unCoachJasonTM
VO2max
The monthly newsletter of RunCoachJason.com
Dr. Jason Karp, running & fitness coach, consultant, freelance writer
Director & Coach, REVO2LT Running Team™
December, 2009
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In
this issue:
U.S. All-Star Track & Field and Cross Country Clinic
Book Release
Holiday Gifts
Workout Speeds
Cool Calves
In
Press
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U.S. All-Star Track & Field and Cross Country Clinic
This
month, I will be speaking at the 28th Annual U.S. All-Star Track
& Field and Cross Country Clinic December
16-18 at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
My three
presentations —
Using Periodization to Plan Programs, Combating Distance Running
Fatigue, and Top
7 Lessons for Coaching Distance Runners —
will show you how to become a better, faster runner.
The U.S. All-Star Track
& Field and Cross Country Clinic is one of the largest track and field and
cross country clinics in the country, bringing together high school and
college coaches from all over the Northeast U.S. For
more information,
go to http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Summary.aspx?e=eaae87f9-dbdc-47e5-911e-be36cf3847a2.
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Book Release
It’s finally time! My new book, How to Survive Your PhD: The Insider’s Guide to Avoiding Mistakes, Choosing the Right Program, Working with Professors, and Just How a Person Actually Writes a 200-Page Paper, is released this month. If you know a stressed graduate student who wants the inside secrets to completing his or her PhD as quickly and as easily as possible, you have to buy this book! It is the perfect holiday present! To purchase a copy, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/merchandise or Amazon.com.
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Holiday Gifts
Know
someone who wants to lose weight and get fit, is training
for a marathon, or wants to become
a better runner? A personal
trainer or coach is the perfect holiday gift because its effects last a long
time. Research shows that people who work
out with a trainer see better results than those who don’t.
To purchase coaching or
personal training gift certificates or my popular customized training
programs, e-mail
jason@runcoachjason.com or go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/merchandise.
Need a stocking stuffer for
Christmas? Got only seven gifts for Hanukkah and need an eighth? My
educational DVDs will give that runner you know all
the cutting-edge
information he or she needs to become a better runner. To
order, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/merchandise.
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Workout Speeds
One
of the biggest mistakes runners make is running
workouts at speeds that are either too fast or too slow to obtain the desired
result. Problem is, they don’t
know what the desired result is. To determine the correct speed, you
must know the purpose of each workout. Is it to improve lactate
threshold? VO2max? Anaerobic capacity? Muscle power?
Technique? Each one of these variables requires a different speed that
will optimize the workout. While most athletes, especially the young and
inexperienced ones, always want to run fast, remember that the goal of
training is to obtain the greatest benefit while incurring the least amount of
stress. This means that you want to run as slow as you can while still
obtaining the desired result.
Each of
the next few newsletters will focus on a specific type of workout and discuss
the correct speed for that workout. This month, we begin with easy and
long runs.
The purpose of easy and long runs
is to stimulate the physiological, biochemical, and molecular adaptations
needed for endurance, including the storage of more fuel
(glycogen) in your muscles, an increased use of intramuscular fat at the same
speed to spare glycogen, an increased number of red blood cells and
hemoglobin, a greater capillary network for a more rapid diffusion of oxygen
into the muscles, and an increased mitochondrial density and number of aerobic
enzymes to enhance your aerobic metabolic capacity. Since many of these
adaptations are volume-dependent, not intensity-dependent, the speed of easy
runs is not as important as their duration. The single biggest mistake
competitive runners make is running too fast on their easy days.
Slowing down your easy runs has at least three benefits:
(1) it decreases the chance of injury, (2) it allows you to get more out of
your harder days because there will be less residual fatigue, and (3) it
allows you to increase your overall weekly mileage.
Remember that it is the volume of aerobic running, not the speed, that
represents the major stimulus for adaptation.
Your easy runs should be about 1½-2
minutes per mile slower than your current 5K race pace, about 70-75% of your
maximum heart rate. As you increase your weekly mileage, you may
need to run slower to accommodate the extra volume. Speed-type runners
(those who fare better at shorter races) will have a greater difference
between their race pace and easy running pace compared to endurance-type
runners (those who fare better at longer races).
