Lung Power

[Source: Runner's World, January 2009)


Need more air? Deep breathing can help you run longer with less effort.
By Gina Demillo Wagner

Just before you crest a hill or reach the end of a speed interval, your lungs go into overdrive. Your breath becomes shallow and rapid. You think if only you could pull in more air, you could surge up that hill or maintain your pace. But the more your chest heaves, the more you struggle. You may even end up exhausted, bent over, gasping for air.

"Runners think about training their heart and legs, but they rarely think about training their lungs," says Mindy Solkin, owner and head coach of The Running Center in New York City. "A strong respiratory system can improve your running. It's a simple equation: Better breathing equals more oxygen for your muscles, and that equals more endurance."

Just as we strength-train our hamstrings and calves to improve our ability to power over hills, we can tone the muscles used for breathing. "Exercise improves the conditioning of the diaphragm, the muscle that separates the chest from the abdomen, and the intercostal muscles, which lie between the ribs and enable you to inhale and exhale," says Everett Murphy, M.D., a runner and pulmonologist at Olathe Medical Center in Olathe, Kansas. "When you take a breath, 80 percent of the work is done by the diaphragm. If you strengthen your diaphragm, you may
improve your endurance and be less likely to become fatigued."

This was backed up by researchers from the Centre for Sports Medicine and Human Performance at Brunel University in England, who recently measured fatigue levels of marathoners' respiratory muscles and leg muscles. They found a direct link-runners whose breathing was the most strained showed the most leg weakness-and concluded in their study that the harder the respiratory muscles had to work, the more the legs would struggle in a race.


The key to preventing lung-and leg-fatigue is breathing more fully. "When you take deeper breaths, you use more air sacs in your lungs, which allows you to take in more oxygen to feed your muscles," says David Ross, M.D., a pulmonologist at UCLA Medical Center. "When I'm running, I concentrate on taking slow and deep breaths to strengthen my diaphragm."

Most runners, says Solkin, are "chest breathers"-not "belly breathers." To help her clients see the difference, she has them run a mile at a pace that gets them huffing a bit. Then she has them stop and place one hand on their abdomen and one hand on their chest and watch. The lower hand should move with each breath, while the upper hand should remain relatively still
(usually the opposite occurs). "Every time you breathe in, your belly should fill up like a balloon," says Solkin (see "Breathe Right"). "And every time you breathe out, that balloon should deflate. When you chest breathe, your shoulders get tense and move up and down. That's wasted energy-energy you should conserve for running."

Chest breathing can be a hard habit to break-especially while you're preoccupied with keeping pace or calculating splits. One way to make the switch easier is to work on belly breathing when you're not running, and the skill will eventually carry over to your running. To make this happen, some elite runners turn to Pilates, a program originally developed as a rehabilitation program for World War I soldiers. Pilates aims to increase flexibility, strengthen the core, and improve breathing (see "Breath Enhancers"). "I try to do Pilates twice a week," says 2004 Olympic marathoner Colleen de Reuck. "It stretches my intercostal muscles and lengthens my spine, which helps my breathing and my running."

"My athletes tell me 'my form is better, I'm not working so hard,'" says Pat Guyton, a Pilates instructor who teaches elite runners in Boulder, Colorado. "They mention less effort in the lungs-they're able to run farther before fatigue sets in."

Breathe Right

Here's how Mindy Solkin, a New York City-based coach, teaches runners to engage their diaphragms.

Open Your Mouth
Your mouth is larger than your nostrils, so it's more effective at taking in oxygen. Also, keeping your mouth open keeps your face more relaxed, which makes it easier to breathe deeply.

Breathe in Patterns
Coordinating your inhales and exhales with your footfalls develops diaphragmatic strength. Start with a 2-2 pattern-breathe in while stepping left, right; breathe out while stepping left, right. Advance to 3-3 (breathe in, step left, right, left; breathe out, step right, left, right), and then
a 4-4 pattern.


Breath Enhancers

Cross-training exercises that reduce huffing and puffing
These three Pilates moves strengthen the diaphragm, stretch tight muscles, and improve posture-all of which help you run longer with less effort. Practice each exercise two or three times a week before you run.


Lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Keep your arms at your sides, palms down. Inhale and lift your head, neck, shoulders, and arms off the ground. Lift your knees and extend your feet so your legs are straight and at a 45-degree angle to the floor. Take five short breaths in and five short breaths out. While doing so, pump your arms, moving them in a
controlled up and down manner. Do a cycle of 10 full breaths-each breath includes five inhales and five exhales. After you do 10 complete breaths, you will have completed 100 arm pumps.

The Payoff: Teaches controlled breathing, so that your inhales and exhales are balanced. Bonus: Builds strong abdominals.

Lie face down with your palms flat under your shoulders (as if you were going to do a pushup). Look down so your neck is in line with your spine. Inhale and slowly lift your head, neck, shoulders, and chest as you press your hands into the ground. Keep a slight bend in your elbows. As you exhale, slowly lower yourself back down, chest first, then shoulders, neck, chin, and head. To avoid discomfort in your back, concentrate on pulling your shoulders back to open up your chest. Repeat 10 times.

The Payoff: Opens up the chest and deepens your lung capacity to correct
shallow breathing.

Stand up straight with your feet shoulder-width apart, your knees slightly bent, and your arms at your sides. Inhale and sweep your arms out and up so that your biceps are near your ears and your palms are facing each other. Exhale and lower your arms back down to your sides. Repeat four times, concentrating on breathing deep and opening your chest.

The Payoff: Stretches the intercostal muscles (which lie between the ribs), relaxes the shoulders, engages the diaphragm and pelvic floor, and helps balance breathing between the left and right lungs.

For more Pilates exercises that can benefit your running, go to runnersworld.com/pilates .

The foundation of your training

[Source: Tri-Rudy newsletter, January 16, 2009]

From www.beginnertriathlete.com


Base Training - The Foundation of Your Training
Know that base training is not a component of training that is going to necessarily make you faster, but it will make you stronger and give you more endurance to last through the longer races.


Question

I haven't competed in a Triathlon before, but am determined to do so next season. At the moment I am a member of a local club and am spending my time clocking up miles on the bike and run. Does anyone know about base training?? Does it really make you faster when it comes to doing more serious endurance training??

Answer

Fantastic!! I am thrilled to hear that you are planning your first triathlon next season! It is vital that you give yourself plenty of time to realistically and safely train for a Sprint Distance Triathlon. A Sprint may be one of the shortest distance Triathlons, but it’s certainly does not FEEL like a “sprint” when you are out there, as you will be exercising for AT LEAST a continuous hour during this event!!


As I was reading your question, I noticed that you did not include swimming in your current exercise regimen. This is the most technical of the three events, so unless you are already an avid swimmer (and by this I don’t mean doggy paddle daily in your local swimming pool), you should be logging sometime in the pool AND open water if possible.


I’ll address swimming first for your base training, since it is the first of the three events in which you will compete. Many local YMCA’s or fitness clubs have swim classes they call “Master Swim” classes. They are not very expensive and they are available to swimmers of all fitness levels and swimming abilities. This is a GREAT way to start your base training for the Triathlon. You will have a coach there who will assign drills, help with technique and prepare an entire hour long workout for you. If this doesn’t get your swimming endurance up, I don’t know what will! Once you feel comfortable in the pool, take the skills you have learned into the open water, as most swims for Triathlons take place in open water (lakes, oceans, ponds, etc.) If you want to become a faster swimmer in open water, you MUST practice in open water.


Next event…the bike! Depending on where you live (cold or warm climate), you may want to begin your base training for your bike on a bike trainer that you can set up in front of your TV and ride away, or even join a spinning class a couple days a week at the local gym. This will give you an idea of how fast your cadence should be and can help increase your stamina on the bike, since spinning classes are 45 minutes to an hour long, and you can ride for as long as you want in your living room. However, once the weather clears (if that is an issue in your area), get out on the bike and ride, ride, ride. I highly recommend getting out on the roads as soon as possible as it will better simulate the course you’ll be competing on than will a trainer or spinning class. You can also purchase Spinerval DVD’s to play while you are on your trainer at home. They are choreographed, coached video’s that will cue you when to change gears, sprint, hill climb, etc. Just another secret weapon ! to add to your basic training bag of tricks!


