Guest Post: Running Injury and Shoes
Today's post comes to us from "Middle Age Middle Distance Runner." He wrote a post back in January. Today he brings us information on running injuries and a shoe recommendation. Welcome to February! Well here we are about a month and a half into the New Year, and hopefully you are still excited about your fitness goals and have kept up your running routine be it old or new. Unfortunately this is about the point where injuries and weather have started to sideline some newer runners.
Typically running injuries in new runners are a result of overdoing it (though if it’s the weather that’s sidelined you, there is little you can do about that!). The common injuries include, but are not limited to, shin splints, various leg muscle strains, knee pain issues, plantar fasciitis, and in rare occasion piriformis strains, an easily-irritated hip external rotator. These injuries can be debilitating, and in the case of the latter, and literally be a pain in the butt! Any one of these injuries will certainly necessitate some time off, the amount of time off and ease of reentry into running will be determined by the care taken immediately after sustaining an injury.
A common problem that seems to plague more accomplished runners is the self-denial of having an injury, and even more so getting that injury looked at by a doctor. I speak from experience on this one. That initial pain sets in (pending it is not one of those drop-you-to- the-ground injuries), and instead of listening to your body you push through the pain to get the workout done, or keep up the routine and wind up to further injuring yourself. In this case the runner usually ends up with a far worse injury than if he/she used common sense and patience and took a few days off from running. Pain in the middle of a run is when this is the worst time, but there is no shame in walking the rest of the way home if running would only further aggravate the injury. Don’t get me wrong, the distance runner needs to train to run through some pain (i.e. muscle soreness). However, the pain of an injury is not that type of pain.
Initially it might be hard to discern the types of pain, but over time you get good at identifying the “I’ve ran hard and my chest hurts from breathing, and my legs ache from effort,” from the instant or prolonged, “My x-body part is sore and hurts”. As far as treatment goes I always recommend seeing your healthcare provider, and in the meantime apply the R.I.C.E. method of injury care; rest, ice (15 minutes per day), compress (use a compression bandage on applicable injured body part), and finally elevate the injured part (especially easy for leg injuries). Too many times I see runners fall into the bad habit of ignoring pain then an inevitable injury occurs.
Alright, that’s enough about pain and the struggles of running, let’s discuss shoes. After all a good pair of shoes can go a long way to help prevent injuries in the first place. As mentioned in my January post, I love Hoka One One running shoes and no, I am not sponsored by them (though I’d love to be). I am a big fan of their shoes after many years of running on several different brands. Hoka’s One One are considered a maximum cushioning shoe, and offer an answer to all the minimalist movement that has taken over running in the past few years. I know that initial reaction to seeing these shoes can be, “Oh my, they look like a colorful orthotic shoe!” I assure you that these are not a corrective shoe, and despite the oversized heel and foot bed, these shoes are surprisingly light and responsive.
Another plus to these shoes is that they are designed for folks training for marathons and ultra-marathons, so for the average runner these shoes will last almost twice as long as traditional running shoes. For example I like to switch out my shoes every six months, or roughly 500 miles of running. I found that the four pairs of Hokas I owned I got another three months or 250 more miles out of them.
This is good for two reasons: first, it’s easier on the budget, and second, the shoes hold up and provide excellent cushioning and support through the life span of the shoe. I usually run in the Bondi road model (I owned the Bondi 2 and 3 and currently run in 4), and the first model of the Conquest. If trail running is your thing, then the Rapa Nui 2 is an excellent choice. There are a number of YouTube videos about Hokas, some officially by Hoka, and some from individuals offering reviews of the shoes on their own. I encourage you to go check them out!
The beginning of March starts the race season for a lot of folks. Spring heralds the increase in the number of regional 5 and 10 Ks. This is also the time when marathon training accelerates as folks prepare for marathons in late spring and early summer. For the March post I will focus on how to prepare for 5 and 10 Ks. If running a 10K is a goal for you, and you like the idea of a destination run I recommend checking out the Cooper River 10 K in Charleston South Carolina. This is one of the largest 10 Ks in the US and it is run on either the last weekend of March, or the first weekend in April. The weather there at that time is great, and the run is a lot of fun. Until our next conversation take care and enjoy the run!
