What's in your Gym Bag?

My latest contribution to the Mizuno Run Club Blog.


Short and sweet, but effective.


Check it out HERE.

Training Plan - Avoid Injuries at the Gym

The strength and conditioning program of a distance runner is an essential part of any training plan when it comes to staying injury free and maximizing running performance. But it isn’t as easy as just going to the gym and banging out reps on the leg curl machine. The program should focus on correcting muscle imbalances and fixing incorrect movement patterns, while improving overall strength and explosive power. Distance runners will also benefit from performing explosive exercises in the same manner as sprinters.

A recent article in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports describes the effects of adding strength training to highly trained endurance athletes. They suggest that muscular and neuromuscular adaptations played a critical role.

Read more HERE.

Do No Harm in the Gym

Do no harm in the gym with my latest article in the May/June 2012 issue of Canadian Running.


In stores soon!

How to: The Single Leg Romanian Deadlift

Julia from www.rantandroarrunning.blogspot.com

This exercise is great at challenging single leg hip stability while strengthening your posterior chain (hamstrings, gluteals and para-spinals) and abdominals (indirectly). Don't be confused with the version where the weight is lifted off the floor between reps - that's referred to as a Stiffleg Deadlift - two different exercises even though they look the same.  I'll save that exercise for another post.

Dumbbells can be held in each hand or in just one hand (same side as the leg that is going up - more challenge to the abdominals).  A barbell can also be held so more weight can be an option (as dumbbells only go so heavy).

So here we go:

My 10 Favourite Ab and Hip Exercises for Runners

When it comes to improving your running form, crunches and sit-ups will do very little. They’re detrimental to a runner’s spine and not at all effective at improving the true function of a runner’s core. But many people still ask how many sit-ups they need to do to run a faster 10K. The sit-up movement results in high spinal loads and reproduces an injury mechanism that could result in a herniated disc. The true function of a runner’s core is not to flex the spine, so why would you train it that way?

Visualize the core as a group of muscles surrounding the torso, providing structural integrity to the lumbar spine and pelvic girdle. When running, the core provides dynamic postural control to minimize excessive movement in the torso and pelvis while the hips and legs propel the body forward. The group of muscles also has to resist and control the rotational torque that the legs and hips apply to the upper body. Core-stability training can improve this function and make runners more efficient.