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The Relaxed Running podcast is a behind the scenes conversation with the best athletes, coaches and professionals in the world of distance running. From training, hydration and nutrition to racing and recovering, we learn from the best in the world.
Relaxed conversations which are packed with actionable takeaways to help you take your running performance up a notch. Save yourself years of guess work and learn from the people who are doing it at the highest level.
Tyson (00:41.294)
Here he is.
Angelo Gingerelli (00:43.995)
Hey man, how are you?
Tyson (00:44.206)
Hey man, how are you? I'm good brother, how you going? Good. Good to see you man. You too. Let me just, I'm just gonna change where my headphones, where I'm hearing you from. Can you still hear me? Yes. Awesome man.
Angelo Gingerelli (00:47.195)
Good.
You too.
Angelo Gingerelli (00:59.355)
Yes. I have headphones. You think they're better? I haven't used Riverside in a while. Are headphones better?
Tyson (01:06.56)
Man, I think you're fine, I think you're fine. I've got my headphones in and I think as long as one of us is wearing them, it stops the feedback and stuff. Hey, how you traveling man, it's been a while.
Angelo Gingerelli (01:15.323)
Okay, great.
Yeah, man, I guess two years ago I was on your shows?
Tyson (01:21.454)
Dude, yeah man, I reckon the last time we spoke, it must have been when I was in America, which was in the middle of 2022. That was the other show that I do, the one that I've got built up more for comedy, but that's right man, I remember sitting in Oregon talking to you.
Angelo Gingerelli (01:37.915)
Yeah, because I think we did maybe one, we did the running, relaxed running, maybe the beginning of that summer. And then I think we did pop culture at the end of that summer. And now we're at the beginning of summer of 2024.
Tyson (01:43.758)
Yep.
Tyson (01:49.486)
Bro, that's so wild how fast time goes, man. It's so wild.
Angelo Gingerelli (01:52.251)
Yeah, you had some kids since you talked last, right?
Tyson (01:55.566)
I have, so last time we spoke, I had a one and a half year old. Now I have a three and a half year old and another one and a half year old. And so it's wild at the Popplestone household.
Angelo Gingerelli (02:05.083)
Wow, man, it's wild.
You still keeping up with your training and your comedy pretty good?
Tyson (02:11.278)
For sure, man, yeah, both have been really consistent, which is great. Like I haven't, I actually, I'm looking forward to talking to you a little bit about training specifically because from a distance, you've been a big part of it without even realising it. Comedy is, man, still going out probably two to three nights a week and trying to do between like three to five gigs a week if I can, which I feel is my sweet spot. Yeah, so it's been.
Angelo Gingerelli (02:32.955)
That's great man. Yeah, that's good.
Tyson (02:35.982)
I'm lucky I've got a good wife who is happy to do bath and bedtimes a few nights a week, because she reckons I'm a better person when I get a chance to get out and tell some funny jokes. How's all your stuff going? How's the, you still running rooms and comedy and races and...
Angelo Gingerelli (02:44.475)
That's good man, that's a good beast to have at home.
Angelo Gingerelli (02:51.579)
Yeah. I've only done one race this year. I put that, you know what happened? My daughter's eight years old, so I'm a little ahead of you in that. And, she's playing softball, which you guys have, I don't think it's a baseball, but for girls, right?
Tyson (03:03.502)
Dude, we used to play at primary school sometimes.
Angelo Gingerelli (03:07.387)
Cool, yeah, so I'm the coach of the team on the league board, so that took up a ton of time this spring. So I put the racing on the back burner for a while. It's kind of do it, I think every night I got softballs over there, I got comedy, so that's every night now.
Tyson (03:20.91)
Dude, you're geeing every night.
Angelo Gingerelli (03:23.099)
But between those two things, between either softball stuff over there or my comedy stuff, it's like legit like six, seven nights a week sometimes between those two things.
Tyson (03:25.678)
yeah.
Tyson (03:30.542)
Dude, that's wild, man. Did you watch the roast of Tom Brady? Bro, I'm a massive, I've just become recently a Tony Hinchcliffe fan. Yeah, I discovered Kill Tony. I was never really into it. And then, I don't know, what changed? I've got the bug. And yeah, I thought him and Nikki Glacier just stole the show. They were unbelievable.
Angelo Gingerelli (03:35.483)
I watched a lot of it, did you?
Angelo Gingerelli (03:41.467)
something else man.
Angelo Gingerelli (03:52.635)
Yeah, they really did. They took it as far as you possibly could, I feel like.
Tyson (03:55.902)
It was good, man. Dude, should we, do you wanna just, I'm recording already, but I'll cut that first part out. Should we jump straight into it? All right, brother. And I was thinking about 45 minutes or so, as long as that works for you. Awesome, man. And pretty standard. Like I don't think my style's changed. Just fairly conversational. We'll take it where it goes. But I had a couple of foundational elements I was wanting to hit with you. But yeah, as long as you're happy with that, we'll rock and roll.
Angelo Gingerelli (04:04.219)
Yeah, I'm good, man. I'm ready.
Angelo Gingerelli (04:09.943)
Yep.
Angelo Gingerelli (04:25.627)
Yeah, let's go.
Tyson (04:26.446)
Awesome, man. Yeah, I was just saying to you that for the last probably six months without even realizing it from a distance, you've been an incredible help to my own training. I don't know where I was at. Last time we spoke, we said was 2022. So it's two years ago. So 2023, I got back into some more serious training or I attempted to and my audience is going to be so sick of hearing it because they know. But to cut a long story short, I had consistent.
troubles with calf injuries. I was constantly straining calves. I was going back out and maybe just training like I needed to build up to. I got into it too quickly. I went to a physio and he said, hey, look, what you're gonna have to do is you're gonna have to be really deliberate with your return in terms of starting with a lot less running and working up to it until you get to a point where your body's ready to take that next step. That was a little trial and error.
