Episode 155 - Don & Derek: Hitting the Ground Running This Fall

In Episode 154, Don and Derek discuss the simplicity and efficacy of running as a fitness modality. We have seen the shift to other forms of aerobic fitness training over the last few decades, with many options available to individuals looking to improve aerobic conditioning, improve body composition and manage stress in their lives. But few people know how to assemble a sound running program and may be intimidated by the challenge of using running as a primary fitness tool. Don and Derek review the many methods used to introduce running to the general population, as well as the key issues around staying healthy when adopting a running program.

The D&D Fitness Radio podcast is available at the following locations for downloadable audio, including:

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You can reach both Don and Derek at the following locations:

Don Saladino: http://www.DonSaladino.com
Twitter and Instagram - @DonSaladino
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/donsaladino

Derek M. Hansen: http://www.SprintCoach.com
Twitter and Instagram - @DerekMHansen
YouTube - http://youtube.com/derekmhansen

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
Welcome to the D and D Fitnessradio podcast, brought to you by your
host Don Saladino from New York Cityand Derek Hanson from Vancouver, Canada.
Well listen, I had I hada topic I wanted to cover today a

(00:35):
little bit, and because I feellike we haven't really we never really dove
into this, and it's like,this is your lane, right, Like
this is what it is you're knownfor, and this is what it is
you do, And you know,I wanted to kind of because Derek,
Derek, everyone knows Derek my podcastpart of here. He's always a little
bit more of the quiet one,but he's definitely the one. And when
he says something, I think it'sthe most valuable information. Every time you

(00:58):
open your mouth, there's so muchvalue to it. But I don't want
to talk running today, right,Derek exactly Now you're now he's trying to
know, But I do. Iwant to talk running a little bit,
right because you know, I hada challenger on the other day and he's
asking me. You know, he'sa little bit of a cluster of way
of his training, of his ofhow he designs his programming. When not

(01:19):
the stuff that I give him,but more of like you know, if
he's running, there's a lot ofdifferent types of running he does. Like
he'll go on and he'll run aten k, but then he'll be working
on four hundreds, and then he'llbe working on one hundreds, and then
he'll be working on five miles sixmile, right, and he's just doing
all of this stuff. And Ithink the example that I always give is,

(01:41):
all right, listen, we canwe can line up twenty ingredients that
I might cook with, all reallyhealthy ingredients. Now you're going to use
those ingredients separately. I might usethree of them one day in this dish,
or I might use five of themone day in this dish. But
if we take all twenty ingredients andwe throw it into one pot and we
try and cook with those twenty ingredients, probably gonna taste like shit. I'm

(02:05):
hearting an article on that. Actuallyit's called and I got to send it
to you before I publish it,but it's called what do I call it?
Exercise availability disorder? So the ideathat there's so many exercises out there
that people think they have to dothem, as opposed to like, well,
like you said, let's do fivereally good, right, But there's
so many exercises, so it diluteseverything. Right, So you're like,

(02:30):
oh, that looks like you goto a conference. Oh that's a good
one. I'll I had that onein. Oh I saw this on Instagram.
I'll add that one. And it'slike then you gotta like, yeah,
you gotta talk about it. Yeahyou literally you said nicely. You
have a pile of shit. Andyou know, we see it in We've
seen it in all types of training, right. Like I'll design a program
for someone and they'll be like,well, I want to do this,

(02:52):
and I'm like, you've been doingthis for a year and a half,
Like, let's focus on other things. And a term of I'd like to
use is a lot of training,at least i'd call big bang for your
buck training. They have carryover,right, It's what I mean by carryover
is like, Okay, you couldbe deadlifting, it's deadlifting just training the

(03:16):
lower back? Is it just trainingto let No, it's it's there are
so many things deadlifts training that wedon't look at as primary users, like
our grip, right, Well,if our grip's getting stronger, what's happening
to our shoulder? Strength. What'shappening to the strength of our laps and
we're really trying to bend that bar. What's happening to our core strength,
what's happening to our hips in glutes, what's happening to our quads, our

(03:39):
hamstrings? Like, there's there's somuch carry over. There's so many things
going on here. And if youthink, all right, in a deadlift,
if your chest isn't working, well, go up and touch a powerlifter's
chest while they're deadlifting. You thinkthey're not creating tension there? Right?
So I understand how it's not aprimary it's not a primary mover for certain
muscle groups, but it has alot of carry over. It's doing a

(04:01):
lot of things. Now. Running, I really believe has become somewhat of
a lost art over the last fewdecades. And when I say that it
was almost bastardized for a period oftime, people are like, oh,
running is not good for you.Running is not good for you, Like
okay, Like squatting could be badfor you if it's performed by someone who
doesn't how to squat. Running couldbe bad for you if you have injury

(04:23):
and you don't know how to run. I'm someone that has always been a
runner, but I took a littlebit of time off of running, and
I've been really consistent with my runningthe last month and I feel great.
I feel like I've regained a lossof elasticity in my body. I feel
like that when I would go toeven attempt to sprint maybe three or four

(04:43):
months ago, my hamstrings were tight. Now from running five mile clips,
three mile clips, I've really establisheda bit of that spring in there.
How much carryover are we having fromrunning to other things that we enjoy doing
in life? And I mean that'sa pretty basic question, but is first
off is running you believe something thatmost of us should try and never let

