Is there one best running surface?

[Source: http://running.competitor.com/2012/06/training/is-there-one-best-running-surface_53024; Kelly O'Mara, January 1, 2012; updated June 4, 2012]

When deciding where to run, runners should consider the properties of each surface. For years, runners have lived by the adage that pounding the pavement is a surefire route to injury. The common prescription was to head to the trails for a softer running surface.

 Dr. Hirofumi Tanaka, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas, was told to do just that while recovering from a knee surgery. He ended up twisting his ankle on uneven soft ground and became the subject of a New York Times article last fall that prompted a debate over the value of soft surface running. While there has been research showing an increase in the force on the legs while running on harder surfaces, there are no studies that connect that to increased rates of injury or a change in performance.

 “It’s basically unknown,” said Tanaka. “What it boils down to is it’s really hard to do the gold standard test,” said Daniel Ferris, PhD., a professor of movement science at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology. That gold standard test would have to follow hundreds of runners doing the exact same workouts over a year, with one group on pavement, one on dirt, and one on the track. It’s not surprising that few runners want to be those test subjects. In fact, most in-the-field studies on running are conducted by the military on new recruits at boot camp.
RELATED: The Importance Of Varying Your Running Surfaces 

With all the different surfaces available, it’s best, said Ferris, to mix it up. Hit the trails one day and run on the road the next. “The variety is going to stress different parts of your body,” he said. But, Stuart Warden, director of the Center for Translational Musculoskeletal Research at Indiana University, emphasized that for experienced runners injury comes from drastic change. While variety helps strengthen leg muscles, it’s important to ease into running on new surfaces. “Increase the complexity as you progress,” Warden said. As race day approaches, you should up the amount you’re running on the same surface as the race, both Warden and Ferris said.

Trail races demand training on trails. But, if you do all your running on trails, you won’t be prepared for the pounding of a road marathon. When deciding where to run, Ferris said runners should consider the properties of each surface. Not all dirt, afterall, is created equal.

Stiffness v. Compliance 

The main surface property is stiffness. Concrete is very stiff; a track is very compliant. If you dropped a bowling ball on a world-class track it would bounce back up, said Ferris. Studies in labs and on gymnasts landing on mats have found that on a stiff surface your leg bends more to absorb the shock, but on a softer surface your leg stays stiffer. “Your body sort of knows if it’s on a hard or soft surface,” said Warden. That slight bend in your leg is like the difference between standing straight or standing in a squat. Stiff surfaces that cause your leg to bend more put more force on your legs. Though there are no studies that connect that to an increase in injuries, common sense, said Ferris, is that it can have an effect. “It’s enough that if you do it 10,000 times for a run, it’s going to matter,” he said.

Damping Properties 

The amount a surface dissipates energy are the damping effects. Sand is very damping; a bowling ball dropped into the sand would lose all its energy and not bounce. Surfaces with higher damping properties – like sand, thick grass, or dirt – are harder to run on, because of the loss of energy. Those surfaces can tax the muscles in the calf and knee. However, there are times in training when it makes sense to do some sand running, for example, because it strengthens those different parts of the leg, said Ferris. “It’s more like lifting weights than regular running,” he said. While it’s not known if regular periodic running on sand helps with injury, it’s clear it helps with performance, he said.

Traction

 Any runner who has tried to do strides on wet, slick grass knows it can be particularly challenging. Trying to avoid falling can force a runner to change their stride and work harder. “It becomes an injury problem if it’s too slick,” said Ferris.

 Unevenness

The unevenness of trails is what got the best of Tanaka when he twisted and sprained his ankle. But, beyond tripping, the effects of irregular surfaces are only starting to be understood. Ferris recently built a treadmill with minor unevenness and bumps in order to study the effect that uneven terrain had on runners.

RELATED: Top Tips For Off-Road Running 

It causes changes, he said, in the muscle activation and distributes some of the work to the knee. You, as a runner, put a premium on foot placement when the surface is uneven, which forces your hips and knees to work harder. What this means for runners is unknown right now, but Ferris hypothesizes that it could be beneficial to people with shin splits to run on uneven surfaces once a week to activate the shin muscles differently. With all these different properties, what you should run on depends on your experience, training, and injuries. Is there one best surface? “That’s the million dollar question,” said Tanaka.