He goes, the second thing you're gonna wanna do is get a really consistent strength training routine, which is designed specifically for running. And I thought, okay, well, I've got Angelo Gingirelli's book on the shelf at home. I hadn't had any need to use it until that point because I hadn't been training for anything specifically. Bro, the last six months, I was telling you just before, comedy's been consistent.
Running's been consistent. The other thing which has been really consistent is following to a T, your running training program. I've been in there, well, twice a week minimum. I'm doing a Pilates session on top of that. It has been such a nice welcome back to the world of strength training with a little bit of focus. I think the one thing I really missed and one thing that people are confused about is how do I structure a running training strength program?
And man, that's clear that with the book, it's something that you guys put a whole lot of work into, because you've got every season, every part of the year covered.
Angelo Gingerelli (06:22.011)
Yeah, first of all, man, I really, I love to connect with you over the internet. These are amazing things. I think we've joked around before, but there's probably maybe two guys on the planet that love running and comedy as much as me and you. And we've somehow been connected on the other sides of the world for each other. I think that's amazing. And then hearing how much you like the book and how much it helps you through those injuries and kind of think you're on the next level. I love that man, because that's why we wrote it and want to help as many people as we can. And I think one thing that's interesting is you have an extensive background in running and coaching and running.
Tyson (06:34.222)
Hehehehe.
Angelo Gingerelli (06:51.803)
Right? And even someone like yourself who's super knowledgeable, run a ton of races, you know, a high level top tier runner that endurance, that resistance training component was even absent from your training. Right? So my idea when we started, it's going on six years ago now, we started the idea for the book is that these worlds belong in the same conversation. Right? The weight room is important. The track of the road is important and they really got to work together better. And even, you know, Aguila Union didn't have access to that before the book came out. So that's pretty powerful that we kind of
bridges of that gap and merge the two worlds. And I think that that's it, man. The more people we can get on board that running is great, mileage is great, speed work is great. But how do we get that last piece of the puzzle together? And I think the reason why the book worked, in my opinion, I got a lot of positive feedback on it since 2021, is that it came from the position of people that have run marathons and triathlons and have walked the walk or run the run, if you will, right?
In America at least, which might be different than Europe and Australia, we have this thing, we have like strength coaches over here. We got running endurance people over here and they're never having a conversation. And I want to be one of the first people to not only have the conversation, but tell my side of that story. And I think we got the message out, man. I think we got a lot of people stepping that training up a little more and showing them how to do it. And, you know, realizing that, you know, squatting on your max squat day, the day before a marathon.
It's silly unnecessary, right? But never challenge yourself in the weight room and never picking up heavier dumbbells is also the wrong way to go about it. So we got to find the right way to do it. And I think we provided people with a good foundation of how to get that ball rolling.
Tyson (08:29.966)
For sure, I think puzzle is the word you used and puzzle is such a perfect word for it. You nailed it. I was very confident and still developing confidence in a lot of new areas of running and training, especially around heart rate and using data for performance. But since I finished competitive running for the first time in 2020, sorry, in 2014, like my old training program involved zero strength training, which is wild to say. Like I don't know.
whether it's become far more of a trending part of training since then, or if I was just completely oblivious to it, maybe a combination of both. But what was so helpful was, yeah, when I left, I went out and I started to get into a really generic training program just for strength. I always said to my wife, I go, babe, when I finish running, I'll stop being skinny, I'll go in the gym, I'll get some size. And I was probably eating terribly, but I was going to the gym five times a week and I was doing...
the classic, I'd go in and I'd do chest and tries, I'd do back and buys, I'd do legs, and I might do two of those sessions twice. And so I was in the gym five times a week, and that was the only knowledge I had. And each time I went into the gym for like a chest and try session, it was always the same session. There wasn't any variety, and it was very boring. It was like I was disciplined because I knew what my goal was, and I knew, okay, if I wanna have a particular look, I wasn't worried about functionality. I just had to go in, I had to eat, I had to hit these muscles.
But dude, I was doing that for probably six years and even eight years. And even when I got back into running competitively the start of last year, or at least training, like I wanted to run competitively at the start of last year, I knew strength was important and we'd had conversations in that point. But because I'd never really been forced to have to put a pen to paper, I hadn't really thought about it that much. So I started to get back into the old strength training routine. And then once I got hit up by my PT and he goes, dude, what are you doing? Like,
Go and get a really structured program. Part of the thing I loved so much, so I took it up at the, so I was doing the running section, for everyone listening, there's running, there's swimming, there's cycling, and a triathlete section at the end of the book. I picked it up, the running session at the build up or build up and base phase, I think is what you guys have labelled it. And there's three or four different styles of workouts. And the thing I like most, initially man,
Tyson (10:52.59)
I was welcomed to so many new exercises, such a different variety of exercises when I was training. And just the enthusiasm that I felt about getting into the gym, knowing that, all right, you're gonna be doing the base and build up, but you're gonna have an option as to which one of these three or four different training sessions you can use. It just made me so much more enthusiastic for the whole process of actually being in the gym a couple times a week.
Angelo Gingerelli (11:18.299)
Yeah, I think one thing where people in the endurance world kind of drop the ball on is they kind of do what you do, which is this I'm doing the same chest and tris workout every Monday for years at a time, right? But you wouldn't do that in the world. You wouldn't just run around the exact same course at the exact same pace day after day after day, right? You pick a different route, you pick a different terrain, you pick a different pace, you find different, you run hills one day, speed one day, whatever it might be. And I think, you know, the weight room probably need to be that varied.
But the idea that there's a couple things we need to do, right? Just about everybody can benefit from some kind of squat, some kind of hinge, some kind of push, some kind of pull. But there's a dozen different ways to do each of those. And the idea in our sport, particularly, is we're looking at training for the long haul, right? We want, maybe we're our fastest at 22 or 23, but we're still competitive at 42 or 43, right? So the idea is that we're gonna look at training for a 20, 30 year block. How do we make that happen and stay mentally engaged in what we're doing and making sure we're getting better every time?