(05:06):
go of and never lose the abilityto do. I mean, it's it's
contextual. Like you remember that diagramI would post and it's called a motor
unit diagram, and it was CharlieFrancis and I put it together where you
got on the left side you havesprinting Olympic lifts, and then you start
moving over you got squats, deadlifts, and then to the right you

(05:28):
got like arm curls, wrist curlsright, so you have high motor unit
activities, which essentially means a lotof muscles being used and a lot of
brain power to fire those muscles.So anything to the left where it's you
know, explosive throws, clean andjerk. Maybe even certain plyometrics and sprints

(05:51):
use a lot in your body.I remember I wrote this book for human
kinetics called Plyometrics Anatomy, and theywanted to know, like, Okay,
tell me every muscle being used andeach of the exercises right, And I'm
like, they're all being used,what do you mean? Like so people
you know, and again maybe itcomes from body building where people like to
target areas of the body. Butif you look at like and running and

(06:15):
running is such a broad area,like it's sprinting, you know, different
types of sprinting starting and then longmiddle distance running, long distance runing.
But but running isn't a whole bodyactivity for sure. But I think you
have to I mean you, it'slike any training program, Like I'm the
opposite of you. I did moresprinting and running and I got away from

(06:35):
lifting. So guess what happened?A lot of joint pain, a lot
of you know, issues like thatwhere I just I felt unbalanced and so
I got back into front squatting,back squatting and all that, and it
seems to have resolved it. SoI now have something in there that's different.
That's that's shoring up areas that mayberunning doesn't, whereas if you're a

(06:57):
lifter, everything is slower, hightension for the most part. So if
you like, people will say like, oh, I'm going to do velocity
based lifting, and they attach somethingto the bar that measures bar speed,
and so yeah, I got itmoving at one point five meters per second.
Wow, that's really fast, right, Well, how fast does a

(07:18):
baseball pitcher throw his arm at?How how fast is it when you sprint
you have to get over ten metersper second, right, and your limbs
are moving in even faster, Soit's ten times slower to lift. And
then if you do like slower lifts, then it's like twenty thirty forty times
slower. So you know, yourbody has different abilities and rolls, your

(07:41):
muscles have different roles, and fasttwitch slow twitch, and I guess you
have to really target all those things. You know, running does a good
job for all the fast twitch andelastic components, but maybe not so much
for the slower, high tension,So maybe isometrics, eccentrics, all these
other things are really important. ButI think you're always looking for gaps and

(08:03):
your training and making sure that you'renot shifting too far to one side.
So running is not a bad wayto kind of cover off a lot of
those areas, those those higher velocityelastic areas. And there's a fluidity and
a coordination amongst your your your muscles, Like when your quad fires, you

(08:24):
know your hamstring has to relax,right, So if you're doing that and
you're running at four steps per secondor faster, that has to happen.
The demand for the velocity of turningsomething on but also turning something off very
quickly is very important, yeah,because if you don't have that coordination,
Like there's a video I show ofa sprinter racing against the bodybuilder and the

(08:46):
bodybuilder blows out both hamstrings like tenfive steps in because he can fire his
muscles, but just not at thatspeed. So then it things just blow
up. So you know, it'sit's I guess what I'm saying, and
what we've always said is there hasto be some sort of balance to your
training that allows you to hit differentareas, different functions, different energy systems,

(09:09):
and if you don't, you're goingto have a deficit somewhere and be
open to injury or you know whatever. The problem is for most people is
that there is two large of themof a library of things to do or
things they think they need to do. One of the best examples I can
ever use was I think probably twelveyears ago. Oh god, no now,

(09:33):
because we're three years in COVID,how to be fifth right? When
Charlie Weingroff started work, Doctor CharlieWeingroff started working at Drive and we have
a mutual client, and I screenedthem and I then found some red flags
that were out of my scope.So I sat down with the client and
Charlie and Charlie ran this individual through. You know, Charlie's screening process of

(09:58):
it might have been an SFM.What is so selective functional movement assessment?
I think it stands for? Andso Charlie runs him through. I might
even be getting that wrong. Soit's been so long since I've seen it
a SFMA, I'm actually forgetting whatit stands for. And I sat down,
I watched Charlie's assessment process and Charliegave me some basic things that he

(10:24):
wanted to see improved in the programming. I said, great, So I
went back and I sat down andI wrote the program and I came back
and I handed Charlie like this Chinesemenu of things practice like in his you
know, we call at the time, we called it preab, we called
it movement prep. You know,whatever you want to call it, you
know, but it was it reallywas my way of getting this client to
practice things that he wasn't good at. And Charlie just looked at me and

(10:48):
starts shaking his head and he said, what, I'm like, what's the
problem. He goes down, themain problem with this guy's is hyper flexible.
He didn't like using the term hypermobilebecause we've always refer to mobility as
the combination of flexibility and stability.So people say hypermobile. It's like we
really preferred the term hyper flexible.Like they were just that this guy was
like as opposed to their joints dislocatingexactly exactly. So it's like it's really

(11:09):
more like hyper flexible. Right,So the guy had no control over his
body, he had no stability,and he's like done this our client's hyper
flexible. I was like, yeah, but I have this to improve you
know, glue strength, and Ihave this to improve lack strength. And
I have this. And he looksat me and he just goes deadlift him,

(11:31):
and I was like, holy shit. He's like not think about it.
If he's getting on the floor withthe bar, which you can get
into a perfect position where and he'syou know, ripping the bar apart and
getting every area of his body toengage. He goes run him like like
an old school Bill Star five byfive program where he's like three days a
week getting the big lifts, creatingstrength percentages over a twelve to sixteen week