 **** About The Author: Kelly O’Mara is a journalist/reporter and recovering professional triathlete. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes for a number of magazines, newspapers, and online news sites. And, she eats a lot of brownies.

Waiting to Inhale

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, September 12, 2011]

(Revised from a 1996 article published in Swim Magazine)
by Coach Emmett Hines

Let’s face it, the human body wasn’t designed for swimming. The Good Lord did not intend Man to leap headlong into a river and chase after his dinner. He gave the greatest of the apes the power of reason and the fly rod came to be. If Man should fall into that river, the instinct to lift his head toward the heavens, thrash about wildly and scramble his hairy carcass back onto the shore would serve immediate survival needs well enough. (Dear Reader: If you have a political correctness hang-up please feel free to replace the preceding references to “Man” and “his” with “Woman” and “her” — but the “hairy carcass” thing stays put.)

The advance of civilization has allowed those of us at the top of the food chain to spend some idle time toying with nature. As such, we have made some modest progress in the area of aquatic ambulation. Yet the instinctive need to lift the head skyward has not been overcome completely in the freestyle stroke — even in many elite level swimmers.

Problem: We all know, or should know, that lifting the head to breathe is incorrect. Yet, if you watch a pool full of swimmers and pay close attention (perhaps even using slow motion video) to the head motions of each you will find that perhaps 95 percent or more of them are still lifting their heads to some extent to breathe. Most people don’t even recognize it as a problem, much less an easily solvable one.

A swimmer moving in a longitudinally balanced position — head, shoulders, hips and legs all in a straight line parallel to the surface (see "Of Air and Gravity" by this author) — has the minimum form drag possible. Now he raises his head a bit. What happens? The hips and legs sink a bit. In fact, a 2-inch vertical lift of the head can cause a four to six inch drop of the hips, which shows up as an eight to 12 inch drop of the feet. This is enough to nearly double the total frontal surface area and thus nearly double form drag. You know this instinctively — you’d much rather kick with your kickboard sliding edgewise through the water than hold it upright like a tombstone, pushing it broadside-first through an entire kick set (this is assuming you are one of those people who still uses a kickboard at all).

If you study swimmers who are lifting their heads a bit when they breathe you won’t always notice lots of hip and leg drop. Why? Many people use their kick to boost their hips and legs to the surface. All of the extra kicking needed to keep the legs up at the surface when the head is lifted is wasting energy — a lot of energy.

Solution: You’ve no doubt been reading and following the advances in the swimming technology as espoused by such forward thinkers as Bill Boomer and Terry Laughlin (a.k.a. Total Immersion) and have a grasp of the concept of body alignment and balance.

Assume now that you are swimming along, your head is “attached” with your crown in line with your spine and you have finely tuned your “buoy” pressure to maintain dynamic body balance as your body rolls from side to side (like I said before, see Of "Air and Gravity"). Let’s say you’ve just taken a stroke with your left arm and are ready to take a breath on your next stroke. Follow the details:

1. You are gliding along on your right side (belly button facing the left wall), your right arm is extended toward the far end of the pool, your left elbow is high in the air above your shoulders moving forward with the hand and forearm dangling toward the water and your nose is pointed at the bottom of the pool. Secret: At this instant, imagine a light thread connecting the tip of your chin to your collarbone.

2. As your left hand/forearm moves forward and just passes your head, begin to roll your body and stroke with the right arm. Allow the head to “hitch a ride” with the rotating torso so that you do not break or stretch the secret chin-collarbone thread. In other words, the head and body should rotate as a single unit as you take a stroke with your right arm and extend your left arm. During this roll it’s easy to allow instinct to take over in one or both of the following ways:

• Lifting the head slightly. To counteract this tendency you could press the side/back of the head slightly toward the bottom of the pool so that it is in contact (or nearly in contact) with the extended left arm. The idea is that you don’t want the gap between the side/back of your head and your extended arm to widen as you rotate to breathe – if anything, you should be trying to close that gap a bit while rolling to breathe.

• Pressing down with the extended arm. As you complete your roll and as you breathe, it is important that your left arm remains fully extended toward the end wall of the pool. A common mistake is to put downward pressure on the extended arm or to "lean" on it. This raises the head and shoulders a bit, thus putting lots of downward pressure on the hips. Instead, think of keeping the extended arm “weightless” in front of you while you “lean” on your armpit instead. Sometimes it is even helpful to think in terms of lifting the extended arm slightly as you go for a breath.

