‘Exercises’ Articles at

Waiting Can Suck, But the Patient Runners Win Out

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Cait — 8 Comments ↓

Being patient sucks. Waiting for what we want isn’t fun, but the reality is that often times we are forced to wait. Even more often is it that rushing things will ultimately leave us more frustrated in the long term.

As runners, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could just lace up and make our next race/workout/run a PR? If only, right?! The natural tendency to want those faster times and better fitness TODAY is the breeding ground for injuries, overtraining, and slowed progress. Beautiful irony there, right?
runner pr
Every runner has been guilty of it, and hey, some things you just have to learn yourself the hard way. (Sometimes a few times to really NAIL that lesson home.) Being patient sucks…but we need to learn to embrace it.

Yikes. Where’s the spoonful of sugar to wash that down? Well that comes when you actually ARE patient and watch your goals materialize…eventually.

The sweetest victories only come after enough struggle and work, after all.

Convincing yourself to wait it out and be patient is tough and often an on-going battle. Incidentally a large part of being able to stay patient comes from confidence. How so?

Being patient means BELIEVING in yourself, what you’re doing, and the process. A runner who lacks confidence is the one who tends to rush things, an example of that is going out way too fast in a race. It takes MORE confidence and patience to go out controlled and then pick up the pace, and close fast. A runner who tries to ‘make a buffer’ by going out too fast is subconsciously affirming they are going to slow down. See how that’s not a good way to think? It takes more confidence to be patience, wait, and then respond to your competitors (or go faster) as the race progresses.
run from problems
New runners can be a little less than confident in their abilities as they venture into a new sport. That’s natural, but it’s dangerous to go into information overload and want to do EVERYTHING and anything they read about training and incorporate it right away. This usually leaves them injured or too sore/tired that they lose any desire to continue running.

Even if you’ve been a runner for years and years, it’s quite easy to fall into the same trap of wanting to add in XYZ all at the same time…to rush the process. You know what, the same road leads to the same place.

Avoiding injuries and reaching your best takes time. Waiting is hard and it can suck at times, but if you try and rush things too fast it will, in the end, it will suck even more. (nightmares of time off or on the cross trainer missing your race should help keep you patient. 😉 )

There really ARE tons of training elements to keep you improving and progressing through the years. This should be exciting news, it’s just imperative not to rush things.

I will say that the BEST way to stay patient and keep yourself ~~honest~~ on the right track (in the moment it can be REALLY hard sometimes to know you need to be patient) is to a have a coach. If not a coach then at least an educated source or training group to bounce things off of. Today it’s important to recognize the source of the training advice you’re getting and if it’s actually got merit.

Being patient can suck in the moment, but eventually it is oh so sweet.
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Neuromuscular Training For Runners: Quick feet box taps

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Cait — 4 Comments ↓

Everyone wants to run faster, right? Part of getting faster is of course doing the shorter repeats; one must build that explosive power of course. BUT, there’s another part to getting faster and it’s training your BRAIN and nervous system to respond at a quicker rate.

A runner can’t utilize that explosive power to run faster without the nerve and synapse networks first being created to ‘tell’ your foot to move faster off the ground. Isn’t science and the brain cool?

The neuromuscular part of training isn’t something every runner is aware of, but if you’re not addressing it you can run all the 200’s in the world and not really be tapping into your full potential. I’ve written a few articles about the neuromuscular training and how it relates to runners:

* The Multi-Level Approach to Getting Faster
* Work on Getting Faster in Tri-Fecta Form

One of the exercises I mention are ‘Quick Feet Box Taps’. I got an email from someone who wasn’t quite sure if they were doing them right so I decided to make a little video.

You can also find it on my Instagram page. Start with a set of 15-30 seconds and see how many taps you can get. REMEMBER it’s QUALITY over quantity. If you’re getting slopping you’re going to start reinforcing bad habits and that will defeat the purpose. Work up to two sets and do the 3 times a week…preferably as part of your dynamic warm-up routine before workouts or immediately following the workout. It can be fun to watch yourself improve with more taps every week…you know us runners and that competitive spirit. 😉 But again, quality over quantity…so if you have to start slow that’s what you need to do!

