Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
Let’s talk about something most runners completely misunderstand: injuries. Most runners think injuries are just bad luck. Or maybe the result of running too many miles too quickly. But in …
Continue Reading about 324. The Strength Deficits That Cause Most Running Injuries →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there and welcome to episode 324 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the strength deficits that cause most running injuries. So let’s talk about something that most runners completely misunderstand, which is injuries. Most runners think that injuries are just bad luck or maybe the result of running too many miles too quickly.
But in reality, most running injuries are predictable. They’re caused by specific strength deficits. That quietly undermine your running mechanics. Weak hips, pour single leg stability, a core that can’t control rotational forces. And these weaknesses don’t just affect how strong you are. They affect how you move.
And when your body can’t control the forces created while running. Something eventually is gonna break down. So in this episode, I’m gonna break down all the key weaknesses that I see runners, uh, experience every single day, how they lead to things like knee pain and hip issues, and Achilles problems and more.
’cause once you understand these strength deficits, you’ll start to see injuries differently. And more importantly, you’ll know exactly what to do to prevent them. So if you talk to enough runners, you start to hear the same story over and over again. Someone is training consistently. Things are going well, mileage is increasing, fitness is improving.
Everything seems peachy keen, but suddenly something starts to hurt. Maybe it’s a knee. Or your hip, or the Achilles or the plantar fascia, and most runners just chalk it up to bad luck. They say things like, oh, you know, running is just hard on the body. I guess injuries are just part of the sport. Or maybe I ramped up my mileage too quickly.
And sometimes those things can be true. For sure. But more often than not, running injuries aren’t random. They’re very predictable. They’re the direct result of specific weaknesses in the body. Weaknesses that create instability, instability that changes your mechanics and mechanics that. Overload tissues that weren’t designed to handle that kind of stress.
So today we’re gonna talk about the strength deficits that cause most running injuries. ’cause when you understand what’s really happening, everything changes. Instead of constantly reacting to injuries, you start preventing them. Instead of feeling fragile, you start building a body that’s actually resilient.
And instead of constantly having to stop running, you become the kind of runner who can train. Consistently and consistency is where the real progress happens. Alright, let’s get into this. So one of the biggest misconceptions runners have is that running injuries come from running, but that’s not exactly true.
Running exposes weaknesses. So running is essentially a stress test. Every single step you take while running produces ground reaction forces somewhere between two and three times your body weight. Now, multiply that by thousands of steps per run. And your body has to absorb that force, control that force, and then redirect that force to move you forward.
And you do this over and over and over again. And if your body is strong and stable, it can handle that beautifully. But if it’s not, you’re gonna start compensating. And those compensations are what create injuries. So I wanna walk you through the biggest strength deficits I see in runners. The ones that quietly cause the majority of injuries.
So strength deficit number one is weak glutes. Let’s start with the big one. Weak glutes. So if there’s one strength deficit, I see more than anything else in runners. It’s this. Your glutes are supposed to be the primary engine of your stride, your glutes, extend the hip, stabilize the pelvis, and help transfer power from your body.
Into the ground, but for a lot of runners, the glutes simply aren’t doing their job. And the reason is pretty simple. Modern life shuts off your glutes. Most people spend hours every day sitting, sitting at work, sitting in the car, sitting at home. And over time that posture shortens the hip flexors and essentially it tells the glutes that they are not needed.
So then you go out for a run and suddenly you expect those glute muscles to fire thousands of times, but they’re not ready for that. So your body does what it always does. It’s gonna find another way. And usually that means the quads start doing much of the work. Uh, the hip flexors are trying to help out more than they should.
Sometimes the lower back even gets involved, but those muscles aren’t designed to stabilize the pelvis and drive propulsion the way that the glutes are. So what happens? Your pelvis starts to wobble. Your hips drop from side to side. Your knee tracking gets messy, and eventually something starts to hurt.
One of the most common things you’ll see when glutes are weak is something called hip drop, and that’s when your foot hits the ground and your pelvis. Tilts toward the opposite side instead of staying stable. All right. It’s a small movement and it may not seem like a big deal, but over thousands of strides.
It puts stress on the knee and the IT band and the hip joint. That’s why weak glutes are often connected to things like runner’s knee or IT band syndrome, hip pain or lower back tightness. So the fix isn’t uncomplicated, but it does require intention. You need to train the glutes. To actually do their job.
Again, exercises like hip thrusts, glute bridges, step ups, and single leg deadlifts are incredibly effective. And then when you do these things consistently, I always see runners shocked by how much smoother their stride starts to feel. Because when the glutes wake up, the entire system becomes more stable.
Okay. That’s the big one. Number two, the second strength deficit that I see, uh, is poor single leg strength. So here’s something a lot of runners don’t think about. Running is essentially a series of controlled single leg hops. Every step is a landing on one leg. Followed by a push off from that same leg.
And most runners train strength, but they use like both legs at the same time. So they do things like squats and deadlifts and leg presses. And these exercises are fine. I’m not knocking these, but if all your strength training is bilateral. You’re missing something very critical when you run. Your body has to control your entire body weight on one leg at a time.
That means the hip, the knee, the ankle, all have to stabilize at the same time. And if that stability isn’t there, the body starts wobbling under the load. And even in that wobble, even if that wobble is subtle, it’s still gonna make big difference because the muscles should be absorbing force and controlling movement.
But when they can’t, the joints, the connective tissues end up taking up that load. Instead, and that’s why you start seeing things like knee pain, you know, like irritation around the knee, the kneecap, um, achilles pain, hip tightness, or just persistent muscle soreness. I see this a lot when runners first start incorporating single leg work.
They’re strong on two legs, but the moment they try to do a single, a single leg exercise is like a, a step up or a single leg squat. Everything starts shaking, you know, and then shaking isn’t weakness in the traditional sense. It’s just a lack of stability. It’s like a lack of coordination. Okay. And stability.
Is exactly what running demands, right? This is why single leg exercises are so powerful for runners. Think of things like Bulgarian split squats, step ups, single leg Romanian deadlifts, or single leg squats. All of these exercises help teach your body how to stabilize. Under load, one leg at a time, exactly the way it needs to when you run.
And again, like the single leg exercises create balance too. So instead of having one side that’s a little weaker than the other, or less stable than the other, we can create that balance, which is gonna prevent injuries. Okay, strength deficit number three is weak hip abductors. So let’s zoom in on this a little bit.
Because here’s a specific muscle that causes a lot of problems when it’s weak, and that’s the glute media. So this muscle sits on the outside of your hip, and its main job is pelvic stabilization. So when you’re standing on one leg, uh, remember, which is basically every moment of running the glute medias keeps the pelvis level and prevents the knee from collapsing inward.
And when it’s strong, your hips stay stable and your knee tracks beautifully. But when it’s weak, your knee starts to drift inward with every step. And this is something called knee valgus. Okay? And if you’ve ever watched runners from behind during a race, or maybe like in a group run or something, you’ll see this happen all the time.
The knee drives inward every time the f uh, the foot hits the ground. And that movement creates tension along the outside of the leg and the knee joint, which can lead to it. Band syndrome, uh, patella femoral pain. This is just like runner’s knee. Okay. Like patella tendonitis, runner’s knee hip irritation.
And what’s tricky about this is that the runner usually feels pain somewhere else, like they feel pain in the knee or the outside of the thigh. So they treat the knee or they foam roll the IT band and they stretch things. And the real issue though is the hip, you know, it’s that glute media. So, um, when the hip stabilizers are strong, the knee stops collapsing inward and the entire chain moves more efficiently.
That’s why exercise is that target. The glute medias are very, very important things like. Lateral banded walks, um, side lying leg raises, single leg balance work, step downs. These are not super complicated exercises. Okay? They don’t really look super glamorous either, but they build the stability that helps to keep that knee tracking correctly.
Okay, so work on improving the strength of that glute medias. Strength deficit number four is a weak posterior chain. So the posterior chain is basically the whole backside of your body, and it includes things like your glutes, hamstrings, calves. These muscles are responsible for propulsion. They drive you forward with every stride, but many runners are just like quad dominant.
Okay? Meaning the front of the leg is doing most of the work. Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but it changes how forces are distributed through the body. When the quads dominate your stride, your knee’s gonna absorb more stress and the lower leg muscles have to work harder to stabilize you. And then the push off becomes less powerful and less efficient.
So this is where we start to see issues like. Achilles tendinopathy, which is just a fancy way of saying Achilles pain calf strains, hamstring poles, plantar fasciitis because the posterior chain isn’t strong enough to handle the workload that’s being demanded of it. So running is actually a very.
Elastic activity. A lot of energy is used while running. That comes from tendons storing and releasing energy. Especially the Achilles tendon. So think about a rubber band, you know, you tighten that rubber band and then it has more energy. So we want a strong, tight rubber band. But for this all to work properly, the muscles around those tendons have to be strong.
So like strong calves help absorb landing forces. Strong hamstrings help control the hip extension, strong glutes drive propulsion, and without that strength. Every stride becomes more muscular and less elastic, which means more fatigue and more stress, and you know, just more pain, more risk of injury.
This is why runners benefit so much from exercises like those Romanian deadlifts or hip thrusts, or hamstring curls, or even calf raises. These exercises all work to strengthen the muscles that actually power you and power your stride. Okay. Strength deficit number five is core instability. When runners hear the word core, they’re usually thinking, oh yeah, I want to get a six pack of abs, you know, but the core is a lot more than that.
A core. Okay. Your core is essentially your body’s central stability system. And it includes abdominals, yes, but also obliques, lower back muscles, deep spinal stabilizers, even parts of the hip complex, and its job is to stabilize the torso. While the arms and legs move, and when your core is stable, your upper body stays relatively quiet while your legs are generating all the movement.
When your core is weak, though, your to torso actually starts rotating excessively, and this rotation actually dri travels down the kinetic chain into the hips, into the knees, into the ankles. So instead of a smooth forward stride, you’ve got energy leaking in all these different directions. Which means less efficiency and more stress on all your joints.
And one of the things I often notice with runners who lack core stability is that their shoulders rotate dramatically from side to side. While they’re running. Their arms cross the midline dramatically. Their torso twists with every stride, and that twisting isn’t just like wasted energy. It’s extra movement.
Your lower body has to compensate for. All right, and that compensation eventually leads to fatigue and overuse. So this is why runners benefit from. Uh, something called anti movement, core training, or an anti-rotation exercises, things like planks, side planks, dead bugs, pal off presses. These exercises train the core to resist motion rather than to create it, and that’s exactly what the core needs to do.
During running. So you’re trying to resist that twisting motion and have that tension in there that helps to maintain a stable, uh, core that helps you to maintain stable hips. And then it goes all the way down, um, you know, through your quads, through your knees, through your ankles, into your feet. All right.
Strength deficit number six. Speaking of feet, weak feet and ankles. The last strength deficit is one that most runners completely overlook, which is your feet. Each foot contains 26 bones. 33 joints and over a hundred muscles, tendons and ligaments. That’s a lot of structure packed into a relatively small area, and the job of the foot is actually very important.
It absorbs all your impact. It stabilizes your landing. Landing, and it helps to generate propulsion as you push off. But for so many runners, the muscles of the foot become weak over time, partly because modern shoes provide a lot of the structure and support that we need. And I’m not saying we should be running barefoot by any stretch, but when the shoe does all the stabilization work, the foot muscles stop contributing and weak feet lead to unstable landings.