3. As body roll reaches its farthest point onto your left side (belly button now facing the right wall) your blowhole will gain full access to life-giving oxygen. If you’ve really kept your head “stationary” with respect to your torso (haven’t stretched or broken your imaginary chin-collarbone thread) your nose will be pointed straight up (or nearly so). If you’ve successfully avoided pressing down on the water with your extended left arm, kept consistent pressure on your buoy and resisted the temptation to lift your head, you’ll still be completely balanced longitudinally and both your ears will be under water.

4. While you grab a lung (or two, if you must) full of air and while you are still gliding along fully on your left side with your nose pointed up, recover your right arm by picking the right elbow up and moving it forward. During the recovery, allow your forearm and hand to dangle from your elbow like dead meat. Your chin-collarbone thread should still be intact.

5. As your high-right-elbow-with-dangling-forearm/hand moves forward and just passes your head, begin to rotate your body and head as a single unit back in the opposite direction from the previous roll – toward the lying-on-your-right-side position you had in step #1. As you begin this roll, start taking the next stroke with the until-now-fully-extended left arm and extend your right arm fully toward the end wall – think of using this roll to “trade hands” out front of your head (see Swimming in Circles by this author). If, by the end of this roll, you have still avoided stretching or breaking the chin-collarbone thread you’ll be back fully on your right side with your nose pointed straight toward the bottom of the pool.

There you have it. Following the above will allow you to overcome the instinctive tendency to lift your head and in so doing, decrease the amount of energy you waste either with extra kicking to keep your hips and legs near the surface or with extra stroking effort to overcome unnecessary added form drag.

5 Ways to End Muscle Cramps

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter in Tri-Rudy newsletter, August 24, 2011]

By Hana A. Feeney, MS, RD, CSSD

“About a quarter-mile from the finish, I started to sprint. I could feel muscle twitches in my quads, and my quads were burning. I had to slow down as I felt the cramp coming on. Then wham! Like a sledgehammer to my leg, the cramp hit and I had to stop and rub it out. What could I have done to prevent that muscle cramp?”

This is a common question among athletes. Muscle cramps are involuntary, intensely painful muscle contractions that nearly every athlete has experienced at some point. Some people experience them often and simply seem to be prone to muscle cramps.

What Can You Do?
Cramps usually hit at the end of intense workouts or during endurance events because fatigued muscles are more likely to cramp. Novice athletes are more likely to have cramps as they fatigue more quickly than seasoned exercisers. If you carefully progress your workouts, you will avoid unnecessary cramps. Heat, and not being used to the heat, increases the frequency of cramps. When the season changes and summer arrives, ease into workouts in the heat.

Additionally, carefully plan your fluids, electrolytes and carbohydrate intake to help avoid or delay muscle cramps.

Are You Drinking Enough?
Studies on fluids and cramps have produced mixed results. Some studies find no associations, while other show that consuming fluids and electrolytes to avoid dehydration will prevent, or at least delay, muscle cramps. The benefits of avoiding dehydration are widespread, so even if it’s not 100 percent guaranteed that you won’t cramp, consuming adequate fluids during exercise will still improve performance.

How would dehydration cause muscle cramps? Fluids in the body are either inside the cell or outside of the cell. When we become dehydrated, the fluid outside of the cells decreases. Reductions in fluids cause nerve endings to be squished together, overexcited, and spontaneously discharge. That spontaneous discharge is a muscle twitch, which can lead to a muscle cramp. By maintaining proper hydration, you can prevent dramatic shifts in fluids that contribute to abnormal muscle contractions.

To prevent dehydration, start by drinking fluids according to your thirst. Weigh yourself before and immediately after exercise, preferably au natural. Any change in your weight is a change in fluid balance. Weight loss greater than 2 to 3 percent of your body weight increases your risk for muscle cramps. If drinking based on thirst prevents fluctuations in your weight during exercise, then you can rely on thirst to be your hydration guide. Otherwise, you need a hydration schedule to meet your fluid needs.

