Our latest podcast interview with our Strength & Conditioning partners Soar is out now.
Listen to this conversation with Alex and James as we discuss:
James taking on the Paddy Buckley round.
What are the most common running related injuries and what can we do to help reduce the risk of these injuries?
Why rest alone is not enough to help an injury recover.
Specific strength exercise recommendation all runners should do.
What is occlusion training and should you do it?
And more….
You can read Alex’s story here:
Links to listen:
Just before we hit record James told me that you’re both going away tomorrow. So thank you very much for giving me your time at this ah moment when you’re very busy and ready for your holidays.
00:24.91
grashary
James also mentioned these for for listeners that he’s running the Paddy Buckley round to want to give us a quick overview what that is James well feel holiday. They.
00:32.91
James
So yeah, so the Paddy Buckley round is the welsh equivalent of probably the more well-known Bob Graham round which is so it is a 24 hour round so you have to essentially complete a loop of I think it’s approximately sixty miles
00:41.23
grashary
Is.
00:52.26
James
Um, over 47 peaks in Snowonia um, and end up back where you’ve started so I’m going to start planmberris and go over the glitters down into Jogon Valley over the Kneddi down to kaelqueurig over mol shabbbod. All the way around to I think you end up in Nmore then you go over the Natel Ridge um over to Snowden and then I will be finishing off with Snowden probably in the middle of the night and then back to planbaras hopefully within the 24 hours but
01:29.68
grashary
Um, what.
01:30.38
James
The challenge for me in part was to do it so low. So I’m going to be on the Hill by myself even though my wife is going to ah help me out at roadstops and.
01:39.95
grashary
Wow Wow. Um, your lovely wife letting you trot off and do that for the day whilst you’re on holiday. Um.
01:47.86
Alex
Um.
01:51.32
James
She’ll be looking after 3 kids as well as well as being my road support.
01:54.74
grashary
But Wow I Love it up there I like I mentioned just before we press record we were there last week we are for the forest coaster up in them. Betty code I Love that part of the world is beautiful. So enjoy I look forward to here and now you get on.
02:09.64
James
Thank you.
02:13.50
grashary
We’ll get straight into eggs we were um this this time we’re gonna talk about um well I think we came to this because so often runners miss the strength training which is what you’re all about and then they only pick it up after they’ve got injured is that a fair comment.
02:31.74
Alex
I’ll say so I think the but we’re we’re all about about prevention and prevention mean better than than cure. But I think most people find us because they’ve had some issue previously with with injuries and. Um, the way in which we approach approach approach it all is very much a more holistic approach rather than just thinking about the injury itself. It’s it’s the mechanisms or the the most likely reasons for you to be becoming becoming injured So That’s why people kind of stumble across us.
03:09.45
Alex
Yeah, ah hopefully in an attempt to help prevent them and with with injuries but um, obviously people are 50% of runners every year get injured. So at some point it’s a flip of coin if but but not this year you’re going to get injured so you kind of find us when when ah.
03:21.51
grashary
Um, yeah.
03:26.42
Alex
When there’s an issue but hopefully we can push that to a more of a proactive approach to it.
03:33.98
grashary
So what are the most common running related injuries that that you see and people come to you.
03:42.27
Alex
So as we yes, it’s a good question and it’s pretty much the foundation of how so excuse me how um saw and ready to run came came about um so. The vast majority of injuries 80% of all injuries are overuse rather than traumatic injuries. So overuse is the continual loading of that area of the body when and that um, that repeated loading. Ah, goes above what the body can tolerate and therefore you get ah, an acute or a kind of ah sudden sudden injury unlike the traumatics which are about 20% which are things like rolling your ankle while while running or um, the really unfortunate things are being hit by something or falling falling over. So.
04:18.60
James
Look like that.
04:37.40
Alex
80% are of those overuse injuries are are the sorry overuse injuries are 80% are clearly the most the most dominant in that the 80% of those injuries which is really interesting happen at the knee or are related to the knee or below. Um, so. You can see that quite quickly when you go for overuse then down to a lower limb and knee and below. You can see quite quite quickly that there’s an awful lot of um, stress going on and around those areas so kind of the most common ones are like runner’s knee. Patellala and achilles tendnographies or Tendonitis Plant Faciitis Itb Syndrome Shin splints and handstring tendnopathography- based injuries. So they they they account for the vast majority of them and and probably runner’s knee which is this kind of. Aing pain around the kneecap and the the femur is probably the the mightwa is the most common. The literature would suggest this is it is the most common common injury but they’re all basically when you look at anything which involves the tendon and an information of the tendon or the fascia which is the plant of faciitis. Um, or ah, a bony stress reaction like shin splints that is all over use based symptoms. So when you get a shin splint is because the the bone is being um, pounded upon more than it can actually tolerate when the tendon starts to inflame. It’s because the tendon is working.
06:03.33
grashary
The part has been part of perhaps the time.
06:11.66
Alex
More than what it can normally tolerate and when ah when a muscle starts to behave inappropriately or just a dysfunctional point of View. It’s um, just. It starts. Um, again, that’s a stress-related response so they’re they’re they’re kind of the main injuries. It’s not say you don’t get injuries elsewhere. That’s clearly hit low back injuries as well. But the way we view it and then the lens that we view it is is what happens below the knee or at the knee below. Which almost cascades the injuries up above the knee so often the back or the hip aren’t the causes. They’re just the symptom of something that’s going on below below that and it’s often just the ability to manage all of the.
