Track and Field Toolbox

Training the Distance Runner’s Engine

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Training the Distance Runner’s Engine with Jay Johnson, Author of Consistency Is Key | Boulder Running Camps Founder | M.S. Kinesiology and Applied Physiology

Jay Johnson has coached collegiate, professional, and adult runners for two decades. He was a walk-on athlete at the University of Colorado in 1994. In 1998 he was the seventh runner on the varsity team chronicled in Chris Lear’s Running with the Buffaloes. That spring, he was named the Male Scholar-Athlete for the Athletic Department, while simultaneously earning his M.S. in Kinesiology and Applied Physiology.

Learn how to use Coach Jay’s car analogy – Build the Aerobic Engine, Strengthen the Chassis, and Rev the Engine – to reinforce why you’re doing what you’re doing and learn the three crucial workouts you need to be doing to build the aerobic engine. You’ll learn what they are and how to use them in your training. And you’ll learn why you need to use them in the order they’re presented.

We are providing this drill to give you ideas on how to enhance your current practice drills. The idea is not to implement it exactly as is, but rather to tweak it to make it fit your system.

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

This is a Vimeo video, so you will need to be on a network that does not block Vimeo videos.

If you would like to see more information about Coach Rebholz’s entire presentation, click this link: Consistency Is Key: Training Principles for Distance Coaches

Build The Engine

Strengthen Your Chassis

Rev The Engine Most Days


Lactate Training Dilemma

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Lactate Training Dilemma with Scott Christensen,
Stillwater Area High School (MN) Head Track & Field / Cross Country Coach;
5x Minnesota State Boys Track & Field team champions;
5x Minnesota State Boys Cross Country team champions;
1997 USA National Cross Country champions;
has coached 23 individual state track & field and 2 individual state cross country champions;
USATF National Endurance Special Projects Instructor;
USATF National Level 2 Endurance Lead Instructor;
IAAF Level 5 Academy Instructor;
USTFCCCA Endurance Master’s Course Instructor;
at Stillwater, has coached Ben Blankenship (2016 USA Olympian, 1500 meters), Luke Watson (1999, 2004, 2006 USA World Cross Country Championship Teams), and Sean Graham (2006 USA National Team);
only coach/program in U.S. high school history to produce four alumni sub 4:00 milers

Scott Christensen, head coach of the track & field and cross country teams at Stillwater Area High School, maintains that the mechanics behind a successful distance runner are developed through the central and peripheral points of aerobic power. The development of aerobic capacity first is crucial in a distance runner, and in this video, Christensen discusses a variety of training tactics that can be used to develop aerobic power.

We are providing this drill to give you ideas on how to enhance your current practice drills. The idea is not to implement it exactly as is, but rather to tweak it to make it fit your system.

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

This is a YouTube video, so you will need to be on a network that does not block YouTube videos.

For more information about Scott Christensen’s 1600M/3200M Mechanics and Strategy for Developing Efficient Runners, click here: Scott Christensen’s 1600M/3200M Mechanics and Strategy for Developing Efficient Runners – Track & Field — Championship Productions, Inc.


Functional Endurance Strength in Cross Country Training

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This post was provided by Complete Track and Field

By Scott Christensen

Scott Christensen’s teams have been ranked in the national top 10 eight times. He won the 1997 High School National Championship and his squads have captured multiple Minnesota State Championships. Scott has coached 13 Minnesota State Championship-winning teams and 27 individual Minnesota State Champions. He was the USTFCCCA Endurance Specialist School junior team leader for the World Cross Country Team in 2003 and the senior team leader in 2008. Scott is a 14-year USATF Level II endurance lead instructor.