The Middle Age, Mid-Distance Runner
Less is More When Teaching A New Skill
Friday afternoon we had a new athlete in. He's 9 years old and a rock star. Seriously, he's one of the most coachable young athletes I've worked with. One of our new interns was tasked to take him through his warm up and workout (with my oversight). Intern did a pretty good job, for his first time coaching. Again, our new athlete was pretty coachable so he had an easier first client.
A few days before I gave an in-service on coaching the deadlift and squat. Since most new athletes learn to goblet squat on Day 1, I was excited to see what he had retained.
I will replay the conversation as best I can:
Intern: Ok, we're going to squat to this box. I want you to push back you butt, turn out your toes a little, try not to pick up your toes, but it's ok if they come up a little bit. I want you to lean forward, but not too much, and try to keep your knees out. The most important thing I want you to do is push your butt back, ok? (Intern looks at Athlete with a hopeful and eager expression) Do you know what you need to do?
Athlete: (blank stare) No.
What happened? Intern gave Athlete all the information he needed to execute a perfect squat.
Intern gave Athlete too much information.
One of the points I made during the coaching in-service was to avoid over-cuing. Providing to much information to someone, particularly someone learning a new skill, will lead to system overload and, usually, a poorly executed movement.
As coaches (or teachers of anything really) we must remember that while we know all the major points and nuances of an exercise, our trainees do not. It's even more pronounced in brand-new lifters. General lifting habits such as hinging from the hips, chest up, tight mid-section etc. are not automatic so they have to consciously think about those things along with the new movement itself.
I, too, crashed-and-burned when I first started coaching. There were just so many things that my clients needed to know when it came to learning a new exercise, that I felt I couldn't leave anything out. I quickly learned that by cuing only one or two major points (i.e. the most important), clients a) learned the movement more quickly, and b) they didn't stare at me as if I had sprouted antennae out of my head.
Coaches: Throwing out a dozen cues will only frustrate and confuse your athlete and the movement deteriorates to the level of "poop" rapidly. Highlight the one or two most useful points and then let the athlete/client try to perform the movement. Once a client masters the big things, then you can move on to fixing/cuing the smaller things.
Mike Robertson recently had a fantastic article on cuing the squat and deadlift HERE. It's the epitome of minimalist coaching.
Coaches and teachers of any sort will do well to remember that "less is more" when it comes to teaching new skills!
Knowledge is POWER!
Good Thursday, my lovely SAPT blog readers! This morning I bring you a special blog post aimed at nurturing that big ol' brain of yours. I'm an avid reader, and make a point to try and set aside at least an hour a day to read. I frequently have upwards of thirty tabs open on my computer... a "to-do" list of material that I want to get to. To my delight, this list never seems to get any shorter, as each article leads to 3 others, and so on and so forth. Here's a quick screen shot to show I'm not speaking hyperbole.
As ridiculous as this may seem, this is my way of forcing myself to improve. Every day I strive to be better then I was the day before. Whether this improvement comes as a result of learning a new exercise or gaining a more complete understanding of a certain conditioning method, it doesn't matter. The point is that I'm evolving and growing every day, and reading plays an instrumental role in this process. Below are a few tidbits from the internet to help you evolve. Remember: knowledge is power.
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We frequently use forearm wallslides here at SAPT. This is a fantastic exercise that targets your serratus, helps increase scapular stability, and combats the droopy, shoulders-forward posture that many overhead athletes develop. Here's a great video by Eric Cressey, owner of Cressey Sports Performance, where he discusses the finer details of the exercise and how to perform it correctly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPF1sA4Ph94
Ever wonder why your SAPT coaches are having you roll on the ground? Read this article to find out!
- Rolling Patterns for Core Development and Functional Movement
Any avid runners out there? Here's a great article explaining the science behind program design for runners like you!
- What are Strength Exercises for Runner? The Science and the Programming
New to the strength training scene? Check out this article by Dean Somerset showing you how to succeed as a new lifter.