06:43.49
grashary
What what was catholics the page of the but also the that of the.
06:52.82
grashary
That as the temperature of stuff that’s cut. But but that it’s often just compet type.
07:02.54
Alex
Forces as you land and if you’re doing lots of running in a 10 k I kind I guess you probably would do um 20000 steps in ah in ah in ten k that’s that’s 10000 steps per foot and on that you can probably and see how quickly an overuse injury can occur if you’ve got a slight.
07:06.49
grashary
Was to our thing.
07:22.70
Alex
Dysfunction and in a tissue but from the knee downwards and the in the body.
07:28.80
grashary
Anything to add some out James.
07:31.49
James
I was going to say from from my coaching clients the ones I see a lot and suffer from myself for the runner’s knee and actually quite a lot of achilles tendonitis or tendopathy whatever you want to see but you know when I chat to Alex about my runners those tend those tend to be. The um bits the bits that we focus on.
07:52.72
grashary
We we see a lot of threads about Planta Faiaitus but think about the um, the injury threads that come up that or or they seem to be the one that get discussed the most is it um, is that because it’s so difficult to get rid of or.
08:11.50
Alex
Yeah, one because it’s like a red hot poker going for the sole of your foot when when you get it I had it. This is really random I didn’t get it through running I was working in with Teamgb in the rio olympics I was on i.
08:12.50
grashary
Why would why would you think that might be.
08:30.90
Alex
Heading up a training facility at at a facility just outside of the olympic village but I was there for six weeks and on average I was doing about 25 to 30000 steps a day. Um, which was probably double what I normally do and I came back? Um, and and again you get free. You get very early thats kit which while you’re a part of the team. But it’s not a normal trainer I I normally wear and um I think the combination of change in footwear and overloading the number of steps I did I got blood faciitis ah, and the reason why is just that my body wasn’t. So tolerant of the sudden change and or the overload of of that. So the reason why I think people talk about it is because it probably wakes you up in the morning when you when you first get out of bed. It’s probably at its worst and it’s probably primarily because when you’re resting you have a slight. Um.
09:17.82
grashary
Um, yeah, oh.
09:29.57
Alex
Stiffening of your muscle tendon unit. So if you fit the muscles one part the tendons the other part when the the kind of the fascia underneath. The furt is kind of linked to the ton of tendon in a bit so when the muscle starts to relax it just pulls it a little bit and suddenly creates a bit more tension and it’s actually when you. A bit more time on your feet and you stretch out it tends to alleviate a little bit doesn’t get rid of it. But it alleviates a bit of it. So I suspect because it is so living painful in non-running activities that it it really it really becomes a um, a big conversation. Um. And it is really difficult to get get rid of as well because there’s ah, there’s obviously a range of movement piece there but there’s also kind of ah what your calf and the like the kind of the musclature around the front and the back of your lower leg actually can do to kind of change that so it’s you.
10:06.28
grashary
Um.
10:25.31
Alex
About to get too scientific on it that if you have ah a muscle which doesn’t contract or shorten and lengthen effectively you often get a lot of range of movement through the the fascia of the foot so you get that range of movement. Um. The body cheats it finds it easiest way to to move and if you don’t get the movement through the muscles of your your lower leg. It will find the tendon or the muscles above or below and often the the fascia of the fur is what becomes the victim of that and so often when you’re treating the pain. You don’t necessarily treat the. Cause of why that’s happening which is often a bit of furthervor up the leg and I think that’s probably why it’s stubborn. It’s really stubborn if you um if you don’t do do it and I know now after that event that was what seven years ago seven years ago if I still don’t do single leg carphrass 2 3 times a week um after two weeks I will I will quite quickly get get it after doing some some training exercise. Yeah, and yeah, so you do have to stay on top of it. It’s one of those same with all the kind of the the tendon.
11:23.36
grashary
You’re still.
11:28.12
grashary
Um, really well.
11:37.15
Alex
And tendonitis or tendonoppathly-based symptoms if you don’t stay on top of these things you can quite quickly turn back into a into a um into the negative negative state of it and it it can be. You know if it takes two weeks to for the symptoms to come back on again. It might take four weeks to
11:42.89
grashary
A.
11:55.29
Alex
Alleviate it. It’s it’s it’s almost takes twice as long as as’s a kind of a rough rule. It’s not of a kind of a physiological rule. But it’s a rough rule of if you if it takes us number of weeks to get into a symptom. It will take almost double that to get back out of it.
12:11.81
grashary
Yeah, do you Ah, do you ever see people as the age perhaps have had an injury I know in their twenty s and then twenty years later the same injury returns even though they’ve had a huge gap of it being completely fine. Do you see things like that is that. That a thing. Yeah.
12:29.00
Alex
Yeah, yes, it definitely is a thing from from working with athletes but also from personal experience that um I had a L Four L five.
12:34.97
grashary
But.
12:43.65
Alex
Significant disk irritation when I was 21 22 and that’s when I still had rubber and magic in my body and you could sort of do very little and get over it and kind of kept on top of it and then as I kind of transitioned during covid set this business up and was.
12:45.61
grashary
Towards the so.
12:50.20
James
Yes.
12:56.40
James
Um, and.