 

Strength is one of the five primary physical components (speed, endurance, flexibility, strength, coordination) that defines athleticism.  Cross country runners, like all athletes, benefit from the improvement of all five physical components to the degree to which their particular sport demands.  Strength training must always be focused on training the movement, rather than the muscle, so a close examination of an individual distance running style is always the first step in the process.  Movement screenings that measure six to seven different exercises directly related to the repeated vertical oscillation and foot strike pattern of a distance runners movement signature are essential to initiating and monitoring improvement of their athletic skills.  Today we will look at functional endurance strength.

Movement itself is recognized as a continuous sequence of changing shapes.  Shape changes for distance runners are unique to their sport and in fact, to the individual runners themselves.  Specific strength training designed for distance runners should improve the often-repeated transition from shape to shape, and their ability to maintain a specific shape necessary for that moment in time as the body’s center of mass moves forward efficiently and economically.

This conceptualization defines functional strength, which involves unrestricted movement against resistance, in which the exerciser defines the exercise motion as it moves from plane to plane.  In other words, functional strength training is defined as training that attempts to mimic the specific physiological demands of real-life activity.  In this case, cross country running.

Functional training is likely the opposite of many of the exercises done on the machines found in a gym or weight room.  The motion found there is usually in one plane with the machine itself dictating the path of movement.  This results in the improvement of weight-room strength, but not much improvement in distance running performance.

* Coaching Resource: Strength & Power Development for Distance

Some of this thought applies to the “Big 3” of free weight training as well.  While the squat and clean put the distance runner in an upright stance which is the position of performance, the bench press is a horizontally done exercise with shape changes that are just not applicable to improving distance running performance where the arms are merely used for balance.

Functional strength training in cross country runners takes many forms.  All prescribed exercises must take into account: the degree of resistance, planes of motion, exerciser defined, and the movement signature of athletes within the boundaries of the sport.  Ideally, the majority of functional strength work should put the cross country runner into an upright posture, but there are other exercises such as various forms of crawling and mountain-climbers that travel laterally, rather than stationary, that are surely applicable.

The simplest mode of functional strength training is running itself.  The resistance is gravity and friction.  The planes of body motion are sagittal and transverse, with both linear and rotational movement.  The runner defines the velocity and direction of movement and greatly benefits in multi-directional running done at various angles.  Pushing off and against the pull of the Earth is mainly achieved through backside mechanics by the cross country runner with a concentration on the work of the soleus and hamstring.

To run faster requires more force production, which means more (not stronger) muscular contractions, and brings in greater frontside body mechanics of the quadricep and greater lift from the glutes.  So, cross country runners benefit greatly from running at velocities ranging from slow to medium pace in multiple directions to max speed work done in a straight over 30-40 meters.

Adding a vertical component to exercises brings in a much stronger functional strength stimulus than just running.  Any type of lateral skipping exercise facilitates this mode of training when done with purpose.  There are plenty of stationary exercises that also add a vertical component; with the most familiar being a deep body squat followed by a jump, and then repeated several times.

In running, everything seems to be connected to everything else in the body as it achieves a movement pattern.  In reality, running is an alternating series of unilateral movements that themselves need to be interconnected in a coordinated manner.  With that in mind, useful functional strength training can be done by isolating on unilateral movements.  Doing multiple repetitions of unilateral deep bodyweight squats is a good exercise.  Remember to work on the right side of the body as much as you work on the left side.

Step lunges, bounding, mini-hurdle hops, 30-inch hurdle stepovers, and jump roping are all excellent forms of functional strength training for cross country runners and are easy to do, and do not require time in the “wait” room.  Link several exercises together such as 10 right leg step lunges, followed by 10 bilateral deep bodyweight squats, then 10 left leg step lunges, and then 10 bilateral deep bodyweight squats with a jump emphasis at the end of each one.  Try to average about two seconds per action.  After the set is done, rest 3-4 minutes and then repeat the full set.

Constructive coaching cues are important when doing these activities, with a close eye always kept on proper upright body position.  Many coaches like to prescribe these activities with something always in the athletes’ hands.  Medicine balls, broomsticks, or a five-foot PVC tube come to mind.  It is easier for the athlete to recognize their proper stand-tall upright posture when an object such as these that are in their hands, and it is very easy for the coach to spot improper technique.