- 5 Ways for Beginners to Succeed in The Gym in 2015
Here are two article by the guys at Darkside Strength. Dr. Quinn Henoch and Ryan Brown are huge players in the sports performance and rehabilitation industries. If you're not keeping already reading their material, start now. You won't regret it.
- Movement to Master for Youth Athletes
And finally, I'll leave you with what may be my favorite pre-lift video of all time. Donny Shankle of California Strength, ladies and gentleman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdhOdJ_NVao
Getting Away From The Whistle
A while back on my way into SAPT, I found myself face to face with a 10 ft. long piece of lumber laying across my lane on 495. I was immediately bombarded with a ton of information to process and a decision to make. Do I slam on the brakes (not smart on the highway), or blindly jump into another lane (also not smart on the highway)? I immediately pulled a high speed precision driving maneuver to avoid the collision. Unfortunately, this maneuver didn’t work out quite as well as I had seen it done in some movies.
Immediately following this encounter I began thinking about how athletes have to do perform reactive movements and skills tens if not hundreds of time within a competition. In volleyball for example, every time a ball is passed to a different player that player has to respond rapidly; or in football after an interception, a skill player like a quarterback immediately must transition and become a defender.
http://youtu.be/RF9PFJI_t5I
How does one prepare his/her athletes for rapid game-time decision-making? One training tool I like to include are reactive cues rather than having athletes strictly focus on reacting to a horn, bell, or whistle. This is a great way to get your athletes thinking, add competition to a practice, and have some fun at the same time. Explained below is a fun drill that you can implement at your next practice, training session, or family BBQ.
- Have an athlete or group begin on a court or field line
- Inform the person of your specific cue and the predetermined distance. This can be just a few yards or longer if you desire. (Example: Even numbers = athletes run left, Odd numbers= athletes run right)
A example of this would be to have an athlete straddle the half court line of a basketball court facing the bench. The athlete will then be instructed to turn and sprint 5 yards to his left if an even number is called out and to turn and sprint 5 yards to his right if an odd number is called. If the coach of this example calls out "67" the athlete would turn to his or her right and sprint through the marker signifying 5 yards.
Mix this up by having athletes start from various positions (push up position, seated) or asking them perform various actions during their round (side shuffle, backpedal back, carioca, etc.)
Have a blast training your muscles and brains.
Volleyball Performance Training: The Other Skillz
Following the loose theme we've had this month of volleyball training (but really, let's be honest, all of this can apply to most sports), I thought it would be beneficial to highlight a few other athletic skills/movements that are woefully under-trained in volleyball players. It's all about the vertical!
But not really.
It drives me nutso that coaches and parents and the players focus singularly on improving the vertical jump. Yes, it's important, but how does one get to the net to jump? How does one move fast enough to get behind the ball to pass it well?
I've worked with dozens and dozens of volleyball players and I've seen terrible movement quality all the other planes of motion. Great volleyball players are more than their vertical jump heights! (tweet that) I've listed a handful of movements that would behoove any volleyball player, and coaches, to implement in a regular training rotation.
Side Shuffle
I can, without exaggeration, tell you that I've seen volleyball players side shuffle with the grace of a new-born giraffe. How in the world can a volleyball player move around the court while keeping their eyes on the game, without side shuffling? Answer: Not possible. Side shuffling is the most efficient and most strategic way to move around the court.
Transitional Movements
Above are just a few examples of transitional movement drills. Along with side shuffling, there are times when players need to sprint forward or backpedal quickly and then run in a completely different direction. The ability to change directions rapidly is essential in volleyball, especially if there's a wild pass or tip off the net.
Heidens
Yes, I know volleyball consists of jumping up and down, and not side-to-side, but reinforcing lateral movements is a boon for volleyball. Heidens also teach force absorption and production in the frontal (lateral) plane. Most of volleyball consists of lateral movements, so if a player is strong side-to-side, not only will it reduce injury risk but she will be more confident moving sideways and will thus do it more.