12:58.96
grashary
Service as sell of course report and.
13:01.44
Alex
Probably more sedentary and there was obviously more restrictions but I felt it it came back again. Um, and the last twelve months I’ve had on and off Sciatica based because because of that irritation from 20 years over twenty years ago but you see that.
13:13.89
grashary
For yeah 2020
13:19.13
Alex
Um, um, the best predictable future injury is previous injury. So if you had a previous injury in a site and there is a greater opportunity to injure that again. Um and some of that is because of poor Rehab but some of it.
13:23.25
grashary
So yeah, sorry that a great of opportunities. Yeah.
13:38.10
Alex
Is because you’ve just changed the um the ah the structure of the tissue and that sounds really really really kind of us way abstract. But if if this is as a kind of ah, a kind of easy way to look at if if if everything is supposed to be uniformed. In your your tissues and and when you’re young and you’re healthy. Everything’s nice and it kind of moves nice nicely when you become in you and it kind of gets a bit more gnarly and and so on so it it just isn’t like what it was before and if you don’t so. If You don’t Rehab properly or just over time your tissues just become like that. So if you’ve got ah um, ah, minor frailty in that space that kind of grottiness can come back again because aging is another ah factor in in predicting injury as well.
14:22.16
grashary
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re like your natural strength deterioration as you as you age and um, your mobility reduces doesn’t it as you age. So if you’ve got those.
14:34.15
Alex
But it it.
14:39.00
grashary
Slight changes in structure like you’re talking about then I guess that would amplify again. So it makes total sense.
14:44.97
Alex
Yeah, and I was listening to a um radio show on lbc a couple of weeks ago. It was talking about aging and I think one of the questions was asking about how how does an olympic champion. Ah, four years later not even make the final. And you know there was lots of hearsay about what what it was but a professor came on and starts talking about aging and just the effects of aging on life is really depressing talking about this as you get older, but but or your muscles just don’t function as as as appropriately your tendons become um. Less compliant and stiffer and they don’t they don’t work like like they did before your joints have taken more of a pounding so there’s less kind of sign of your fluid or carilage protecting them and all of these things have these kind of minor effects. But when you aggregate them altogether like you kind of. Changes the very way in which you move and you try and like to say the body’s well I say lazy I don’t mean it in a negative way. It just finds the easiest way to move from a to b and if you make a small small chain somewhere else. It will come up.
15:49.20
grashary
Yeah, yeah.
15:56.50
Alex
It will move slightly differently and and that just puts more load on another part of the system and it’s like a car like you know if you change your um, you change the um ah the amount of power a car can produce but you don’t change the brakes like the.
16:00.78
grashary
Um, yeah, um.
16:13.12
Alex
What you end up doing is having an inappropriate breaking system for a very high accelerating system or you change the the weight of the car you put more weight onto to the left hand side then the wearing of the tap the tire becomes more than if it isn’t balanced with with the right- hand side and this’s exactly the same for us. We just wear.
16:27.61
grashary
Um, yeah.
16:30.66
Alex
Ah, body just finds a way of moving and suddenly it becomes a point where it’s like Nah I’m not having that anymore.
16:33.60
grashary
Here and like you said before it makes its way up the chain doesn’t it makes its way out the check and refers elsewhere. Have you seen have you seen the guy god have you seen the guy. There’s a guy doing the rounds on Youtube at the moment and he’s trying to reverse his age and he’s taking like.
16:39.38
Alex
Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, and interestingly just ah icon.
16:52.78
grashary
Hundreds of pills a day Every you see if you see him every yeah I think he’s on them a diary of a Ceo podcast this week I I just saw a buyer I have actually seen him on a different podcast and he is literally.
16:56.36
Alex
I haven’t seen I’ve I’ve heard someone was talking about him in the um, the training center yesterday. Yeah.
17:12.41
grashary
Trying to reverse his body but he’s taking like millions of pounds worth of different of different tablets and and that’s just like wow is it is that yeah is that worth it and he’d only drink you only eats in at certain times and he has.
17:21.10
Alex
Yeah, yeah.
17:28.52
grashary
Three milllls of alcohol at seven o’clock every morning and I anyway I’d rather age gracefully yeah.
17:29.67
James
Um, yeah, he’s He’s not living longer. It just feel. It’ll just feel to him like he’s living longer because it’s so boring.
17:33.17
Alex
Yeah, it’s a ah you you, you’re delay in the inevitable. That’s a problem isn’t it.
17:48.60
Alex
Ah, yeah, yeah, there is a balance to be had isn’t there around like what you can do and what’s actually just kind of about that kind of sweet spot of because you still got to live a life haven’t you and and this is disable training isn’t it like you could spend your life.
17:59.68
grashary
Um, yeah, yeah.
18:06.42
Alex
Yeah, know the athlete I was working with yesterday and I had a conversation with the the team at the end and I was like the amount of training this person is doing is significant and I’m not sure they need to be doing that amount of work and then if you extrapolate that back to a human that’s basically 6 hours of of. Exercise um a week of which 4 hours of that is probably more remedial corrective and sort of supportive rather than performance focus I was like well I’m not sure anybody wants to spend that amount of time and which is again why running ready to run is the set up to do. Minimal dose response to get the most for your for your buck really.