Finally, the run! Be sure when you run that you are gradually increasing your mileage. You have probably read this before, but you should only increase your weekly mileage by 10% each week. Those are very small increments and will help you train safely without getting hurt. Also, for a Sprint Triathlon, running 3 times a week is PLENTY. With all of the other cross-training you are doing, you don’t want to risk incurring any overuse injuries. I would even recommend taking one of those weekly runs to a treadmill, trail, or elliptical machine. This way, you are saving your joints from a day of impact on the hard concrete.


As you get closer to race “training” time, you will want to add some brick workouts so you are putting two of the disciplines together in one workout. This is ESPECIALLY important for the transition from the bike to the run, as that is the hardest on the legs.


Now that I have given you and idea of what your “base training” should look like, you should know that base training is not a component of training that is going to necessarily make you faster, but it will make you stronger and give you more endurance to last through the longer races, should you choose to eventually compete in an International Distance, Half or even Full Ironman Triathlon. The factors that will make you faster will be the speed workouts, the drills and the continuous practice and refining of skills.


Another idea that I will give you (speaking from experience) is to go online and look up local Triathlon Groups/Teams. I myself belong to an incredible team of women, Team EnVision, who I trained with when I lived in Massachusetts. Most teams like this welcome ALL levels, and have coaches for each discipline who are very encouraging/supportive. There’s nothing wrong with signing up and recruiting your own cheering section and fan club!!! Just makes crossing your FIRST finish line that much sweeter!

Why do triathletes run funny?

[Source: Tri-Rudy newsletter, January 16, 2009]

By Matt Russ

"Why do triathletes run funny?" is a question I was recently asked. The athlete was comparing the run form of elite marathoners to triathletes. The answer is simply: Because they swim.

It is fairly easy to identify an experienced swimmer from a postural standpoint. Swimmers tend to have tight neck, chest and anterior shoulder muscles that cause them to assume a hunched over posture. Their shoulders are usually slightly internally rotated (thumbs turned in towards the body) and their shoulders may be high (picture a shrug) due to tight trapezius muscles. Each sport produces specific muscular adaptions and swimming uses the pectorals, latisimus, and trapezius to a high degree. Imbalanced caused by over-strengthening these muscles can not only lead to "swimmer's shoulder", but it can also affect run form as well.

The result of this tightness and imbalance can be excessive shoulder rotation as you run. Some shoulder rotation naturally occurs with all runners, but it does not contribute to speed. Remember, all your energy should be directed to moving you in a forward direction; lateral movement is not desirable. Good arm motion requires a loose pendulum-like swing from the shoulder joint, not rotation of the shoulders. This rotation over activates the oblique muscles, wasting energy. It can also cause a counter-rotation at the hips, throwing the stride out of balance. Triathletes with very tight shoulder capsules and trapezius tend to have a difficult time swinging their arms from the shoulder joint. If posture is significantly hunched due to tight anterior muscles, the forward drive of the leg can also be affected; one of the key components of a good run stride.

When videoing triathletes I often observe elbows that are extended several inches from the body. Many triathletes run with elevated shoulders and often complain of neck, or more specifically, trapezius fatigue while running. They tend to throw their elbows forward from the sides versus leading with the hands, with only a limited range of movement from the shoulder joint itself. A lot more arm motion is occurring in the frontal plane of the body which also is not desirable.

How do you correct this? The first step is identifying it. Video is the most desired visual feedback as you can play it back frame by frame. If you don’t own a video camera you can try running on a treadmill in front of a mirror. Once you have identified that you have excessive rotation, correction involves addressing the posture/tightness and form.

The posture/tightness portion will require stretching the anterior shoulder, pectoral, and latissimus muscles, and strengthening the muscles of the mid-back and posterior shoulder. For specifics on these exercises and stretches try talking to a trainer.