Rolls
There are a lot of opportunities to dive, roll, and fall on the ground in volleyball. Learning how to do so safely is imperative. Learning how to pop back up again after a quick "hello" to the floor is vital for scoring points. Because rolling and tumbling is not a part of our everyday lives (at least, most of us) the vestibular system might be a bit slow in re-orienting. However, if you train rolls, you're also training the vestibular system and strengthening its ability to readjust quickly.
Add these into your training arsenal and there will be a guaranteed bump in performance.
Conditioning for Volleyball; How to do it WITHOUT killing verticals
It never ceases to amaze me how often I see volleyball coaches running their athletes through, "old school," conditioning while in season. They then go on to wonder why their athletes are hurting their knees, why verticals aren't improving and what can be done to remedy these issues. Often times the thought is to add something to the program as more is better and hard work makes improvement, right? Wrong. More is just more and hard work only leads to improvement when it is applied correctly. It seems extremely popular for coaches to implement P90X style conditioning in which their athletes do repeated vertical jumps or burpees to fatigue while throwing in sprints, pushups, crunches and whatever else. The common thought is, "it's hard, leaves the athletes gassed and contains sport-specific movements, so it must work!" This may seem sport-specific because it contains jumping, but it actually couldn't be further from what they need while in season. This is because the actual energy system demands in these types of situations are far from actual volleyball. Expecting them to respond positively with respects to their sport from jumps, agilities, suicides while fatigued or in a heavily aerobic state violates the SAID principle.
The SAIDPrinciple and Energy Systems
Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. That is one of the golden rules of training. It does not entirely mean that if you just keep jumping you will get better at jumping. What it does mean is that if you keep jumping with certain muscle fibers, at a certain pace, with certain recovery, you will become better at jumping a certain way. That "way" is all determined by the mechanics of the jump and the energy system(click to get a good background on the energy systems) the athlete is tapping into while they jump. Performing jumps while fatigued and in a heavily aerobic(breathing hard) state means that you are training yourself to jump better in those conditions. This often times results in having altered mechanics, relying heavily on ligamentous and structural stability(rather than muscular) to jump as well as recruiting more slow twitch fibers in the pattern than fast twitch. Jumping like this can greatly increase the risk of knee injuries as you can see below..
When our bodies enter into a largely aerobic state, they limit the amount of fast twitch fiber recruitment. This is because our fast twitch fibers are largely glycolitic which means that they're fueled anaerobically. You can read up more on the energy systems HERE. In short, the anaerobic systems are your body's first choice for fuel. It is rapidly prepared for use and requires no oxygen. When you run out of the creatine phosphate(10 seconds of activity), your body starts trying to convert the glycogen into ATP. This causes a byproduct of lactate and hydrogen. If you are expending energy at a rate faster than what your body can shuttle out these byproducts, you start to develop fatigue and that, "burning" sensation in those muscles. These byproducts are shuttled to the slow twitch fibers that can actually metabolize them with the use of oxygen into more energy. The increase in oxygen for metabolism results in heavier breathing.
So as you can see, the fast twitch fibers run out of energy pretty quickly. The slow twitch fibers can go all day. The more you train these fibers in specific movements, the more dominant they will be in recruitment strategies. So if you're jumping while in an aerobic dominant state, you're training yourself to use more slow twitch and less fast twitch when you jump.
The energy systems are not black and white. We are constantly using all of them at the same time, but there is generally one dominant one. It is normal to have an increase in breathing or feel some work in your legs during jumping. However, I would argue that doing what should be explosive style movements to glycolitic fatigue in a sport that has almost no aerobic element is extremely counter-productive to maintaining power-production and general orthopedic health.
What they need:
First, I'd like to point out that a quick google search reveals that there are no time-motion studies to be found on volleyball(or at least when I was looking). A time-motion analyses is a group of collected data taken during sporting events to tell you the average of: type of movement, intensity of movement, it's duration, frequency and amount of rest between bouts for that particular sport. This way strength and conditioning professionals can take a more objective look at what an athlete actually needs. The fact that there are none to be found on volleyball, in my mind, just goes to show that the aerobic conditioninglevel is insignificant when compared to other variables. It's for that reason that more emphasis should be focused on mechanics, maximal power output, and strength. Now with that being said, there is still a small aerobic component that could potentially limit an athletes' jumping ability at the end of a long game, but it needs to be addressed properly, without taking away from the aforementioned traits.