18:47.57
grashary
Yes, yeah, which in today’s world is perfect. Isn’t it I busy everybody so you but you went into that then really, but how in terms of how these injuries are usually sustained but you did is there a. Is there a pattern that you see regularly for people with with these overuse injuries.
19:12.50
Alex
Yeah, yeah, there are um, they are. They’re all slightly different but there is generally ah the exact same reason. Um that that this occurs and if you take take away you know people say oh that that’s footwear. It’s training you know all of that. Ultimately comes down to 1 or 2 physiological responses which is you are placing a certain tissue or group of tissues whether that’s the muscle the tendon the bone is under more stress than it can cope with and that. That fundamentally is a pattern. So if you change your footwear like I describe when I and in rio for instance that that clearly had an impact on on it but fundamentally my my um, my tissues were unable to tolerate. Um, what was what was um, going through there. So. So that’s the kind of the first kind of physiological thing. It’s just stress. It’s overloading overloading that the the second kind of ah pattern we see is you’ll have 1 of 2 things occur. You’ll get an injury at that site or it will be an injury. Um, above or below which is why it’s really important when you’re doing the sorry above and below that the where the where the the limitation is because the body’s offloading it into one of those spaces which is why when we look at this you have to take a much more holistic approach to to this. So if if you have a carf issue.
20:44.67
Alex
May not manifest itself as a calf issue which is why you have to look at all the other assessments that we do above and below because you’ll see a deficit which and may may exist um and too long in my career. It was like wow, they’ve got a hamstringing issue. Let’s just go now the hamstring and then actually when we looked at it. It wasn’t a hamstring. Problem it was ah it was a loading issue around the calf and actually they were trying to um, offload the calf and by doing that they put more load for the hamstring funly enough and so that’s why it’s really important to to do that so there they’re kind of the 2 kind of patterns that you you see one is.
21:20.70
grashary
Yeah.
21:24.20
Alex
Is overload. 2 is is a site of injury or the injuries above above and below. Um and I suspect that the third bit. Um pattern I see and this is more with um, those who have um. Don’t do regular physical like physical activity in terms of of say physical strength training or or supportive strength training around that is that they have long periods of absence or rest between training or they received an injury. And they haven’t and they’ve just rested it so the tissue um hasn’t or the the tissues of the body just haven’t adapted and I think we’ve we’ve spoken about this a fair amount but the key thing for me is what ends up happening is um, you rest because you feel pain.
22:11.18
grashary
You.
22:21.91
Alex
Pain is as is a signal to say that something around that area is not not working and you stop until that pain goes. But what you what? you’ve what you’ve done and this is what overload does when I was talking about this nice kind of uniformity as a kind of as a kind of abstract idea like you’ve.
22:36.82
grashary
Is.
22:41.70
Alex
The pain is kind of crater and the injury is kind of created then all you’ve done is just left it and it’s just no, there’s no signal now to say that that’s there’s an issue there so you go back and load like that rather than loading back to light in a kind of more uniform position and the only way you get uniformity is through training and actually changing the. The the the tissue again to get it back to Normal. So The third pattern is when there are long periods of not attempting or deliberately not attempting or unaware of not attempting to make a change to that tissue after injury and.
23:19.65
James
Um, that’s one of my bugbears with some of my fellow runners is the the wish to rest and then come back and then the same thing happens again and they rest and come back and there’s where there’s 1 guy I run with who has had knee problems on or off all year he rests comes back runs for a few weeks to me hurts rests comes back and and you know it’s just a cycle that at some point you need to break you need to break the cycle and actually rehab. Whatever whatever is whatever is wrong because I think you know resting.
23:39.11
grashary
Yeah.
23:55.22
James
Is often not the solution here. Um it will take the pain away. It won’t take the problem it won’t take the problem away you know I can totally yeah the the other sort of real work world example is coming back to injury sites I would see the physio yesterday because I’ve got pain in my knee. Um.
24:01.14
grashary
Like.
24:03.40
Alex
Yeah.
24:14.40
James
Guess what? it’s not my knee. It’s a weak glute that is causing everything to tighten up and pull my Kneecap out of line and then money then my knee hurts. Um and it’s you know it’s just cascading down in this case, it’s coming down down the chain to hurt hurt My knee. So. The site. The hurt may not be the site where the works needed and.
24:35.10
grashary
Yes, how does how does that point interact with your with the program and specifically the exercises that people has to do as part of the assessment.
24:49.60
Alex
So yeah, good question so you’ll see so that the 4 the 4 exercises that are included within the the risk report are have been selected to um target the. The areas which we know are most likely to be affected but we also know they’re kind of proxy measures for other areas and I’m saying to James this morning that actually we have assessments for um.
25:22.30
Alex
Pretty much everything like I think when we were when we were talking about the exercises required for the for the course opposites alongside this I think there are 15 different assessments that we use like if you did the whole the whole shebang like that would be it and. Um, but we’ve chosen for which we’ve become much more representative of the vast majority of people and knowing like when we’ve done the the data analysis on the assessments that tends to be the trend is is if you’re good at 1 you tend to be good at all if you’re average at 1 you tend to be average at all. If you’re poor at one you tend to be poor. All and that’s yeah, that’s true for about 90% of the people. Um that that we’ve we’ve tested and that that gives us an idea that if you have a poor single air car phrase score the chances are you’re going to have poor. Need need a wall range of movement and some of the other assessments around if you have a poor hamring bridge for instance, then you are likely to have poor knee like ah a quad um quad quad capacity. Um, and poor hamstring range range of movement and you tend to see all these things kind of moving in in um, in units and as as as they get as they get better. So we’ve selected ones which we think um, are one. They’re really easy to do and it can be done with no no instruction or no time.