The Need for Salt
Fluids aren’t alone in the task of maintaining your body’s fluid balance. Electrolytes control the shift of fluids in and out of cells. The electrolyte of most concern during exercise is sodium. Found as sodium chloride in table salt. We lose more sodium in sweat than the other electrolytes. Both water and sodium are lost in sweat. Replacement of water without sodium can lead to dangerously low blood sodium levels, called hyponatremia. Hyponatremia will also occur if you are sweating a lot and simply losing a lot of sodium in sweat. This is most likely to occur during endurance exercise or with repeated sweating throughout the day. Muscle cramps may occur when the concentration of sodium in the blood decreases; cramps can progress to a serious medical emergency when hyponatremia is not treated.

To prevent hyponatremia and the muscle cramps it may cause, sodium should be consumed with fluids. This is particularly useful for cramp-prone individuals. High sodium sports drinks can delay muscle cramps in those who cramp often. Sodium may be consumed from salty foods (such as pretzels) or through sports products.

Don't Be Afraid of Carbohydrates
Carbohydrate depletion will also lead to muscle cramps. Carbohydrates are the primary fuel used during exercise. There is a finite amount of carbohydrate stored as glycogen in our muscles to provide the energy to exercise. Once that store of glycogen has been exhausted, we are at high risk for muscle cramps. The muscle requires carbohydrate (or energy) to contract; it also needs energy to relax. When there isn’t adequate fuel circulating yet we continue to exercise and contract our muscles, muscle relaxation is impaired, and the cramp occurs.

It takes about 60 to 90 minutes of exercise to deplete glycogen stores. Therefore, it is appropriate to consume carbohydrate during any activity that will last longer than 60 to 90 minutes. Even very intense exercise lasting only 45 minutes may deplete glycogen stores. Be sure to eat a carbohydrate-rich meal or snack prior to endurance or intense exercise. Plus, you will need to consume carbohydrates through food or sports products during longer duration exercise. Consuming carbohydrates appropriately is well-worth it to prevent a muscle cramp.

Follow these five steps to prevent muscle cramps:

1. Train appropriately.
2. Acclimate yourself to the environment.
3. Consume the right amount of fluids for your body to prevent dehydration.
4. Choose salty foods or sodium rich sports products before, during and after exercise.
5. Prevent carbohydrate depletion by consuming carbohydrates before your workout and during your workout if it is longer than 60-90 minutes.

More Efficient Speed

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, July 25, 2011]

by Coach Emmett Hines


You are used to doing heart rate sets where you check your heart rate every so often and maintain some minimum or maximum heart rate or stay within a specific range. Typically this is done in an effort to make sure you are working at the intensity required to effect a specific training adaptation.

You are also used to doing stroke count sets where you swim distances using specific stroke counts. Usually this means that some or all of the distance is to be done at something less than your normal number of strokes per length. This is done to help you focus on making your stroke more efficient so you can go further with each stroke and encounter less resistance.

And you are (or should be) very used to paying attention to your pace per 100 (or 200 or 50 or whatever) while swimming a long set.

But rarely do you put all three of these together in one set.

Recently we have been doing some long, moderate intensity sets where we ask you to maintain a HR in the 130 - 140 area. From an energy system training standpoint this type of set improves your body's ability to produce energy for work through lipid metabolism - burning fat. The more energy you are capable of producing by burning fat (which cannot produce lactic acid) the longer you can delay fatigue that results from lactic acid accumulation (produced by burning carbohydrates).

This moderate intensity stuff is low stress work that you can carry on for extended periods of time. And, truth be known, this can get boring if you let it. But it is necessary work so let's explore a way to make it more challenging.

As you know, speed is not always directly related to effort. (If this comes as a surprise think of one of those recreational swimmers you see from time to time that dive into the pool, and begin thrashing about, tossing water in every direction, looking more like a big splash moving slowly down the pool than a swimmer. This guy has a 200+ HR by the end of 25 yds and is probably done with his workout. Lots of effort, not much speed.) Speed is more directly related to efficiency than energy expenditure. At any given physical effort level if we improve efficiency (as measured by strokes per length or SPL) we increase speed.

This gives us a natural, and very challenging, focal point for moderate intensity sets. Let's say the set is 10x200 holding a 130-140 HR. The idea would be to see how fast you could swim each repeat while staying in the HR range prescribed. Not working harder, just swimming faster. The key here is to improve the efficiency of the swim. Decrease your SPL by increasing distance per stroke, improving your streamline position, longer glides off each wall, being aware of and avoiding unnecessary resistance etc.