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Cool Calves
One
of the perks of being a runner is that I have nice calves.
When you run, your calves are used a lot as they must produce greater
forces than when walking. With
many miles of running each week, the calves have no choice but to adopt a
cool-looking shape. So I wear
shorts as often as I can to show them off.
Most people neglect their calves in the gym in favor of the more
popular muscles, like the biceps, gluteus maximus, and pectorals.
However, a set of cool calves can create a lot of shape to your legs
and can be the difference between showing your legs in public and wishing for
winter so you don’t have to ever wear shorts.
After all, nothing looks worse than having a big, strong chest and
small, wimpy calves. Most men wish
they could have calves like diamonds, symbolic of their power, while most
women wish they could have slender, sexy calves that will prompt men to drop
the weights and go out and buy them diamonds.
The
calf is comprised of two muscles: the gastrocnemius and the soleus.
The most prominent and observable is the gastrocnemius, a powerful
muscle used for jumping and sprinting, which has a medial and lateral head.
The two heads of the gastrocnemius converge to insert into the
calcaneus bone in the heel of your foot via the strong calcaneal tendon, also
called the Achilles tendon, named after the Greek god Achilles, the hero of
the Trojan war.
The gastrocnemius plantarflexes the foot (points the toes down) and
assists in flexing the leg at the knee. The
soleus, which lies beneath the gastrocnemius, also plantarflexes the foot.
Together, the gastrocnemius and soleus form a muscular mass that is
sometimes called the triceps surae.
What makes the calves look cool is the division between the two heads
of the gastrocnemius, which gives it the look of a diamond when contracted and
a bulb shape when relaxed. You
also know you have cool calves when you can see the soleus peek out from
underneath the gastrocnemius when the muscles contract.
If running nearly every day for 25 years so that you, too, can have my
calves doesn’t appeal to you, do standing calf raises to target the
gastrocnemius, seated calf raises to target the soleus, and plyometrics like
single leg hops, leg bounds, box jumps, and depth jumps to form more
powerful-looking calves. Start with lighter weights and more reps, and
progress to heavier weights and fewer reps. And don’t forget to make
your legs lean by losing fat. The smaller your percentage of body fat,
the more definition you’ll have in all of your muscles.
And
if
you train hard enough, maybe next time you step on the treadmill at your gym,
someone will ask you where you got those cool diamonds.
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In
Press...
How
to Survive Your PhD: The Insider’s Guide to Avoiding Mistakes, Choosing the
Right Program, Working with Professors, and Just How a Person Actually Writes
a 200-Page Paper,
my self-help book for graduate students published by Sourcebooks, Inc.,
appears in bookstores nationwide this month.
Beat Winter Weight Gain, my article on the best 15-minute workouts you
can do to lose weight and stay in shape during the holidays, appears in the
December, 2009 issue of Shape magazine.
It’s
All Downhill From Here, my article on downhill trail running with tips on how to
prepare for downhill trail races, appears in the December, 2009 issue of Trail
Runner.
Muscle Fibers, my article on the different types of muscle fibers and their implications
for training, appears
online at Personal
Training on the Net, an online education resource for personal trainers
and fitness professionals.
Carbohydrates for Distance Runners, my article that discusses how much,
how often, and what types of carbohydrates runners should consume to maximize
recovery and performance, appears in the Fall, 2009 issue of Sports
Nutrition Insider, the world’s first and only trade publication dedicated
to the sports nutrition industry.
30
Minute Cardio Fat-Buster,
my
article on how to burn fat as
quickly as possible,
appears in the
December,
2009 issue of the United Kingdom’s Ultra-Fit magazine.
How
Much Should You Lift?, my Chest Essentials piece on
recommendations for the amount of weight to lift to get a more defined chest, appears
in the November/December, 2009 issue o
Bones
Also look for my quotes on swollen hands while running a marathon in the
November/December, 2009 issue of Marathon
& Beyond and on exercise, weight loss, and the fat burning zone at
FitSugar: http://www.fitsugar.com/6264046.
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To
view past newsletters, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/newsletter.
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unsubscribe from this newsletter, e-mail jason@runcoachjason.com
with the word “unsubscribe” on the subject line.
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©2009 Dr. Jason Karp.
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