I think you have an element of variety in the right different kind of exercises. Keep yourself mentally stimulated and to stimulate your body differently, right? And then the idea of just progression. We got to keep getting stronger. One thing I see with a lot of endurance people and I've, I was never one of them because I come from the strength world first, then the endurance world, but there's always you doing the same, the same weight day after day after day. If there's no progression, we're not going to make progress. It's that simple. If you always run a 10 minute mile, you're always going to be a 10 minute mile person.
Eventually you gotta run a 930 mile to make yourself a 930 mile person. Same thing in the gym, if you always pick up 10 pound dumbbells, you can't be shocked, you can't pick up 15s. So you gotta find a way to make that progression work and put the right kind of resistance on your body and force it to get stronger, more injury resistant that way. The other thing I think real quickly, you said 2014 is not that long ago, it's 10 years ago. It's not in the span of human history not that long. But I think from the strength and conditioning side of things,
I think if you look at like where strength in this thing fits into sports, in say pre 1990s, it hit your football, your rugby, your American football, your wrestling, where guys all of a sudden started looking bigger and stronger. In the 90s, you figured out that if you get a baseball or softball player bigger and stronger, they're gonna hit the ball further, hit more home runs. And then the Sturright Air started, it wasn't a great thing, but that hit those sports. 2000s, you see basketball players started looking like LeBron James, right? You see guys and girls looking like superheroes basically on the basketball teams.
Angelo Gingerelli (13:39.707)
And then I think this decade it's endorsed just stuff. It just hasn't been a part of it. And like I said, in the last 10 years, the idea that you need to train, need to lift, and there's a bunch of different ways to do it and be effective on the marathon course, the bike course, whatever it might be. It's kind of a newer idea that I think guys like me and you are getting a benefit from that we're able to train, learn, and experience some of these changes.
Tyson (14:03.406)
Yeah, so from a lifestyle perspective, even outside of running, I mean, obviously from a running performance perspective, I get it. I can see the value, I can feel the value. I love being in there. From a lifestyle longevity perspective, what I like about it is for so long, my philosophy or my approach to running was go out and just run, sure, do some stretching, maybe a little bit of body weight work.
But we're starting to learn or as we're learning more and more about just the benefits that resistance training has on like not only muscle health, but bone health and longevity, aging well. That's something that I really value as well. And it is interesting in the running world, how many people I still speak to who they have some form of some kind of strength and conditioning workout. And you can kind of see it. I mean, you don't have to look too far at the start of a, you know, a marathon race line or a half marathon race to see that real.
skinny, scrawny looking athlete. No offense to any of you who are listening who would put yourself in that category because obviously that's what Angelo is here to talk about, the ability to change that. But I mean, I always found that really unattractive, not just as like an aesthetic point of view, but from a personal perspective to be very good at running but incredibly weak, not able to have any muscle or upper body strength. And so obviously that longevity or lifestyle factor is something that's getting ticked off.
a lot throughout the programs as well. Because you would think with a strength training program for runners, 90 % of it would be legs, or at least that's sort of what I thought. But then when you actually break it down, you're gonna know, of course, you wanna hit your core, you're gonna be hitting legs, sure, you're hitting the glutes, but you're hitting the core, you're hitting back, you're hitting shoulders. And one thing that I'm always interested to talk about or find out more about is this upper body strength for...
for distance runners or endurance athletes. Can you talk a little bit about what some of the benefits of having some form of upper body strength is to an endurance athlete? Because I think so often it's overlooked or just seen as not really relevant to what we're trying to achieve.
Angelo Gingerelli (16:05.499)
Right, I think there's twofold. One, a lot of endurance is I don't need to do upper body because I'm a runner, right? In my opinion, you're a human being that has another life and have activities of daily living and you want to be able to pick your kids up and carry groceries and be strong into adults that are old age. And running is a big part of your life, which is awesome. But some other parts of your life where upper body strength are going to matter, right? But then if we kind of niche that down to just running, look at posture.
Look at gait. Look at how P .I. The joke I always make is that if you go to the starting line of a marathon, everybody looks like a rock star. Everybody looks great when they're starting off, right? They're ready, they're fresh, they're excited. Go to the finish line and take pictures of those people there. 90 % of people look terrible because you don't have the muscular endurance or muscle strength to have good posture, good gait, good running mechanics through, in some cases, even a 5k. But definitely in that 26 .2 distance, it just it looks bad for just about everybody. So if you look at running economy,
and getting from point A to B the most efficient way possible, well that's to refine your running technique and your mechanics and withhold and hold them to a high standard for as long as you possibly can, right? I think the key to doing that is to be strong enough to do that over say two to five hours, wherever it takes you to run a marathon. And the other thing I think is you too with the very slender, I don't lift kind of man or woman, can they do that for a long time, right? Maybe they're crushing races when they're 21, 22.
What's their life like at 40 or 50? Right? I think a lot of times look at a sport like running where you're just, you're burning so many calories a day, right? A lot, to the point where it's hard to take in enough calories and maintain muscle mass. Combine that with a lack of resistance training and a lack of muscular strength. And now you got a recipe for some really bad things that happened earlier in life than they might. If you had that, that resistance training background, then you're kind of based on a little bit higher when you're in the prime of your life between 25 and 35, something like that.
Tyson (17:57.962)
Yeah, you touched on this briefly with what you said before, but one thing that I was keen to discuss with you is just finding phases to fit in like heavier levels of resistance into the work. So for everyone listening, the book is essentially structured in three phases, isn't it? You've got your, yeah, your base and your buildup, you've got your taper, and then you have your off season. Do you wanna take that as a little bit of a talking point and just discuss the benefits of why it is you've structured it that particular way?