* Coaching Resource: Training Model for High School Cross Country

If a cross country runner has earned the right to train in the weight room with an artificial load, then it opens up many new avenues of functional training.  A person is ultimately ready when their movement screenings indicate that it is now appropriate to add a greater load.  A thoughtful coach will analyze the running signature of a particular athlete and determine where the loading stimulus should occur to improve a certain movement.  Choose three exercises, to not overwhelm the athlete.  Have them do a load they can surely handle, but barely.  By moving an artificial load that is close to their maximum for only a few reps the muscle stays under tension for only a short period of time.  This is the desired stimulus.

Three lifts to start with might be the hang clean, deadlift, and the squat.  Handling a heavy load (for them) is not easy.  It takes coordination besides strength.  That is why the right to artificially load needs to be earned.  If a cross country runner cannot easily jump rope, forget the weight room. They are not ready.

Functional training such as resistance exercises and bodyweight movements can help a cross country runner become stronger, more flexible, agiler, and better equipped to handle the day-to-day rigor of speed and endurance training.  Plus, it can help a chronic runner become less injury-prone.

 


Effects of Fatigue on Distance Runners

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This post provided by Complete Track and Field

By Scott Christensen

Coach Christensen’s teams have been ranked in the national top 10 eight times. He won the 1997 High School National Championship and his squads have captured multiple Minnesota State Championships. Scott has coached 13 Minnesota State Championship-winning teams and 27 individual Minnesota State Champions. He was the USTFCCCA Endurance Specialist School junior team leader for the World Cross Country Team in 2003 and the senior team leader in 2008. Scott is a 14-year USATF Level II endurance lead instructor.

The onset of fatigue in certain systems of the body is what causes running performance to deteriorate and degrade.  Too much fatigue and exhaustion occurs, with the inability to continue an activity.  Fatigue can be acute, as in a single race or training session, or chronic, as in inadequate day to day regeneration of the physiological systems due to training or other factors.

atp moleculeThere have been multiple controlled scientific studies done on fatigue in performance over the past 40 years.  The results of these studies have led scientists to broadly characterize fatigue into central and peripheral categories.  Central fatigue refers to poor motivation, altered central nervous system (CNS) transmission, or recruitment.  Peripheral fatigue involves impaired functional transmission, muscle electrical activity and activation, and the limitation of molecules used to re-synthesize adenosine triphosphate (ATP).  The latter being a muscle fuel issue.

Skeletal muscles are the organs that move the human skeleton through movement.  Movement is a repeated sequence of contractions followed by relaxation of the muscle filaments that make up the muscle itself.  Since the muscles are attached to the bones with tendons, as a muscle contracts along its length it eventually pulls on the bone itself.  The speed by which the muscle filaments contract ultimately characterizes the muscles as a slow twitch or a fast twitch category of muscle by physiologists.  The contraction speed or energetics of muscular contraction, like all bio-chemical reactions in the body, is controlled by the presence and abundance of various enzymes.

The presence of ATP is what separates living organisms from non-living objects.  It makes no difference if it is the simplest bacteria or the most complex animal; the molecule of life is ATP.  This is the molecule of usable energy and energy reserve for all organisms.  In humans, a problem exists when ATP usage is examined.  Humans can store only a small amount in their cells before it has to be re-synthesized.  Fortunately, humans have three mechanisms for re-synthesizing ATP and that is through the process known as respiration.  One of the respiration processes is known to be aerobic and thus requires oxygen to cycle, while the other two are known to be anaerobic so oxygen is not required.

Coaching Resource: The Training Model for High School Cross Country

The ATP molecule has a high energy chemical bond holding the third phosphate to the rest of the molecule.  When the third phosphate separates from the molecule, energy is released.  When the third phosphate attaches itself again, energy is used or what can also be thought of as being stored.

