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.

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

This article was provided by Complete Track and Field

There is no better time in the cross country season then September.  Fun invitational meets, hard-core training, an already well-formed team, pretty good weather, and still eager runners all make for a very enjoyable month.  For a cross country coach, September training is especially interesting because it is the month of training creativity.  Already past is most of the general conditioning work, and the team is far from any sort of tapering activities, so workouts can be put together that are taxing, creative and full of variety.

September begins with the last fragments of the general preparation period.  The focus there is still on building a strong mileage base, strength work in the form of hill repeats, vVO_{2 max} work done in moderation, and an introduction to some lactate building activities.  If the runners have had a good summer of general prep work then it need only extend through the first week of September before transitioning to the specific preparation period.  As one moves to a different stage in the season, so do the activities, physiological stimuli, recovery periods, and training focus.  This is the idea behind periodization of training.

The specific preparation period covers most of September for serious runners.  If you are using nine-day training microcycles, then it is basically the last 25-27 days of the month or almost three full nine-day cycles.  For most programs there will be a race in each of these nine-day cycles, but many modern programs only race once every couple of weeks these days, so not every cycle may contain a competition.

There are still a few programs remaining that will have two races in each nine-day microcycle and the adjustments to training in these situations are unfortunately quite drastic.  Whatever the case, these are certainly not the most important races of the year so it is fine to temper it down the day before a competition, but do not set up much rest for any race in September unless it is an extraordinary situation.

* Training Resource: Speed Development for Distance Runners

What training changes occur in moving from the general preparation period to the specific preparation period?  The answer lies in the name itself.  Training activities are added that address the specific demands of the 5k race, replacing general activities like base mileage days that focus on building a generic distance runner.  For example, a previously done general six mile run is replaced by a four mile tempo run.  The former may have been done at 7:20/mile pace and the latter is done at 6:00/mile pace.  Hill runs previously done on a 45 second hill are now done on a 4:00 minute hill.  vVO_{2 max} work previously done as 5 x 800 on a grass course with 4:00 minute recovery for everybody now become 4 x 1600 meters on a road/tar trail at individual 3200 meter date pace with recovery time equal in length to work time for each repeat.  The previously done ten mile long run done at continuous pace now has a series of pickups over the last three miles of the same ten mile run.

Other stimuli need to be introduced as well during the specific preparation period such as high blood-lactate training loads.  Working blood-lactate values that would be found more in a one mile race than a longer cross country race should be prescribed.  Workouts such as these are not stressed during specific preparation, only introduced once or twice.  They do not become stressed for a 5k runner until the following block of training time called the pre-competitive period which is most of October.  But, by introducing workouts with a higher lactate load in specific preparation they prepare the body for what is to come, plus they are great strength workouts because the work must be repeated as well as possible despite the dramatic increase in fatigue caused by the inability to buffer the lactate accumulating in the blood.

Start with Special Endurance 2 length workouts but shorten the recovery interval.  Shortening the recovery during specific prep workouts is not intuitive, but it keeps the intensity low despite the very high heart rates.  This will prevent the athlete from sustaining a muscular injury because it is a lower velocity then near-maximum effort.  If the recovery interval is increased rather than decreased (which may make more sense), then the athlete can run faster and this is when “speed causes injury”.  Do the workout on a safe, fast, surface and prescribe something like 6 x 400 meters with 2:30 recovery between repeats.

During the specific preparation period many different workouts are added, generally replacing longer and slower work.  One of the concerns in doing this is that training mileage may drop too much.  The key to the puzzle is to keep the mileage in the specific prep period within 90%, or better yet, equal to the mileage values found at the end of general prep.

When the runners do a four mile tempo run, or a set of 400’s, or any other work that does not keep them in the seven or eight mile per day range consistently they will need to tack on miles at the end of the workout.  That is fine!  Any work demand done at the end of a workout is considered endurance effort and is useful in building fitness in a 5k runner.

* Coaching Resource: Training Model for High School Cross Country

September is fun!  But, it is also a very hard-working month.  Stress the appropriate aerobic and longer anaerobic work and introduce the shorter anaerobic work that is yet to come, so that when they get to the competition period (tapering and peaking) those workouts are effective too.  If the training stimuli is not appropriately periodized throughout the season, then adaptation will not occur effectively, and no method of tapering is going to fix that situation.

Sample Nine-Day Training Cycle for Late September:

Monday:           vVO_{2 max} day, 4 x 1600, @date pace 3200 meter pace/2, work time=rest time,
Tuesday:          10 mile long run,
Wednesday:     6 x 400, 2 min recovery, 2 mile warmup, 4 mile cool down,
Thursday:         4 mile tempo run, 2 mile warm up, 1 mile cool down,
Friday:              6-7 mile base run,
Saturday:          Race Day,
Sunday:            5 mile recovery run,
Monday:           4 x 4:00 hills, 2 miles warm up, 3 miles cool down,
Tuesday:          8 x 200 meters on grass, 2:30 recovery, 2 mi warm up, 4 mi cool down.