What, you love my shirt too?! Well, thanks…it’s my Ezzere Runner Face Tee! 🙂

Happy Saturday my runner friends. Get those feet firing off the ground, coupling neuromuscular training and speedwork, and watch your PR’s get faster! 🙂

Runners Three Tip Tuesday: Work on getting faster in tri-fecta form

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Cait — 10 Comments ↓

Good things can come in threes, but then again plenty of awesome things come in twos and fours. Runners have two legs, four laps make that perfect mile…though do those four laps REALLY feel all that perfect when doing mile repeats?? 😉 Brain: “FOUR laps, let’s call a mile one lap!” Juuust kidding.

The cool place all runners get to hang out.

Well good things can come in any number but today you runners are getting a three-pack. Here are some Training Tips in Triple for your Tuesday:

1) Runners Who Skip: Runners can become a little too linear for their own good. Example is looking only at their running workouts to improve and taking that little metaphor to the literal: running is a repetitive, linear, single-plane action. If you don’t work your body in a variety of ways it gets tight. Tight will equal restrictive, bring you injuries and impede your speed.

Offset that by doing things OTHER than running: core work, flexibility, and agility drills. Move in the horizontal, even do some skipping to ‘dilly around’ with your neuromuscular thought patterns. Your brain actually has to be ‘played with’…it gets stuck in a pace/pattern run with just running. So as crazy as it sounds doing things like skipping, backwards skips, crazy feet drills give it a little ‘reset’ and make it more ‘sharp’ when you come back to running steps. Oh, and those fast feet, like chili pepper jump rope things, those will help your neuromuscular training too…get those feet conditioned to FIRE off the ground faster = faster speed and sprinting.

2) Be Quiet I’m Sleeping: Sleeping should really be an Olympic sports…or at least one of everyone’s favorite past times. Want to have a sleep-off? Just kidding. But seriously, for the runner in training you should guard your zzzz’s with just as much ferocity as you do lane one during repeats.
runner on track
Sleep is where you body does the vast majority of its repair, sleep is a restorative process. But it’s really the deep, REM sleep that you need. That’s why people who are light sleepers or wake up multiple times in the night can still feel so flipping tired later even if they’ve been in bed 8-12 hours…they’re not sleeping continuously or getting a deep enough sleep. Sleep issues are really tricky, I’ve got them, so if you do have trouble sleeping already do the basics: make it as dark as possible, don’t even have the light from your phone on, try a fan for white noise, relax and power-down before bedtime to put your brain in sleep-mode, and from there you may need to seek out some other options and work with a doctor.

For those of you are are lucky enough to NOT have a problem sleeping but just skimp on the hours because you’re busy, I’ll say this: 1) you’re only hurting yourself and your training 2) you’re taking sleeping for granted…trust me, lots of us insomniacs would die to get some extra hours!! haha…take advantage of them and aim for 8-9 hours a night for optimal performance.

3) Laugh: Wow…you think I’m a nutzo for just saying that. I’ll go on record and rattle off just why laughing is a training necessity:

* Running is hard: yea, it’s painful. But misery loves company and laughter. Those slow jogs between intervals is when you and your training buddies should be making fart jokes.
* De-serious: It’s easy to be too serious in life and apply that to training. Ironically getting ‘too’ focused on your workouts and training has a funny way of making you eventually start slowing down. It’s because of pressure and it’ll also rob you of the passion…both recipe for disasters. Make sure you’re excited and focused on your goals…but still ENJOY it. So laugh.
* Running gets awkward: Need I say more? Runners will have to fart, burp, poo, chafe, adjust a wedgie etc. mid-run. It’s just funny, get over embarrassment and do it. Make a joke about it.

There ya go. Take this Tuesday and make it a point to improve your running in three ways. Heck, please apply the laughter part to your overall life too!