Angelo Gingerelli (18:26.843)
Sure, and that's something that I did. I ran my first marathon in 2011, right? But I've been strength coach since about 2000. About 10 years in the game, pre -endurance training, and now 13 or so post. And that's a section of the book I just couldn't have written for running marathons. I just didn't understand that world nearly enough. Then, after a couple years and a couple marathons, I figured out the best way to do it. If you're a competitive athlete, like you're running at a high school, a college, a pro team,
Tyson (18:29.518)
Thank you.
Angelo Gingerelli (18:53.819)
You know when your off season is, you know when your important races are. But if you're more of a recreational athlete like myself, I've gotta break my year down into four phases, right? First is off season, the first couple months after my last big race. I live near the beach and our winter is the opposite of yours. But where I live in the winter, so for us it's like November, December, January, and February, there's really not that many events. It's too cold, there's nobody wants to be outside.
So that's kind of the way I look at my off -season. You guys, it's probably May, June, July, August, something like that. So I say, if you're, no, you guys, we're all runners. We're gonna be running in the cold, the sleet, the snow, whatever it is, by nature, I do it too. But that's when I try to do new things. I'm running less miles, I'm trying new exercises, I'm trying new angles of pull or push, I'm trying new kinds of squats. And I'm, first, I wanna come out of that phase as strong as I possibly can. Because my theory is, if I go a little heavier on my squats and RDLs on a Monday,
and I'm sore on Tuesday or Wednesday, it doesn't really matter. Those runs are important, every run's important, but this is where I wanna be sore, be banged up, feel like I'm getting stronger, right? Coming to that, now we'll start building our base for our racing season, right? So, right, I live in the States, that might be your, your, our like March through July, something like that, right? And now we're building more miles every week, or speed workouts, you're getting harder, or tempo runs, you're getting faster, and now our running becomes more important.
but we're still trying to build some strength at the same time, right? So maybe we're dropping it down from three days a week to two. We're being a little more conservative when we're picking our weights and our resistance and our med balls and kettlebells, stuff like that. Because now the runs become more important, right? Then let's say in the States, probably the biggest race for most recreational runners comes in the fall. New York City Marathon's in the fall, the Philadelphia Marathon's in the fall. So now you're getting late that September, October time. We'll call that peak mileage. And this is when our long runs might be...
you know, 20 plus miles, it might be, you know, 50 to 100 mile weeks, depending on what level you are. And I think, again, we're gonna try to get into gym twice, but now we're gonna be smart about it. We're gonna pick easier exercises, not as demanding. We're gonna try to maintain what we did during the off season and the building and base phase, and really focus in on being a runner, and being a fast runner. And then you got your taper period, which will be your last couple weeks before your big event. And what I like to say is just keep it simple. If you decrease your mileage by 20%,
Angelo Gingerelli (21:12.251)
Decrease your resistance training by 20 % So normally if your long one was 20 miles and then you drop it down to 16 which is 20 % of that You know decrease your if you're gonna do a set to 10 squats through sets 8 you know bench press 100 pounds bench press 80 pounds drop it down by 80 % you let your body recover and show up rested and ready to go for those big races and then take a couple weeks off celebrate hopefully and then start the cycle again for the next year with your offseason and then it's getting stronger
every year right. If we're pressing a reset button every time we run a marathon or every time we have a race season we're really not getting better year after year right. And I think one thing in it with the American sports system we look at things short term a lot right. So high school is four years college is four years. If you're looking at the place on the professionally that's 10 years max and usually it's going to be a lot less than that. But the endurance events is so cool to me because it can be a 40 year career.
You know what I mean? You can do your first marathon at 20 and your last marathon at 70 and still have a decent time, maybe even older than that. So I think it's a really cool idea. I think it's a great thing, but it becomes even better thing when you look at training as being not just months or years, but decades and how we get better from decade to decade.
Tyson (22:25.006)
Yeah, yeah. So the idea, I love what you said about the off season, naturally the intensity of some of the running work is going to be reduced just based on the nature of the time of the year that it's at. And so we know that the idea of doing a really intense resistance training session before a really intense.
track or whatever it is, interval session, is not gonna be a great idea. Obviously the stress that you place on your body is a little too much if it's too close. And so while that intensity on the track is reduced, that's why we're focused so much on really improving the overall strength for lack of a better term.
Angelo Gingerelli (23:06.875)
Yeah, I think it's the best time of year to do it and what I found as I and private I happened because I got involved in Endurance sports a little bit later in life is my early 30s before I ran a marathon and now in my 40s I found my body reacts better to kind of in season off season, right? I can get a 50 mile week here or there when I'm really killing the running and in a good way killing it feeling great But then there's certain times of the year I need I need a little bit of recovery time and need to focus on some other things
I think that's one thing, man. I'm a runner, you're a runner. I love talking to runners. I do think there's kind of this mentality of more miles is always better. And I'm never ever taking my foot off the gas. And I think what I would say, if you're a 19 year old genetic specimen that won genetic lottery and you have no other things in your life besides running, that's a great mentality. You should get after it every single day. If you're an adult and you didn't win the genetic lottery or a regular person like me, and you have a job and a family and other responsibilities,
maybe start thinking about I'm gonna focus on these one, two or three big races for the year, these kind of secondary races and block off some part of that year from getting my body feeling good, looking good and being big and strong to go, be able to go as hard as possible at those races and events at different times of the year.
Tyson (24:21.134)
Yeah, man, I echo what you just said. I mean, I put myself in that same category of no genetic freak. I've got a couple of kids, I've got a wife, I've got hobbies and passions outside of running. And so all day, every day to commit myself to what is now just an enjoyable sport that I love to do is not realistic. You know what I mean? And so...