When the foot collapses or rolls excessively either. Collapses inward or rolls outward. That instability travels up the chain into the ankle, into the knee, into the hip. Which contributes to things like plantar fasciitis, shin splints, achilles irritation, knee pain, strong feet though, create a very stable foundation, and when the foundation is stable, everything above it works better.
Simple things that you can do, like short foot exercises. Barefoot balance work, toe strengthening calf raises, all of these things can dramatically improve the stability of your foot. And when your feet are stronger, the entire kinetic chain benefits from that. Okay, so now you understand what these strength deficits are.
The next logical question becomes, okay, what do I actually do about it? Well, this is where I want to keep things simple, because the goal here isn’t to turn runners into bodybuilders, right? The goal is to make your body. Durable enough to handle running well. We’re not chasing muscle for the sake of muscle.
We’re building stability, resilience, and power. And the good news is you don’t need to spend hours in the gym to do that. For most runners, two or three strength sessions per week is more than enough to dramatically improve durability and reduce your, your risk of injury. But the type of training that you’re doing does matter.
So a lot of runners approach strength training just sort of randomly. They grab a few exercises they see on Instagram or do some, you know, body weight squats, maybe a few lunges or a plank or something like that. But if you wanna see real results, you have to focus on a few key categories. Okay, so I’ll go over a couple of these just really quickly.
The first one is that single leg strength that we mentioned earlier. Since running happens on one leg at a time, your strength training should reflect that. So you want to focus on things like step ups, Bulgarian split squats, single leg R dls, Romanian deadlifts. And single leg squats. These movements teach your body to stabilize and generate force in the same way that you run, and that directly carries over to your stride.
So single leg strength is number one. Number two is posterior change strength. Remember, your stride should be powered from the back of your body. That means that building strength in your glutes, hamstrings, and calves is. Crucial. So think about things like hip thrusts, Romanian deadlifts, standard r dls, uh, hamstring curls and calf raises.
These muscles absorb force, they create propulsion. Uh, when they’re stronger, your running becomes more efficient and less stressful on your joints. Number three is hip stability work. And this is where we address the hip abductors and your pelvic stability. So simple movements like those banded walks or step downs or s or side leg raises.
Um, single leg balance work works with, uh, stabilizing your hips as well. And these don’t maybe feel like hard workouts, but they’re very, very important to keeping your knee tracking properly while you run. The fourth area is that core stability. So again, the core’s job is to control motion, not create it.
So instead of doing a bunch of crunches, focus on exercises that teach the core to stabilize things like planks, side planks, dead bugs, pal off presses. These build the kind of stability that keep your torso quiet while your legs are doing all the work. And then lastly, foot and ankle strength. Don’t neglect your foundation.
Strengthening the feet and the ankles improves balance, stability and shock absorption. So think of things like. Calf raises, toe lifts, um, balance drills, barefoot stability work. Um, all these things can make a huge difference. Balance is great, and it’s one of those things you can do any time, you know, take a little break from your desk from working, just stand up on one leg or maybe while you’re brushing your teeth, do it on one leg.
Try this balance work. Um, you will build ankle strength, ankle stability, um, and it just, it really will improve your running. Okay. Here’s the part that really matters though. Doing strength training once in a while, it’s really not gonna move the needle for you. You gotta do it consistently and, and I have to tell you this, to be honest with you.
Full transparency, you gotta do it for months. That’s where you actually start to see these positive changes and really dramatically reduce your risk of injury. This is one of the biggest shifts I see in runners who become more durable. They stop treating strength work as optional. It becomes part of who they are as a runner, because the strongest runners I know aren’t just, you know, logging a bunch of miles.
They’re building bodies that can handle all the miles. When you do that, something really powerful happens. Your running starts to feel smoother. You recover faster. Little aches and pains stop showing up all the time, and instead of constantly reacting to injuries, you can finally start training consistently and building momentum and making progress.
Consistency is where all the real breakthroughs happen. Okay. All right. Let’s just take a step back and look at the bigger picture here. So, most running injuries, they’re not random. They’re the result of predictable weaknesses, weak glutes. Poor single stride length, weak hip stabilizers and underdeveloped posterior chain core instability, weak feet, weak ankles.
When those weaknesses exist, your body has to compensate and compensation. It might work for a while, but over time. It shifts stress onto tissues that weren’t designed to handle it. And that’s where injuries start to show up, right? A sore knee, a cranky achilles, a tight hip, it never quite loosens up.
Feels like the problem appeared out of nowhere. But in reality, your body’s been dealing with instability for a long time and running simply exposed it. So the good news is that every one of these deficits is trainable. Um. You know, none of this is like fixed in time. It’s not permanent. You can build stronger glutes.
You can improve single leg stability. You can develop a stronger posterior chain. You can build a core that actually stabilizes you and your stride. You can strengthen your feet and your ankles. When you do all that, running starts to feel very different. Your stride becomes more stable, your mechanics become more efficient.
Your body absorbs and produces force more effectively. In other words, your body becomes better equipped to handle those incredible demands of running. When that happens, a lot of things improve at runs your running economy, improves your power improves, your injury risk drops dramatically. Most importantly though, you become the kinder runner who can train consistently, right?
’cause you don’t have to take a bunch of time off. In the long run, consistency is what’s gonna make the biggest difference for you here. And if any of this sounds familiar, if running sometimes feels harder than it should, if you constantly feel like something is tight or sore or on the verge of breaking down, you know, if you’re putting in all the miles, but you’re not seeing the progress that you want, rest assured you’re not alone.
Okay? Most runners are trying to solve these problems by doing one thing. They try running more, more miles, more workouts, more races. But if the underlying strength I isn’t there more running is just going to magnify the problem. This is why I created the Leaner Stronger Runner Project. It’s not just another running plan.
It’s a complete system designed specifically for runners who want to become stronger and leaner and more resilient. Inside the program, we focus on the things that actually move the needle. Building real strength for runners, fixing the weaknesses that lead to injuries, improving metabolic health so your body becomes a better fat burning engine.
Developing the mindset that supports consistency and long-term progress because the goal isn’t just run more, the goal is to build a body that can handle running better, and a body that feels. Powerful instead of fragile, a body that allows you to train consistently without constantly dealing with injuries and setbacks.
If you’re ready to stop guessing and start building a stronger foundation for your running, I’d love to help you. Just head over to running lean coaching.com/ready and learn more about the Leaner, stronger Runner project. All right, my friends, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.
This week on the podcast, I’m talking about something most runners overlook completely—the off-season. And the truth is, if you use it the right way, it can become your biggest competitive …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there and welcome to episode 307 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today, the off season Advantage builds strength and endurance while others rest. So this week I’m talking about something, a lot of runners. Pretty much overlook and that is the off season.
And the truth is if you use it the right way, it can become your biggest competitive edge. Most runners though, they come out of race season tired, beat up, unsure of what to do next, and they either keep pushing too hard or they just stop training altogether. That’s very common to just like stop running, stop training altogether.
But the off seasons is actually where. Real transformation can happen. This is the phase where you can rebuild your body, increase your strength, expand your aerobic engine, and really set yourself up for massive success in your next training block. So if you wanna make real progress while everyone else is shutting down, don’t skip this one.
But first, if you’ve been feeling stuck in your running or in your health in general, I want you to know that you’re not alone. A lot of runners finish their season feeling drained, frustrated, or like they’re just not making the progress that they should be making. Maybe your runs feel heavier than they should.
Maybe getting stronger always seems to fall to the bottom of your list. Maybe your nutrition feels. Inconsistent or your energy just isn’t where you want it to be, and you don’t have to keep trying to figure all this stuff out by yourself. My coaching program is designed to give you the structure, the support, and the accountability that you actually need to break through all of that.
We build a strong nutrition foundation lift in a way that actually makes you a better runner, develop your aerobic engine strategically, and most importantly. Master the mindset required to stay consistent for life. Imagine feeling lighter, stronger, more confident, and more capable of running at a level that you haven’t seen in years that is a hundred percent possible for you.
So if you’re ready to step into that next version of yourself, just go to running lean coaching.com, click on work with me, and let’s get you moving forward with clarity and purpose. All right, let’s get into this topic. The off season advantage builds strength and endurance while others rest. So most runners think of the off season as this period where you back off, you stop training, you take your foot off the gas, and you kind of just drift until the next training cycle starts.
Can you relate to that? I used to do that a lot. Some runners treat the off season like a vacation. Some treat it like punishment. Um, other people just ignore it completely. Some try to train through it because they’re afraid of losing fitness. Almost no one is taking full advantage of what the off season really gives you.
Okay, so I’m gonna break down one of the most important concepts in long-term training in, in fat loss, in building long-term strength and really becoming the strong. Strongest, leanest and most durable runner that you can be. ’cause the Here’s the truth, the off season isn’t downtime. It’s your biggest opportunity.
This is where you get stronger. This is where you fix your weaknesses. This is where you expand and build that aerobic engine. This is where you improve your body composition, and it’s where you set yourself up for the best race season of your life. While everyone else is sitting around recovering, you can be rebuilding.
While everyone else is losing fitness, you can be gaining while everyone else is taking a break from strength work, you’re building power, and while everyone else is relying on fall fitness to carry them through the winter, you’re becoming unstoppable. So this can be your competitive edge or your secret weapon.
Okay? This is a big advantage of the off season. Um, and like I said at the top of this, the, the off season is, is mo is one of the most overlooked or underutilized and misunderstood part of the runner’s year. Most runners think of the off season as, as basically a void, right? A period where nothing important happens.
But in reality, the off season is where everything happens. This is where you can build the version of you that will show up ready for your next race cycle. And if you want to come into your next training block fitter, leaner, stronger, more durable, and with more endurance, more aerobic capacity than ever before, then you need to treat the off season with some intention.
Okay, so I’m gonna break this down into three big sections today. Number one, why the off season is where real growth happens. Number two, how to build strength the right way during the off season. And then three, how to maintain and even improve your aerobic fitness with some very smart endurance work.
Okay, so why the off season matters more than most runners realize? Let’s, let’s start with that. So, most people think that the, the racing season is where they make all the progress, right? The, the race cycle, the workouts, the long runs, the track sessions, the intervals. But that’s not necessarily true during race season.
Your goal is to do one thing. Express your fitness. You’re using, uh, the strength that you already built. You’re using the aerobic base that you already built. You’re putting it all together to execute on race day. So it’s an expression of the fitness that you’ve built over time, mostly in the off season.
So race training isn’t where you create that fitness. It’s where you cash in on the fitness that you’ve already created. So the off season is very important because that’s where you actually build a lot of that fitness. Um, and this is also a great time because it’s when fatigue is low, your volume is lower.
You’re not trying to just survive those super long runs. You’re not chasing speed, um, you’re not forcing recovery between super hard workouts. So the off season could be a time where you finally focus on things that matter for your long-term progress. Things like strength, mobility, structural integrity, metabolic health, aerobic capacity, um, building solid nutrition habits, mental resilience, body composition.