(11:58):
period of time. Take your timeand get this guy strong. So I'm
like, okay, great, Andthat was like the first lesson to me
that like this guy didn't need tostretch right like he was always stretching.
I'm like, wait, he doesn'tneed stretching. He needs stability. So
what do we do in the warmups? Now, light carries medball throws,
you know, things that we're gonnastill produce, you know, the body

(12:20):
to fire, but still create strength. And you know what, two three
days a week we weren't getting himto do some form of deadlift, some
form of squad, some form ofbench press, And it was like magic
Man. Every single week you justsaw things in his body start creating this
tension. You saw maybe week onehis spine couldn't maintain. We had to

(12:41):
go really light and just focus ontension techniques or his knees would go valcus
because he had no control over hislegs. And with taking his time,
we were able to check all theboxes that Charlie wanted me to check.
And even in training now there's somany aspects, so many different things that
we like to do in our training. But I'm getting to the point with

(13:01):
running where I'm like, oh,run, Like like when Charlie said to
me about you know, the deadlift, even like springing in the beginning,
might be too demanding for someone todo right. It's it's too much force.
Like and what did I start doing? Like in the first week or
two, I went out and dida couple of three mile runs during the

(13:22):
week on specific days Wednesdays and Fridays, and then out of nowhere, I
jumped to five I jumped to fourmiles one day and five miles the other
day and then now I'm at fivemile and five mile and now I'm I'm
starting to feel a little bit morespringing. Now towards the end of my
run, I'm starting to feel likeI can keep going. I'm not feeling
like, you know, I'm beatup, and and I'm turning around and

(13:46):
I'm noticing, like, after therun, what will I do. I'll
go and I'll stretch some areas inmy body which I know get tied on
it, right, Like I'm stretching, I'm doing a couch stretch for quad
and hiflexer. I'm doing some typeof like an inverted hamstring for my hinge
and to work on a little bitof you know, stability, right and
I'm working on the hip in nineteenninety with the kettlebell and the hips,
because you know that's going to help, you know, loosen up my hip

(14:07):
flexers and get my hips you know, rotating internally and externally and just basic
things like that are really just openingup. And now I'm waking up and
I'm like, oh my God,like for the first time in a long
time, the first time since areyou ready? I was on a strict
running program back in twenty twenty duringCOVID, I did Omega Waves Adaptive Running
plan, which was had me runningthree days a week, and it really

(14:31):
started me off with a lower intensityand it had me building my aerobic base.
And then in time, what Isaw on the program was it started
getting me into more higher intensity,more interval style of training. And then
on days I was coming in andmy omegawave was measuring my readiness and it
was saying, all right, sleepwasn't great, stress as high. It
would get me doing longer duration runswhere the heart rate is really low.

(14:54):
And I turned around and I turnedinto a beast again running, which it
was like years and years since then. But my body felt better and I've
started getting that spring back in mystep. And sometimes I think we get
away from things, and the realityis we have to continue. Maybe during
the year you can phase in andout or or design things differently according to

(15:16):
you know where you are in yourtraining year. But you know, it's
something where the longer, the moretimes I keep coming back to it,
the more times I'm like, man, I better make sure I'm doing this
when I'm eating. Yeah. Ihad a couple of interesting conversations the last
few days and it's mostly been withpeople from your background, which is baseball

(15:39):
and golf. Yeah, and sowe're you know, they wanted they came
to me to come up with somestrategies to offset the stress of their sports.
So one was pictures, you know, and I don't know if you
saw about Otani. I think hemessed up his elbow. Oh did he
really? I didn't see that.I think so maybe you might need Tommy

(16:00):
John. I'm not sure, areyou serious? Yeah? Yeah, So
they might still have him hitting becausehe's got forty four homers, but he's
not going to be pitching. Butso, you know, we talked about
pictures because of the overuse possibilities ofthrowing too much right at that at high
velocities. So we're talking about shortsprints to compensate for doing a little less

(16:25):
throwing and generating it through lower body, but also doing them on the same
timer as the pitch count, whichwould be like was it fifteen to twenty
second intervals or something like that.So that was interesting and they found that
the pictures liked it. It wasbetter than giving them something in the weight
room or you know, something youknow related to throwing. And then I

(16:48):
had a local pro here who hasa lot of international athletes at different age
groups. He wanted something for drivingpower that's not gonna Again, there's a
lot of rotational prescriptions in both thosesports, right, like medball rotational medball
throws, and if you've got alot of back pain, you want to

(17:08):
be careful with that. So nowwe're coming up with the same prescriptions like
short sprints and short might be fiveyards, five yards, walk back,
do it again, do it likea lot of times, like ten,
twenty times, right, and everybodyhas recorded better results, less problems with

(17:29):
injuries. So again you're finding somethingdifferent to accomplish the same thing neurologically,
or that whole idea that you youtalked about is carry over and transfer and
having an effect on something without actuallydoing that exact thing. So I think
there's a lot of interesting things thatyou've identified with the running modality. Now,

(17:52):
when when someone's training for sprinting,right, or someone's training for distance,
there's always become that of adding in, Like if you're a distance runner,
you know a certain training blocks duringthe year. I know a lot
of distance runners I'm friends with.They will do a block of speed training
or they will be mixing in shorterdistance speed work. One of my one

(18:15):
of my challengers who's ultra marathon herher name's Flour. She's in New Zealand.
She runs you know, one hundredmile clips and you know, recently
she got into a block of trainingwhere she really kind of calmed down her
distance work and she started working onspeed work and she was she found out