26:53.81
Alex
Person in front of you. You can do them at home but 2 1 one that we think are important enough to be representative of the the lower body and you’ll see that they’re all either um, below the knee or directly. Um, around the knee so the hamstring and the quad stretch obviously have have the the knee component within that so we know that has ah they will all um, covering that the vast majority of the areas that we know are high risk.
27:23.48
grashary
Yeah, cool. So if if anyone listening then is um, unfortunate enough to get injured. What’s the first thing they should do or the first things.
27:36.23
Alex
While while we while we been bashing resting that. The first thing is actually you you do need to um, rest and um and you’ve probably heard of rice rest ice compression elevation. There’s also this call it price now which is protect good.
27:43.69
grashary
Um, yeah.
27:53.69
Alex
Ah, rest ice compression elevate and the idea is that it’s trying to remove the immediate acute responses to to um to the pain so often with pain. You’ll get an increase in heat increase in inflammation and a protection of the area to try and avoid avoid.
27:57.86
grashary
Um.
28:13.67
Alex
Void movement and that’s body telling you that there is ah there is genuine distress in that space and um, so that be the first thing is to properly offload it and if like we’ve been really clear. We’ve um, ready to run that it’s not for. Rehabilitation. It’s about prehabilitation and protecting. So um, it’s about knowing um where the injury what the injury is before you can start making an effective plan so often. The best advice is to go and see a a physio who will be able to. As James Test gave his testament the second ago it’s not the knee. It’s something else. So obviously when you feel it’s in there you try and do you know if if you go and Google knee pain on for runners. There’s 5000000000 Google hits and you can choose any one of those.
28:53.53
grashary
Yeah.
29:08.32
Alex
Things which can be misrepresenting or all that but actually getting genuine advice around what that is once you’ve got advice of what it is and the pain is no longer a problem then the the 2 things we talk about.
29:08.48
grashary
Um, yeah.
29:24.67
Alex
Are around range improvement or flexibility and work capacity and work capacity is basic loosely like strength endurance like we don’t need to be super strong but we do need to have the ability to repeatedly load and at a ah muttle or Tendon. Um. Sub-maxially for long periods of time which kind of kind of sits right in this work capacity-based world of lots of repetitions. So the programs we we write that actually go up to fairly hefty numbers of repetitions because we know that if you can do 45 repetitions on a. Single lead car phrase then your calf is potentially not a limiting factor to you um, becoming injured in the Future. So the idea then will be to start on low intensity loading to increase your your work capacity. So um, we often try and get people on.
30:18.44
grashary
We collecting people beside things like.
30:21.20
Alex
So if it’s your left leg that you might have an issue we try and do double leg so that you take a little bit of the load off that and then you move onto this onto the single limb we look at ranges of movement as well and just make sure that the the joints and the muscles can have a freely movable. Um.
30:25.17
grashary
Technologicals and you go to this to the signal.
30:40.23
Alex
Ah, plane plane of access so that they that they’re not limited so excuse me that they’re not limited by um, by any any type of restriction and then it’s just ah, like we we use this term kind of like habitual capability which is if you can run and put. Say 3 times body weight through through your body for your calf muscle while you’re running then your training needs to train the muscles and the tenderness to be able to deal with 3 times but body weight. So the. The example I would or I often give is that doing 3 set for 10 is not going to touch the size for most people because you’re about to go and do a 10 k and you’re pushing more than 1 times body weight through there. So actually as you get to the higher volumes. The body doesn’t know what.
31:24.20
grashary
Yeah.
31:31.86
grashary
Um, yeah.
31:36.26
Alex
Load or it doesn’t Know. Um, um, kind of actual the amount of load that’s going through it but it does no stress and it does no strain and you can in those latter repetitions. You can force the tissue the muscles and attendance to behave almost identically under stress. But. As if in running as well and you can build up a capacity to to deal with that. So. That’s why the volume for us becomes really really important and if I.
32:02.48
grashary
A.
32:03.41
James
And just to add to that point Alex that’s why the risk assessment and the personalization is so important because you know that is what then sets how many repetitions we’re going to ask someone. To do and if you ask someone? Who’s you know at a very low risk of injuries do a small number of reps that’s not going to help them in any way if you ask someone who’s got at a high risk of injury to do a very large number of steps that’s going to have the equal and opposite problem is either unachievable or is actually going to win. Injure them. So that’s why you know sort of advice that you do 3 times 10 of this or 3 times 12 of this doesn’t work. It. It’ll work for a group of people. But for you know, vast majority. It’s either going to be too much or too. Too little so you you need to you know you need to scale things to get this stress that Alex is talking about to get the muscle stronger.
