VO2max

The monthly newsletter of RunCoachJason.com

Dr. Jason Karp, running & fitness coach, consultant, freelance writer

Director & Coach, REVO₂LT Running Team™

March, 2010

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In this issue:  

Running Clinics & Workouts in the Park™

Coaching Consultations

San Diego Science Festival

Workout Speeds

Why Runners Get Injured

In Press
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Running Clinics & Workouts in the Park™

On March 1 and 8, RunCoachJason.com hosts the final two editions of Running Clinics & Workouts in the Park™, a unique series of educational clinics and fun workouts in San Diego, California for runners of all abilities.  Learn how to train most effectively and then experience the workouts for yourself in a social, fun atmosphere!  Each week is a different clinic and a different workout.  For more information, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/runningclinics.

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Coaching Consultations

I meet runners all the time who want to get better, but don’t do anything to make it happen.  Same is true for people who want  to lose weight and get fit.  What are you waiting for?  RunCoachJason.com offers the best consultations in the business.  If you want to improve your running performance, or you want the opportunity to have your fitness and running questions answered immediately, now is your chance.  To book a consultation, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/consulting. 

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San Diego Science Festival 

This month, I will be speaking at the San Diego Science Festival on March 23 and 25.  The festival, which runs throughout March, will be held at venues all over San Diego.

On March 23, I will be presenting The Science of Exercise and Weight Loss from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the Carmel Valley Branch of the San Diego Public Library, followed on March 25 with The Science of Running a Marathon from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the La Jolla Branch of the San Diego Public Library.  The events are free to the public.

The San Diego Science Festival is one of the largest celebrations of science on the West Coast.  From the science of earthquakes to the chemistry of love, the San Diego Science Festival makes science accessible, interactive, and fun, highlighting the impact of science and innovation on our lives.  For more information on the San Diego Science Festival, go to http://www.sdsciencefestival.com.

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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.  

Each of the next few newsletters will focus on a specific type of workout and discuss the correct speed for that workout.  The last three newsletters discussed easy/long runs, lactate threshold (tempo) runs, and VO₂max intervals.  We continue this month with anaerobic capacity intervals.

Anaerobic capacity intervals are used to cause a high degree of muscle acidosis so that you enhance your buffering capacity.  They also increase the number of enzymes involved in anaerobic glycolysis and increase speed by recruiting fast-twitch muscle fibers.  The speed of these intervals, which should be 45 seconds to 2 minutes with recovery periods 1 to 2 times as long as the time spent running, should therefore be just fast enough to cause acidosis and recruit fast-twitch muscle fibers—800-meter to mile race pace for competitive runners (400-meter race pace for recreational runners). To make the workouts harder, either increase the length of each work period (e.g., increasing from 400 to 600 meters) or add more repetitions (e.g., increasing from 6 to 8 x 400 meters).  

Want to know more about how to do workouts correctly to see results?  Order one of my many DVDs, including lactate threshold, marathon training, and periodization for distance runners.  These DVDs are flying off the shelves, so you better hurry: http://www.runcoachjason.com/merchandise.
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Why Runners Get Injured

If you look around at the many marathon training groups that have sprouted up around the U.S. in response to the public’s growing interest in running a marathon, you’ll see a lot of injured runners: shin splints, illiotibial band friction syndrome, stress fractures, plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, and a number of other “itises.”  Among the most common questions I get asked is how to treat these injuries, which has led me to ask myself why runners get injured so often.  After all, running is a very natural activity.  But, treating the injury doesn’t solve the problem; treating the cause does.  There are two main reasons why runners get injured: (1) there is some biomechanical error being made, overpronation being the most common one and (2) because the mechanical stress exceeds the ability of the body to cope.  In other words, increasing the training load at too quick of a rate.  The human body is great at adapting to a stress as long as that stress is applied in small doses.  Problem is, people too often apply the stress in too large of a dose, and they get injured.  I believe the second reason is a bigger reason for injuries than the first. 

I see training errors all the time.  For example, when training for a marathon, people will continually increase the length of their long runs because common sense says that to prepare yourself for a marathon, you have to get used to running long.  So people go out and run 3 or 4 miles two or three times during the week and run significantly longer on the weekend.  At first, this may not be a problem since the long run may be only 6 or 7 miles.  But after a couple of months, those same people have lengthened their long runs to 14 or 15 miles while still running 3 or 4 miles two or three times during the week.  So they get to the point where the long run is triple or even quadruple the length of any other run during the week.  Can you say, “injury risk?”  Some lucky runners, who have strong, resilient tendons and bones, won’t get injured.  But many do.

So, what’s the solution?  Well, for one thing, it takes much longer for a beginner runner to prepare for a marathon than running 3 or 4 days per week for 5 or 6 months.  It can be done, but it’s not the smartest way to do it.  Here are some guidelines for runners to never get injured:

1) Increase mileage by no more than 1 mile per day per week.  For example, if you currently run 20 miles in four days per week, run no more than 24 miles the next week by adding 1 mile to each of the four days.  Do not run 24 miles the next week by adding all 4 miles to only one day of running.  Highly-trained runners can get away with adding more miles more quickly, especially if they have experience running more miles.

2) Run the same mileage for 3-4 weeks before increasing it.  Give your legs a chance to adapt to each level of running before increasing the level. 

3) Back off your training by about a third for one recovery week before increasing the training load.  For example, if you have been running 30 miles per week for 3 weeks, back off to 20 miles for one week before increasing above 30 miles for the next week.   

4) Never increase volume and intensity at the same time.  So, when you begin to include more formal speedwork in your week, either drop the overall mileage for the week or maintain the mileage from where it was prior to adding speedwork.  Never add more miles to the week at the same time as introducing speedwork.

5) Adequate recovery.  All of the adaptations made from training occur during the recovery from the training, not during the training itself.  The older you are, the more time you need to recover from training, so the longer you need before increasing the volume and intensity.  Young runners can get away with a lot of training mistakes; older runners cannot. 

If you follow all of these guidelines and still get injured, then there is something about your biomechanics that needs to be fixed, either with the proper shoes for your foot type and running mechanics, custom-made orthotics, or specific strengthening exercises of the muscles that are not working properly. 

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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.  Special autographed copies of the book can be ordered online at http://www.runcoachjason.com/publications.

Mountaineering Experience Decreases the Net Oxygen Cost of Climbing Mont Blanc, a scientific research article co-authored with esteemed physiologist Véronique Billat and her colleagues in France, appears online ahead of print in European Journal of Applied Physiology.

 

Downhill Running, my article on everything you wanted to know about running downhill with tips on how to prepare for downhill races, appears in the February/March, 2010 issue of the United Kingdom’s Ultra-Fit magazine.

Running Errors and How to Correct Them, my article on the mistakes runners make with advice on how to run better, appears online at Personal Training on the Net, an online education resource for personal trainers and fitness professionals.

Bones, my article on everything you wanted to know about bones and exercise, appears in the Winter, 2010 issue of Duke City Fit, Albuquerque, New Mexico’s premier fitness magazine.

Marathon Training 101, my article on everything you wanted to know about preparing for a marathon the right way, appears in the Winter, 2010 issue of ECA News, the official publication of ECA World Fitness Alliance.

Also look for my quotes on training for beginners in the March, 2010 issue of Trail Runner magazine and on the fat burning zone and strategies for training when fatigued in the April, 2010 issue of Runner’s World magazine, on newsstands in March.

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To view past newsletters, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/newsletter.

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©2010 Dr. Jason Karp.