(18:36):
that that really helped increase her performanceon her distance work. Right, is
that something where you feel like becausefor years when I when I played college
baseball, my coach had us runningfive miles like all the time, three
mile runs, five mout runs,three mile runs, five mout runs.
And then there was a period oftime where they're like, why would you
have golfers running distance? Why wouldyou have baseball players running distance? Like

(18:56):
it's but you're still creating this arobicbase. You're still creating this maintenance of
elastic work because you do you haveto spring off the pavement. You are
you know you are. It isa unilateral movement. There is you know,
some type of this locomotion, thislocomotive like movement going on with the
arms and the body, and there'stwisting and rotating and all these things that

(19:19):
will benefit us, where we Ifelt like for a decade plus we went
into this phase of it's bad,it's bad, it's bad, don't have
them do it. Are you lookingnow and saying, well, maybe it's
not so bad, or do youthink, you know athletes should be staying
away from distance running or do youbelieve it is going to lay down this
aerobic base and this level of resiliencythat they need. And also from from

(19:41):
a from a mental approach standpoint,there's something really peaceful and nice about going
out for you know, for amiddle distance run. I think you have
to individualize, right. So I'vebeen involved, you know, with prescribing
running for over thirty years, andsome people are are okay, they're durable,

(20:03):
mechanically, they're fine. So ifyou send them on a longer run
or are their nervous system you know, fits with that, where if you
send somebody who's a little more fasttwitch, anxious, they may not do
well with a thirty minute run.They just can't. They might you know,
it's too much time to get insidetheir own head, whereas other people
find it restorative and therapeutic, andeven from a mental health perspective, really

(20:27):
enjoy it. So that's one piece. The other piece is the mechanical piece
where some people when they run longdistances, they'll complain of like low back
pain, knee pain, joint pain, and especially if they're taller and heavier.
So you have to be careful,like you're not going to take you
know, three hundred pound linemen ora basketball center and say like let's go

(20:48):
for a long run. But ifyou find somebody who who does well and
doesn't mind it, then it's probablya very efficient way as opposed to jumping
on a bike or you know,even swimming swimming. You know, obviously
there's a huge skill component to swimming, but it's it's hard to you have

(21:11):
to put in a lot of mileageand a lot of time to generate the
same amount of sort of cardiac benefitand you know, caloric consumption in the
pool. And same with cycling.You got to cycle a lot. So
so running tends to be one ofthe more efficient ways to achieve that,
and you don't have to get upinto the high heart rates. You could
just you know, stay in youknow, upper levels of zone two,

(21:32):
lower levels of zone three. ButI think you know, I heard that
Roger Clemens did a lot of longerdistance running as a as a baseball pitcher,
and Charlie France has always told me, like there's a huge component,
a low level aerobic component to somethinglike pitching, which is intermittent, but
you have to stay warm and youhave to have a good circulatory system so

(21:53):
that everything in the body stays warmeven when you go sit down between innings.
I would say the same with golf, where it's a lot of walking,
maybe standing, and then you've gotto swing that club pretty hard and
furiously, so you better have thisability to stay warm and keep your tissues
warm. So that's where the aerobicyou know, circulatory system comes in.

(22:14):
It's not like golf is a marathon. I mean it is in some sense
in terms of the duration, butyou know, not the same energy cost.
But you have to stay warm,you have to stay supple. So
I think that's where that aerobic component, the long distance running being an efficient
way to achieve that works and it'svery scalable, like you can have a

(22:36):
whole team do it. And Ithink where it gets out of hand is
when people start putting on a watchon it, saying you have to hit
this time, and like I said, everybody's different, everybody's going to achieve
different heart rates, So I thinkyou have to individualize and you can't go
over the top with it. Andthen you have this intermediate zone where people

(22:56):
want to run repeat three hundreds withlow recoveries. Or I find in college
soccer, especially female soccer, they'rehaving them do a lot of like repeat
one hundred and twenty yard runs.Yeah. I don't know why, because
the field's not even that long,and if you do that, you're at
a position. So somebody somewhere Ithought, wow, one hundred and twenty

(23:18):
really kicks my ass, So let'sjust do a lot of those. So
I think, you know, aslong as you have a rhyme of reason,
are they thinking if starting up?Are they thinking if you overshoot the
distance been less distance is going tobe? Who was it rhyme? Rynolds
told me recently that I think theyput a monitor on one of their star

(23:41):
you know European footballers, you knowfor Wrexham, the Sky Mullen and Mulan,
like in one match, like Randyequivalent of of well, yeah,
it was like it was like fifteenmiles or something. Like that. It
was like something crazy and and sothere you're like, oh wow, like
for someone to go on the fieldfor what is it, ninety minutes and

(24:03):
be able to produce how many minutesis a yeah, ninety ninety minutes.
So to be able to produce thattype of output over a ninety minute period
of time and be able to getyou know, that to me's like okay,
well, so he's maybe are theythinking by overshooting the distance? That's
like an overdistance approach right for anything? Right? So, but I mean,

(24:23):
on the other hand, like nowthey've put GPS on Messi, who's
considered the best player in the worldby far, and he walks a lot
and he doesn't run a lot becausehe's very intelligent and he knows where to
be, he knows how to anticipate, he knows how to walk to the
position where he's going to receive theball, and then he scores, like
what, he's got ten goals andsix games out of Miami and he's just