Angelo Gingerelli (24:39.963)
Yeah, I do. I mean, I'm gonna share, I was recently thinking about some recovery stuff. That's a big thing in the state right now. All the recovery tactics and cryotherapy and you know, everything we're hearing about, reading about, researching and I think it's great. And my, I ran one marathon pre having a child and I've run a bunch since she was born. But weirdly enough, my second marathon I ever ran was the fastest time I ever ran.
and the best I ever felt afterwards and during my training and my daughter was one year old at that point. I went back in my head and the only thing I really changed was every Saturday I would do my long run super early in the morning. Right? So I started like 10 miles and kind of built up to 20 plus whatever it might have been. And then as soon as I got back, my wife's a yoga instructor. So she would be leaving the house to go teach a yoga class. I would take my daughter immediately, still with my running clothes on, still sweaty in the stroller and walk just for miles and let her take a nap.
And I think what happened was that that walking after every long run for a couple of miles, which seems counterintuitive, just kind of got my body moving and got all the bad stuff flowing out to talk to somebody. The good stuff. I'd be drinking water the whole time. And then it was just a really cool thing. And then I realized, okay, well, yeah, crowd cups are great and hot tubs are great. But it also just moving after a run made me feel a whole lot better. And I realized that has become part of my training since then.
So as you get kind of like two guys with kids, it's kind of an interesting thing. I didn't realize I was doing it. And then the next day I ran 18 miles, I feel okay today because I ran 18, but then I walked through with a stroller right after and it kind of just flushed everything out and made me feel better the next day, which I think was a kind of a cool thing I found by mistake between being a runner and a dad at the same time.
Tyson (26:17.358)
Yeah, that's really cool. You sort of just sparked a thought of, I had a guy called Gordo Byrne on the podcast recently who's a really interesting guy to listen to around all things endurance. And I mean, it's in the same world as what you just mentioned, but he spoke about for a lot of athletes who are relatively new to the sport and they're trying to build up their aerobic capacity. One thing that you can do if you can't go out and run 18 miles is go out and run a few miles.
and then do something which is non -weight bearing. So maybe come back and if you don't have kids or you just want to chill a little bit, jump on a stationary bike and just roll the legs over on a relatively light intensity. And I know maybe that's a little more intense than what you just spoke about, but that time on feet or that time that you're just throwing at your cardiovascular system to develop, it sounds like you were ticket a number of other boxes like with the...
with the actual flushing out of all the crap that had built up, but also the hydration. But I mean, it makes sense to me when you say that, because obviously one thing that so many marathon runners and coaches speak about is it's not only your running, but it's your ability to manage that time on your feet, especially if you're running like a three and a half to four and a half hour marathon. That's a lot of time just being out there standing up for so many of us, so you can see how that's beneficial. You actually, yeah.
Angelo Gingerelli (27:29.467)
Right here real quick, I cut it off for a second. Have you ever volunteered a marathon, like giving out water or doing any kind of volunteer work in a marathon? Okay, it's a weird thing because I've done it a couple of times. Just races I didn't want to run. I just wanted to help out. I love being part of the community. That's exhausting. Like just standing there handing out water cups can be exhausting. We're giving out t -shirts during a race and then you sit and think to yourself like how far is running a marathon again? Like it's a weird thing just being mentally engaged and being on your feet for...
Tyson (27:36.814)
I haven't.
Tyson (27:53.006)
Hahaha!
Angelo Gingerelli (27:58.203)
I say five or six hours of your work in a race. it's hard, man. And then you realize, I'm going to run one next year. And you do that too. But yeah, I think it's a little bit, it's a harder physiological thing than, than a lot of people realize. So.
Tyson (28:11.118)
For sure, I haven't done that, but I did used to work at an Italian restaurant which was open 24 seven. And I remember sometimes I would start my shift at two o 'clock in the afternoon, I wouldn't finish till one. And initially, that's one in the morning. Initially, I would get home and I'll wake up the next morning and I was like, my gosh, like that time on feet just wandering around a restaurant was intense. And it is amazing how such a seemingly subtle thing can cause so much discomfort, but over time.
You know to emphasize both of our points naturally your ability to handle that load gets a lot easier or a lot better You touched on something with that answer that I love as well because I think the world of Man, I'm not sure if there's any subject in the world that's excluded from what I'm about to say but distance runners particularly myself when it comes to strength work now I have this I don't know what it is. I have this tendency to lead towards
Complexity, I don't know why I always feel like I go in there not so much anymore since I've got myself a structure But before I picked up finish strong, I was going in there and constantly double guessing myself I should be doing this I should be doing more reps. I should be doing less reps I should be doing this exercise should be and you spend the whole time to second guessing yourself, which I don't like what I love about
the majority of the people that we're speaking to now probably consider themselves in the same phase of life as us. They're not necessarily professional runners, though they might be aiming to that, but they've got a whole lot of time, but not a whole lot of knowledge. This idea of doing the simple things consistently seems to be a theme. I mean, a lot of the exercises that I look at in Finis Strong, they're not radical in the sense that no one's gonna know them, but they're structured in a way.
Over the course of phases throughout the year that if you can be consistent yet, you're going to see results
Angelo Gingerelli (30:02.107)
Yeah, yeah, man. That's exactly it. The cliche we use in the States is an inch wide and a mile deep, right? Pick a couple of things and just do them to death till the wheels fall off. And I think there's something to that, right? Particularly if you're a little intimidated by the weight room or the gym. I think we talked earlier about how important variety is. I think there's an important and a place to it. Definitely. But I think if you're intimidated or really it's your first month training, getting really good at the basics is the foundation of whatever you're going to do next, right? So let's for example, we're going to train our upper body.
Tyson (30:07.886)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Angelo Gingerelli (30:32.091)
We can bench press, we can do dumbbell bench press, we can do a machine bench press, we can do a bench press on an incline, decline, physio ball. There's a dozen plus ways to chain our pecs, right, our chest muscles. If you can't do a pushup, none of that's really gonna help you out, right? You gotta have the foundation built first. And I think that there's one thing is a lot of endurance runners and other endurance athletes come to the weight room with such little experience, they're gonna benefit at least the first year from just building that base and getting good at the basics.
