The most productive running strength comes
from actions where the muscles have to deal with a resistance quickly and
dynamically. The very instability you may fear as you contemplate the bars and
the weight discs is a vital component of the strength in the muscles that
support and guide your running muscles. Let’s get you the confidence to load
the discs on the bar, and hoist it! Controlled resistance machines can get you
started, and can certainly improve your general muscular conditioning. But, for
a runner, they are not the real story.
Nor, mercifully, are the iron-pumping
routines that your friends and family may fear when you announce that you are
off to the weight room. You are not going to return looking like the Incredible
Hulk. Remember, muscles adapt to what they are asked to do. A strength program
can get you big muscles if you like. But in order to do so, you have to send
"get big" signals to your muscles: heavy load, and relatively few,
but inherently strenuous efforts.
What are the signals for muscles to get
strong in a way that distance runners can use? First, involve more than one
muscle group: running is a chain of actions, nothing is isolated. Second, train
the endurance component: keep the muscles moving at a steady rhythm as fatigue
increases.
Getting Started in the Weight Room
Some key terms: a repetition
("rep") is an exercise performed once. Reps are grouped together into
"sets." A workout, or session, is made up of a planned number of
sets. A phase is a time period of a few weeks, during which all the workouts
are designed to achieve a specific goal.
As Distance Runners, let’s review some of
the differences in our program from more traditional power-speed or
body-building approaches. A practical reason for this understanding is that, at
times, you may have to explain to intrigued weight room denizens what you are
doing. Some of them will appreciate your goals; others know only the
body-building routines that gave them denizen status in the first place.