Skeletal muscles consist of long slender filaments that overlap and slide against one another during lengthening and shortening of the muscle fiber.  These protein filaments are of various types with myosin and actin being the predominate varieties.  Mysosin is a thicker strand, so think of a shape like a pencil.  Actin is thinner so think of a toothpick.  

muscle contraction

Actin is very smooth on the surface, but myosin has little tennis racquet shaped stalks that protrude and have the ability to “grab” (actually turn slightly and hold) onto the actin filament as a muscle “contracts” following shortening. The slight turning action of the myosin stalk causes a cross-bridge attachment known as a muscle contraction because the shortened filaments are actually being held by the myosin heads.  The filaments do not release and return to a relaxed lengthened position until the action of an opposing muscle “pulls” the mysoin away from the actin.  The speed by which all of this occurs characterizes the muscle as a fast twitch (contractions), or a slow twitch muscle.

The molecule ATP becomes important because in order for the myosin head to turn slightly and grab, energy must be used.  The energy is ATP and there must be one molecule of ATP on each of the billions of myosin stalks present in skeletal muscle.  In order for rapid contractions to continue occurring, then ATP must be re-synthesized and reloaded onto the myosin stalk as quickly as possible.

In humans the energy source used to re-synthesize ATP molecules can be traced to the foods that are consumed.  Anything eaten that contains measurable calories is a potential energy source for ATP re-synthesis in respiration.  Some foods contain more energy than others.  Proteins and carbohydrates contain about 4 calories per gram, while fats and oils contain 9 calories per gram.  Some foods are more easily worked with by the systems of the body.  Carbohydrates are water soluble which makes them a preferred fuel because the human body is roughly 60% water anyway.  Fats and oils are not water soluble and go into storage unless the exercise demand (demand for ATP) is high.

Respiration is the process of reducing carbohydrates, fats, oils, and proteins to ATP molecules.  The most efficient respiration is aerobic.  One molecule of carbohydrate yields 36 ATP molecules that can then be placed on the myosin stalks.  Aerobic respiration occurs in the mitochondria of muscle cell (also called fibers) and requires the presence of oxygen and the necessary enzymes to make it all work.  Anaerobic respiration only yields 2 molecules of ATP per molecule of carbohydrate.  It does not occur in the mitochondria of the cell, but throughout the interior of the cell if the proper enzymes are present.  Aerobic respiration also produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct while anaerobic respiration produces lactic acid.

There is a third type of respiration in humans called alactic anaerobic respiration.  In this process ATP molecules are re-synthesized by breaking down creatine phosphate molecules and harvesting the energy.  Creatine phosphate is present in small quantities in the cells of animals.  ATP molecules from aerobic respiration are then used to re-synthesize the creatine phosphate molecules that are native to the cell during a time of less demand.   No lactic acid is produced in this process.

Time needed to yield re-synthesized ATP molecules is the reason humans have three forms of respiration.  The anaerobic alactic system is the immediate source of re-synthesis.  This system lasts up to 6-7 seconds before fatigue drains its capacity.  So the limitation is the amount of creatine phosphate native to a muscle fiber.  The anaerobic lactate respiration process will last from about 5 seconds to 90 seconds in most humans.  It is not that fatigue occurs due to carbohydrate limitations, but with lactic acid complications causing acidosis to the pH of the extra-cellular fluids.  The aerobic respiration process lasts from about one minute to hours or days depending on the demand.  Carbohydrate and fat storage depletion is the cause of fatigue in this system.

Coaching Resource: The Training Model for High School Middle Distance

Why three forms of respiration if the aerobic system appears to produce the highest yield of ATP molecules and is the most resistant to fatigue?  It is about force production and speed of the muscle contraction.  The higher the force demand, the greater the dependence on the anaerobic energy systems and the quicker fatigue sets in.