33:04.22
grashary
It’s really interesting because if you if you talk to I bet and however, many runners if you and if you or people in any any other sport. Enjoy it sports or any and they think about. Strength work that is the kind of norm isn’t it that 8 to 12 rep range and perhaps you’ll work it for you know with a weight for four to six weeks your muscle will adapt. You’ll get a bit stronger and you’ll increase it by two and a half Kilos on each side or or similar to. The the volume of reps that you’re talking about and how you’ve just explained that in terms of if you run in a tenco you run in a half marathon or you run in a marathon and you know that your body weight increases because ah in my and you’ll see people talking about this all the time but my head and between my shoulder blades. Felt so heavy during my marathons in’t done any upper body strength training. But I I thought after I thought well I probably should have done because I was the aching and the pain. Um so high reps in all those different areas makes complete sense. But how many actually do that. But how many people actually do go to those those kinds of of levels of reps within it within a set.
34:14.98
Alex
So I said again, how many.
34:26.25
Alex
You cannot ask James was James as ah, um, hit his left week twelve and has got close to some of that volume already.
34:27.32
grashary
Um, yeah.
34:27.36
James
Explain.
34:33.35
grashary
So what sort of volume you doing in 128 James
34:35.88
James
But yeah, um, so I was up to about nearly 3 sets of 40 reps with some of the exercises. Um, so that yeah so that’s quite a lot and you know.
34:44.38
grashary
Yep.
34:49.41
James
Just to be clear. You don’t keep scaling up the amount of exercises you can go to a more difficult exercise but actually you know the whole point of you know, kind of this prehab or conditioning or whatever you want to call it is you know the way you do. It is lots and lots of reps at low. Yeah, at body weights essentially or very low intensity and and it’s you know it’s probably not the podcast to go into but you know there are various different weight different types of strength and you know Alex’s talks about maximal strength and how you train for that’s 1 thing.
35:07.81
grashary
Yeah.
35:22.83
James
You know, a lot of the 3 by 12 with you know as heavy as you can do 70% of your 1 rep max or whatever it is a lot of that’s to stimulate you know muscle growth as in get big, get muscle. Um and actually as a runner that’s not necessarily what you’re looking for. 4 you don’t want big muscles because you’re just going to have to lug round. Yeah unless big muscles are giving you a load more power. You just have to lug round more weight. Um, and and that’s why you know it’s it’s important to kindly. Yeah Alex I think you always talk about the outcome. It’s important to try to know what the outcome you’re trying to achieve is um.
35:55.69
grashary
Here.
36:00.44
James
And I think too often with strength training people are not necessarily thinking about the outcome they they want from it. They’re they’re doing it. You know in the sort of medium reps medium weight which builds muscle. It’s not ideal for runners.
36:05.15
grashary
In.
36:15.68
grashary
Um, yeah, very interesting.
36:15.76
Alex
I and I’ll I’ll add to that as well. That um, yeah, Joke Jones has knocked the noil on the on the head there. Um, you should become a strength coach. Um, but the the the the.
36:26.62
James
Me.
36:31.33
Alex
The second bit I think which is really important which sits alongside that when you look at the the type of training people do when when you are going to the sets of 8 to 10 or sets of 12 repetitions is the the thing that stops them from loading that exercise isn’t that. Often isn’t going to be the tissue or the muscle which they’re trying to target so I’ll give you an example that when you see people squatting um most people their their quads are strong enough to probably have 2 times their body weight just wet where you know that’s roughly. About right? So like if you weigh 60 kilos you should theoretically be able to do um h ten repetitions on one hundred and Twenty Kilos of of on the squat now I’ll guarantee. It’s not the quad that stops them from loading one hundred and Twenty Kilos on that. It’ll be their back. So suddenly you’re loading to the limiting most limiting factor of your body. So so you might end up when you’re squatting putting one hundred and ten percent of stress through the back’s maximal capability and only 70% or stress or 60% of stress. The quad so the quad’s just not getting enough stimulus. So suddenly you’re just training and you’re training at what the back can tolerate and this is often the the real issue with with strength training that the the areas that we are targeting are limited by other parts of the body that can tolerate.
38:07.88
Alex
And tolerate that our body’s the same often when you’re trying to load the back or the chest. It’s a biceps and triceps which are are limiting them so the ability to load really hairy isn’t you’re not being limited by what your Peck or your lap door. So I can lift. It’s because your bicep or your tricep is really weak. So so. Actually you’re not loading what you’re thinking, you’re loading and this is the the big kind of myth or the big big unwritten or unspoken rule around shrimp training that you have has to be at a genuine absolute intensity. Not a relative intensity but people say oh you know it’s you know, relative to. I can do I made progress. Well, that’s great. But if you think that your quad can do 2 times your body weight and you got really question what a single leg split squat with Forty Kilos on your back is doing or a um, a bat squat with Sixty Kilos on because it’s not It’s not targeting the quad anywhere near as much as what people think it is. Which is why when you go to the higher repetition based work. You’re not limited by the body’s ability to tolerate the loading um in other parts of the body and you can directly load the tissue which is yeah, you’re trying to target and you can target it really effectively. Um, by body weights and doing doing high volumes now what I’m not saying a high load or a heavy stroke training or Maximru training isn’t important but clearly it is and you know, um, you ever came in and watch me coach the athletes I do you’ll see. It’s a big part of our training program. But for the vast majority of people.
39:42.20
Alex
They don’t need it anywhere near as much as what they think they do you do need to be strong but you get that through through the top of training we’re suggesting but you just don’t have the availability of equipment Facilities Expertise or if you do you have to pay quite a significant price for it and our job is to try and.
39:58.77
grashary
Um.