The off season is really the only part of the training year where you have the bandwidth to do all of these things to get truly stronger physically and mentally. And please don’t misunderstand, I’m not telling you to train like crazy during the off season. It’s kind of the opposite. You want to train smart.
You wanna train intentionally and mindfully. You’re gonna train in a way that keeps your body healthy, growing, adapting, and improving, you know, without the wear and tear that, um, peak season training really puts on you. Okay? So while other people are just resting or taking time off, you can be rebuilding.
So how do we build a strength in the off season? Well, this is really the cornerstone of the off season advantage. ’cause when you’re in a a race training cycle, it’s very difficult to make real strength gains. You know, your legs are tired, your nervous system is taxed. You’re trying to recover from long runs or speed work.
You don’t have the energy or the capacity to really build a whole lot of meaningful strength. Um, and listen, running is catabolic. It breaks down muscle tissue. And if you’re doing strength training all year long, which you should be, um, a big part of that year might be just maintaining what you got, which is fine.
But in the off season, this is your time to build strength. Okay, so you’re. Off-season strength goals should include things like lifting heavier than you do in season. Building some muscle like, yes, I’m not talking about getting giant. That is very, very difficult to do to to bulk up and get huge, but building some muscle, building muscle mass.
Strengthening joints and connective tissues like ligaments and tendons. Improving mobility and movement patterns, addressing imbalances. Developing power and explosiveness, and then building a stronger core and posterior chain. Posterior chain is just everything on the backside of your body from head to toe.
So there’s a pretty simple approach for the off season, and this is what I’m just calling the strength formula for the off season. And number one, you wanna lift heavy at least two or three times a week. Heavy means it should be hard. Heavy means it should require some effort. Heavy means that you’re working in that like four to six rep range with.
Excellent form. Okay. This isn’t circuit training. It’s not high reps with really low weight. Um, this is real strength training. Okay? Um, you can focus on the compound movements, things like squats, deadlifts, lunges, um, step ups, hip thrusts, rows pull-ups, bench press, overhead press. Thieves. These movements build the strongest, most durable runners.
Like all these exercises are really geared to help you become a stronger, more effective runner. Um, and then you can add some power, power work, but you’ve gotta have a good, solid base. First power work is not for people who are just brand new to strength training, but once you’ve got a good solid base, you can start adding in some power work.
That’s where you’re gonna introduce things like plyometrics, explosive movements and some speed slash strength work. Things like box jumps, um, depth drops, bounding, kettlebell swings, medicine ball throws. Power work improves your running economy by teaching your muscles to fire more efficiently. Okay, and then strength train, like it matters because it does.
Strength training is the foundation of long-term health and performance. It helps you run farther. It helps you run faster. It helps you burn more fat. It helps you to stay lean. It helps you prevent injuries. It improves bone density. It makes you more resilient in every possible way. The off season is the perfect time to get stronger.
Really stronger while everyone else is losing strength, losing muscle, losing momentum, you can be gaining. Okay? So that is the the first thing, like you really wanna build strength in the off season. Next is like how to maintain and even improve your endurance or your aerobic fitness in the off season.
And a lot of runners get nervous this time of the year because they think, well, you know, I’ve really reduced my mileage, so I’m just gonna lose a lot of my endurance. And a lot of people do. Um, you know, if I’m not running long every single weekend, I’m gonna lose my fitness. Or if I back off on the intensity, I’m just gonna get slower.
But honestly, that’s not how aerobic fitness works. Your aerobic base isn’t that fragile, okay? It’s kind of adaptable. So a couple things to aim for here. Number one. Keep running, run three or four times a week. You don’t need to stop running altogether. You just don’t need to do those super long or super hard runs or both, you know, frequency, um, maintains the pattern, right?
Consistency maintains the adaptation. Easy pace maintains the aerobic foundation, right? So just keep on running a few times a week. Number two, focus on mostly zone two. Zone two is your off season superpower. Seriously, like it increase, it increases your mitochondrial density. It improves fat oxidation. It builds that aer.
Base just, you know, it, it enhances recovery, it strengthens your cardiovascular system, helps you to reduce stress and inflammation. You’re still running, but you’re not running hard all the time. You’re not getting into those super, uh, taxing runs that stress your system so much. So less stress means less, uh, stress and inflammation.
Means, um, you’re going to recover faster and still build endurance and build that aerobic base and improve upon that aerobic base. And one of the cool things about this is that zone two running pairs beautifully with heavy strength training. So you’re not overloading your nervous system, you’re not piling on.
High intensity fatigue. You’re not really beating yourself up, okay? So you’re building that aerobic engine while you’re getting stronger. You’re building it steadily, sustainably, and uh, for the long term really. And then number three, sp sprinkle in a few small doses of speed, uh, here and there when it feels right.
You don’t need, uh, a bunch of intensity in the off season, but a little bit, you know, maybe once every week or two can keep your legs feeling nice and snappy. Okay, so this could be stuff like hill sprints, strides, some, some fart le, some, um, progression runs. Not enough to really cause a lot of fatigue, just to keep that spark going.
Okay. And then the fourth part of this is just keep one like medium long run. Nothing crazy. No, like 18 or 20 milers, just you know, a comfortable 60 to 90 minute run once a week. That’s perfect. That’s long enough for you to maintain endurance. Um, and it’s short enough to not interfere with the strength that you’re trying to build here.
Okay? Remember that all the long distance running will break down muscle tissue. So, um, when we keep our runs shorter and less intense, we don’t risk, uh, breaking down that muscle tissue. So it’s not gonna really interfere with the strength gains that we’re making. Okay? So this is how you keep. The aerobic engine running and, and even build upon it while other people are just sitting around gaining weight and losing fitness.
Okay, so how would you put all this stuff together? Here’s a, a quick little snapshot of what a week could look like for you. Of course, everybody’s a little bit different, but here’s just an idea of what this might look like. Monday strength. A session, you know, heavy lifting Tuesday, easy zone to run, maybe 45 minutes, 60 minutes, something like that.
Wednesday, strength session, Thursday, easy run. Or maybe cross training. Maybe do some strides, you know, every other week. Uh, Friday strength training. Uh, Saturday, medium long run, you know that, uh, 60 to 90 minute run zone two. Just keep it nice and nice and calm. And then Sunday just rest or, or active recovery or mobility or something like that.
So it’s, it’s a pretty easy schedule like. We can all, uh, you know, adhere to a schedule like that. Um, but it lets you build strength that helps you to really maintain your athletic endurance. But most importantly, it helps you to avoid injury or burnout. Okay? You don’t wanna be pushing super hard in the off season.
Um, you don’t want to be losing fitness either, okay? Um, and you don’t wanna be sacrificing the strength gains that you’re making. So this is what, what I call training with intention and being mindful about your training. Um, there is like some long-term payoffs here. You know, when you use the off season strategically, you come into your next training cycle as a completely different runner.
You’re stronger, you’re leaner, you’re more explosive, you’re more resilient, uh, you have better running economy, you’re burning more fat, you’re recovering faster. You have more muscle to support your training. Your aerobic base is stronger, you know, and all this adds up to one big thing. You are ready to perform your best.
You’re not starting from scratch. You’re not starting from a deficit. You’re not playing catch up with your fitness. You’re ahead of the game. You’re prepared. You feel confident, and this is where you can finally train. The way that you’ve always wanted to with power, with intention, with a solid foundation that actually supports your goals.
If you’re one of these people, and I was like this, but if you’re one of these people that. Is used to gaining a bunch of weight in the off season, losing a bunch of fitness and having to like start all over and you wait until like marathon training starts again in order to, like, that’s your signal that you’re gonna start building fitness.
It’s almost too late at that point. Okay, so treat the off season as like a very important, very intentional. Part of your, uh, yearly training regimen. Alright. And then it will be because it is that important in my opinion. Okay. That’s pretty much it for, for the off season. Okay. I think this, this lays out a, a solid plan that you can follow pretty easily.
Okay. If you’ve been treating the off season like it’s an afterthought, I hope that. This, uh, encourages you to rethink that, okay? This is your moment to do the work that nobody else is really seeing, but it’s gonna be the work that pays off, you know, in the spring or the summer or on race day or even years down the road if you maintain this, um, year after year.
And listen, if you want help with any of this, if you want support in implementing this kind of a strategic off season training, uh, whether it’s strength, nutrition, aerobic development, mindset. I would love to help you just go over to running lean coaching.com, click on work with me. That’s it for today.
Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.
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Continue Reading about 285. The Top 5 Leg Strengthening Exercises for Runners →
If you’re a runner and you’ve ever dealt with a running-related injury, then this episode is especially for you. I recently sat down with Brodie Sharpe, a physiotherapist from Melbourne, Australia …
Continue Reading about 251. How to Run Smarter with Brodie Sharpe →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 251 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today: How To Run Smarter with Brodie Sharpe.
So if you’re a runner and you’ve ever dealt with a running related injury, then this episode is especially for you. I recently sat down with Brodie Sharpe. Brodie is a physiotherapist from Melbourne, Australia, and he is the host of the very popular Run Smarter podcast, in this informative conversation, Brodie shares his thoughts on a wide variety of topics related to running injuries and injury prevention.
So we discuss whether or not you should be stretching the benefits of different therapies like dry needling and shockwave therapy. When we should we be using heat versus cold? What causes cramping in runners? And so much more, if you’re a runner, this episode is definitely for you. If you are injured, this is especially important for you, or if you want to prevent injuries, this episode is definitely for you.
Brodie is amazing. I’m going to have links to his website in the show notes for this episode, so definitely check it out. But first, if you’re interested in getting a little bit of help, a little bit of guidance, a little bit of direction in order for you to achieve your weight loss goals, your running goals, your strength, your body composition goals, consider having a coach there to help you. This is what I do.
I’m very passionate about coaching, because coaching was one of those things that worked wonders for me. It was amazing to have somebody in my corner helping me to figure all this stuff out, somebody that was helping me to stay on track, helping me to correct mistakes, maybe that I was making, that was offering me that knowledge, that guidance, but also the accountability, the motivation, the encouragement to keep going.
The thing about coaching is, yeah, I mean, you can get the results on your own, but having a coach there means you’re going to get to your results much faster and probably get much better results. And that’s been my experience anyway.
So if you’re interested in having a conversation with me about coaching, just go to my website, runningleancoaching.com, click on work with me, and I’ll show you exactly what it would look like for you and I to work together and how you can become the most badass version of yourself, yet cool.
Okay, so like I said in the intro, I recently sat down for this very informative conversation with Brodie Sharpe. Brodie is a physiotherapist, and he’s the host of the run smarter podcast, and we talk about a lot of different stuff in this episode. There’s a lot of runners that are experiencing injuries right now, so we’re just getting into fall marathon season, and a lot of people are getting injured.
And I was talking to the people at my physical therapist office here in Cincinnati about this, and they are seeing a real rise in people that are injured right now, and especially as the volume is increasing in people’s training plans.
You know, they’re doing their 18 and 20 milers, and people are starting to get injured. So we talk about that and like, what’s going on there and how we can prevent that, you know, we want to be able to run forever. We want running to be one of those things that we can do for the rest of our lives, you know.
And one thing that we did talk about that kind of bummed me out a little bit, but really it’s that, the fact that you know, if you’re a runner, chances are you’re going to get injured at some point. I know it’s a bummer to hear that, right, but it’s true. Because you’re putting a lot of strain on your body, the chance of you getting injured are not zero.