(24:47):
destroying everybody because he's so hyper intelligent. So I think you have to balance
that off because it's so easy todo the overdistance thing and go, well,
we're going to overcompensate and make surethat they can handle anything. But
there's a cost to that, likethere's a wear and terror cost to that,
and it's not very efficient, right, And so a lot of the

(25:07):
soccer teams that I've worked with,we've kind of broken it down and said,
okay, what you know, notwhat the minimum distance is, but
we have to be careful. It'sa long season, and if you're running
a lot as a soccer player,it means you're probably not very good.
Like you're probably making up for deficienciestechnically, you know, covering other people's
asses because they're out of position.And so maybe that guy's running too much

(25:32):
and there's gonna be a wear andterror costs on that guy, So you
have to be really careful. It'sit's it's definitely a science, but certainly
there's an art to understanding how muchrunning somebody needs. Because it's so easy
to go, ah, screw it, I'm just gonna run, you know,
I'm gonna over prepare for this marathonand I'm gonna run, you know,
twenty eight miles a day as opposedto twenty six. And it's like,

(25:55):
no, that's not a very youknow, intelligent way of approaching it
because you're gonna you're gonna run ofthe problems. Oh yeah, and I
and I saw that specific events I'vehad to approach in the past. And
when you're jumping into it, youmight be feeling a little bit insecure and
then out of nowhere, you know, you're preparing whatever it is five days
a week, and then you're justin your body's getting hit and then you're

(26:15):
the next thing, you know,like I remember the Navy Seal swim nice.
When I'm in last year, Ididn't know what to expect. The
currents are brutal, and I rememberthe beginning it was like four or five
days a week, and then towardsthe end, I dropped to like two
to three days a week, andI actually felt that like I was recovered,
I was rested, and I wasstill able to, you know,
produce this level of improvement with doingsomething two to three days a week.

(26:38):
From a running standpoint, when youhave your general I'm not talking about Olympians,
I'm talking about general pops somewhere wantsto go out there and they want
to improve their you know, threemile, five mile, ten mile,
like is that something where they needto be doing that five days a week
or do you think they can getaway with two days three days a week
if they're doing other training and theiractivity levels. I always whenever I write

(27:00):
training programs for people, you haveto find out, okay, well,
what can you fit into your schedule? Like you know, average people have
jobs and kids and things like thatand hobbies, so you have to find
out, okay, how many daysof the week can you sacrifice? And
then you start dividing up and go, okay, you know, maybe two
of those days are longer runs becauseyou're working on that low level aerobic system,

(27:25):
and then you have maybe another daywhere they do something shorter and faster,
so it's faster than their race,past their desired race paste so you
can work on more of a speedcomponent. And then maybe there's another day
where there's some other intervals that steadof running, Like say you normally go
and run a five k, Well, why don't we do five times one

(27:48):
k with two minute breaks? Right, so you can again you're getting over
race pace. You know, maybeyou're one k time when you run your
five k, your one case splitis like four minutes thirty. Okay,
Well, when we run these individualone case, let's run them in just
under four minutes, and then youget your ninety second break or two minute

(28:11):
break, and then let's do itagain, so your body adapts to a
faster pace under a sort of amanageable condition. Because I think sometimes if
you're like me, if I gofor a long run, my brain is
racing, like, well, whyam I doing this? What? You
know? What? You know?I just think too much. So if
you subdivide your training into smaller bits, sometimes it's a lot more manageable and

(28:33):
more interesting because you're like, Okay, let's just focus on this one k
and then you reset your brain forthe next one. Okay, let's let's
attack another one. But if you'redoing five k in a row, it's
easy to wander, fall off pace, you know, lose sense of your
mechanics, and so you want tojust divide it up, you know,
divide and conquer kind of thing.But in the beginning, when someone's new

(28:55):
to it or someone's just getting started, does it really matter Do you really
have to be that tech or canyou just say by completing you know,
the run and staying in maybe azone two, you know that and itself
is going to be beneficial enough.I always like making people do shorter things
that are manageable and then started youknow, extending it right. So,
and the reason being is that froma technical point of view, it's it's

(29:18):
easy to say, like just goeasy and run five k and and take
you know, thirty five forty minuteswhatever it is, but it's probably gonna
be pretty sloppy. And so asopposed to doing that, why don't we
start with some shorter things. Andit might be going to the track.
And I like using the track becausea quarter mile is a lap and then

(29:40):
you can do a lot of mathoff a quarter mile, Like let's let's
figure out what your quarter mile paceis when you're running you know, a
two mile or and you're like,okay, it has to be ninety you
know, say it has to beone hundred seconds to do a lap.
Well, let's see you do someninety second laps easy. So it's you
know, I just like the bidingstuff up for even beginners, Like there's

(30:02):
a lot of like that. There'sa local ten k here, the Vancouver
Sun Run they call it, andthey get people to do walk jog programs,
so they walk two minutes jog twominutes. That's how they get them
started, and I guess that's nota bad way of doing They subdivide it
out and people will do it intheir neighborhoods, you know. I you
know, I'm a little more scientific, so I'd like to know, you

(30:26):
know, rather than just time,how much distance are you covering, and
then relate that time to that distance. So that's why I like the track,
even though it's boring and you're onlygo in one direction. But we
all have you know, smart watchesnow and we can use GPS to figure
out what our rate is, likeour you know, time per mile or
time per kilometer. So it's nota bad idea to have some sort of