To address the form side of the equation, work from the top down. First, relax the trapezius muscles. Often you will not realize how tight these muscles are until you consciously attempt to relax them. Consistently attempt to relax and drop your shoulders as your run. Feel your shoulders being suspended from loose trapezius muscles. Next, address posture and get your shoulders pulled back. You want to “run tall,” chest out, erect, with a slightly bowed back if possible. Picture being pulled forward by a rope attached around your waist. Use the side brush drill to get the arms swinging properly. Gently brush your sides just above the hip joint swinging your arm in an arc from front to back. Concentrate on bringing your elbows back and keep your elbows bent at a 90 degree angle.

To recognize the difference between shoulder swing and rotation, I will have the athlete stand in front of a mirror and mimic arm motion with no movement from the shoulder joint. I then place a one-pound weight in their hands and have them swing their arms loosely and relaxed from the shoulder joint like a pendulum. The difference in muscle use and form is readily apparent both visually and by feel.

Any increase in economy also increases speed. By addressing shoulder rotation, you will not only become a faster runner, you will be more relaxed.

Base training

by Rich Strauss

[Source: www.trifuel.com]

January is the start of the new year and the start of the new triathlon season for many people. It's a time when you hear the word "Base" a lot during group rides and runs. "Oh, I'm going easy today. Just building my Base, you know." Or, "Wow, with a Base like that he should have a great season this year." Or the dreaded, "You know, he shouldn't be working that hard this soon. He should be building his Base instead."

First, a few principles:

1. The most effective training method is to build more advanced athletic abilities on top of more basic athletic abilities. For example, we first learn proper stroke mechanics for our swim. Then on top of this we build endurance. After this is established, we put power and speed on top of it. This is the idea behind the word Base: you build a solid foundation of fitness and then put other "stuff" on it.

2. Ultimately, the most desirable training adaptations, the ones that make you go faster, occur as you expose your body to more lactic acid. The point at which you are exposed to high lactate levels, and can maintain this effort for a long period of time, is your Lactate Threshold Heart Rate. At this level of effort your body is eliminating lactate as quickly as it is being produced. Because the good stuff happens at this heart rate level, it is best to describe training zones by their relation to this heart rate.

3. Other desirable training adaptations occur at the opposite end of this intensity spectrum, at easy, aerobic efforts. These are the ones we want to develop during base training.

So what exactly happens to your body during this base training?

Many things:

* Muscles and connective tissues are strengthened, enabling them to handle increased volume and intensity later on. This is especially important for the run.

* Your body learns to burn fat and spare glycogen, enabling it to go farther.

* Your body learns the neuromuscular coordination required to perform smooth, efficient movements. Exercise performance becomes more economical and fluid.

* Your blood volume goes up, increasing the ability to deliver oxygen to working muscles.

* Your heart becomes able to pump a higher volume of blood with each beat, increasing this ability even more.

* Your muscles build more capillaries to deliver this oxygen to working muscles.

All of these changes are often referred to as "building a bigger engine," meaning that the sum total of these changes is an increased capacity for work. To go in a straight line at a steady speed for a long time.


Why is it necessary to build these athletic abilities first?

During your Base phase, you are training to TRAIN. Base training builds up your body, makes it more efficient and better able to handle the TRAINING that actually makes it faster.

The sum total of these basic training adaptations is called Base Fitness. I like to divide this into two categories: Seasonal Base Fitness, and Cumulative Base Fitness.

Seasonal Base Fitness:

To illustrate this, I'm going to give you a dare. It's January, perhaps you haven't trained seriously in a while. You've packed on a few pounds and our bike has a nice layer of dust on it. Jump on your bike, right now, and do a 7 hour brick. Take a cell phone and be sure to call me from the back of the ambulance.

Now turn the clock to June and do the same dare. Not a problem. Why? The sum total of the training adaptations you acquired from January to May give you the level of fitness required for a 7 hour brick. This is your Seasonal Base Fitness. It is being able to routinely do stuff in June that would have put you in the back of a truck in January. It is this Base Fitness that enables you to do a hard tempo bike on Tuesday, run hard mile repeats on Thursday, do a 5 hour bike on Saturday and a 2.5 hour run on Sunday. This training is the TRAINING that makes you faster. Your base gives you the ability to both handle it and take full advantage of it.