And keep track of your times for each repeat. This is very important because improving efficiency can be deceiving. If you are one of the majority of swimmers that consciously or unconsciously equates effort with speed then, when you swim more efficiently, your internal speedometer may erroneously tell your brain you have slowed down. Use the clock for speed feedback and learn to trust it.

This efficiency=speed concept takes some getting used to. Applying it in workouts takes mental activity and involves lots of trial and error. Once you get good at this at moderate intensities you can apply the concept at higher intensities.

Do you have Runner’s Kick?

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, July 25, 2011]

By Kevin Koskella

www.triswimcoach.com

Can you point your toes and straighten out your feet? When you kick on your back, do you tend to go very slow, stay in one place, or even go backwards? Do you have a tough time with swimming drills because your kick is not propelling you forward fast enough? Do you wear fins in workouts just to "keep up"? Did you start out as a runner and pick up swimming later to become a Triathlete?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, you may have Runner's Kick! Have no fear, there are things you can do. Even the worst of kickers can develop an adequate kick for freestyle, which is all you need for a triathlon swim.

Here are some remedies:

1. Vertical Kicking. This drill has been around for a long time. Find water that is deep enough for you to kick in place. Let go of the wall, cross your arms, and kick in place in a vertical position (keep in a straight line), pointing your toes and keeping your chin above the surface of the water. Get your power from your quads and hips on this drill. Try 20 seconds at a time.
2. Use fins. Yes! I am a coach telling you to use fins. But not to "keep up" in workouts. IF you have ankle flexibility issues (Runner's Kick), use fins for a few weeks, but wean off them as you get closer to your event. The shorter kind are best. I prefer Hydrofinz (see below) but other brands may work okay as well. Fins can increase your ankle flexibility, allow you to do swimming drills with ease, and strengthen the right leg muscles you need to kick.
3. Sit on your feet. For more severe cases of Runner's Kick, sitting on your feet can greatly improve your ankle flexibility. In Yoga, just stay in "Child's Pose" a little longer and gain this extra benefit.
4. Just stretch. In a seated position, take one leg and bring it out in front of you. Extend your feet and push your toes toward the ground. Hold for about 15-20 seconds, repeat with other foot. You can do this several times a day.

Whatever you do, don't be tempted to use a kick board to improve your kick. For distance swimming and triathlons, you are wasting your time with the floatation devices!

Remember: You don't need a super kick to have a great race in a triathlon. Your kick is mainly for stability and body rotation. Have patience, stick with these drills, and you will lose your Runners' Kick before you know it!

Swimming with fist gloves

Source: Revised from an article that first appeared in Schwimmvergnügen in 1999, in East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, June 15, 2011]

Early in your swimming career Mother Nature played a cruel trick on you. She imbued you with the false notion that your hands are the things that you “grip” the water with and thus propel yourself with. You have labored through most of your aquatic mileage under this heavy yoke. You have built most of your technique and training around pulling harder and faster with those puny little hands.

Now, Coach plays his own trick. He tosses a pair of what appear to be rubber mittens down by your lane and says “Put ’em on, shut up and swim.” You obediently jam your hands into them only to find that you have to make a fist to get them all the way on. Is that a smirk on Coach’s face? As you drop down to push off from the wall you’re sure you hear Coach starting to laugh. Your once-streamlined glide feels very “blunt.” You take your first few strokes but, whoa, what’s this? No traction! You seem to go nowhere! You’re sure that Coach is, by now, rolling around on the deck laughing at your pathetic efforts to go somewhere!

Refusing to satisfy his sadistic appetites you push on. Quickly, you figure out that doing more of that which comes naturally – pulling harder and faster – just flat doesn’t do any good with fist gloves. You must think “outside the box” of your current technique, exploring other options and possibilities - ones that Mother Nature would prefer to keep secret.

Fist gloves, as it turns out, entice you to seek an arm position where the forearm, rather than your hand, becomes the “paddle” that holds the water. You find that getting your forearm more vertical to the pool bottom, further out in front of the body just seems more “right.” You find that the longer you keep the forearm vertical the more propulsive your stroke is.

A treacherous mistress, “Mom” Nature also gave your hands bazillions of nerve endings so you’d focus on them constantly while swimming. But, just like their cousin, the condom, fist gloves dramatically and frustratingly decrease the sensory impulses the wearer’s brain receives from the “protected” appendage. At first, this sensory deprivation seems a depressing occurrence. But as you use the fist gloves more you become much more aware of what your forearm is experiencing in terms of pressure and flow. As your forearm sensitivity increases you can better position it and more accurately move it to where it is most effective in holding onto the water.