39:59.57
Alex
Which is why we’ve come back down to this idea of like work capacity strength strength endurance type of work and range of movement flexibility workers like if you can do those 2 things anywhere you you are doing. You’re getting 8% of the the outcome that you need and you don’t probably need to get that last twenty percent and if you do. And you’ll be training 3 or 4 hours a day to get that sure it’s a really long-winded ah explanation to it. But.
40:20.69
grashary
So you yeah nice, it’s really interesting I had a couple of thoughts 1 is one is that the reason why you see some people walking around and all jacked in their upper body. But then they have really skinny legs that came to mind.
40:36.90
James
This.
40:39.97
grashary
Ah, because I have a friend like that and we ribb him for it I thought so perhaps he perhaps his backch weak and he’s doing his squats and he’s and it’s not loading his legs and and then the other one is though you can actually.
40:52.75
grashary
You You can be kinder to Yourself. Can’t you You don’t have to hammer yourself and you can so and you can be kinder to yourself and have it as a real complementary thing too and I think this comes when we’re going back to the age thing as well. But if I if I think that’s trying to compete when you’re younger, you just you kind of hammer your own body whereas now I’ve. Ah I’m in my forty s I try I Want to be kinder to myself and not you know because the amount of recovery time takes longer all of the things that come with age so via these via your program and and via educating yourself and listening to the things that you say and you realize that.
41:32.29
grashary
You can be kind to yourself. You can still get stronger you you can get more mobility. You can get more strength you can improve and you don’t have to annihilate your body doing it.
41:42.62
Alex
Yeah, yeah, agree and I think you sit along sitting alongside that it’s It’s not just about being kinder to yourself. It’s making it more accessible as Well. So As soon as you say well actually you can use your body weight. And you can do it at home or you can do it in the back Garden or you can do it the gym if you want to, but ultimately you’re saying like it’s it’s available to everybody. Um, and you’re not and you’re not limited now to you know, just having to go to the gym and I think fundamentally that’s a really a really important. Philosophical um stream within saw that we that’s one of the things we genuinely believe that we need to make everything we do accessible which isn’t just about the cost that we that of it. But it’s the the ability to literally do it anywhere with.
42:37.73
grashary
Of.
42:38.13
Alex
Very limited, um, equipment I think you could probably get away with just having 1 step or your steps step stairs a chair and maybe at a tennis ball. Um and you pretty much have got everything you need to to do what you? what? you? what? you have what you need to complete the training program and develop yourself enough to um to improve the the physical qualities to support you running but probably um, beyond running as well. Just a healthier lower body to sustain all the other things that you do.
43:13.97
James
And I think the other point is this is here to supplement your running and you know it’s not going to leave you stiff and sore so you can’t do your running in the way that actually if you if you get your strengthing conditioning wrong or if you’re going very heavy. It might.
43:22.48
grashary
Earth.
43:32.70
James
So I think that’s quite yeah from a personal perspective I As a runner I find that quite attractive.
43:35.42
grashary
Yeah, Definitely what?? What’s your opinion or have you got an opinion both on the thing that I have seen which involves lots of reps and built and building muscle is the occlusion train in the blood flow restriction. It. What? What’s your opinion on that.
43:55.74
Alex
And I was utilizing that yesterday evening for or 2 evenings ago with one of the athletes I work with um so it doesn’t substitute for the actual work. Required. It’s again, you know in the similar vein. Um James talking about this the strength training supplement and you’re running blood flow restriction training supplements the rest of your your training. Um, um, particularly those individuals that have. Um, like a loading issue to that so immediately after an injury has occurred and you’ve been told that you can you can load and there’s no pain often. You’ll recreate the pain by increasing large by by by putting a little bit of load on but by what blood flow does it. For those who don’t know it. It. It restricts the blood flow going into the muscle and coming out of the muscle. It has a um series of effects on your hormonal system your your circulatory system your muscle muscle tendon system as well and and. Is that mechanisms isn’t known but it creates a degree of stress within that muscle already um like a metabolic stress. So it’s putting it under ah a degree of stress before you even put the load on so when you put a low load on you can recreate higher loading or higher volume based training by doing less repetitions.
45:31.25
Alex
With light lighter weight so you can get quite quite ah potent changes in in the in the muscle in the muscle area and it has also been shown to improve um other physiological characteristics for endurance athletes as well. I remember working the british bureau as we were doing it in an altitude chamber um, with really high volume training to try and improve their local muscular endurance ahead of the twenty twelve olympic games um so it has ah it has a vast that has a vast impact. But there’s 2 things which are really important on that. The first is it doesn’t it doesn’t it doesn’t um, what’s the word um replace regular training and the second bit which is probably the most important is um, the health and safety of it. So if you’ve had any.
46:29.64
Alex
Cardiorespiratory disorder if you’re you’ve got high blood pressure. You’ve had new um issues likeytica for instance, um, then creating that pressure around a limb may be a contraindication for yeah for um for its use and 1 of the the big things is you know you should only be your the pressure applied on the Cufff should always be below your systolic blood pressure. So if you’ve got one hundred and twenty over eighty s and normal blood pressure then the pressure applied should be below one one hundred and twenty ah minimolles of of mercury and that’s um and we often say half of your systolic pressure. But it’s really difficult to do that without equipment. So what people tend to do is get a bit of rubber and I was guilty of this guilty of this in my in my early early days.