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Related Read: My latest article on RunBlogRun: Running the ‘Extras’: Think outside the miles and improve your performance

Another of my new articles on RunBlogRun: Young Runners and the Issues of Volume and Intensity

Need a laugh? My CARTOONS are here for you! 🙂
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Hamstring Strengthening Video For Runners: Keep those hammies happy!

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Cait — 6 Comments ↓

Alright, Runners, time to tell you the brutal honesty about your hamstrings: they’re plotting against you! They’re weak, they’re tight, and they’re cranky! Okay, okay, I’m speaking in the general, so your personal hamstrings (if you’re ALREADY taking care of them properly), may not be secretly plotting away an injury for you in the future…but it’s an ongoing offense we must play.

Hamstrings rank among one of the TOP injuries, or underlying issue for an injury for runners. The reason? Partially our lifestyles with too much sitting and also because runners are just prone to tight and weak hamstrings. The solution? Be proactive!

I’ve put together a video demonstrating an exercise routine targeting those weak hamstrings (and glutes). It hinges on the bridge exercise, doing them as single leg bridges. Aim to do these three times a week after your run, it will literally take you a minute or two, so no excuses!

3 Way Single Leg Bridges
10 raises each leg
3 Different distances from glutes

Avoiding an injury that keeps you from running is an ongoing effort, being proactive in the stretching and core work is your two-pronged approach! These nice exercises are one part of the puzzle and the other is doing the stretching.

Do yourself and the rest of the world a favor and keep being proactive…an injured runner on the streets is NOT someone I’d like to cross. 😉

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Fun announcement! If you follow me on Twitter you may have caught wind of #coreandcake parties that have been going on. It’s simple, do you core and you get your cake! Runners are human, we work well off of bribes. 😉

I’d like to take this party to the blog world! SOOO…I’m having a #coreandcake party NEXT Friday, March 28th and EVERYONE’S invited!! Here’s what’s going down and how you can take part:

1) I’ll be posting a core routine I’m currently loving, followed of course by talk of cake!
2) BLOGGERS: This will be a link-up sort of deal, so if you email me: cait@caitchock.com with an RSVP that you’ll also be talking core and/or cake on your blog we’ll kindly link up.
3) Social Media: If you’re tweeting, FB’ing, or Instagraming on that Friday let’s bust out that #coreandcake hashtag and give me a shout-out…cuz, let’s be honest, I can’t get enough of seeing core and cake taking over the net. 🙂

So this is your INVITE!! 🙂
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1) What is one of the ways you proactively take care of your hamstrings?
2) What is one of your known weak spots as a runner that you give extra care to?
3) What’s your favorite kind of cake?
Ummm….chocolate….duh! 😉

4 Crazy Important Stretches for Runners: Hamstrings, hips, glutes, and psoas

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Cait — 8 Comments ↓

For once my running cartoons will be used and I’m deathly serious. Stretching, Runners, is no joke. I used to HATE stretching, I’d do it begrudgingly, but ever since my little revelation in Boulder I’ve pulled a total 180.

Now it’s good too because I don’t have a little bit of guilt writing about and telling runners just how crucial stretching is. I’m practicing what I preach, yo.

Areas that rank most common across the board for running injuries and the areas that runners are notoriously tight in are: the hamstrings, glutes, hips and groin region, and the psoas. I took my cartoons and put together a quick stretching routine that you REALLY should be doing as much as possible. Like daily…I’m doing them daily, so now I can say, fully absolved of any lingering guilt, that you should do the same. 😉
[Click to enlarge so you can read text…but please respect a starving artist’s work, you can always purchase prints, contact: cait@caitchock.com]

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More posts on flexibility HERE
And a post on WHY flexibility will make you faster HERE
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1) How often do you stretch? Be honest. 😉
2) What’s one of your tightest areas?
Hamstrings and adductors.
3) What’s something you kinda feel a bit of guilt about when you tell others to do it because you don’t always follow that advice yourself?

