RunCoachJason - Running Coach, Personal Trainer

It was not long after participating in my first track meet in junior high that I became interested in human motion. There was something exciting about running faster than the guy in the lane next to you, something intriguing about how to do it. Sport, after all, is engaging. I slowly became interested in the “science” of sports and exercise, in a crude sort of way. After all, as a teenager, it was not as if I was studying lactate threshold or running kinematics. This romantic notion of how the human body’s performance may be improved by perfecting its physiology has led me to places I probably never would have been to otherwise, including a small, rural, college town in Pennsylvania named State College, an Olympic city in Canada, a railroad and limestone town in Indiana, and the high desert of Albuquerque, New Mexico. These places, and this pursuit of knowledge, has cultivated a keen interest in the following areas of research:

Cardiovascular physiology of distance runners
Glycogen synthesis and endurance performance
Nutritional strategies for optimal recovery from exercise
Central and peripheral limitations to VO2max
Relationship between breathing and stride rate in distance runners
Altitude physiology and endurance performance
Exercise-induced hypoxemia in elite endurance athletes
Effects of training on carbohydrate and fat metabolism
Metabolic causes of muscle fatigue
Gender differenes in metabolism during exercise
Training VO2max, lactate threshold, and running economy
Genetics and athletic performance

My research has included the following...

Entrainment of Breathing to Locomotion in Highly-Trained Distance Runners

Research has shown that animals that run on four legs tightly couple their breathing rhythm to the rhythm of their limb movement, but that this coordination of rhythms is not as strong in humans. My doctoral dissertation examined the coordination (referred to as entrainment) of the breathing rhythm to stride rate in highly-trained distance runners while running at different speeds. This research was presented at the American College of Sports Medicine conference in May, 2009. To download the dissertation abstract, click here.

Training Characteristics of Qualifiers for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials

How do the best marathon runners in the U.S. train? This research attempted to answer that question by taking an in-depth look at the training characteristics of the 2004 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifiers, with comparisons between men and women and elite and national-class athletes. This research was presented at the American College of Sports Medicine conference in June, 2005 and the American Society of Exercise Physiologists conference in March, 2006. To download the full scientific article, published in International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, click here.

Chocolate Milk as a Post-Exercise Recovery Aid

Chocolate milk has many great ingredients, including the two most important ones for optimal recovery from exhausting exercise—carbohydrates and protein. So it’s no surprise that it makes the perfect post-workout recovery drink. This research compared the ingestion of chocolate milk to a fluid-replacement drink (Gatorade) and a carbohydrate-replacement drink (Endurox) on endurance cycling performance, and was presented at the American College of Sports Medicine conference in June, 2004. To download the full scientific article, published in International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, click here.

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