47:21.81
grashary
And.
47:28.12
Alex
Ah, um, but so you’d a clue a little bit do a little bit of training and then take it or having no idea what what? if would it was doing things are moved on a lot further than that but I would say you you need to get medical clearance first and actually going back to the point James Hammer home as well. What is the intended outcome and how will this type of training support you to get there. Um, and can you do it in alternative and potentially safer safer methods. So.
48:01.28
grashary
Very good. Okay, so let’s let’s look at let’s give let’s let’s give people some um, some specific exercises that you’d recommend.
48:16.12
grashary
Ah, or target areas that they should focus on just as ah, ah to encompass the injuries that we’ve that we’ve mentioned I suppose from the knee down is ah is there a set is there a set of exercises. Perhaps that people should be thinking about doing or or they should be doing.
48:32.32
Alex
Um, loosely. Yes, there’s obviously personalization around high risk and so on. But if you were to look at it purely from the areas we know which are likely to cause you.
48:48.77
Alex
Be a contributing factor to why you might become injured. Um, whether that’s run is knee or and achilles tendonoppathy and then I would be looking at ankle ranger movement and making sure you got really good um dorsiflexion so bringing the toes up towards your shin. That becomes restricted that becomes a really big and marker for um, loading through the through the low leg I’d look at calf based training so single sorry single leg double Leg Calf raises um so because that’s a really important area. So if I was to tell you the quad or the if one to be really specific the um vastus ah Vas Mediais and the slayus those 2 muscles alone will take around. 80% of the load on immediate contact with the floor while running just those 2 muscles. So if you think those 2 muscles are um, are not being trained well enough then I would that’s where we we go. But to make sure you got the the slayest and the gas truck under are under some good loading which then obviously it means a quad needs some um, some good good loading and in in that space too and it also needs really good range of movement as well. So the ability for the the quad and the hip flexer.
50:20.49
Alex
Um, to have like a freely range a freely available range of movement to work within is going to be important. Um, and then the so we could be talked about slow and quad being the the muscles which um, kind of be. Take on all the loading force as you land. It’s your hamstring and your glute which are the muscles which propel you forward. So some muscles control other muscles then move you forward. So that’s that’s your hamstring and your and your glute so hamstring. Um, hamtring loading so you can do hamstring and in 2 or 2 or 3 different ways you can do like a knee dominant hamstring which is like si on the machines that you’d normally see in the um in the gym or you can do them on sort of like they lying on your back with your feet on top of ah, kind of a swiss board or being plateable balls and pulling the.
51:07.80
grashary
Yep.
51:15.72
Alex
Ball in towards you or you can do more hip dominant based actions which is I standing up and watch like a waiter’s bow and coming back up so that kind of gets the handsches at both ends and then a lot of hip, hip bridging with your Ivy shoulders on the floor or shoulders on a box and kind of driving the hips up towards so quickly.
51:25.12
grashary
Yes.
51:35.16
Alex
You’re facing Upwards shoulders on the floor shoulders on the box. Um, and you’re driving the hips up towards the ceiling that kind of gets you through that. That’s um, the hip and the hip or the glute is really important and that when you look at running most of the extension that the hip goes through. Is kind of behind the body. So Then if you’re thinking about with a body running here. This is your leg. This is your knee like as I land. It’s kind of as the leg goes behind the body which is where the extension of all the the glute extension. The gluten forces. Produce. So. That’s why that kind of really top end of extension is really important which is why the hit pridging becomes quite ah, a good exercise compared to like a squat exercise because the squat you’re in a deep hit flexion and you’re not going into real. Big extension where the hip f thrustst or the hip pridging you go for this big extension. Um, and then the only other things I would look at is once you often you need ah a kind of stable pelvis and trunk really so just some fundamental.
52:32.17
James
There that.
52:46.35
Alex
Trunk training on the anterior for the front of your trunk and the kind of the sides. The back tends to be for most people for about 80% of the people your back’s not a problem. It’s normally your front and your sides that you you kind of want to work on so planking. And based activities which are pretty good or any kind of dynamic um dynamic trunk work where you’re kind of at Length. So We don’t often talk about crunches because that shortens you down and you’re kind of kind of making yourself smaller. Want you to be long through the abdominal wall and kind of so you might have seen Swiss ball rollout so or rollouts or planks as well where you walk your hands out. It just keeps those abdominals at length and that’s kind of what you want while you’re running you want to be nice and tall while running whatever than this kind of crunched position I’m running.
53:33.24
grashary
Here point.
53:37.64
Alex
Those would be the general general things that I would be going Obviously if you’ve got an achilles issue then you would target more around the achilles or whatever it might be but um, yeah, those would be the the most. Kind of generic things I’ll be saying that people need to be doing.
53:53.98
grashary
Yeah.
53:57.48
James
There are some fantastic videos and Twitter threads on attrain with sawr on Twitter that will show you some of those and many other exercises and some of some of them are nicely done together if you’ve got a particular. Um. Injury like achilles tendnopathy. There’s a kind of nice, nice thread there for things to strengthen the achilles.
54:18.92
grashary
Yeah, if you want to find those easily just go to the strength section on our website and with them. We’ve linked to all of those on the sore Twitter Profile gents thanks ever so much I don’t want to keep you any longer I need but suitcases to pack.
