Strength Training for Distance Runners

Doing some strength training is an important part of a training program. Strength training helps to correct muscle imbalances created by running, which in turn, helps to prevent injury. It also builds muscle that can allow you to handle a greater workload. However, it can also take valuable energy and time away from running training, and actual running is, without a doubt, the best way to get better at running. Additionally, putting on a lot of muscle weight in areas that don't directly aid running equates to dead weight that you have to drag through your races (and while a certain amount of body fat is crucial for fat-soluble vitamin absorption and maintaining body function, body builder arms are not). Therefore, the key to effective strength training is, like any other aspect of running, specificity of training.

Gear Review: P90X Final Thoughts

You may remember that a month ago, I wrote up a review of P90X. Well, I've finished the 90 days, and figured I would give some final thoughts on the program, as well as a few pictures of my results.

Gear Review: P90X and Its Relationship to Competitive Running

UPDATE: Gear Review: P90X Final Thoughts is now up!

A friend of mine had a question asking whether P90X is a good supplement to running as her Facebook status today, and it gave me the idea to post up a review of P90X on my blog. Now, before I start, I want to say that I'm about 8 weeks into P90X, so I have not yet completed the program. However, I have done all of the workouts multiple times, and have a pretty good idea of what's going on by now.

Yoga Is Not Relaxing

I spent a couple years living in Boulder, Colorado. In Boulder, apparently it was a normal thing for stores to offer yoga classes every so often. Even Fleet Feet Boulder, the running store that sponsored my team, had yoga classes, and they're a running and tri store, not a yoga store. Well, since they all knew me and I didn't want to make a fool out of myself in front of them (and because I had zero interest in yoga), I never went to their classes. The whole time I was in Boulder, people continued to tell me how relaxing yoga is. My friends Stefani and Elizabeth were convinced that hot yoga was the most relaxing, purifying, and soothing thing ever, and they seemed determined to convince me of the same thing. Well, anyway, hot yoga was out. I hate running in really hot temperatures, so why would I want to practice yoga in hot temperatures when I had the option to practice yoga in normal temperatures (or not practice yoga at all)? However, these were the same girls who got me mountain biking and snowboarding and I liked those things, so I figured I'd give it a try. They convinced me to go to a store class at the shop where Stef worked. I spent most of the class trying not to fall over. Not relaxing. Later, I rented a house with Stef and Susanna, another yoga fan, and I often got to hear about how relaxing and soothing yoga was, and how that one class was a poor example because the instructor was a different instructor than usual and had made us do advanced balance poses. They said this as they stood on one leg with their arms in the air, or as they balanced on their head and hands with their legs folded pretzel-like on one of their elbows. Uh huh, that doesn't look relaxing.

P90X = Hungry

I eat a lot of food. Probably because I run 90 miles per week normally, and even when I can't run (like now), I try to put in a good amount of time on the trainer or lifting or whatever. Two weeks ago apparently involved 27.5 hours of physical activity, between the bike trainer, lifting, and physical therapy. That's like professional triathlete style, right there. And wholly unnecessary...I won't be doing that again. Last week only consisted of 18 hours of working out, AND Monday was a totally off-day. And this week will probably be around 20. But anyway, that should serve as adequate explanation for my dietary habits. However, since starting P90X, my appetite has gone into overdrive. Normally, I eat like a normal, athletic person who works out but doesn't run 90 miles per week throughout the day, and then sometime around 9pm, I decide I want a loaf of bread and half a jar of peanut butter. Most nutritionists recommend against that, but that's just the way my appetite works. However, this last week, I've wanted a loaf of bread and half a jar of peanut butter for breakfast, again for lunch, and again for dinner, and then I still want a box of cereal at 9pm. Well no, that's not quite right, since I haven't gone through more than one jar of peanut butter in one day, so I guess it's not a half a jar every meal, but I digress. And there's a little bit of variety in my diet. Today I had several bowls of oatmeal, polenta, some cinnamon raisin bagels, and a sweet potato, along with the bread, cereal, and peanut butter. So as long as carbs count as variety, I'm golden! Anyway, I cut back on cycling since starting P90X, so I'm down to about an hour of cycling and an hour of P90X per day. And there's no way P90X is harder than 10x1600, so I have no idea what's going on. It's possible that I'm finally starting to build muscle on my skinny little Tyrannosaurus Rex arms. However, it's more likely that I'm just getting cycling quads and my arms are remaining T-Rex-like, since that's what the mirror is telling me. Of course, neither muscular arms nor cycling quads are useful for running.

P90X

I waste way too much time at PT talking. Well, today the subject of conversation was BeachBody's P90X, since PT Fran said that a lot of the exercises from P90X would be good for strengthening weak stabilizer muscles because I have no balance. PT Anthony seemed to agree that it was a good idea and also mentioned Insanity, but P90X seemed to get more votes and Insanity seems to involve a lot more jumping around, so P90X it is. Though now that I think about it, that probably means Insanity is better for cardio, but it's a little late for that now.