In other words, like there is a chance that you can, you can get injured. And we talk about that, and really about a lot of ways that we can prevent that from happening. We talk about whether you’re a new runner versus a seasoned athlete, and if that has anything to do with you know, your chances of getting injured.
We talk about stretching. Should you be stretching? Should you do it before or after running? Is there any benefit to it? Does it help prevent injuries? We talked about hot therapy, cold therapy, you know, ice bath saunas, or, you know, direct pressure of or direct application of hot and cold to different joints or something if you have inflammation. We talked. About cramping. What causes cramping? How can we avoid cramping? We talked about dry needling and shock wave therapy, cross training, calf sleeves. Do they do anything?
So much stuff in this interview. So I had a lot of fun in this interview, and I really enjoyed talking with Brodie. It’s not the first time he’s been on the podcast, but definitely we had a really good conversation. I personally learned a lot from this interview with Brodie, and I know you will too.
Okay, so without further ado, let’s just get into my conversation with Brodie Sharpe. First of all, for people that maybe are you know new to my podcast, or I’ve never heard your podcast. Why don’t you just start by just kind of introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about your background and kind of what you do.
Brodie Sharpe
Excellent. Well, I’m Brodie. I am a Physiotherapist by trade, living here in Melbourne, Australia, and I shifted from doing my like working as an employee, as a just a general physio in a clinic, seeing anyone that comes in the door, to transitioning to doing my own thing and being an online physiotherapist that just primarily works with runners. And I have sort of tied a lot of online content with my business as well, so I have the Run Smarter podcast, and have been doing that for several years now, just trying to teach runners how to reduce their risk of injury, how to increase their running performance safely.
And what the recent research shows when it comes to running, at the end of every month, I’ll release a podcast episode looking at what’s research has been released in that month and what’s interesting, what’s some interesting findings, and try to get some, you know, running researchers on the podcast to interview them as well. And so, yeah, just trying my best to help educate runners as best as they can so that they can do what they love, run races, run fast, reduce the risk of injury, those sorts of things.
Patrick McGilvray
You’re doing an amazing job with that, for sure. Um, so what is, what is some of the things that are standing out to you, as far as some of the new research? That’s one of the questions I really wanted to dig into tonight, and you just sort of dropped that as the first thing here. But like, what are some of the newer things that are coming out that stand out to you recently?
Brodie Sharpe
Things that have stood out recently, like, there’s been a fair amount of strength training research that’s come out. Not that there’s, there hasn’t been in the past decade or so, but more and more supporting, like heavy strength training in terms of running performance, in terms of getting a better 5k marathon, half marathon, like even the longer distances, they are pretty robust, substantial, systematic reviews that you know, becoming quite undeniable at this stage, a bit around like nutrition.
I know people have, you know, gravitated towards that with your podcast as well. I’ve had some recent things on antioxidants and how that might increase running performance. I did some stuff on caffeine as well over the past.
YouTube video that I’ve released a couple of weeks ago, and that’s always interesting. There’s always, like, some nuances there as well, and nothing that’s really definitive, but some interesting like one off studies and like, oh, this is interesting. Just to entertain some thoughts and maybe try some things out yourself.
But, you know, there’s a lot about rehab, shock wave, PRPs, like stretching and like certain rehab specific work, dry needling, like shock wave, all that sort of stuff, and whether that’s effective or not. And so, yeah, just trying to keep my finger on the pulse and seeing what emerges.
And then, you know, not using it to really dramatically shift my opinions on things. I don’t think I’ve had any radical shifts in my opinions over the last, say, six months in terms of research, but just, you know, curiosities that are just guiding me slightly here and there, or maybe changing my perspective of things very recently.
A few weeks ago, there was an article that came out about orthotics, and I’ve just released a post this morning, like reviewing it, and I’ve never been really great on orthotics, never really promoted it, never really saw good research on it. But now there’s a review that’s come out and said that, you know what orthotics might be pretty good for runners in terms of reducing pain and, you know, helping mitigate some load to different areas of the body, if needed, if required. And so, you know, I haven’t completely shifted my opinions on it, but just, you know, slightly, you know, changing in a slightly different direction, and seeing if more emerges to maybe shift my opinion more. Who knows?
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, you dropped a lot of, uh, interesting tidbits there. So I want to go back to a couple of them. Number one, strength training. You said something about like heavier lifting. Did you mean like heavier weights? Like actually lifting heavier weights, correct?
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah. So there’s, like, some of the research is, like, three sets, four sets of something that’s around about a six, six to eight rep max. That’s where, like, most of the strength training, sort of like, where most of the research lies, but there’s been some, like, smaller sample sizes, who even have lifted heavier than that and go into, like, their free rep max and working out then that seems to have more benefit with marathon times. But yet, the sample size is a lot smaller as well.
We don’t have a lot of studies where a lot of people are lifting that heavy, because that’s really, really heavy stuff, and you need a lot of experience. You need a lot of time in the gym, and not not a lot of time in the gym, a lot of experience in gym, like years and years of doing squats to, you know, be proficient with lifting that heavy, with good technique and that sort of stuff, and so, yeah, always seems that gravitating towards the heavier side of things, so that if you’re doing a squat or a deadlift or a calf raise, and you’ve got five reps out, you can it’s a real struggle to a sixth.
You’re really struggling to do a seventh. You couldn’t possibly do an eighth. Like that’s the amount of heaviness we’re talking and that seems to be more advantageous than doing the lighter stuff, the reps of 10, 1215, a lot of runners gravitate towards the body weight stuff or the lighter weight stuff, and do three sets of 15. And, you know, can see some benefit, just not as much benefit as the heavy stuff.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, I’ve been a fan of the heavier lifting for years now, and that’s what I teach all my clients to do, which is lift heavy, um, not necessarily, you know, a three set max weight type of thing, but, you know, maybe in that six to eight range, and they seem to get the best results in that sort of sweet spot there from, from what I’ve found, too.
Because really, I mean, if you want to improve muscle strength, you’ve got to overload the muscle. You’ve got to get to that overload stage and body weight, just for a lot of people, that might be a good place to start, but it’s not, as you progress, it’s not going to get you there, you know, you do need to. You do need to overload that, that muscle. And once you’ve, once your muscle adapts, you’re not doing it. You’re not going to get stronger, unless you go up in weight. So that’s where you know the heavier stuff is, is key. The other thing you talked about that I want to touch back on a little bit is the shock wave therapy, because that is all the rage here right now. I mean, everybody’s doing it for everything it seems like. Tell me a little bit about what it is and how effective you think it is.
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah, it was several years ago now, but I had a shock wave specialist on, Matthew Benoit is in the UK, and specialized in the things I had him on to discuss and like, there’s always just, like, different research that comes out with shock wave. Essentially, it’s primarily used for tendinopathies.
So if you have an Achilles tendinopathy, high hamstring tendinopathy, patella, those sorts of things, that’s where they would direct the shock wave. It is essentially sound waves that just that penetrates the skin and the tendon and sort of, like, provide some sort of pressure. I guess you could call, like, sound waves, and I’ve had it done myself.
Like, when I was in clinic, we had a shock wave therapy machine that came in later when I was there, and had it for about one or two years in my clinic that didn’t use that often, but I was, you know, thought, give it a try. Like, out all the physios were experimenting on ourselves so I could feel how it was going. In fact, one of the physios that was working with me was actually doing a research paper on shock wave at the time, and I was a participant in that.
And so, you know, it’s just a quite unpleasant sensation, kind of not like an electric shock, but just like a pressure kind of shock that just goes through and pulsates at a different at a high frequency, at an area of wherever the focus might be, and to be noise definition it was, it’s more to irritate dormant tendon.
So you might have a good candidate for someone who might think about shock wave is someone who’s had a tendinopathy, usually a chronic tendinopathy, so like three to six months or so or more, and they’re not responding to a tendinopathy with the traditional methods, like progressive, heavy strength training, eccentric strength training, concentric like the heavy stuff, good, effective load management.
That’s what we do for tendinopathies, to restore the capacity and restore the function and those sorts of things. If you do that, by the book, if you do that well, and you’re still not getting the right results, if it’s stubborn, mild pain, it’s like a one or a two. You know, and it just isn’t budging. We might call that a dormant thing. And the shock wave, in banoise opinion, is to stir it up, wake it up. Let’s stimulate this tendon, actually get it a little bit sore, a little bit irritated, via the shock wave, and then see if we can then pile the traditional rehab back on top of that and see if it becomes effective again.
And so that is completely different from what people are told about shockwave they think that it heals tendons. They think that it has some sort of healing properties. They think that a two week old acute tendon will respond well. They think that a really chronic, really painful tendon that’s like a 567, out of 10 will respond well, that just makes things really worse. So we need to pick up candidates, and then what does the research show? I’m yet to be convinced that it’s really that effective.
In terms of, like, long term strategies, like you will come across papers that show it is effective. You’ll come across papers that say it’s no better than placebo or no better than other traditional types of therapies. So I don’t know. I’m still not sold on it. I’m still yet to have like this. There’s no conclusive evidence. There’s still ton of research that keeps getting pumped out. I’m yet to be convinced. I’m yet if someone is a good candidate, I want them to give it a try, if they’re happy to, if they’re happy to fork out the money.
However, two to three sessions see if it actually improves. If you’re not seeing any improvement in three sessions, no need to do four, five, ten, I’ve had people do twenty sessions and see no improvement. Breaks my heart, but yes, we need to be, you know, advised in the right way.
Patrick McGilvray
So similar sounds to me like it’s similar to, like a dry needling effect, where the dry needling is actually to irritate and sort of cause some micro trauma to the tissue, correct? Yeah,
Brodie Sharpe
I would. There’s different proposed benefits for dry needling, and I’m not entirely sure what it’s actually doing. Like, I I do dry needling all the time, like, when I was working in clinics and seeing people in person, I did dry needling the time because it worked, like people had less pain afterwards. I’m like, let me just continue doing this, and then pile the long term strategies on top of that. You get taught. You get taught what, what it does.
And some people say, like, releases active trigger points when you release into the muscle and it creates, like, a local Twitch response, which then, like, settles afterwards. Some people say that like, you can do like these, like spinning of the needles themselves, and you can actually see the fibers of the muscle spin around the needle, and then when you take it out, it releases, and that can maybe help release some stuff.
But whether it’s just like a massive placebo effect as well, based on how it’s delivered, I’m not sure, but good short term if it works for some people, so like, I would propose it to people see if they’re interested, if they get good short term benefits, we can see if that’s worked. That’s a good thing for you in the short term again, while we pile on the long term strategies, which we know is really evidence based, which we know is really long term effectiveness stuff, maybe the combination of the two is good. But if you do dry needling and you don’t really see much effect. I don’t suggest it. I don’t do it. I don’t if you don’t see personal benefit, yeah,
Patrick McGilvray
I’ve had my share of dried needling recently, dealing with a like an adductor issue, like strain or something like that.
Brodie Sharpe
How do you feel? How do you feel when it’s done?