And then once you master the basics, you go to step two, step three, whatever it is. I've been talking about a lot of conferences of this. We have a weird thing in the resistance training world. We've known what works for centuries. You can make an argument since the ancient Greeks, we figured out that if you carry a goat every day and the goat keeps getting heavier, you keep getting stronger. It's kind of the basis of resistance training really, right? But the problem is, it's an industry and a business and you can't, it's really hard to sell people.
Tyson (31:20.942)
Yeah.
Angelo Gingerelli (31:31.099)
Consistency, progression, discipline. It's kind of easier to sell this new technology, this new thing you need to do, this new way to structure things. And I'm the last person ever to knock someone's ability to make a living. But also to some extent, all that stuff is great once you build a foundation, but the foundation could be built very simple.
Tyson (31:52.686)
Yeah, that's such a good point. Yeah, yeah, I often forget about the business side of things where you're trying to market yourself as having the secret ingredient. As a result, you start putting some fancy little coding on what is just ancient technology or ancient information. Really fascinating. One of the things that a lot of people ask me about when it comes to the strength training, is there an ideal amount of days I should be in there? Obviously, as a part of your program, you get a bit of a generic idea as to what...
is good for the average person. Where do you recommend a person who you just referred to? Someone who doesn't necessarily have any solid strength built up in the capacity to do a push -up start? Do they go and just start with body weight exercises and gradually build up from that? How does that progression take place?
Angelo Gingerelli (32:37.979)
Yeah, I think if you start in your off season, right? So after your big runs are out of the way for the year, three days a week is a good sweet spot to be in, right? That's kind of what the book breaks down on some push -pull stuff every day, some leg stuff every day, and just kind of get your body used to dealing with that kind of tension and that kind of fatigue it's going to have, which you never looked at before is going to be a new feeling, right? The first time you've ever, guys like us have been doing this for a long time. It's hard to even remember.
But go talk to someone the day after the first day they ever lifted weights, right? And they feel like they got hit by a truck, which is, right? Then the second day is a little bit worse because they're delayed onset muscle sores. And then the third day they start to feel good again, right? So I think experiment with that. And then we did it, and I hate to keep bringing up the book and I'm not trying to be a salesman about it, but one thing I think we did pretty good, we identified six core exercises and gave progressions and regressions from those.
Tyson (33:12.942)
Yeah.
Angelo Gingerelli (33:33.435)
So I would say go to the first regressions, it's a push up for your upper body push, it's a pull up for your upper body pull, it's a body weight squat, you know, you're very simple exercises. Get good at those and then start working your way through the book from there. With the goal being eventually for everybody to get to kind of the end of the progressions and it may at some point need another more advanced program, but really just start at the bottom where you know, the foundation kind of builds from there.
And the other thing is too, and don't be intimidated to go to the gym and not know what you're doing. Most people in most gyms don't feel like they know what they're doing, right? So just go in and try some stuff. And I would say this, dude, be smart about it. Don't look at a guy or girl as jacked and be like, I need to try that. That might be something that's going to crush you if you try it. You know what I mean? So have a plan, stick to it, and be cool with the bottom. Because in reality, most people need to master those things before they move to the top anyway.
Tyson (34:09.07)
for sure.
Tyson (34:22.03)
Yeah.
Tyson (34:29.39)
Yeah, man, it's so funny you say that so there's a guy at my gym here in Point Lonsdale in Victoria and this guy he's got a good physique I noticed him from a distance for a long time. I'd always say good day to him, but the conversation would stop there He had his headphones in so did I but I would always look at him and go man like this guy's naturally gifted He clearly knows what he's doing one day. He came over to me. He tapped me on the shoulder He goes hey mate. Hey, what's up? Yes, you reckon you could just come and have a look at my technique. He was doing some dips
And I laughed and I was like, dude, I've looked at you as a bit of a god. Like I've been intimidated doing exercises in front of you and you've come up to me with this glorious physique and asked me to critique your own exercise. So, and I know exactly what you say. And I remember the awkwardness of going to the gym.
Angelo Gingerelli (35:12.279)
You know what I will say, I'll say that point too though. The people that I find that are really good at anything like that guy in the gym and building his body, right? Or a guy like yourself with running. Normally people that are, you're open to new ideas and open to coaching and open to try new things, right? I find the people that think they know everything and don't seek new ideas or don't ask for help or assistance, they really get stuck and you're not able to take that next step, right?
So I think, you know, you got to, you got to feel confident in your knowledge and know, I know how to do X, Y, and Z. But if I'm also open to read a book or go watch a podcast or go try ABC or asking me for advice on ABC. Cause I think in reality, especially in sportly running where even if you, if you felt like your training was perfect, your nutrition was perfect and you had a PR at a distance, you can't prove doing something different. Wouldn't even give you an even better PR. Right? So I'll say there's no, there's no ceiling. There's no Super Bowl. You could always have gotten better because the clock is.
To great, it's the best and worst thing, right? You could always be faster, no matter how fast you ran. So it's like, there's so many question marks. I just kind of look at it as I know some things that work for me and a lot of the people I train, but I'm always looking for the next thing I could pull in and then make sense and another idea or a way we could build on what we're already doing.
Tyson (36:28.046)
Yeah, it's funny, I often think I would love to get like a collated, a whole heap of videos just laid up next to each other of athletes who have just run a PB and said, and the best thing is I think I can go faster. I remember when Alan Webb ran his, the American mile record, I think it was 346 at the time, he came over and he had an interview and they go, had to a few, he goes, I think I can go faster. And naturally he didn't, but there's, you're right, there's no athlete that ever gets to the end of what it is that they're doing. I'm like.
Okay, that's my capacity. There's no more in the tank. I'll never improve on that, kids.