(30:48):
recording and monitoring of what you're doingso that the next time you can set
a goal and go, okay,you know, that was the speed that
I was running last day for thisdistance. Either you're going to do more
of all volume or are you goingto do the same volume and maybe run
it a little faster. So aslong as you're tracking, I think that's
just a better way to do itto have some sort of organization because it's

(31:11):
so easy just to say I'm goingto go for a twenty minute run,
Well, what did that look like? What did it look like technically?
What did it look like from aperformance point of view? What was your
heart rate? Like? Measuring isnot a bad thing. It's a little
some people take it, get outout of hand with it, but I
think it's valuable in order to,you know, make the most of your
time spend exercising, because, likeyou said, if you only have two

(31:33):
or three times a week, welllet's make sure that's the best possible training
session you can have for where you'reat in your training. Right. So
to look up speaking to the generalpublic, someone wants to get in or
running twice a week, right,and they want to start developing that building
up that aerobic base, what wouldyou recommend how would you recommend them to
approach that? It might be again, it might be something where you're you're

(31:57):
doing like a fine distance, likehey, I mean, if you're an
absolute beginner with no running background,that might mean like a sixty seconds on
sixty second sixty seconds run, sixtyseconds walk, right, so you have
some recovery time and it's not solong that you're going to be stumbling through
the run and just feeling horrible.So maybe you have your watch beep every

(32:22):
minute. It's easy enough to setthat up with most watches now, and
your jog for sixty seconds and thenyou walk for sixty seconds, so one
to one kind of work to restratio, and then you say, like,
let's do that for ten minutes.Again. If I'm an absolute beginner
and my fitness is questionable, tenminutes of five or five runs plus five

(32:44):
walks is probably manageable for most people. And then at least if you start
with that structure as opposed to sayingI'm just going to do a ten minute
run, then you can start tobuild on it and go, well,
I can go the same distance,but now I can make them already second
recoveries, so that I kind ofsqueeze the recoveries and I put more demand
on the runs. Or maybe there'retwo minute runs with one minute walks,

(33:07):
and then you just kind of buildit out from there. That's a really
easy way to do it. Andthen once you you know, once you
get to a point where like,hey, I'm pretty fit now, well,
now you can run ten minutes oncontinuously, and then maybe it's a
three minute walk ten minutes three minutes, right, and you're just manipulating this
work to rest ratio and building yourvolume, because that's how you get better

(33:28):
at anything like more reps in youknow, playing tennis, or more reps
at throwing a football and getting thatvolume in or it's going to be more
time running and so just understanding thatvolume has to grow to a certain point
for you to get better. Andthen at some point then you got to
work intensity and run a little faster, and then you can get a little

(33:49):
more scientific about how you structure yourworkouts. But I would say something as
simple as doing a running like theyused to call it, like a fartlek,
remember that of course, right,So it's just it's intervals. It's
you know, your run for abit, then your rest walk whatever,
jog, and that that's what itmay grow into, is like you do
faster segments and then you do alittle jog in between. So one minute

(34:14):
harder, one minute jog, andI'll do that on the treadmill, the
curve treadmill. We've done that before, so it becomes more of a temple
workout. But I think identifying whatyou can accomplish early on and then setting
some goals around. Okay, let'ssee if I can do that for ten
minutes or fifteen minutes or twenty minutes, this on off type of approach,

(34:35):
and then grow it from there,whether it's by growing more volume or adding
some speed to those runs. Myeah, we used to leaving. Part
of my friends leaving right now they'reheading back into New York to New York
City, So so i'd be basicallyyou're breaking it down where you can.
Obviously, as a beginner you recommendthe interval work ewing on because you feel

(34:58):
like technically they're going to be ableto maintain that proper technique, They're gonna
be able to take a little bitof a break mentally and physically to where
they're going to now be able torepeat at at a high level of competency.
So when you're when you're training distancerunning, I mean distance running and
short shorter bursts, technique is goingto change, right, So what do

(35:19):
you what do you normally tell tosomeone who's used to running you know,
five miles, seven miles, tenmiles, but then they want to get
into you know, more sprint work, more burst. Are you mainly just
talking about knee drive? Are youtalking about more hands pockets of chin are
you you know? Are you areyou talking about more spring? Right when
they're doing the sprint work, like, how are you? How are you

(35:42):
coaching someone who's trying to live inthat general fitness area and they're trying to
do a little bit of both.So what you're asking was really like technique,
what am I focusing on? Yeah, I would say if you're doing
longer distance running, it's not asimportant to be like, get your hands
up, your knees up, becauseyou don't need that kind of power and
if you get your hands up andyour knees up, you're going to burn

(36:04):
out really quickly. You can dothat in different drills, and we've done
some of those drills, like themarching and the skipping and the running high
knees over distance are in place,and I think I would focus on that
aspect, or if you're doing speedwork, on focusing on getting your hands
up higher and going through full range. But if you watch a lot of
long distance runners, they're very efficientand they kind of stay a little lower

(36:27):
with their arms. There's not alot of arm movement because, as you
know, if you get your armsmoving while you're exercising, there's a huge
energy energy cost, and so youknow, you're trying to make sure they're
conservative, they're symmetrical, they're notover extending, they're not you know,
getting to extreme ranges of motion becauseit's just going to burn them out.