Patrick McGilvray
So, uh, when it’s being done. It is horrible. It’s completely terrible. And I’ve had dry needling in a few different areas, and this was a very, very sensitive area, definitely so very painful for the first 24 hours or so, very sore, but then seemed to get better and so I had maybe four or five sessions. And, you know, every time I went, you know, the pain level was, let’s say a four, you know. And then a few days later I could say, oh, maybe it’s a three, three and a half. And the next time it was reduced a little bit. So I think it did help with the amount of time that it took to heal. I think it sped up the healing process. You know, because I was, I was not seeing any progression from this strain prior to doing the dry needling, and as soon as I started doing that, it started getting better, a little faster. Could it just be coincidence, maybe, but whatever, whatever it was, it seemed to be working.
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah, and people tell me, like, I’ve had this treatment done. No matter what that treatment is, I’m getting better, but I think it’s a placebo effect. Should I continue doing it? I’m like, hell, yeah, you should continue doing it.
Patrick McGilvray
If it works, yeah, it works.
Brodie Sharpe
Placebo. It doesn’t matter. You’re getting better, you’re having less pain, you’re not being like, you know, sold on something that’s ineffective. Obviously, we need to talk about risks, if there are risks, but as well, if we pile on the short term and the long term strategies, then you know, it’s okay.
Patrick McGilvray
So what are you seeing as like some of the the biggest issues that runners are are dealing with right now? And the reason I’m asking this is because going to physical therapy recently, they the the place that I go to they are all runners, and they specialize in working with runners, and they’re awesome.
And, and I went in there, and it’s usually, you know, there’s not a whole lot of people in there, it’s kind of quiet, and it’s just packed, and there’s just people everywhere. And I’m like, What is going on? And my physical therapist was like, well, you know, it’s marathon season, and everybody’s like, training for the races. They’re getting up in the mileage, and that’s when everybody starts to get hurt. So is that like, the biggest thing that you see is just like, the increase of volume, you know, increase of distance, time on your feet, pounding whatever is it, just overuse injuries? Is that the biggest kind of issue that you’re seeing, or is there something else going on there?
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah, yeah. Like in my line of work, physiotherapists, like the biggest issue I see is injuries and people wanting to overcome that injury that they’re having. Sometimes it’s long standing. Sometimes I’ve had it for six months plus, sometimes I’ve had it for a year, and they just can’t seem to budge it.
I think plantar fasciitis, tendinopathies like they can hang around a long time if you mismanage them, and so like in my line of work, biggest number one issue is like, Okay, I’ve had this injury for six months. Should I still be running on it? How do I prevent it? How do I overcome it? How do I get back to pain free running?
But you know, when someone isn’t injured, it’s how do I build up my mileage and reduce my risk of injury as much as possible? I want to run safely, but I still want to run races. I still want to run fast and, like, put in some, like, personal bests and that sort of stuff. And so, yeah, you’re right to say that. I think come marathon season, when people hit those peak weeks, it opens you up, increases the risk of injury. Unfortunately, that’s the case.
I try to educate people as much as possible to reduce their risk of injury. But I always say, like, you can’t get that risk down to zero. You can’t say I want to train for a marathon, and I want to get my risk. I don’t want to be injured. You can’t do that like getting injured is, unfortunately, something that might happen. We just have to open up that possibility. We’re pushing ourselves. We are challenging our capabilities, where we’re challenging the capacities of those tissues. If we do so safely, if we do it in the safest way possible, we are getting that risk of injury very close to zero, but it can’t be exactly zero.
And then if symptoms do emerge, and the injury does emerge, we train smart, we rehab smart, we can overcome those symptoms within days, without losing fitness, which is everyone’s fear when they get injured, they’re going to have to take time off running. They’re going to have to, you know, lose momentum. They might have to lose fitness like that’s a fear. So then they keep running through the injury, hopefully it goes away, injury gets worse. Then, who knows? They might have to take more time off. But what I say to people is, you can’t get that risk of injury down to zero.
You can get it close to zero. You can’t get it to zero. And when an injury does emerge, doing the right things, being sensible, getting back to pain free running without losing fitness. That is my true definition of, you know, injury prevention being smart about it. It’s a practical, realistic expectation outcome for people, and it definitely is attainable, like, if you pick up an injury, if you deal with it, you do the right things early enough, that’s definitely a possibility.
Patrick McGilvray
Hmm, nobody wants to hear that the risk of injury is zero, though. That’s a buzz kill right there?
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah, absolutely.
Patrick McGilvray
We all want the magic pill. You know what’s gonna make me just run injury free forever? Like, that’s what we want, yep. So one question for you, like, are these, you know, overuse injuries, these, these injuries related to increasing in volume. Is this solely like new runners? Is this, do you see a lot of seasoned athletes that are experiencing the same kind of stuff, like, does that play a role here?
Brodie Sharpe
You know, if there are links to injury, it is. Yes, some research will say, say, Okay, we look at a whole cohort of runners. It seems to me that the ones who get injured the most are the ones who have been injured in the past. So the more injuries you have racked up in the past, the more you are likely to get injured in the future. So there is research to find that correlation, and whether that is because those rehab injuries, those past injuries, haven’t been rehabbed effectively enough, or whether their whole mentality around running needs to be addressed.
But that’s when like you see seasoned runners, like you see someone who’s running for 30 years, they’re developing injuries because they’ve just purely had a lot more time to pick up injuries throughout those 30 years, whereas a new runner will more likely be injured because of they just don’t have the capacity, they don’t have the years of experience to adapt to the running conditions.
And maybe they’re just, you know, overzealous. Maybe they get excited, maybe they sign up for a marathon in their first year of running. That’s what I did, and that’s why I got injured. And that’s, you know, that could be the case as well, but it all stems if we wanted to come up with some sort of like universal principle around it, most running related injuries are due to either over training or under recovering, or some version of the two.
So take your example of you go into a clinic and you see, okay, around marathon season, there’s all these runners that are injured, they have built up their mileage too much, which means, like their their overall weekly mileage, their speed workouts, their you know, their long runs or anything, has increased to the point where it’s been too much, and it’s exceeded the capacity of whatever tissue that is in the body, that might be the knee joints, that might be the hamstring muscle, that might be the calf or the Achilles or the plantar fasci It’s surpassed that tissues capacity to handle load, and it started to get injured, or you have done the sensible build up.
You have really been methodical, really been patient, really been diligent, slowly built up, but somewhere along the lines, your recovery strategies haven’t been enough to meet the demands of your training load. So you’ve slowly built up, and your body’s the capacity of your body has adapted, and you’re you’re you’re slowly building up that safely.
But maybe you’re not sleeping enough, maybe you’re not hydrated enough, maybe you haven’t given yourself the amount of protein or building blocks or something within your recovery strategy so that it tips the scale. Your training load is too much for your recovery, therefore you have under recovered, and then you get overuse injuries. And so there’s going to be something within that equation for most that’s going to lead to someone being injured.
Patrick McGilvray
Very interesting. I never thought about it like that. Like the seasoned runners who have had a lot of injuries are more likely to have more injuries, like, I’ve never really put that together. I just assumed that most new runners would be the ones that were getting injured because they, quote, unquote, like, don’t know what they’re doing yet, you know.
Brodie Sharpe
There’s definitely experienced runners who don’t get injured, or who have learned their lessons, or have, you know, changed their philosophies and beliefs and approaches based on trial and error and based on changing what hasn’t worked in the past, and they’ve been smarter runners, and they’ve reduced their risk of injuries, because that definitely happens as well.
Patrick McGilvray
Sp, a couple things I want to talk about, and these are what I consider to be sort of like I don’t know, myths, misconceptions, or maybe just controversial stuff. And I think we talked about this the last time you and I had a conversation on my podcast. What do you think about stretching? Good question. I’m just gonna leave it open like that and just let you go.
Brodie Sharpe
I think stretching is good for runners if they personally find benefit from it, if it is a if it helps them mentally, feel like they’re doing something good, if it helps them unwind, if it’s like a cool down strategy, what I don’t like is runners who think that stretching will reduce their risk of injury, will increase their running performance, will help aid their recovery physically, there’s no research to support that, and there’s good, robust research to show that doesn’t support that.
There’s a certain amount of runners, in my belief, there’s a certain amount of runners who are so stiff in their joints that they can’t adequately get through the running motion effectively. They might have stiff ankles. They might have a stiff, I don’t know, lower back or hip to get hip extension. But runners don’t need to go through a large range of movement to go through a running action. And the vast majority of runners don’t really need to do stretches beforehand to get into that rhythm like you while you do it as a warm up, is just run slow or do a fast walk and then go into a slow jog, then a faster jog, then into your run. And that’s usually enough.
However, we need to filter this down to the individual. If you try stretching beforehand, and you try not stretching beforehand, and you feel a lot better with the stretching beforehand, continue doing that like that is a let’s filter it down to you, to how your individual response is. I would definitely say people do that, but don’t convince yourself that it’s going to reduce your risk of injury, because that doesn’t come back to the the training load recovery equation that I talked about before. Nothing to talk about that. And there’s research, mobile runners, flexible runners get just as injured as stiff, rigid runners because of, you know, training errors, training load and recovery and those sorts of things.
And then there’s a recovery side of things. When it comes to stretching, it won’t help reduce the amount of muscle soreness. It won’t help with blood circulation or flush acid or those type of things. But if it mentally helps calm you down and helps de stress you after a run, and you can get into a calm state quicker, then yes, we’re getting more recovery benefits, which is a part of that training load recovery equation I talked about before.
So you know, for individuals, it might be effective, but research will show doesn’t help running performance doesn’t help reducing your risk of injury, and so we need to be careful about the narratives around stretching. And, you know, pick the person who you know might work for the individual.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So I’ve, I’ve been like, I’m not anti stretching, but for years, I just haven’t really done it, you know? I don’t really it never really did a whole lot for me lately, though, and since I’ve had a couple of injuries this this summer, I’ve been doing my strength session at the gym. I work out the gym five days a week, and lifting heavy, by the way, and then afterwards, since all my muscles are all warmed up, I do some some stretching, you know, maybe 15 minutes. And I just have to tell you, it feels so good to do that.
And it seems, for me, it’s just helping to improve my flexibility, aches and pains, like throughout the day, like just reducing that and just really, like improving my running, just, I mean, not not preventing injury, necessarily, but just it feels better. I feel better. So now I’m sort of a convert of like, okay, I’m gonna just continue doing this daily stretching thing because it’s seems to be working for me. So, yeah, yeah. We are an experiment of one, you know.
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah, and everyone should experiment and continue experimenting. I think that, yes, when you’re 25 you’ll have a different response to stretching to when you’re 35, 45, 55 and so keep experimenting. Keep seeing what’s what the response is like. But, you know, it gets me a little bit irritated when someone says, I know I get injured all the time. They’ve had like, three injuries in the last 12 months, and like, yeah, I know it’s because I don’t stretch enough. That’s why I’m getting injured.