Get Out of the Vicious Cycle: Stop injuries from haunting you again and again and again and again…

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Cait — 6 Comments ↓

Probably the only things runners hate MORE than being called a jogger are injuries. Booooo…hisssss…throw a rotten tomato at stupid injuries! The thing is though, if you don’t know WHY you were injured in the first place, you’ll most likely wind up with the SAME injury again and again and again. A vicious circle, uglier than Groundhogs Day.

Why Am I Injured?

Sure, an injury can come from some running traumatic event, you stepped on a rock the wrong way, tripped on a root and pulled a groin. A running injury can also come from doing a stupid training mistake, ie: doing too many miles too fast (stress fracture!), doing too much hard running too fast, running in the wrong shoes.
injured runner
Now, the WORST and most common reasons for getting stuck in the black hole of injury cycles are…

NOT FIXING A RUNNING WEAKNESS!! Ding, ding. I’ll tell you what you’ve won…an ongoing issue that your body is continually compensating for. The muscles stuck working overtime to cover that compensating are causing your injures.

Since you never fixed the underlying issues, no amount of icing the injury or rest will keep you from getting injured again. The injury is the symptom…not the problem.

What’s My Weakness?

Hey, I’m a Weak Butt: Everyone is different, but there are FIVE top culprits for runners getting injured. Weak glutes, hamstrings, hips, back, and ankles. I wrote a post HERE highlighting each one specifically as well as exercises to help fix that issue.

I’m a Tight Runner: Tied into weak muscles are also muscles that are so inflexible they’re tugging and pulling on every other muscle. Being inflexible is setting you up for injuries, and the bad news is the older you get the harder it is to ‘undo’ that inflexible nature. It’s possible, you just have to keep working at it! The other bad news, for those who DON’T embrace stretching…the older you get the more injuries you’ll get because of it. So stretch…I wrote a whole post HERE all about my journey to becoming a pretzel person. 😉

I brought it up so I HAD to post it. 😉

It Came From What??

The tricky thing with injuries is that the body is an interconnected machine…you could be struggling with a foot problem that is traced all the way to weaknesses in your hips! Crazy, huh? So it can be a bit of a Sherlock Running Holmes investigation to figure out the root of your injury, but the best places to start are the most common weaknesses, get strong there, rule them out, and see if you’re getting better. Here’s a post on my little ‘Injury from Whaaaa?” moment.

On a bit of a related note, bad form can also be an indication for where you are weak. A runner’s form breaks down as they tire, the more tired you get the more your body isn’t ‘thinking’ and slips into whatever ingrained habits it has. Usually your weaknesses will be apparent. Hey, another reason to fix those form mistakes, right?! 😉 Read some tips on that HERE.

So we said the dreaded I-Word about a bizzillion times in this post. Thankfully running injuries aren’t like Bloody Mary or The Candy Man, we don’t conjure them up by saying their name. It’s kinda worse, because they come about while we’re doing something we love.

Stop injuries from visiting you again and again and again and again…and fix your weak spots! 😉

1) What’s been one injury cycle you were stuck in?
Hamstring, adductor, glute trifecta
2) How did you get out of the cycle? Or, what will you do to get out of it?
Getting my stretching on.
3) What’s been a stupid mistake, or klutzy move, you did to get injured?
Hmmm…klutz ball here, I’ve fallen a billion times.

Running Patient Keeps You In the Sport and WILL Reward You…In Time ;)

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Cait — 18 Comments ↓

Running is wrought with the ‘two steps forward, one step backward’ tests and trials. I’d call it logic, but let’s be honest, most runners lost all logic about 5,000 miles ago. 😉

Progress forward is HARD fought, once you’ve been running for awhile it then come in seconds and tenths rather than minutes. Each new PR ushers you into another realm, and in order to break through and run through to that next level it takes more work than before, and the cycle continues.
deck of runners

Eventually you’re working to improve by 1 or 2%, and by that time it takes more than just running harder and running faster. One must run harder and faster of course, but also SMARTER, be more ATTUNED, and then PATIENT.

All that patience sure does wear on a runner’s mindset. Typically we want those rewards, those PR’s NOW…but failing to be patient and look long term usually winds you up either 1) hurt or 2) limited.