Strength Training for Cross Country Runners

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This post provided by Complete Track and Field

By Scott Christensen

Strength is categorized as a primary physical component of the human body. The other primary physical components are speed, coordination, flexibility, and endurance. The aim of physical training is to improve the fitness of these five components in a balanced program to meet the specific demands of the sport. The role of a coach is to design and implement a program balance that improves the fitness of the individual primary physical components to the degree that is necessary for athletic success.

Of the five primary physical components the one that is most stressed in cross country running is endurance. Make no mistake about it the cross country coach needs to spend the great majority of training time addressing endurance. Development of the other four components does not substitute for endurance development, but rather adds to a much smaller degree to the endurance runners overall fitness.

Figure 1 indicates the relative emphasis of the five primary physical components to each other in a cross country specific training plan. While endurance earns 10 out of 10 in emphases, strength is relegated to 4 out of 10 in training emphasis. Much of even this 4 is gained strictly through the act of running. Running alone is strength work. To push back off the Earth requires strength. To run faster requires a stronger toe-off and to run farther requires long bouts of uninterrupted toe-offs. This is strength work.

Related Coaching Resource: Scott Christensen’s Strength and Power for Distance

By far the two most important strength factors in cross country running are the toe-off moment in the running gait cycle and body core stability in maintaining proper posture as the runner fatigues during the race. Once the posture begins to change due to fatigue and weakening of the core muscles, the stride length and stride rate change enough that overall performance is impacted.

Core stability is related to dynamic balance, coordination, and balance among core muscle groups. By stabilizing the abdominal, back, and shoulder muscles, distance runners increase their training gains, improve performance, and reduce low back and other related injuries. Core exercises are generally done with a body-weight resistance that allows for 15-30 repetitions per exercise. Sets of core exercise must be done regularly in each microcycle with a minimum of every other day. An exercise called the Gambetta leg circuit helps develop strength for a stronger toe-off needed for faster sub-maximal running.

The routine consists of 20 body weight squats, rest 30 seconds, 20 split leg lunges (10 on each side), rest 30 seconds, and then 10 body weight squats ending each with a double leg jump. Rest 3 minutes and repeat. Do this at least every other day from the general preparation period through the pre-competition period.

Resistance work increases the size of muscle fibers and recruits additional fibers to help with the specific task at hand. Therefore, strength training for cross country runners has performance benefits.

By adding muscle mass to the body, additional oxygen is required to complete cellular respiration. Cross country running revolves around a race pace that is at VO2 max. By adding muscle mass it strangles a process that is already the bottle-neck of physiological activity and is the primary performance inhibitor.

Cross country running only involves moving the body at sub-maximal speeds. There is no object to toss, people to sweep aside, or something to stop. Strength training for cross country runners should reflect that specificity in sport profile. Body weight resistance is enough to develop the strength needed to successfully complete a cross country race. By adding artificial resistance, too much unnecessary muscle fiber enlargement and recruitment occurs at a very steep oxygen cost. The concept of efficient running economy outweighs these unnecessary muscle mass gains.

In the running motion, arms are strictly used to balance the torso. If the right-side of the torso twists or becomes unbalanced the left arm reacts to stabilize it, and so on. There is no strength component, only a balance component. Unnecessary arm muscle mass gains and fiber recruitment due to artificial resistance stimulus does not help the arms balance the torso “better”, and again occurs at a tremendous loss of running economy. Arms “learn” to balance the torso more effectively by doing miles and miles and miles of running, not by artificial strength training. Running economy improves by race specific and sub-maximal training.

Improvement of all five of the primary physical components adds up to greater athletic fitness. Cross country running is similar to few other physical activities. It is heavily skewed to development of the endurance component. There are obvious gains to be made in developing the other four components as well, but never, ever at the cost of oxygen consumption. Aerobic power and running economy are the deciding factors in cross country running performance and these two variables are best addressed by running and body core resistance activities.

Checkout Scott’s Strength and Power Program for Distance