And you know, that’s when I have to, you know, sit them down and go through their training load and say, hey, maybe it was because you’ve doubled your mileage in the last four weeks, and not because you’re not stretching. And so if people have that belief, they completely ignore their what’s actually causing that injury. You know, that’s when we need to be, you know? We sit them down and say, Okay, this is what the research shows. And then, you know, change their beliefs a little bit.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah, okay. Another one that’s that’s all the rage lately is, like the cold therapies, like cold versus hot therapy. So specifically talking about, like, cold plunge, you know, ice bath, sort of as a therapeutic type of intervention or sauna, you know. So you’re sitting in a hot box, essentially, you know. And I’ve done these in the past, and you know, fine, you know. But I know people that swear by like every day they have to do their cold plunge, or every day they need to do their sauna, or they do both, you know, they go from one or the other. What do you think about that stuff
Brodie Sharpe
In relation to performance or injury or rehab? Where are we going to take this?
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, how about let’s start with performance.
Brodie Sharpe
Well, I guess no matter what direction we take, I’m going to have a fairly similar answer. I’m not entirely sure I believe, I believe it has some benefit with not performance, but like, general health. For some people, I would say, like, you know, it could, like, increase testosterone, it could increase like, activation of, like, your brown fat, or some, like, some sort of metabolic thing that’s that’s going on, could work for some people.
I think the contrast therapies, so going from hot to cold, hot to cold can be an effective recovery strategy, if you are, you know, doing back to back performances. So if you had like a 10k on a Saturday and you want to do a half marathon on a Sunday, or if you had, like a running meet and you had like, a couple of events scheduled around that pretty quick succession, like those sorts of things, there might be, it might be worth to try doing those hot cold therapies like I had a recovery specialist. Shona Halson is an Exercise Physiologist. I think she was but expert on recovery, like top athletes interviewed her, and she was talking about the sort of pyramid of recovery and sauna hot cold therapies were on her list of things that you would do, provided that, like, it gets benefit, but the turnaround of recovery needs to be quite quick.
You don’t if you if it’s just like a standard long run, and the next day you’ve got, like, your easy run, or you’ve got like, a rest or a light cardio day, and then you’ve got your heavier sessions, like, you know, two or three days after that, you probably don’t need to do this. It’s probably not essential. But again, if it makes you feel good, and it’s like, you know, in terms of, like, time, effort, budget, all that sort of stuff, if it all makes sense for you, give it a try.
I’ve tried cold showers. I haven’t necessarily tried ice baths yet haven’t gotten that serious, but showers get pretty cold here in Melbourne, here in winter. But the rehab side of things like applying like an ice pack or applying a heat pack to someone, I don’t really advise on those sorts of things. I don’t really think they’re that effective.
I do think if someone rolls their ankle and they’ve got a swollen ankle for whatever reason, I think emerging in like putting their foot in an ice bucket and doing some squats and calf raises and things with that, that just works wonders. There is probably research to show that it restricts blood flow, restricts actual healing. Because, you know, blood flow heals areas.
And if we’re restricting blood flow and with compression, that sort of stuff, then it hinders. I haven’t seen that personally with the amount of people I’ve seen, so I’ll continue promoting that. But someone has back pain and if ice works, or if an ice pack works, go for it. If heat works, go for it. These are just like one percenters when it comes to the recovery of like, overuse injuries, it just might make someone feel a little bit better for, you know, half hour to an hour or something, and then back to status quo. So yeah, might be good in a trial and error basis. Try it out for yourself and see if it works.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, I’ve heard that with, especially with the ice bath type of situation, like to do that after a workout is really not recommended, because you are, you’re having that dampening effect. You know you want, you want the blood flow and you want, you want the you have a certain amount of like, inflammation. \
When you lift weights or you run hard or whatever, there’s gonna be some inflammation there, and the ice bath tends to reduce that inflammation. Well, the inflammation is good, because that’s what’s kind of healing the muscles and whatever. What do you think about this may be like, I don’t know if you if this is your area of expertise, but it just made me start to think about an issue that I keep hearing from people, which is cramping, you know, especially like calf cramping, you know, during an event.
So they’re running a marathon, they’re cramping, and they’re like, oh, you know, I didn’t do enough electrolytes. Or, you know, they I’ve heard that that’s really not what the issue is, is it just like from an over use type of thing for the most part, and do things like the calf sleeves help reduce cramping? Is that something that people should be thinking about doing if they cramp regularly?
Brodie Sharpe
I think people cramp for different reasons, like you can get a hand cramp from typing on your computer too much. That’s not an electrolyte, like you haven’t sweated or, like lost electrolytes or sodium or anything like that. So like that would be like a muscle over use injury. Like, you know, there’s the typewriters hand, but we know that there is a strong correlation with. Ramps up when it’s like hotter conditions. So if you have a warm marathon compared to a cold marathon, people are going to go down like flies if it’s a warmer conditions, especially if they haven’t adapted to that.
You know, we had one. We’ve just had our Melbourne marathon, and it was kind of like a warmer day than compared to what we’re used to. So we’re just entering spring now. We’ve just gone through winter and starting to get some warm days. But, you know, Marathon day was warmer than usual, and people just got cramps all over the place.
They’ve probably trained adequately. So it’s probably not a, you know, a balance or an endurance issue. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s combination of both. But we do know, like in a sports side of things, if it’s a warm, warmer day than expected, cramps are more frequent, and they’re elite athletes who really manage their intake and that sort of stuff.
But it might be an endurance like a muscle, just like being overworked, it might be a bit of a nervous system, something just becoming, like a bit a bit more sensitive. It might be an electrolyte, or some sort of imbalance within your sweat. But I would say if you are one that’s prone to cramping, you can get sweat tests done. You can see how much sodium, how much you lose per liter of sweat.
So you want to look at two calculations. One is how much you actually sweat. And so you can sort of just get a general ballpark figure when I run at this intensity, at this this duration, with this amount of humidity and temperature, this is how much, how many liters of fluid I lose per hour, or whatever, get the volume, and then look at the concentration. And this is like, if someone wants to get technical with this, you can actually work out in your sweat how concentrated that sweat is with sodium. And it’s very different from individual to individual, but it’s very consistent within that individual.
So if you are losing, let’s just say, 50 milligrams of sodium per liter of sweat, it’s generally going to be always 50 milliliters. Like the volume of stuff that you will lose will change based on intensity, temperature, all that sort of stuff. But then you can come up with a strategy around how much I need to replace, how much fluid I need to replace, but how much that needs to be concentrated with a certain amount of sodium, and then see if you are prone to cramping. See, with that real adequate fueling strategy and fluid replacement strategy, do you reduce your amount of cramps?
And if it does, then maybe run to something around why your individual cramps are there, and if it doesn’t change, maybe we need to work on your endurance. Maybe you are only doing an 18 mile long run and then running a marathon and getting cramps at mile 20. Maybe we need to train your longer runs to be longer, and then meet those conditions, then see if cramps are less. These are the things I think about, not a lot of evidence based kind of stuff, but just trying to rationally think through these things.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, no, that’s good. And then what do you think about, like the calf sleeves? Are they doing anything?
Brodie Sharpe
I’m not entirely sure there was one research paper around compression garments and whether they’re effective. I don’t think they compared it like they looked at cramping, though. I think it was more of like a recovery type of thing. They showed it might have a little bit of recovery benefits, but nothing too substantial for me to, you know, tell people to start wearing them again. Like, why not? It’s relatively inexpensive. If you are prone to cramps, and you’re really prone to calf cramps, why not just try it and see if it maybe works for you? Because if it’s from an endurance standpoint, maybe the compression sleeve has a reduces the shock attenuation of the like the ripple effect that as you hit the ground there’s like the like, this little ripple that goes through your Achilles and calf, and it makes it a bit harder to like that attenuation of force makes it harder to for the muscle to contract, and if there’s a little bit of compression there, maybe that attenuation is a little bit less. Maybe you can perform a little bit better. Maybe it cramps a little bit less. That’s just a theory, but test it out. Why not?
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that seems to be a good theme that we’ve been talking about today, which is just like, do what do, what works for you?
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah? Yeah. We can’t always be evidence based, because the evidence is always, only ever as good as, like, the quality of the evidence that gets put out there. And, like, I say, with compression sleeves, I haven’t really come across any compelling evidence, not that there might not be something out there, or there but you know, why not just try for the individual, like I’ve seen resounding success with something that isn’t evidence based for someone, you wouldn’t tell them to not do it because they’re having resounding success, just keep doing it. So, yeah, that’s why we need to sort of fall back on, okay, do. Is there research? If it does, what does it show? But what does the individual response feel like? Yeah, stack all that up against each other.
Patrick McGilvray
Love that. Are there any like? I mean, most runners love running, and that’s all they want to do. I’m a big fan of getting people to do cross training to do other things other than just run. Are there any particular cross training exercises that you feel are especially good or especially bad for runners?
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah, good question. I would say cross training comes with a purpose. Everything has a purpose. If you love running and aren’t really that fast or kind of neutral when it comes to cross training, then we need to assess the individual. One, how many days do you run? Two, how often are you injured, or are you injured? And like, let’s just, we’ll use examples.
So let’s just say we’ve got an individual who’s running six days a week, loves running, absolutely loves it, gets a calf strain. When training sensibly, continuously, calf strains like, you know, three times a year. If you’re running six days a week, there would be, you know, merit to say,
All right, once or twice a week, let’s replace that run, or even a portion of that run, with a cross training alternative that takes out the calf like we’re sort of distributing the weight, because we know that this calf issue is an overload injury, so why not still keep you cardiovascularly fit by still doing some cardio, yet shifting the load away from the calves a little bit. And so that cardio option might be the bike. There’s a little bit of calf stuff on the bike, yet nowhere near as much as running.
You might do a rower, you might do swimming. It’s hard to convince a lot of runners to swim if they’re not really that much of a swimmer, but that’s an option that takes everything out of the equation. We recommend swimming for someone who’s had like, bone stress injuries, and if they’re constantly getting bone stress injuries and want to stay cardiovascular fit, hey, zero gravity, let’s put you in the pool. So pool running is also a cardiovascular thing that might be good for someone who has feet issues, or plantar fasciitis, or definitely stress fractures, those sorts of things.
But suffice to say, we want to come up with a plan based on that person, based on if they’re injured, based on, you know, where we want to distribute the load too. But another example would be someone who’s running, you know, four days a week, not really injured, loves running, getting a good balance of training load and recovery. You know, it’s not necessary. It would probably be advantageous for them to do like, one or two days of cross training to get them cardiovascular fit without increasing their risk of injury, but wouldn’t be as required as the first example that I had. So we need to pick our patient. Like, have some rationale behind it.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that’s cool. Swimming is hard, I will say that. And if you’re a runner and you want to improve your cardiovascular performance, just do some swimming. It is so good for you. I mean, it’s really hard, but as you get good at it, running is just gonna feel amazingly easy.
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah, you learn how to breathe, like you use your lungs. It’s sort of like learn how to do some deep, controlled breathing, like when you’re swimming, it’s good lung training. And then when you are out running, using your lungs a bit more efficiently. That’s my theory. Anyway, like I’ve I used to do triathlons, did some swimming, didn’t like it. Initially, I learned to be okay with it, but my breath control was really good. And then when I’m running, I feel like I’m taking deeper breaths. I’m using, like, you know, bigger parts of my lungs.