Fist gloves often show swimmers that they were relying on their hands for more than just pulling. Again we see “Ma” at work. Instinct tells you that when your face is in the water you must push down on the water with your hands and lift your head. You do this without thinking and are likely unaware of it (or at least the extent of it). If you habitually press down on the water in front to lift your head, the fist gloves render this motion wholly ineffective, forcing you to find another way. If you can resist the impulse to just press down harder the only remaining option is to not lift the head.

Of course, the goal of wearing any piece of equipment in training is, ostensibly, to swim better when nekked. So, what really matters is what happens once confining latex is peeled unceremoniously from flesh and cast aside. Almost universally, swimmers report the first few nekked lengths they swim after wearing fist gloves are at significantly lower stroke counts than normal. They also seem to get their lowest swim golf scores. The longer and more often the fist gloves are worn, the longer this hyper-efficiency period seems to last. The awareness, sensitivity and technique that fist gloves foster linger as unfettered hands act as an extension of the newly discovered and sensitized forearms. In short, you swim farther with every stroke, which, of course, is the primary ingredient of faster swimming (not to mention of simply looking more like an accomplished swimmer).

But soon Mother Nature says Habit must prevail and it seems you are doomed to slowly revert to the old motions that are habitual for you. “But wait,” you say with a trick of your own in mind, “what if I put those things on again and wear them long enough for the new technique to become my habit?” (It’s to think about.)

Yoga and swimming

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, June 15, 2011]

If you have ever watched a good swimmer, one of the first things you might notice is their ease and grace. Their movements are smooth, balanced, and fluid; it looks as if they are exerting very little effort, while those around them struggle to keep pace.

The reason for this is not that they are naturally gifted and do not have to try; they are working as hard or harder than everyone else in the race is. The reason their swimming appears to be so easy stems from coordination of muscle, breathing, and body, letting them focus their energy in the right places instead of expending it unnecessarily. Yoga can help you learn to develop this coordination, too!

My experiences with Yoga

My first experience with Yoga was during my junior year of high school. My coach and I decided to eliminate morning practices and insert yoga in their place. We thought it would be an extension of stretching, a big help towards increasing my swimming efficiency (it was also very funny to watch my coach lose his balance and pitch over onto the floor).

Both of us really enjoyed the experience, but ultimately decided that we were moving on to try other things. I think this decision had to do with the instructor and the class atmosphere. The class was designed for an older crowd who wanted a good stretch to start their day. While I also wanted that stretch, I decided it was something I could do on my own, at home.

My next experience with Yoga occurred while I in college at CAL. Part of our swim team’s cross-training included Yoga. This time, my instructor, Devon, did not teach only yoga; he knew about spinning dance, weightlifting, and just about every other fitness activity known to man. In addition, he knew what we wanted in a Yoga class. He explained the poses, coached us through them, and helped us apply what we were doing to our activities in the pool.

What I have learned from Yoga

Yoga can be hard - but it also can be relaxing - It does not have to be all stretching and meditation, which many people think of when they hear the word Yoga. I have found that means that muscles all over your body are straining to hold the various positions. However, it does not have to be quite as hard as it seems. Yoga teaches you to relax all of the muscles that are not specifically needed to hold the pose. This helps you to conserve energy by not using all of those unnecessary muscles and put it towards the muscles that need it.

Breathing is an important part of Yoga - and swimming - Everyone knows that breathing is important. Without it we would die! Devon taught us to breathe using the lower part of our lungs, especially when we are holding a difficult pose. Focusing on breathing gave me something to think about other than the pain that I might be experiencing. It also helps me get more oxygen, which in turn helps my struggling muscles. The same thing happens in the water. By picking a breathing pattern, and sticking with it, I can use all of my lungs, and focus on something other than the strain of the race or practice. I have found that with this comes a calmness that helps hold my stroke together longer - and results in improved times.

Arms can be strong - but your belly is stronger - Maintaining tension through the core muscles of your body can help take some of the stress off the little muscles that you are using. The same applies to swimming. One of the reasons that some people get more distance for every stroke is because they are not using just their biceps, triceps, and hands to move themselves through the water. They have connected the various muscles in their arms to their core body muscles and are using these much stronger muscles to do a lot of the work. Lat and oblique muscles are bigger and stronger than deltoids, biceps, and triceps - and can maintain your pace during a race for a lot longer than arms alone.