Cumulative Base Fitness:

This is the total of base fitness gained from several years of endurance training. This explains why Lance Armstrong can do 4-5 hour bike rides day after day and I?can not. His cumulative years of cycling have given him a huge base, on top of which he can add 2+ hour tempo bikes, which I?can not. So when you hear of the monster training weeks that the pro's do, remember that they have established a huge cumulative base through years and years of endurance training. In fact, Olympic athletes are known to train according to 4+ year plans. 3+ years of training so that they are able to do the TRAINING that will get them the gold.

Length of Base Training:

For this discussion, when I say "Base," I am referring to Base 1 (Friel's Triathlete's Training Bible). This is a 6-8 week period of low intensity aerobic exercise characterized by progressively longer "long" weekend training events and lots of technique work in each sport.


General Swim Guidance

The majority of your focus should be on improving your technique, not fitness. At this stage of the season, fitness is a by-product of quality yardage.

1. I recommend 2-3 sessions per week. Two drills-only sessions, and one long continuous swim.

2. Advance the length of this long swim to about 2000 yd/m. At this point, I believe it is better to then switch to 400-600 yd/m repeats, rather than continuing with very long swims. These are more effective at getting you faster than are long continuous swims, and have the same endurance benefits.

3. For more information, please see Improving Your Swim Technique and Swimming Drills.


General Cycling Guidance

Your ability to go all day, your overall endurance, will be formed on the bike. This is where you will be spending the majority of your training time, and your long bike is the key.

1. Build your bigger engine on your long bikes. Form a sensible progression of long bike rides and keep your efforts easy and aerobic. How long should your bike be? I would say that the endurance benefits of your long bike are so important, that the longer you can ride, the better. A strong base of solid long bikes will benefit you for all distances and will form the foundation for increased training volumes in the future, should you decide to step up to the longer races. These are what I recommend for long bike targets:

* Sprint: 2 hours

* Olympic: 2-3 hours

* Half IM: 3-4 hours

* IM: 5.5-6 hours

2. High cadence cycling and cycling drills. Base training is an excellent time to develop coordinated muscle movement patterns and increase your pedaling efficiency. One of the best ways to do this is by forcing your muscles to work together by pedaling at very high cadences. Some drills:

* Spin-Ups. Increase your cadence until you begin to bounce on the saddle. 100+ rpms. Then back off the cadence just a hair and stay there for 1 minute. Recover completely and then repeat. Do about 5-7 repetitions. This bouncing is a result of muscles not working together efficiently. By repeating this drill, your muscles will learn the firing patterns required for efficient coordinated movement.

* Isolate Leg Drills: on a trainer, unclip one leg and put it on a chair or stool. Pedal with the other leg and try to "Circle Pedal:" apply power to the pedals smoothly in a circle, by eliminating the dead spots. Think of "scraping mud" off your shoe at 6 o'clock and rolling the top of a barrel at 12 o'clock. A road variation of this is Dominant Leg, where you let one leg do 90% of the work, while the other just goes along for the ride.

* You can combine these drills into a single workout.

* High cadence cycling for your long rides: just spin, very high cadence (95-105 rpm) for several minutes during your long rides. After this period of high cadence, go back to your normal cadence and see how it feels. Be sure to spend some time in the aero position with this new, efficient pedaling.

3. Begin Formulating your Race Day Nutrition Plan. For any length of race, you will do the majority of your eating on the bike. Use every long ride as an opportunity to formulate and rehearse your plan.


General Running Guidance

Strengthen your wheels. By this, I mean you should log slow, conservative miles at a low heart rate, strengthening the small connective tissues and muscles in the lower leg. This slow, consistent volume will ensure that you have the architecture to handle higher intensity training to come. Of the three sports, you should be most conservative with your running base. Advance your volume slowly and conservatively.

* Begin to conservatively advance the volume of your long run. Start with a comfortable number of minutes and advance by only 10-15 minutes each week. These runs should be very slow and easy. Again, building the engine and strengthening your lower legs.

* Try to adopt a high cadence running style and work on your running form. Please see Proper Running Form and Running Workout Descriptions for more information.


Strength Training

Most triathletes can benefit from a periodized strength training program during their base training. Please refer to Strength Training for some general guidance on strength training throughout the season. I will publish a weight lifting program at a future date.