Angelo Gingerelli (36:59.419)
Right! Nobody knows that until it's over. You know what I mean? Because I think chemically or hormonally something happens when you do well at an event. You want to do it again and believe you can perform at that level or better again immediately, right? And then just for everybody, even the fastest men and women alive, eventually father time takes over and you don't get faster anymore, right? And that's at a world class level.
Tyson (37:03.854)
Yes.
Tyson (37:23.918)
Yeah.
Angelo Gingerelli (37:26.459)
But I do think for regular people like me, just the idea of me getting better or running similar times I did 10 years ago or being good on my age group is still a pretty motivating factor for me, which I think it should be for most people.
Tyson (37:37.262)
Yeah.
Yeah, I've been really surprised at how enthusiastic, even though I'm way off the times that I used to run, I can't believe how much joy I still get from finishing, you know, I ran 34 minutes for 10K the other day, which is about, you know, four or so minutes off my best time. And I finished that race and I was like, I didn't think I was at that kind of level just yet. And so yeah, it is still really exciting. Man, there's one thing that you mentioned, or one thing that I mentioned is the confusion about the exercises. And I guess that goes hand in hand with,
Angelo Gingerelli (37:58.299)
Right, yeah.
Tyson (38:08.686)
maybe the intimidation about going into the gym. But boredom in the actual strength training area is something that I hear about constantly. In fact, my wife doesn't go to the gym. She's just joined a CrossFit class. So instead of paying $10 .50 a week, she pays $55 a week to have a bloke and a girl who are actually really good coaches and I love the people. They're very good at what they do.
But I'm like, I wish you could just figure out how to get the motivation up. Because I'm paying $42 a month to go to the gym, you're paying $220. But where was I going with this? so those two factors, the confusion around how to do the exercises, the intimidation around where to start, or other people's opinions of you can really hold someone back. If you have never touched a weight before, I know we've talked about the progression.
You recommend going to see a personal trainer or a professional to actually get a bit of an eye on the exercises or you think just you can get a bit of a gauge just through reading about it and feeling your way through.
Angelo Gingerelli (39:12.187)
Okay, that's kind of a tough question, right? So I think it depends who the person is. If you, it's hard to say, if say you're 18 and never lift the weights before, but your central nervous system is still pretty pliable, you pick things up quickly, you might be able to watch some YouTube videos, read a couple books, and get a pretty good handle on it, right? If you're 38 instead of 18 and have never been in the weight room before, and your body doesn't move the way it used to, and you don't pick things up quickly,
then you should probably definitely have a coach or a trainer look at what you're doing, right? I think it's a little bit of a, not a loaded, but a hard question to answer. I think it's more based on the person, right? And I think we're moving into an era where ideally, maybe in Australia, United States, kids are getting exposed to this younger, which is a better thing as far as them getting a little bit better kinesthetic awareness and understanding the importance of being physically active and learn how to do some things at a younger age, right?
I think if you're in that case, you went to a good phys ed program and you played different sports during your army and you learn things easily, then maybe the book YouTube option kind of works. If that's not you, maybe you got to pay someone to take a look at what you're doing and make some tweaks and tell you if you're doing it right or wrong kind of thing. but I think it's kind of kind of individualized. I'll say one thing too. I think your, your body is a good guide to that too. Right? Like if you look at someone doing a lunge say, and you try to do it,
Tyson (40:23.246)
For sure. That's a good point. Yeah, I heard...
Angelo Gingerelli (40:36.123)
and it puts you in drastic knee pain, you're doing that wrong. That should not happen. Don't force yourself through that, right? On the same token, if you didn't exercise the same way for a year, and so absolutely no progress whatsoever in the way you're using the way you look, you probably need to have someone take a look at that, or pick a different exercise, but you're doing something wrong in that case. But your body's usually a pretty good guide if you're doing stuff right or wrong.
Tyson (40:58.894)
Yeah, it's a really good point. In terms of any parents out there, this is something that I'm thinking about a lot with my boys at the moment. As I said, three and a half, one and a half. Charlie is, our big sport over here is AFL, Australian football. And he is, as I mentioned, three and a half. We're about to get him involved in his first little, it's called Oz kick. It's like you're welcome to the world of AFL.
Angelo Gingerelli (41:20.187)
Gotcha.
Tyson (41:22.062)
But on top of that, that's really cool. I like that socially, like he's running around with a lot of kids, he's practicing his hand -eye coordination, having a little bit of fun. I heard someone recently speak about the best form of strength for a young kid like that is to get them involved in gymnastics. And that body coordination, hand -eye coordination, ability just to know your body is what he spoke about as being probably the best form of strength you can get him involved in. So I'm looking at finding a fun little program for him in that area.
so it can improve. Would you recommend any foundations for a kid that age? And while you talk, let me just shut this curtain, because for anyone on YouTube, you'll see the sun start to come in real strong. There we go, gotcha.
Angelo Gingerelli (42:03.483)
No, what I would say is that as a young, you know, three and a half, four year old, I think gymnastics is a great way to go as far as learning kinesthetic awareness, how to use your body, activate your central nervous system and move well. I think gymnastics is a great place to start. I think track and field at a young age with a good coach, you're going to teach good running mechanics is a great place to start. And my argument is even if your son or daughter is not going to be a runner, do we run in every other sport in some capacity?
So show me a sport where better running mechanics doesn't help and I'll take this statement back but I think it helps just about everything, right? I think wrestling is a good one as far as strength, overcoming and external force in your opponent, right? And the competitive nature it takes through that and that's a great sport to get involved with young. And then I think, the one I say, I think swimming is important for two reasons. The safety aspect, right? Knowing how to swim, if you remember your water is safe. But secondarily, we've seen in the triathlon world,
The best overall triathletes are usually high school and college swimmers because that's the hardest thing to learn as you get older. And we see in the endurance world, you know, we love running. I'm a runner by nature, so are you. But for everybody, that's hard on your joints. It beats you up. It's not right for everybody. Swimming is a great lifelong cardiovascular activity, which is pretty much no impact on the joints and the musculoskeletal system. So I think that's another one. Not too many people are like, man, I'm mad. I'm such a good swimmer.