* Hurt: By running harder and faster smartly that means allowing the body to recover between those hard and fast workouts. If you don’t recover on your easy days then you start greying the line between HARD and EASY. You might think that going harder more often will help, but in fact you wind up being too tired to really NAIL those hard workouts. A bunch of grey running just leads to a bunch of grey racing, not sharp, quality races and workouts. Well, that is if you don’t wind up injured first. I’ll include overtrained under the hurt category, because watching your times slip really does hurt too.

* Limited: By limited I mean you’re not looking at the BIG picture. To gain those ‘little’ percentages forward means you need to widen your scope beyond just running miles. It means having an actual PLAN, including core work, drills, strength work, stretching, injury prevention techniques, eating better...all those ‘extras’. Running SMARTER means being curious, and learning about all the other ways you can improve in addition to running harder and faster.
runner by tree
Distance Paradigm

The other thing about training is there needs to be a balance between just running MORE and running FASTER. Volume and consistency is important of course, but so is being able to get QUALITY out of those miles.

If you DO care about getting more PR’s (someone asked me, so I’ll explain that as Personal Record) then you need to have a speed component in all that running. Some runners fail to think about running more quality, and get lost in the competition to just run MORE. That’s okay, but if you want to run faster you’ve got to get used to running faster, make sense?

Looking long term and being PATIENT means you can’t have it all, all the time. Get your mileage up to a decent level, but from there focus on getting more QUALITY out of those miles. Speed workouts will hurt, duh, but it’s the kind of thing that us runners are a little crazy about and sickly enjoy. Well, enjoy after they are done.

Stepping forward and back, parallels the HARD and EASY days…let the paces step back so you can recover and then jump forward again.

Stepping forward and back also parallels this disgusting thing called an injury; they are unavoidable to even the most patient runner. Take them in stride, get through them and be prepared to step forward again.

Running steps forward every time you get a new PR or hit better times in your workouts; on the heels will be the times when you take steps back with bad races, off days, and horrendous blow-ups of workouts. They happen…don’t let them derail you…because if you are running SMARTLY you can’t ‘lose’ your fitness after just a bad race, dispute that mental thought, it’s a lie.

Runners often want those gains NOW. But sadly, those gains have to be earned…earned with hard freaking work and loads of patience.

1) Fill in the blanks: I recently took a step forward _________________ and was prepared to take a step backwards __________________________.

2) Fill in the blank: I really want to run faster NOW, but looking long term I recently incorporated __________________ to get faster, the payoffs may take a little time.

3) When an injury DOES crop up it tests my patience but I get through it and grow as a runner by ___________________________.

One Hot Mother Psoas. “Shut Your Runner Mouth!” ;)

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Cait — 10 Comments ↓

It seems like the running community has been on fire recently, or maybe it’s just their psoas muscles that have been on fire. The psoas; yes, I just like writing and saying this term, try and rattle that one off five times fast.

Truth be told I wanted this guy to burn that blasted elliptical! 😉

So why is it such a hot topic among the runners I’ve talked to as of late? The thing is, most runners don’t even know they have a psoas, or that they even have TWO, until they start getting these weird deep, stomach pains. Sometimes it’s lower back pains, or the pain is around the hip area. The fun that is sciatic can stem from the psoas, and even your knees or feet could be screaming at you thanks to the psoas twins and the imbalance chain of reactions.

The psoas is a very deep muscle attaching at your lower/mid spine and then running across the hip to insert at the top of your thigh (femur). While most of us are unaware of it, it is pivotal in our running; it is a major player in each and every time we lift our leg off the ground in stride. It works not only as a hip flexors but in holding proper form. Since we established it inserts at the spine, having a tight psoas can lead to hunching over; the same hunch in everyday life can lead to back problems. Through the wonder that is the body’s chain reaction of imbalances and weakness, a wonky psoas can lead to knee problems and others that you might not naturally assume stem from a deep, core muscle.