And you know, when we look at the the anatomy of the lungs, it’s like a teardrop, like a lot of people run, they top breathe when they run, and you’re using a very small surface area of your lungs, as opposed to taking really, like, controlled, deep breaths. You as a teardrop will say, like, all that surface area is in the base, and so, like, I think that’s really helped my breathing is like learning, like with the swimming and the control and that sort of stuff. And so there could be benefits there as well.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, when I was training for triathlons, and especially the Iron Man, I was doing a lot of swimming, and just started to really love it, because I’d never really been a swimmer before. You know, doing triathlons taught myself how to swim by watching YouTube videos and how to breathe on both sides and all that. So I ended up getting like, I really loved it, and it just was one of those things that most people hate the swim, and I loved it. I hated the bike. I loved the run, loved the swim, hated the bike.
So it’s been a while since I’ve done that kind of swimming. But it’s, it is, to me, it’s like, one of the best things you can do, just for your cardiovascular fitness. It really seems to really improve that immensely, because you’re trying not to drown. Let’s just be honest. You know, it’s like, there are consequences if you’re not doing it right. You know, whereas you’re just running, it’s like, yeah, you can kind of get away with bad form. You can kind of get away with, like shallow breathing, but in the pool you got to be you got to do it right. You know you got your form has to be good. Your breathing has to be on point. So all those things matter.
Well, let’s see. I’ve kind of gone through all the questions that I had. Brodie, is there anything else you wanted to kind of chat about, or anything else on your mind here today?
Brodie Sharpe
One thing that comes up is someone who is injured, they go to a therapist, and the therapist says something along lines of like, you have one leg longer than the other, or you have like a shift in your pelvis, or you have like spine scoliosis, or some sort of anatomical like, variation, or, like, you know, something that’s disproportionate from one side to the other and that’s causing your injury. I have, I don’t know, I’m a little bit like, it ticks me off a little bit, because I hear this quite often and isn’t really supported by research, like, if we take leg length discrepancy as an example, yes, you can go, runners get injured. You know, up to 80% of runners get injured per year. So that’s always going to happen.
You go to a therapist or, like a physio, or PT or someone, and they look at your leg length discrepancy. 90% of the population of some sort of leg length discrepancy, to which is around about, on average, about five millimeters. So like, we’re talking like, you know, very small amount, but if you go looking for it, odds are you going to find it, and you can that’s an easy sell for a therapist to be like, hey, look, you have one leg longer than the other. You’re going to be shifting your loads. You’re going to be impacting the ground, and the loads are going to be different from your right to different from your right to your left, and so it’s gonna cause a lot of imbalance, therefore, injury, I don’t like this for two reasons.
One, you’ve had that discrepancy your whole entire life, and you’ve probably ran for two years without any injury, and the only time you get injured is when you ramp up your mileage. So maybe it’s maybe you’ve just adapted to that difference. There is research to show that the amount of you need a 20 millimeter difference in your leg length discrepancy to start affecting your running mechanics, to which only 1% of the population, or less than 1% of the population, actually have that degree of leg length discrepancy, interesting.
But two, you can’t really do much about it. You can’t change your leg length discrepancy, even if you have, like, a pelvic shift, or you have scoliosis, like therapists might say, Yes, I’m releasing this. I’m popping this. I’m like, putting this back into place. But even if they do that, it’s probably short lived. You’ve adapted to minor imperfections in your anatomy, and is perfectly normal to be imperfect, and you’ve adapted to it like the body does. It pretty amazing things adapting to these imperfections, provided that you train within the right, you know zone, but it like it’s a narrative that is really harmful for people, like, if they’re running and they feel like their body’s letting them down, if they feel like I’m faulty, if they feel like I’m I’ve got this leg length discrepancy. I’m always going to be injured because of this leg length discrepancy, like all that sort of stuff. Yeah, it really ticks me off, because research shows you know that’s most of the people. It’s not linked to injury, and you can’t do much about it.
So, like it’s shifting narratives to trying to change these narratives, to help people understand, have reassurance that’s perfectly fine. It’s perfectly normal to have that. Let’s just get you super strong. Let’s just train really sensibly. And you know, surprise, surprise. They’re not injured years later, because they’re doing sensible things. So hopefully, that’s reassuring to some people that might find themselves in that bucket, and they’ve been told that in the past, there’s a big conversation around glutes not switching on and your core not switching on, or delayed timing. Of those sort of things. I have a little bit to say about that, but it’s around a similar sort of rant that I like to have. But yes, we need to be careful. We need to be careful about these, these narratives and what we’re being told.
Patrick McGilvray
I love the rant. I had that experience some years ago. I went to a I don’t remember what the problem was, knee issue or something like that. I went to a chiropractor, and they were like, oh, yeah, you have this discrepancy, like, one leg is longer than the other, so we’re just gonna, what you need to do is you need to come in here five days a week, and you need to just sit on this machine and it’s gonna like, you know, work on your back, and it’s gonna, like, fix everything for you, but it’s gonna take months of doing this. And I was like, nah, I’m not doing that.
It’s just like, I’m gonna go somewhere else. I was like, I see what you’re doing here. I mean, he’s a good guy, you know. But, uh, yeah, I was just like, this isn’t gonna help me at all. Like, and I ended up going somewhere else and finding out that it was indeed some sort of a like, tendonite tendinopathy or something like that. And we got mixed with some dry needling or something like that. But, yeah, I love that stuff. It’s just glad you brought that up. It’s good.
Okay, so Brodie, where can people learn more about you and reach out and kind of find you and learn how to run smarter?
Brodie Sharpe
The Run Smarter podcast is usually home based. For most people, it’s where the most of the contents put out the first 10 episodes of the podcast are 10 universal principles to overcome injuries. You’re going to learn a lot in the first 10 episodes of the podcast. However, there are 350 odd episodes to filter after that. So start there. And I do have these like, little like five day challenges and things like that. There’s like, email sequences to learn more about, like, you can try it. The most effective way is to listen to those 10 episodes. Maybe do a free email sequence, five day challenge that I have to learn, get yourself up to speed.
Then everything else after that is just like, you know, pick your episode titles and stuff that interests you. So my podcast is home based. YouTube channel is where I spend a lot of energy as well, like, just going through latest running research. So if people want to type in run smarter with Brodie Sharpe, that will come up as well. So you can start there. If that interests you as well.
People sometimes gravitate towards my Facebook group or Instagram or email list and that sort of stuff. But, you know, see if any of this resonates. See if you want to learn more after listening to that sort of stuff. And then, you know, whatever, however you like to absorb content, whether that’s listening, reading, watching, I just want to try and reach as many runners as possible. So whatever way that is, whatever way that suits you, if you want to listen on the long run, then podcasts are great for that. That’s where you can find me.
Patrick McGilvray
beautiful. Love all that. What? What do you have coming up? Do you have any races, anything you’re training for right now?
Brodie Sharpe
Yeah, certain different topics. I’m actually training for a Hyrox event. If anyone’s familiar with that, it is a cross between. It’s kind of like a hybrid athlete. So it’s running. It’s all in all, about eight kilometers of running, but mixed in with a lot of rowing, skier, sled, push, burpees, lunges, all that sort of stuff. It’s I did one in June, which was absolutely grueling. I’ve got another one coming up in December. And so trying to keep strong, trying to keep fit running, is 50% of this event. So it’s, it’s the vast majority of my training, but yeah, you need to be super, super strong at the same time and try to find that balance. And so that’s what I am really enjoying with my training at the moment, the variety and the balance between strength and endurance. And, yeah, that’s coming up in December.
Patrick McGilvray
Love that I’ve not heard of that one particular I mean, there’s, we have stuff like that, like Tough Mudder things like that here. You know, it’s not quite the same. I think it sounds a little bit different, but that sounds cool, because it kind of tests you as an overall athlete, not just in one, you know, physical, demanding thing. So that’s awesome. Good luck with that.
Brodie Sharpe
It’s been going on in Europe for a long time. It’s only been the second year in Australia. I think it’s just starting to sprinkle into the US, not very well known, unless you’re in like Europe and that sort of stuff. It’s been going on for quite a while. But who knows, maybe you start coming across it. It’s high rocks, Hyrox. And,you know, maybe in five years time, everyone knows about it. It might be CrossFit or something like that, but yeah, keep an eye out.
Patrick McGilvray
Will do and we’ll keep an eye out for you too. Good luck with that event there.
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A lot of runners believe that when it comes to exercise, running is more than enough. They love running, do it 6-7 days a week, and don’t feel the need to do anything else. Then there are those …
Continue Reading about 241. The Best Cross-Training Exercises for Runners →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, sports nutritionist, Master life coach and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there and welcome to episode 241 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today, the Best Cross-Training Exercises for Runners. So a lot of runners believe that when it comes to exercise, running is more than enough. They love running. They run six, seven days a week. They don’t feel the need to do anything else. Then there are those runners, and you know who you are out there, who believe in the power of cross training, and some believe in it so hard that they find themselves doing some form of cross training six or seven days a week. In addition to running wherever you fall on the spectrum, you know, whatever end of the spectrum you’re on, there are some forms of cross training that provide more benefits to you as a runner. So in this episode, I’m gonna explain what cross training is, what it isn’t, and offer suggestions for the best cross training exercises for you as a runner.
But first, if you’re interested in getting leaner and stronger, if you’re interested in running faster or longer, then you need to change your behaviors, because doing the same things is not going to get you there. Nothing changes, if nothing changes, right? But the real secret is doing these new things, making these changes and making them consistent. If you decide you want to get stronger, so you go to the gym once a month, it’s not going to get you the results that you want. If you want to get faster and you do speed work once a month, that’s not going to get you there. You need to adopt new behaviors, and you need to start doing them consistently. And this is where coaching really helps, because trying to stay on track yourself is very challenging. I know I’ve tried it a million times, and it never really worked for me until I got a coach. Then everything changed. Now, you know, I had somebody there was that guiding me every step of the way, holding me accountable, calling me out when I started slipping back into old behaviors. But most importantly, I had a coach that would never let me quit. So if you’re ready to start doing new things, adopting new behaviors and doing them consistently, consistently, then let’s get you there. Just go to running lean coaching.com. Click on work with me, and I’ll show you exactly how to become the most badass version of yourself yet.
Cool. Okay. The reason I wanted to talk about this today is because a lot of runners think that just running is enough of an exercise to do. I talk to runners all the time who tell me they don’t do any kind of cross training, they don’t do any kind of strength training, and that they run, and that’s good enough. And you know what? Running is great for you. There’s a lot of benefits for running. And then there are some runners who do all the cross training, and they work out all the time. They don’t take time off. They really don’t take enough time off, probably. And so there’s people on both ends of the spectrum here, like I mentioned at the intro here. So wherever you fall on that spectrum, let’s kind of get into what might be some of the best exercises that you can engage in so that you can start getting better results.
Okay, so first of all, what are we talking about here? What is cross training? So cross training is really, it’s engaging in one or multiple forms of intentional exercise in order to improve performance in your main sport. So for us runners, this would be any type of intentional exercise that complements your running goals or helps you to achieve your running goals. And your running goals might be to run faster or to run longer, to improve your running efficiency or to reduce your risk of injury. Okay, so any type of intentional exercise that complements your running goals helps you to reach those running goals.