But a lot of people, myself included, look back and think, I wish I got to be a better swimmer when I was younger so I could work out like that a little bit better now. So I would say gymnastics, track, wrestling, and swimming are probably the best place to start and then get into like your ball sports, your tennis, your golf, your baseball, whatever it might be from there.
Tyson (43:48.718)
Yeah, man, did I ever introduce you to Brenton Ford? I don't think so. No, I was just thinking as you were speaking, I don't think I have, I should do it, man. He's a good friend of mine. He is an online, he's a swimming technique coach and his business is mind -blowing. In fact, he was a big inspiration for me to start Relax Running. In fact, Relax Running was a joke that I sent to him because I bought the domain name. His business is called Effortless Swimming and I thought, okay, I like.
Angelo Gingerelli (43:52.763)
I don't believe so, who's that?
Angelo Gingerelli (44:16.155)
I know him and the person that wrote the book with Dr. Richard Borgers, he's been around his podcast.
Tyson (44:21.102)
Yes, interesting. Because I was gonna say, I should, so Brenton lives 40 minutes from me, half an hour from me, he's a good friend of mine, and he's just doing awesome things in the world of swimming, really good guy. I should hook you up with him, because he's got a monster audience as well, who I know would really love the message that you guys are sharing. So if you want that connection, I mean, it sounds like you've already got an in, but I know he'd be really open to having a chat with you. And you, I'll,
Angelo Gingerelli (44:44.219)
Yeah, definitely man. Let's make that happen. He's doing, like you said, just great stuff in the swimming world.
Tyson (44:48.942)
Yeah, the reason I brought him up though was because it's so interesting to look and to talk to him about the interest in swimming technique, which is funny because for whatever reason, one of my frustrations in the world of running is the lack of interest in the mechanics of running. I would say that 90 % of runners are either neutral or probably think there's no need for an improved.
mechanics improve technique when it comes to running performance. And so whenever I'm working with an athlete that I actually coach, it's something that I use an online app just to go over and see if there's any points of tension or inefficiency or even look at how technique changes from a jog to a fast run to a fatigue state. Yeah, it's mind blowing man. I get frustrated all the time about the fact that so few athletes are interested in improving that part of performance.
Angelo Gingerelli (45:38.267)
The one thing about the running community that has confused me for the last 10 or 15 years is if you look at people who voluntarily run this many miles and compete in races and travel to compete, you're looking at people who are incredibly driven, right? In most cases, very intelligent and in most cases successful at other parts of their life, right? They make enough money to travel and buy new running shoes and hire coaches and have gym memberships and they have families and jobs only to make them successful, right?
I have never met a group of people less interested in their running technique, their warm -ups and cool -downs, right? Or up to pretty reasonably their resistance training side, how to make the machine you're working with bigger, stronger, faster. I think that last one's changed a little bit in the last decade. But yeah, I think the warm -up and cool -down thing is interesting. And the idea of like, you're successful in so many other parts of your life, but you keep dealing with the same injuries in running, why would you not want to address that? Like figure out what you're doing wrong, whether it's...
flexibility, mobility, mechanics, whatever it is, and try to get better at that. But it's a weird thing, and we're a part of it, just part of our community, I don't really understand that well.
Tyson (46:45.646)
For sure. Yeah, I think one thing that works in the favor of swimmers is you can sit down with Brenton and he'll say, hey, adjust this and you'll swim four seconds faster almost immediately over a hundred meters. And from a performance perspective, I get that because if someone's going to say, hey, make these changes and it's going to improve the, you know, the way you feel when you run or the speed that you run over time, it's a bit more of a tough sell. But I mean, like you look at a golfer and the moment that you make an adjustment to the way that you hit a ball, whether or not it's more efficient, you usually hit the ball.
less far or less direct as what you would before you tried to make the adjustment until it becomes more of a natural part of your game. And so, yeah, for anyone out there who is second guessing the benefits of that, I'd really encourage you consider it. Cause man, I mean, especially coming from a bloke like you, it's adds fuel to the fire of the frustration I feel around this part of running.
Angelo Gingerelli (47:33.883)
Yeah, I always think it's a weird thing to do that me and you have so many similar experiences being on other sides of the world. So like I think a lot of times they get a little like, that's an American, American runners do X or Australian runners do Y. They're both doing X, they're doing the same thing. Which is a really weird thing when you think about it.
Tyson (47:51.118)
It really is man, it really is. Dude, I've got to get over there at some stage. Not only to go for a run with you, but I've got to come and check out these rooms that you're doing and come and do a couple of comedy spots with you. It'd be so nice to meet Ian the Flash brother.
Angelo Gingerelli (48:04.251)
Amen. You are always welcome. I think that'd be one of the best days ever. Go for a run in the morning, do a comedy show at night. Yeah, man, I think it's really been special. I'm thankful every time you have me on the show. And hopefully we keep doing good things, inspiring people to do good things, and getting great information out there.
Tyson (48:20.366)
Yeah, thank you brother. We'll do it again soon man. I won't leave it two years this next time. I don't know where that time got to it. It trips me out that it was so long.
Angelo Gingerelli (48:28.123)
Yeah, man, time flies. Real quick, one more information. It's Finish Strong Resistance Training for Endurance Athletes. Myself, Dr. Richard Borgers. Our Instagram is finish, underscore, strong, underscore, book. And then my Instagram is Mr. FifthRoundMR, the number five, T -H -R -O -U -N -D. Thank you very much, man.
Tyson (48:46.35)
And I'll make sure I've got all that linked in the show notes to this episode So if you're interested jump over there, but for now ladies and gents, we'll see you all next week Sweet man, dude as always love talking to your brother. That was fun
Angelo Gingerelli (48:58.107)
It's a pleasure, man.