Yoga develops your sense of balance - both on land and in water - Balance can help you get through just about anything. In Yoga, balance is important for holding various positions. Similarly, your balance in the water can help you be more streamlined. By pushing your chest (or your back for backstroke) down, you can get your hips to ride much higher in the water. This reduces how much of your body is dragging through the water. You can pull with less effort to go the same speed. However, you have to hold your core muscles tight, otherwise you are just burying your head, causing more drag.

Flexibility is good for swimming - and Yoga makes it better - Finally, yoga helps with flexibility. Yoga involves a lot of stretching. The extra flexibility developed through practicing yoga applies directly to swimming. The more flexible your shoulders, arms, legs, hips, and feet are, the easier you will be able to kick, recover your arms, and execute a proper hand entry. Your body parts will move more smoothly and require less effort in the process.

I believe Yoga has made me a much better swimmer. I hope you can add it to your workout regimen and develop a smooth, effortless stroke, too. At least it will look effortless to those that do not know the secrets of Yoga!

Should you warm up?

[Source: Rick Hellard, Tri-Rudy newsletter, June 8, 2011]

Have you ever wondered why people warm-up before a race? Why waste the energy? Why not save it for the race?

Quite simply, the warm-up gets the body ready for the hard work ahead of it. Most bodies need to be gently coaxed out of their protective shell in order to push hard—blood flow to the various muscles needs to be increased so the muscle warms up and becomes a bit more flexible, which allows for easier movement and reduced chance of injury.

I’ve been running for a loonngg time, and morning runs are my favourite, but also my nemesis—without 20-30min of walking around and a cup of coffee, I start my runs like a 70 year old who’s never run before, and I am now 45, so that’s not right. When I start my morning runs, I’m stiff and sore and slow for 20min and then, gradually, the blood starts to get through to deeper and deeper muscle tissue, and I loosen up. And speed up.

One of those muscles is, of course, the heart. Have you ever noticed you breath really heavily at the start of your run and after a little while, things settle down? You’ve just warmed up.

I suggest every run you do start off at a gentle pace, then builds to the pace you want to maintain. Using your breathing as a guide works very well for this. If you are breathing hard early on in your run, you started too hard. Later in the run, it’s a different story. I’m talking about the first 10-15min.

The importance of a warm-up when racing has never been scientifically proven to be beneficial, but the mountain of anecdotal evidence is rather impressive, so I believe in it a great deal. Further, I’ve always believed that to be good at whatever it is you want to be good at, you do what the other people who are good at it do, and when it comes to warming up, all the fast kids do them, therefore, so do I.

Again, the idea of the warm-up is to get your body ready for a hard or race effort. Ideally, you want to get your body ready so it’s good to go on the start line, not a kilometer or two after the gun goes off.


With that in mind, I suggest the following as a good routine to follow for a 5 or 10k race. It should take 30min or so.

• Run for 10-15min building your intensity from ultra easy to just under threshold (race pace) for the final 2 minutes or so.
• Stretch/hydrate a bit more
• Washroom
• Change clothes into your racing attire
• Move out to the start line and, finally,
• Do 4-5 easy accelerations of between 80-100m. Start by running easily and gently get yourself up to race pace within the acceleration, hold for 5-10 sec. Run easily back to where you started from and repeat 4-5 times. These are not designed to get you tired, so take more rest if necessary, but be sure to keep moving.
• You should be ready to go.

At the beginning of this article, I asked two questions: Why waste the energy? Why not save it for the race?

Well, if you actually want to race the event, your energy supply to cover the distance should be the least of your worries. If it is, you have not trained enough and will be surviving the event, not racing it.

One final note is that the importance of a warm-up is directly proportional to a few things:

1. How hard you intend to push yourself—if you’re out for a social run with an entry fee, it’s not that important. If you’re out for a fast time, it is very important to be ready to go when the gun goes off.
2. How long the race is—the longer the race, the shorter the warm-up. Because the intensity of the effort is not as high, you can build into it in the early stages of the race. In a short race, you don’t have time to find your rhythm. You gotta have it from the start.
3. The weather—considering the above, if it’s really hot, a warm-up is less necessary (but still necessary). If it’s really cold, it’s very necessary.