In general, the character of your aerobic training in early base is very easy and low stress. This is an excellent opportunity to get in the gym and work on your strength with heavy lifting.


Should I use a heart rate monitor for my Base training?

Yes, but let me give you some quick guidance based on my own training and observing my clients:

1. It is a very good idea for new triathletes to use a heart rate monitor. More often than not, the HRM will keep you from working too hard and potentially injuring yourself, but?

2. The number one comment I hear is that new HRM users are confused about what their HRM is telling them. They slap some numbers into a formula, set them on their watch, and then it beeps at them when the bend over to tie their shoes. Some things to think about:

* At the start of the season, I have noticed a significant variation between my own heart rate training zones and my perceived exertion (PE). In other words, I feel like I'm in Zone 1-2, but my HRM is telling me I'm going to implode any moment. Expect this and use common sense. In these cases, I use PE as my primary measurement, HR as my secondary. After about 6-8 weeks, your heart rate zones and PE will begin to realign.

* You may not be using the correct method to determine your training zones. Please read my articles on heart rate training. I will write a more comprehensive training article soon.

3. More experienced and/or disciplined athletes can probably wait until the end of Base 1 before determining their training zones. In general, I try to get a feel for how knowledgeable and disciplined an athlete is before I determine a testing schedule. Maybe "eager" or "aggressive" is a better term. An eager newbie with little experience is a dangerous thing to let loose on the world in Base 1. I like to put some reins on them, to save them from themselves, and to ensure that we do the required easy, aerobic training first.


What are some other things I should be thinking about during my early Base training?

Let me give you some quick guidance based on my own training and observing my clients:

1. Begin to formulate a race day nutrition plan. Every long training event is an opportunity to experiment, gather data, and learn something. Don't waste it. Please read the Race Day Nutrition article.

2. Shake out your training and personal schedules. Fitting a 15 hour training week into a 40-50 work week and still maintain a family is a daunting task. Get creative and figure out ways to save time.

3. Shake out your training logistics. How am I going to train for 3 sports in one day, eat at my desk, and pick up the kids? I used to dread packing everything the night before. Two words: get a big bag and use CHECKLISTS. It might sound like a small thing, but trying to remember everything you will need for the next day is just more stress. Fix it.

4. Begin to develop good recovery habits and strategies. This includes stretching routines, recovery meals, cat naps, getting to bed a little earlier, etc. Figure out what works for you NOW and refine them as you go.

I train and train but I don't get much faster.

1. Did you develop a strong enough base before you started TRAINING? Remember, base training forms the foundation for the hard stuff to come later on. Without a strong foundation, you do not have all of the basic training adaptations (see What happens to your body above) to take full advantage of this hard stuff. It's the difference between driving a Porsche and a VW bug. Both will go 85, but one is working a lot less than the other. Remember, build the engine first, THEN make it fast.

2. If you have a good seasonal and cumulative base, are you then doing high intensity workouts on top of it? I see this with many Ironman athletes. Many people think that since they are never going to go "hard" in a race, then they shouldn't go hard in training. But the only way to swim, bike, or run fast is to swim, bike or run fast. If you train slow, you will race slow. Now I'm not saying than an IM athlete needs to start hitting the track for some quick 400's or lock themselves in the closet on their trainer and knock out interval sessions. But long tempo rides and runs, just under or at your lactate threshold heart rate, make you a stronger, faster triathlete. Bottom line is that if you have done your homework and built a solid base of easy miles, don't be afraid to turn up the heat at the appropriate time in the season.


Final Words ? Discipline and Patience

One of my athletes wanted me to say a few words about these aspects of base training. It takes discipline and patience to stick to a plan while others around you do their own thing. This is particularly hard if you are a very competitive person. It might drive you nuts watching someone go off the front of the group ride while you continue to sit in the back and spin at a comfortable heart rate. It takes discipline and mental energy to devote pool session after pool session to drills and technique. It's easier to just play wall tag. Let's face it, going slow is boring. It's more fun to give the Look to a buddy and drop him on a hill. Develop a well thought out training plan and stick to it. Have the discipline and patience to stay the course while those around you do their own thing.