Source
What’s a runner to do?
Fist of all, know you have a psaos on each side of your torso(I’ll like you more if you say it five times fast) and then be aware that more than likely your’s are tight. Just the act of running tightens that psoas up and you’re probably not stretching it as much as you should. My best friend is a massage therapist to elite and mortal runners and he’s always telling me how no matter what, 99% of the time the second he digs into an athlete’s psoas they start squealing. The psoas is like a little slumbering bear, it can be super tight without you knowing if for a long time until it suddenly wakes up and you’re stuck with an injury.

Stretches, Exercises and Massage, Oh My!

* Core Work: Having a balanced and strong core will keep you ahead of the psoas game; I really like the pedestal core routine I talked about and demonstrated. When you do those reverse planks with the leg raises you’ll note that psoas is doing its work there! 😉

* Psoas Stretch: Get down on your knees, keep your right knee planted and then step your left foot in front of you so that the left thigh is parallel to the ground. Raise your right arm up over your head, slightly lean your torso back and begin twisting a few degrees to your left. You don’t need to twist much at all, but you want to feel a stretch deep in your right hip region. Hold here for at LEAST 20 seconds, preferably more and if you’re just sitting watching TV that is a perfect time to give your psoas some love. Be sure to repeat with the other hip.

* Massage: I did a whole article/post on self-massage techniques but before I get to it I need to remind you: self-massage works because we can’t all afford a pro all the time. However, they are pro’s for a reason so we need to be informed and SMART when we massage ourselves.
DON’T think more pain is always a better massage.
DON’T massage a muscle the day of a strain, pull or trauma. Give it at least a day to ‘cool’ off, you’ll only do more damage if you start digging in there.
DO gradually work into more pressure. Think of like how you warm-up before a hard workout.
DO know your limits. Sometimes you just need a pro, ’nuff said.
For the psoas, just lie straight back as you would before you zonk off to sleep, take your hand and gently knead the muscles, run from the top of the hip and up along your side. Work into adding more pressure and stop and pause, holding direct pressure, along the way. Don’t do more than 5 minutes at a time on each of your psoas muscles. And if you’re especially tender remember to ice afterwards for up to 15 minutes.

So have you been schooled in the psoas? I hope so. Because it’s better that this be a hot topic for you to read and learn about before your psoas becomes the hot, beastly demon screaming at you and forcing time off! 😉

1) Have you ever had psoas issues? Have you ever had anyone tell you that your psoas is tight?

2) Do you do much self-massage on yourself? Are you lucky enough to get in and see a pro very often?

3) What has been a hot issue you’ve noticed lots of runners talking about as of late?

Keep Your Running Training Current But Not Trying to Re-invent the Basics

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Cait — 4 Comments ↓

Some people do pretty weird stuff. Okay, this is coming from the Queen of Quirks, but when it comes to training and workouts this runner is sometimes left scratching her head, rolling her eyes or stuffing down giggles at some of the things she’s seen and heard. Warning: I’m about to get a little runner snarky so if you continue to read it’s at your own risk and I only ask you to remember that I am not, in fact, a totally mean and wretched bi***.

“It’s new, it’s revolutionary.” The exciting and fascinating thing about running, sports performance and learning how to best manipulate the body through training in order to get the VERY most from oneself is that it is constantly evolving. As with any science there are always new findings, theories to be tested, and lessons to be learned. Training has evolved through the decades and so have World Records.

That said, sometimes I think people take this kind of thinking a bit to far: ‘Let’s come up with something totally new, never before even thought of and I bet because it’s unlike anything else we’ve stumbled upon it will be the magic training bullet!’ Sorry, but I think runners doing Cross-Fit falls into this category.

With running, yes you should always be on the look-out for new drills, exercises, workouts, and training philosophies because there are MANY aspects in that regard that work wonders for you. But, also remember that the ‘basics’ are the foundation and not insanely complicated: run, do speed-work, do longer intervals, allow your body to recover, basic core work (ie: pedestal), some strength work, be CONSISTENT, and be prepared to hurt during your workouts. Sometimes I think people look to something else in hopes that it can help deter from the glaring fact: running hard hurts, but you have to do it, there’s no substitute.