(36:50):
So I would say you can dothe drills with the marching and getting them
to higher ranges because that's sort oflike specific strength training that will transfer back
sure their long distance running, ButI think you have to be really careful,
Like you know, you can watchthe Olympics and watch one hundred meters,
but they're running that way because it'slike ten seconds. But if you

(37:10):
watch the five thousand or the tenthousand meters, everybody's very conservative until it
comes down to the last sprint,the last two hundred meters when they're trying
to OutKick the opponent. So youknow, I think as long as you
feel balanced and relaxed, that's themost important thing. Because as soon as
the shoulders tighten up, then thechest tightens up and the rib cage and

(37:31):
the neck and then now you're fightingyourself and it's harder to get that air
in. So that's the most importantthing I think is and maybe that's why
we talked about the intervals working better, because now you can manage that as
opposed to like go for a twentyminute run and then you can just feel
like I'll see people running in myneighborhood and they're doing and they just think,

(37:54):
Okay, I just got to gofor a long time. But it
almost looks like they're being compressed asthey're going. So their posture might be
up here when they're starting, andthen they're like down here because gravity is
like forcing them into the ground.And that that postural compression has a lot
of consequences for your ability to bringair in and blow it out properly.

(38:15):
And so I think you'll you'll startseeing a lot of problems if your posture
isn't set up properly and that thattakes time, right, you know,
you know, And I'm sure youdo a lot of stuff with clients for
making sure that core is strong,and there's like some endurance work around that
that transfers to running, because ifyou lose posture, whether you're sprinting or

(38:37):
long distance running, there's going tobe a consequence. Yeah, I mean,
I think one of the most valuablepieces of information you gave me when
running was to feel spring I thinkthe example you gave me a once was
imagine I had pogo sticks on myfeet when I was running, and I
think that really allowed me to stopover reaching in my run because my stride

(38:57):
would be really lot long, andinstead I'm just hitting the belt. It's
almost like the springy feeling. AndI think when I found myself get springy,
that's probably when I'm running, Wellthat's what I feel like, whether
it's more like especially like middle distancewhen because I enjoy a middle distance run,
I enjoy you know, that fivemile range. But when I feel

(39:21):
like I'm springing and I'm doing thatis when I feel like I'm doing my
best running and it actually feels abit effortless. I thought, sometimes we
will have a little too much tensionrather than just springing your feet and just
kind of letting your your arms justyou know, feel that bounce a little
bit and I feel like your bodyfollows. Yeah, and then you know,

(39:43):
so the technique is right. Soif somebody overstrides, they're gonna break
more, they're gonna compress more.But you know that also, you know,
I think a lot of the shoesand you can comment on this as
well, that the shoe companies aretrying to make the shoes a little more
elastic and provide a little or return. Right, because and if you get
your technique down, plus you haveyou know, some of these newer technology

(40:06):
shoes, you're going to maximize yourperformance over time. Right, I mean,
what's your what's your thought process nowon establishing some sort of barfoot training
when you are doing a short distancerun, whether it's on a track or
on a curve treadmill, feeling thatactual spring and allowing yourself to not rely

(40:27):
on the shoe as much, Right, because you got to admit, like,
as much as I love a goodrunning sneaker and how good it feels,
you know, are you turning thingsoff in the foot or are you
inhibiting the foot or the ankle frombeing able to perform the way it was
meant to perform. Yeah, that'sa very good point because I'm seeing that,
Like I just wrote an article onAchilles ten in eruptues, and I

(40:50):
think a lot of it has todo with the fact that the shoes are
too stiff. Like when I wentto the braves and they showed me,
you know, one of the player'sshoes. It felt like a rick like
it didn't flex, And maybe that'sto compensate, you could comment on this.
I assume it's to compensate for thefact that when you're hitting and throwing,
you're in the dirt. They wantsomething stiffer to compensate for the dirt

(41:12):
displacement. Whereas but when they runand they hit the base, you can
see that brick like flop. Yeah. Yeah, so, and the same
with football. There's eleven achilles teninterruptures in the NFL right now this season
and they haven't played a regular seasongame. And back in the eighties and
nineties there were four every year,four or five, and they're at eleven.

(41:36):
Last year they were eighteen, Soyou know, it's it's a multi
factorial thing. But I think theshoes are being tuned up so much that,
like you said, it's either takingthe foot away from the strength of
the foot, away from the equationand driving everything into the achilles and the
calf. But there's consequences. Soyou know, I do a lot of

(41:57):
the drills on grass or turf withpeople and bare feet and very careful not
to expose them to like the trackwith bare feet because it's it's pretty punishing,
So maybe there's a shoe selection.I always like maybe having them in
a minimalist shoe for some of thedrills and some of the treadmill work,
so that they don't you know,sprain a toe or create any problem with

(42:20):
the skin, you know, becausesomething you know, the vibrams the old
like a glove. I thought thatwas too little protection, Like you even
having a little bit of protection,even though the shoe is compliant, is
going to be better than going afterbarefoot. I liked it. I actually
like it. But I actually likedit, but I took my time with

(42:43):
it. Right like that, Itrained barefoot like I don't. I don't
work out in sneakers, and whenI do some of my sprint work on
the curved treadmill, I actually doa bare foot in my distance work.
In the past, I have doneit with vibrams. Now now I run
a lot with odds. But Ifeel like also with training now right in

(43:06):
the fact that we have different modalitiesbeing offered. For instance, you know
you work with a football player orsoccer player in the off season, or
maybe back in the eighties they wererunning in their off season to produce you
know that, you know that benefit. Now I'm seeing a lot more athletes
using battle ropes. I'm seeing alot more athletes using aired on bikes.