What cross training isn’t for one. Cross training is not a substitute for running. So if you want to improve your running, you have to run right. You just can’t do cross training solely and then hope to run a marathon right? I think we kind of know that, but cross training should be used as a supplement to running, not a substitute for running, okay? And the one exception to that would be if you are injured and you can’t run, then cross training is a great way to, you know, supplement running and to maintain some level of fitness or without actually running. A lot of people who have maybe an overuse injury, let’s say something like a stress fracture of their, you know, tibia, or something like that. And they’re they can’t run, they need to take some time off running, but they can do other things like swimming or elliptical. So those are considered cross training exercises for runners that really help to improve your cardiovascular system, to keep your fitness up, to improve your endurance, but they’re not running, you know? But that’s that would-be one exception there. So in that case, it’s kind of a substitute for running, because you can’t run.
The other thing cross training is not, it’s not strength training necessarily. So there are types of cross training that are exactly that, that are strength training. So like weightlifting comes to mind, and I’m going to talk all about this in a minute, but keep in mind that all cross training is not strength training. And I talk to people all the time who tell me, you know, ask them specifically, are you doing anything to build strength? Are you getting stronger? Are you lifting weights? Are you doing regular strength training? Oh, yeah, I do yoga, or, you know, I swim, or I cycle, those things. You know, you might build a little bit of strength, but there’s a limit to which you’re going to get there. It’s really not intentional strength training. A lot of that stuff is more cardio type of behavior. So just keep that in mind, that cross training is not a substitute for running, right? It’s a supplement, and that it’s not necessarily strength training, but it could be so.
Is cross training recommended for runners? Is it good for you as a runner, or is it harmful? And this all depends on how you do it, how often you do it if you’re recovering properly between workouts and things like that. So there are tons of benefits to cross training for runners, and there are also some downsides. You know, there are some things you got to be careful of, and most of the downsides are based on when you start doing too much and you’re not recovering properly. In other words, when you start to cross over into overtraining, doesn’t matter what you’re doing. If you’re overtraining, this can lead to injury, you know? It can lead to burnout. It can lead to exhaustion, lethargy, like there’s all kinds of things that you can experience if you’re overtraining. So you got to be careful not to overtraining.
But cross training. If you want to do cross training, you should be incorporating some sort of cross training into your weekly training schedule. You know, I’m a big proponent of cross training for runners. I think it is good for you. I think the benefits really outweigh any kind of negatives. As long as you’re doing it properly, you should be training to run, not just running to train. In other words, use cross training to help improve your running, but don’t overdo it. Obviously. Don’t just run and make that your only form of training. I think that as a well rounded fit athlete, if you want to reach your peak performance, if you want to reach your full potential, you should be doing some sort of cross training.
And then another question comes up a lot, which is, how often should I be doing cross training? And again, I hate to keep saying this, but it really depends on your goals and on the individual. If you’re training for the Olympics, let’s say you’re training for the Olympic, you know, 5000 meters, you know. You might be cross training every single day, you know. But if you’re a normal human being like me, then maybe you want to run a faster half marathon, you know. So one to three days of cross training per week is probably where you want to be. That could be enough for you.
Okay, you can do more as long as you are properly recovering from the previous workout. So let’s say you start your workout on Thursday morning and you’re absolutely wiped out from the previous day’s workout, whether it’s a run, you know, cross training session, whatever, if you’re absolutely wiped out, then you might be over training. And some forms of cross training are easier on your body than others. So if you’re doing some mobility or flexibility work like foam rolling, stretching, yoga. These are not as taxing on your body as, you know, high impact intervals or, you know, plyometrics or something like that. So you can get away with more cross training sessions per week if you’re incorporating some of these types of trainings into your weekly schedule.
The key though is really just listen to your body. Make sure you’re seeing improvements in your fitness. You don’t want to be breaking yourself down. So how often you should train is really an individual. It’s up to the individual. Again, one to three days a week is probably good for most people. But, you know, for example, I lift weights five days a week, you know, I do yoga once a week, and then I do some other forms of, maybe some rucking, or some, you know, brisk walking a few days a week. So it just depends on the individual and what types of exercises you’re engaging in. Okay, really, it’s just, it’s mostly about making sure you’re improving and that you are recovering from the previous workout.
Okay, so if you’re interested in getting into some cross training, then the first step is to determine your goals for cross training. So you have to have one or more goals in mind in order to get the most out of the cross training that you choose to do. So instead of just saying, like, oh, people say I should be doing, you know, some swimming or rowing, you know, just determine what your goals are, you know, first, and then you can just decide what exercises might best help you reach those goals. So a few goals that I would challenge you to kind of think about would be to prevent injury, to gain strength, you know, to actually get stronger, to run faster, to run longer, so either increase your speed as a runner or increase your endurance as a runner. You know maybe you want to PR a race, to build lean muscle, to improve your bone density, to increase mobility, to improve flexibility, to improve your cardiovascular system, to improve your explosive power, or maybe it’s all of the above, or some combination of aforementioned goals. So whatever your goals are, and there might be more than I’m not thinking of, but those are the ones that, the big ones that kind of came to mind. Once you know your goals, you can start looking at different exercises, different cross training exercises that actually help to help you to reach those goals.
Okay, so let’s go through some of these. So if you want to prevent injury, a few cross training exercises you might want to consider would be strength training. You know, when you get stronger muscles, you’re less likely to get injured. You also build stronger connective tissues, ligaments and tendons, which is where most runners tend to get injured. You build just a stronger structural system, you know, stronger bones as well. So if preventing injury is one of your goals, then regular strength training will go a long way to help with that, also preventing injury. Mobility work like stretching and foam rolling, and flexibility work like stretching, yoga, Pilates.
So all of these things can help you if your goal is to prevent injury, right and, and you don’t have to do everything I just mentioned under that category, but you can just pick a few things. You know? Maybe you do pilates and some foam rolling every week, and some regular strength training, and then you’re doing enough to prevent injury, okay? Maybe your goal is to get stronger. Again, strength training like this is intentional resistance training like weightlifting, right? You have to have some resistance. You got to overload your muscles. You know? We want to progressive overload the muscles in order to get stronger. And we want to be doing upper body as well as lower body exercises that work various muscle groups will give you the best overall results by just doing a few exercises.
For example, the three big ones that come to mind that work the most muscle groups are deadlifts, squats and bench press, like these are the big power lifting moves. But they work a lot of muscle groups, and they cover pretty much all your bases right there. Rucking with a weighted backpack or a vest. So this is just, you know, power walking or hiking in the woods, however you want to do it. This will get you stronger, and this helps to directly improve your running as well. If your goal is to run faster than obviously, you need to be doing some speed work, like some high intensity intervals, but also some things like pool running or jumping on a stair climber, doing hill repeats. And then again, strength training will help you to run faster as well, because you’re going to have more powerful muscles you know, to propel you down the road or on the trails. If your goal is to improve endurance as a runner, then any exercise that raises your heart rate and keeps it there is going to go a long way to help you improve your endurance.
So things come to mind like swimming, cycling, elliptical, stair climber, pool running, cross country skiing. It’s kind of hard to think about that. We’re in the middle of summer right now, but you know, maybe you’re on the other side of the world, and cross country skiing is something you can engage in. It’s awesome, awesome exercise to build endurance, and then strength training goes a long way to help improve endurance as well, because strong muscles take much longer to fatigue than weak muscles. So you want to improve your endurance as a runner, you know, get stronger. Do that regular resistance training, maybe one of your goals is to build lean muscle.
So hypertrophy training, this is going to be probably the best type of cross training that you can do to build lean muscle. So this is resistance training done with lighter weights and more sets and reps. So your volume is going to be much higher but the amount of weight you’re using is going to be quite a bit lower than strength training. If you’re actually training to build strength. You’re going to be working with heavier weights and fewer sets and reps. And I did a whole podcast about this a while back. I don’t remember which number it is. I’ll try to put a link in the show notes to that episode.
Rucking is another way of building lean muscle, especially lower body, but also core, back, neck. You know, if you’re doing anything with a weighted backpack, you know, it does put some type of strain on your shoulders and your upper body, and so it does help to improve strength all over. Let’s see, improve bone density.
So impact activities like running actually help improve bone density. So bone stress is one way that this works. So when you run, your muscles pull on your bones, which causes them to reform and become stronger, right? It’s called Bone metabolic activity. And then the higher impact stuff like running is a high impact exercise, and higher impact activities generally have a greater effect on bone density than lower impact activities.
But in addition to running, since we’re talking about cross training here, strength training helps to build stronger bones, rucking, hiking trail running, Plyometrics, jumping rope, any time you’re engaging in any kind of high impact or higher impact activities is going to help improve bone density.
Keep in mind, though, that again, when we talk about over training, you know, there’s a point of diminishing returns where you could be over training when it comes to too much impact, and this could start to have some diminishing returns on bone density, so just be sure to stay out of that over training zone. Make sure you’re not over training if your goal is to increase mobility, then you want to be engaging in functional mobility exercises like kettlebell swings and yoga and stretching and foam rolling. So all of these things can help improve your mobility.
Plyometrics is a good one for that as well, if we’re talking improving flexibility, yoga, stretching. I love my power Yin class that I take every week. So this is a yoga class. The first half of the class is building strength and endurance. So this is the power part of the class. Second part of the class is the Yin yoga part of the class. So this is where we are holding poses, and not, you know, it’s not building endurance. So you might be seated and you’re holding a stretch for a longer period of time. That part I love. I love that part of the class, because I just feel whenever I leave there, I feel more flexible.
If your goal is to improve your cardiovascular system, you might want to consider HIIT training, you know, again, high intensity intervals, stair climber, elliptical, swimming, cycling, cross country skiing, hiking, even just brisk walking, anything again to get your heart rate up and keep it there.
And then, if your goal is to improve explosive power, then plyometrics and any type of resistance training done with power, as opposed to, like, slow lifts. So if you’re doing, you know, bench press instead of just, you know, pushing the weight up very slowly, you’re going to power that weight up and power that weight up like, that’s how you’re going to do your reps, if you want to build power into your muscles. So improving explosive power can be done with, you know, plyometrics specifically, but also with explosive resistance training as well.
And then, if your goal is maybe to improve your running form, HIIT training like sprinting is an awesome way to improve your running form. Because if you think about this, try this the next time you’re out running, go sprint for a few minutes, you know, or 30 seconds at a time, or whatever it is, and you will find that your running form is much different when you’re sprinting, it’s much more efficient, like you just run differently when you’re sprinting. It’s really hard to run with bad form when you’re sprinting, so practice intervals like sprinting to help improve your running form, but also things like yoga and pilates can help with that too, because they help improve your core. Pilates is an awesome core and back strengthening type of exercise.
So as you can see, there are a ton of awesome cross training exercises that you can do, that you can choose from. So the first step is to figure out your goals, and then decide which of these might help you to reach those goals, and pick a few from some of these categories, you know, just be sure that you’re not over training right. Again, maybe one to three days of cross training is enough for you. You can do more as long as you’re recovering properly from each of these workouts.
The important thing is that you are doing some sort of intentional exercise to help supplement and improve your running and help you to reach those running goals that you have. You know, running is great and you need to keep running in order to get faster as a runner, or to run longer distances or improve your running form. All those things are going to help, but consider some of these cross training exercises that will help you to also accomplish those goals and maybe a little bit faster and stay injury free in the process.
Cool, that’s all I got for you today. I know you guys got this. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