For distance runners, when it comes to the weight room and strength, you’ve got two major points to keep in mind: 1) Strength, core and flexibility work IS going to greatly improve your running…but… 2) You don’t have to over-do it either. Also, remember that it’s low weight/high reps for us…you don’t need to be maxing out at the bench press. Doing more functional type exercises is also more in tune with your goals. I think it’s runners taking new ideas in the weight room or strength moves that initiate a lot of my inner giggles.

Applicable weight training is when the exercises are geared toward running actions, typically more dynamic in nature. For example if you don’t have access to a gym, doing squats, lunges, push-ups, leg lifts, bench dips or step-ups could even wind up being better than loading up crazy high weight plates on the squat bar. Now if you do have some weights, doing running arms with 5 pounders is another example of a running specific exercise. If you get in front of a mirror and swing your arms as you would running for 20-30 seconds you can also work on your form; focus on getting the ‘perfect’ arm swing (front to back, shoulders relaxed and dropped) before worrying about how fast you can swing the weights…quality is more important.

So, to the guy who had a weight place looped around a leather strap, the strap then hung around his head and he was doing neck raises…I highly doubt he’s a runner in training. True fact.
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This post could have been epic because the examples of these are legit drill/exercises and those maybe not so much, runs on longer than the Western States Race. Here are some examples of awesome drills/strength/flexibility/core to do. Bottom line, if it seems way too crazy or like the person telling you that it works seems to be trying too hard to be convincing, and a part of you wants to laugh…go with your gut and focus more on the basics. Run.

Miles Madness: Okay, to any of those awesome Team Cait Runners that have not yet emailed me: captaincait@hotmail.com their total miles for the days of 9/1-9/7 please do so and I can add those into the running total. I know the first week is a little odd-ball with the days but by next Friday when it’s time to submit it will be a full 7 days and we’ll be set on a more logical schedule…lol.
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1) What is something you’ve seen, read, or heard about that made you scratch your head or laugh inside?

2) What is an example of something that was new to you but you tried (or plan to try) and it improved your running?

3) How do you balance staying current with new training ideas and tips that will help propel your running forward and then reading things or studies that seem to ‘try too hard’ or are just straight up cray-cray? 😉 I guess, how do you assess the source?

Lights, Camera, Action…Core and Flexibility!! Video demonstrations for your running and entertainment

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Cait — 14 Comments ↓

Turns out this runner is taking herself to Hollywood to become a movie star! If you believed me even for a second then I’m sorry. However, to make it up to you I will let you point at laugh at me here rather shortly.

Yesterday’s post was all about runners and their imbalances; why we all have them, where common ones occur and exercises that can help you strengthening your weaknesses. I talked about one of my very favorite core routines, the Pedestal Plank Routine, and today I’ve got a video demo in case my wordage wasn’t quite enough plank awesomeness.

I also stressed how important stretching and improving your flexibility are for your running; both in preventing injuries and helping with your form and efficiency. Below I’ve demonstrated a quick flexibility routine you can do in just a couple minutes. No excuse for not being able to cram some quick stretches into your day at some point, preferably right after you finish running and are nice a sweaty. [Sweaty and your muscles are still warmed up!]

Check it out…I sure am sporting one crazy cool shirt, no?!?!? 😉 Get Chicking peeps!

These videos are part of the accompanying media that I did for my latest article up now at Competitor: Improve Your Running By Becoming a Better Athlete. I’d suggest you all mosey on over there and take a read for more ways you can improve your running and get you some nice and shiny PR’s! 🙂
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Also, someone all about improving core strength and flexibility for runners is Coach Jay Johnson and he was an excellent resource for the article…so go check him out too!
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1) Video demonstrations, are you guys fans? Would you like to see more? I won’t blame you if you say no though…

2) How good is your balance and core strength in doing those planks; are you able to do the leg raises or are you sticking with the isometric holding for now?

3) In terms of flexibility, when do you tend to sneak in your stretching time? Don’t say never…hehe.