Researchers analyzed a German female beach volleyball team and found that in one hour of play, an athlete takes about 85 jumps on average. Another study followed a mens' beach volleyball team and found that they take an average of 145 maximal jumps during the course of play in a game. That same study noted that about 27% of the jumps were due to blocking. Though beach volleyball and indoor volleyball are two different beasts, what we can conclude from this is that since beach volleyball has 1/3 of the players and is much more active, that indoor volleyball requires even less total work output. This does however give us a, "line in the sand," to know how much work capacity they need. If you focus on giving them more capacity than what they need, then you run the risk of pulling from other training variables such as explosiveness.
Knowing the numbers above I would estimate that prepping an athlete to take 80-110 jumps(being liberal) in a game should suffice for most levels and positions. So they ideally need to be able to perform that many jumps over the period of a 60-90 minutes, without losing much "umph". Throw in the constant shuffling and repositioning and you could argue that there is an aerobic demand, but due to the amount of time between plays and the, "clusters" of movement, I would argue that it is minimal when compared to the demand on the creatine-phosphate system. You rarely see an indoor volleyball player panting or having a build up of lactic acid during a game. The main role of the aerobic system for these athletes should be to help adequately replenish the glycolitic system.
To address this, you want to try to improve the aerobic capabilities of the fast twitch fibers without giving the slow twitch fibers much stimulus. Doing this must be carefully programmed so as to not interfere with maximal power output. My favorite method for this is ballistic style conditioning. The only prerequisites for this method is that the athlete has a decent strength base, so that we know the tissues won't negatively respond to the impact, and proper jumping mechanics. If the athlete is lagging in those two areas then they are much better off focusing on those aspects than worrying about their conditioning.
Enter Ballistic style conditioning
Not only does it sound hard-core, it's pretty easy to implement, is extremely effective and is probably the most specific conditioning method for volleyball players. It is a form of interval training that is set to the individuals ability every time it is performed.
To implement this method, you need a point in which the athlete(s) can measure jump height on each of their reps. What I recommend doing is adjusting the nethigher so that they can't get one hand over when jumping(if possible) or using some other object(like a basketball hoop) for them to consistently touch when they jump. The athletes will first see how high they can get by jumping uptouching a spot on the net/object and will be instructed to mark and remember that spot. You can use tags or stickers if you don't trust them to remember.
You then pick an interval depending on the need, position, time of year and conditioning level of the athlete(s). I recommend 5-15 seconds on and 20-35 seconds off. When you start the interval the athlete(s) will jump and touch their individual spots repeatedly until the rest period starts. During the rest period, the athlete still does slight movements such as sidesteps in place. Just enough to keep the blood flow going. Then returns back to jumping when the rest ends. This is repeated UNTIL THE ATHLETE MISSES THEIR MARK, which signifies fatigue of the fast twitch fibers. At that point, the athlete stops and gets a gull recovery of 3-6 minutes so that the glycolitic system can recover. This constitutes as one set. I'd recommend doing anywhere from 1 to 3 sets depending on the situation and frequency of implementation. The training effect will make it so that the fibers can recover faster in between bouts so that they can generate near maximal forces even towards the end of the game.
This method should be used and completed before the season starts so that the training effect can be utilized in practice. So long as they are continuously practicing and playing in game-like situations, the effects should last. It will actually allow you to get in more maximal power work too, which is what you should be doing while in-season. Performing circuit-style conditioning or anything that pushes the athlete into 60-90 seconds or more of intense activity will start to diminish this affect.
Give this a try with your team next year. Get them working early so that they can get a good wave of ballistics in before their season starts and then continue to work on their maximal power and skills from there. If your team isn't ready for ballistics conditioning then working on jumping mechanics and a solid strength base will still improve their endurance on the court as well as improving their vertical.