(43:29):
I'm seeing a lot of athletes usingsled pushes, and that could be set
up to either, in my opinion, benefit you or maybe even hurt the
runner pending are you are you settingit up heavy? Are you setting it
up light? Are you pushing?Are you pulling? Are you moving laterally?
Like? What are you actually doing? There's versus climbers, there's ellipticals.
You have all these things now whereyou just didn't see them as much,
whether they existed back then or not, you don't see them as much.

(43:52):
And they're designed a bit differently also, And that's probably what I'm seeing
more of, and I think it'ssomething we don't hear a lot of coaches
talking about, is that back inthe seventies and eighties, it was much
more you know, meat and potatoestype, right, it was much more
basic. Get an athlete in theoffseason. Nolan Ryan would go for a
run right like he would you know, it was just oh, I'm gonna

(44:13):
go run today, I'm gonna gorun five fighters like boxers right or now,
it's like this, which obviously isgoing to produce an incredible response cardiovascularly,
but think about the benefit that we'renot you know, reaping from you
know, from going out and feelingthat impact and and and doing it regularly

(44:34):
to where it's never removed from ourtraining. Guy. Yeah, I think
that comes back to our original pointis there's just too much choice, right,
that it's diverting you from maybe thebest choice, right. And you
know, it's like, you know, I used to watch that show with
Gordon Ramsey, like the chef onewhere you go an overhaul of restaurant and
and nine times out of ten theylook at their menu and it would be

(44:57):
it look like a phone book ora bible, and he's like, you
got too much stuff in here,like how can you be good at anything?
And then he would shorten down themenu. Right. So I think
on some level, you know,and maybe this is the this is the
responsibility of the personal trainer. Idon't know, but somebody has to take
some leadership and go, Okay,what do you really truly need? And

(45:22):
you know, I want to makeit exciting and I want to give you
variety but I want you to getbetter first and foremost. And I think
that's the results piece is so important, whereas you know, being entertaining and
all that just tell good stories whilethey do the same bloody squats all the
time. I couldn't agree with youanymore. I couldn't agree with anymore.
I mean, I just I don'tunderstand why you're working with a football player.

(45:43):
I mean, granted it's alignment,I get it, but alignment still
has to run. Alignman who weighsthree hundred plus pounds still better know how
to run. And what happens inthat offseason for three to four months when
he stops running, or the soccerplayer if he or she stops running and
just gets on a bike, likeare we are we falling that short?
And you know, really in Imean, we can go on for this

(46:05):
for hours here, but everything reallyin conclusion, My goal when working with
someone is I am trying to getthem to do specific movements, specific patterns
that they were able to do whenthey were a kid. And I feel
like when you don't use it,you lose it. And you know,
I think at the very least,and to give you a little plug here
and I know this wasn't our intention, but I think you're running mechanics program

(46:29):
that I got on for two seasons. I think it was an incredible way
to reintroduce running to me. ButI think it's also a phenomenal way for
a you know, for a veryproficient runner to get a lot faster and
a lot springing. Can you telleveryone where to where to find that program?
I have the two sites that Ihave or Sprint coach dot com,
which you know essentially is running butit's a Sprint focus, and the other

(46:52):
one is running Mechanics dot com.Those are the two sites, and one
of them is more sort of productsand consulting, and the other one is
like courses in person and virtual.So I'm really trying to you know,
it's it's easy to say like I'mthe running guy, but I'm trying to
make sure it integrates with whatever elsethey're doing. And it's interesting you were

(47:13):
saying, you know, people aregetting away from running and they're going and
looking at say, like like yousaid football linemen, they're like, well,
every play is four seconds long,so he only needs to do four
a second. Verson Yeah, butI was just reading an article about the
Kansas City Chiefs, and I knowI'm familiar with them and their strength coach
because I've been involved with them.But Andy Reid has some of the most

(47:36):
demanding practices in training camp and practicesin season, right, and there's a
lot of running, whether it's youknow, and then you've probably heard this,
like there's no and even in themilitary you have to run to every
drill, like, so there's runninginvolved in training camp. That's not part
of the game, but it's runningto get to this position on the field
or running off the field or youknow, so guess what you're gonna have

(47:59):
to run, even though the gameitself is different, there's just a lot
of running in football because that's howthe practices are run. And so you
better be in shape to handle allof these other things associated with the game
of football, which is practice,training camp, you know whatever, running
after your kids are, you know. And I think people don't think of

(48:19):
that. They think, well,I'm you know, I work in an
office and I just want to lookgood and yeah, but guess what when
I was working at a pet clinic, all the people that showed up with
like tenon evulsions or major hamstring pullsand a lot. They were running after
their kids, running after the bus, running you know whatever, running you

(48:42):
know, functionally getting somewhere, andthat's when they got hurt because they weren't
prepared to run right at the veryleast. I mean, what thing I've
been doing with a group of friendswho are a bit older than I am,
is you know, I'll get themon the curve tread bill and I
have them doing some very easy fifteensecond tempos just to get them feeling it
and just to focus on technique andgetting that spring. And every week we've

(49:02):
been incorporating this in a couple oftimes a week, you're starting to see
a little bit more bounce, andyou're starting to see technique clean up a
little bit, and you're starting tofeel they're starting to feel like their bodies
are feeling a bit better. So, you know, the purpose of this
conversation to day was not to telleveryone to just jump right back into a
ten mile run, but at thevery least, you know, which I
think is one of the best programsin the world. Go check out Derek's

(49:25):
program. Derek, thanks a lotfor today. Man. There's always everybody
like your hammer strength treadmill. Welove love it good, it's fantastic.