Cross Training (Or: trying to prevent injury)
Okay, so I promised to talk about my cross training. Now, after finishing my Monday yoga/stretch, seems like a good time. Yesterday I ran 10 miles for my long run, and it felt pretty good! The first 7 felt easy, but the last mile was rough; every part of my legs/knees/hips were just aching by then from an hour and half of constant pavement pounding. After a few recovery techniques (which I will discuss in a later post), and a couple of hours, my legs were already feeling better. Today, they feel a little heavy, but otherwise great! I'm certain it's because I have been working hard to remain consistent with my cross training activities.
As I stated before, in past training, I have had serious knee pain. In the final long run of half marathon training last year I even had glute pain that had me questioning if I could make the run or not. I'm sure there are two main culprits- my partner and I did not keep up with our cross training as runs increased, and we ran 4 days a week with no cutback weeks for our bodies to adjust.
It's easy to want to skip cross training. Marathon and half marathon training takes a lot of time, and most of us have multiple other obligations. When training with a partner, it was hard enough to coordinate our runs together 4x a week, adding in cross training would have been a nightmare. If I were doing it over again, I would make sure I at least did strength training on my own.
So, my cross training. On Monday's I always do 20-40 minutes of yoga. If I'm being honest, I am really bad at following the videos, and usually end up just doing parts of the video, and some of my own stretches I like. The key thing for me is time dedicated to good, slow, varied stretching each week. I usually just search Youtube for videos like "yoga for runners" and go from there. Now that my mileage is in the double digits for long runs, I will also be adding at least 10 minutes of foam rolling in the evenings on Mondays. Since my long run is on Sundays, Mondays are all about recovering.
For my Tues/Thurs cross training I have been adjusting according to my life, but always doing a minimum of 30 minutes of strength training. When training first started I was going to an hour long HIIT class that combined strength and cardio both days. Man, that made for some painful mid week runs in the morning, less than 12 hours after completing over 200 squats! But the muscle fatigue wasn't too bad, once I started drinking a protein shake (I'll discuss which one when I complete my post on my nutrition) on my hour+ drive home it helped a lot.
What ultimately made those classes hard was a) almost all of the cardio is plyometric (jumping) based, and as my miles have started to add up my knees really needed a break, and b) because of traffic, it literally takes close to an hour and a half to get home. That's three extra hours a week on the road. I tried a few classes stepping the plyo moves to decrease the knee aches (they were mostly hurting when bending, like getting on and off the toilet and if definitely felt like swelling from over use, not injury). I found myself being frustrated. I didn't feel like I was getting as much of a workout, and I didn't think it was worth the extra time on the road.
Therefore, I adapted. Now I complete strength training at home with a combination of weighted and body weight only moves. I typically use 2.5lb or 8lb weights, because that's what I have at home. I love, love love the workouts from Rebecca Louise. She has a lot of 10-15 minute videos for free on her page or on YouTube, and each video targets a specific area. So, I'll do one arm/chest/back video, one leg/hip/butt/thigh video, and one abs/core/low back video. That ends up being 30-45 solid minutes of focused strength work from my own living room. I also like that she chats a lot - she has a fun accent and it helps me get through the burning portions without focusing as much on how much it is burning. And it is, usually within the first two minutes! There's a good variety of videos, for each area, too, so that keeps it from becoming boring.
When I'm not doing that (sometimes I honestly want to watch some trashy tv while I go through the strength workouts) my routine usually consists of the following exercises in varied order:
Deadlifts
Squats
Lunges
Side Lunges
Bridges (with single leg lifts)
Donkey Kicks
Fire Hydrants
Bicep Curls
Tricep Kickbacks
Overhead Press
Front Arm Raise
Chest Flys
Chest Presses
Russian Twists
Plank
Side Plank
Spiderman Plank
Full Body Roll Ups
Supermans/Swans
These are all pretty easy to find instructions for on the internet.
If you want a quick explanation for why strength training is so important, check out this article from Runner's World.
Hope this was a helpful post! Upcoming posts will include my nutrition, my gear, and how my body is changing with this training!
As I stated before, in past training, I have had serious knee pain. In the final long run of half marathon training last year I even had glute pain that had me questioning if I could make the run or not. I'm sure there are two main culprits- my partner and I did not keep up with our cross training as runs increased, and we ran 4 days a week with no cutback weeks for our bodies to adjust.
It's easy to want to skip cross training. Marathon and half marathon training takes a lot of time, and most of us have multiple other obligations. When training with a partner, it was hard enough to coordinate our runs together 4x a week, adding in cross training would have been a nightmare. If I were doing it over again, I would make sure I at least did strength training on my own.
So, my cross training. On Monday's I always do 20-40 minutes of yoga. If I'm being honest, I am really bad at following the videos, and usually end up just doing parts of the video, and some of my own stretches I like. The key thing for me is time dedicated to good, slow, varied stretching each week. I usually just search Youtube for videos like "yoga for runners" and go from there. Now that my mileage is in the double digits for long runs, I will also be adding at least 10 minutes of foam rolling in the evenings on Mondays. Since my long run is on Sundays, Mondays are all about recovering.
For my Tues/Thurs cross training I have been adjusting according to my life, but always doing a minimum of 30 minutes of strength training. When training first started I was going to an hour long HIIT class that combined strength and cardio both days. Man, that made for some painful mid week runs in the morning, less than 12 hours after completing over 200 squats! But the muscle fatigue wasn't too bad, once I started drinking a protein shake (I'll discuss which one when I complete my post on my nutrition) on my hour+ drive home it helped a lot.
What ultimately made those classes hard was a) almost all of the cardio is plyometric (jumping) based, and as my miles have started to add up my knees really needed a break, and b) because of traffic, it literally takes close to an hour and a half to get home. That's three extra hours a week on the road. I tried a few classes stepping the plyo moves to decrease the knee aches (they were mostly hurting when bending, like getting on and off the toilet and if definitely felt like swelling from over use, not injury). I found myself being frustrated. I didn't feel like I was getting as much of a workout, and I didn't think it was worth the extra time on the road.
Therefore, I adapted. Now I complete strength training at home with a combination of weighted and body weight only moves. I typically use 2.5lb or 8lb weights, because that's what I have at home. I love, love love the workouts from Rebecca Louise. She has a lot of 10-15 minute videos for free on her page or on YouTube, and each video targets a specific area. So, I'll do one arm/chest/back video, one leg/hip/butt/thigh video, and one abs/core/low back video. That ends up being 30-45 solid minutes of focused strength work from my own living room. I also like that she chats a lot - she has a fun accent and it helps me get through the burning portions without focusing as much on how much it is burning. And it is, usually within the first two minutes! There's a good variety of videos, for each area, too, so that keeps it from becoming boring.
When I'm not doing that (sometimes I honestly want to watch some trashy tv while I go through the strength workouts) my routine usually consists of the following exercises in varied order:
Deadlifts
Squats
Lunges
Side Lunges
Bridges (with single leg lifts)
Donkey Kicks
Fire Hydrants
Bicep Curls
Tricep Kickbacks
Overhead Press
Front Arm Raise
Chest Flys
Chest Presses
Russian Twists
Plank
Side Plank
Spiderman Plank
Full Body Roll Ups
Supermans/Swans
These are all pretty easy to find instructions for on the internet.
If you want a quick explanation for why strength training is so important, check out this article from Runner's World.
Hope this was a helpful post! Upcoming posts will include my nutrition, my gear, and how my body is changing with this training!
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