We have explored the ideas around WHY you should implement strength training into your running routine, now let's discuss the HOW. Richard Blagrove is the first guest I have on this podcast and is one of the world's best leading researchers in the field of strength & conditioning for runners. He is a lecturer in Physiology and S&C director at Loughborough University. He is also the author of the book Strength & Conditioning for Endurance Runners. (Apple users: Click 'Episode Website' for links to..) Become a patron! Receive Run Smarter Emails Book a FREE Injury chat with Brodie Run Smarter App IOS or Android Podcast Facebook group Run Smarter Course with code 'PODCAST' for 3-day free trial.
Expand your running knowledge, identify running misconceptions and become a faster, healthier, SMARTER runner. Let Brodie Sharpe become your new running guide as he teaches you powerful injury insights from his many years as a physiotherapist while also interviewing the best running gurus in the world. This is ideal for injured runners & runners looking for injury prevention and elevated performance. So, take full advantage by starting at season 1 where Brodie teaches you THE TOP PRINCIPLES TO OVERCOME ANY RUNNING INJURY and let’s begin your run smarter journey.
:
Strength Training Number Four, Exercises and Program Planning for Runners with Richard Blagrove. Welcome to the Run Smarter podcast, the podcast helping you overcome your current and future running injuries by educating and transforming you into a healthier, stronger, and smarter runner. My name is Brodie Sharp. I am the guy to reach out to when you've finally decided enough is enough with your persistent running injuries. I'm a physiotherapist. the owner of the Breakthrough Running Clinic and your podcast host. I'm excited to bring you today's lesson and to add to your ever-growing running knowledge. Let's work together to overcome your running injuries, getting you to that starting line and finishing strong. So let's take it away. Welcome back to Season 2, Strength Training for Runners. We're continuing our season, it's encouraging to see the downloads are starting to slowly creep up. Over the past week, couple of days, I'm also getting a lot of shoutouts on Instagram about the podcast and people are wanting to share it which is really cool and I'm also getting some really nice feedback through direct messages which is really nice. I have a huge passion for doing these and when I do record them... Um, I'm very excited. I record multiple episodes at once and don't seem to get tired of it. Even just last night, I did this interview that you'll hear this episode and woke up the next morning, ready to edit and ready to publish it just because I'm excited to share it with the world. I'm excited to share it with you because it's really, really important stuff. I have a big passion for educating people and this podcast is serving me in many ways, so I'm glad that's resonated with you and providing the feedback and the shout outs is. is really nice, it's really encouraging. I'm also seeing that the downloads are leveling out, so earlier episodes are getting about the same amount of downloads throughout the whole season as the latest episodes, which means you guys are appreciating the importance of listening to all of them. If you're listening to this episode, or the last couple of episodes when they're first being released, it means that you're a part of this new wave of Smarter Runners, and when this podcast... becomes big, which it's going to be, you can have some pride in knowing that you have been one of the early adopters. This episode, we're setting a new milestone for the podcast and we have our first guest. His name is Rich Blagrove and he is the author of The Strength and Conditioning for Endurance Runners, a book that I've had for about a year and a half now. I've adopted a lot of his principles into my work as a physio. what I've referenced several times throughout this season already. So about 90% of the topics and the tips that I give you when it comes to strength training for runners has come from Rich himself. Therefore it was an honor to have him on. Rich is a lecturer in physiology. He has a lot of qualifications in strength and conditioning. He's a tutor and assessor. He did say that he spent a lot of time coaching. runners which he'll discuss in a second. He's not doing much anymore but he has worked with the younger population with running and running injuries and his depth in the latest evidence and the research around running strength and conditioning is just through the roof and so I was super excited to have him on. We go through some practical tips for you to apply some strength exercises for you to do even if you don't have a gym membership what dosages are most appropriate, mixed in with a lot of tips here and there throughout the interview. Really excited to bring you this one. I think we'll have one more episode for season two after this, and then we'll move on to the next. I don't wanna give away too much, because one, things might change and it might not come to fruition, and two, I just like the element of surprise. So without further ado, let's take it away with Rich Blaygrove. So my name's Rich Blagrove. So at the moment I'm a lecturer in physiology at Loughborough University and I also direct the Masters in Strength and Conditioning program that we run there as well. So at the moment and certainly for the last few years actually my role with runners has largely been around research and so my PhD looked into the effects of strength training in the post pubertal adolescent age group with runners. At the moment I've moved on to a number of different projects. So we're doing some work on some of the structural and mechanical determinants of running economy at the moment and also looking at the effects of low energy availability in runners and specifically how that impacts bone health. I've moved a little bit away from coaching runners in the last few years just to focus a little bit more on my research. But before I started at Loughborough, I was based down in London at a university called St Mary's and For about 10 years there I worked more in a strength and conditioning coaching capacity with runners from kind of recreational level right the way through to elite Including some that made Olympic finals and won medals at major international championships so that was a great experience and Yeah, I wrote a book off the back of that around strength training for endurance runners, which kind of just shares some of the practice that I was using with those guys. Yeah, great. When you were doing that coaching and working with runners, was there a certain demographic or like an elite level that you were more attracted to? Not really. And I think, so those people based in the UK will probably know a little bit about St Mary's University. And I guess... some of you international listeners not so much, but St Mary's used to be the sort of national hub center for endurance running with UK athletics. And it very much kind of retained its tradition and culture once that hub center got moved to another location. And so at a kind of university collegiate type level, you've got some of the best university runners in the UK who are based at St Mary's. And then ones that aren't runners that aren't students, you've got the likes of Mo Farah that live and are based around St. Mary's. Another senior runners that are based in the local area. Plus it's quite close to Bushy Park, which is the place of the first ever park run. Oh, cool. Running's just a really popular sport from sort of recreational level right the way through to. Olympic gold medallists like Mo Farah. But I mean the guys that I was working with were because I was a member of staff at the university were mostly students plus some of the elite runners that were based there. But then as I mentioned before my PhD research focused in on the post pubertal adolescent age groups at kind of age 14 through to about age 18 and so in the last few years that I worked there I was working a little bit more with that age group plus a few recreational runners as well. Okay, very nice. And how about you running yourself? Have you taken part in any races or do any running at the moment? Great question. So yeah, I was a competitive runner right the way through my teenage years. So I competed at a kind of national level, ran I think 152 for 800. about 355 for 1500 and about an eight and a half minute 3K. So like I was okay, I was reasonable. And that got me a couple of medals at regional championships and so on. But I mean, I had a succession of injuries around, well, when I was at university actually, and ended up quitting the sport and moving into rowing, which like bio-energetically in terms of energy systems is quite similar, but the movement pattern wise it's very different. But that was a great experience. But since I stopped rowing, like running has always been my main passion and I really enjoy getting out for runs several times a week. So that's pretty much all I do now. Try and get out and do park runs on a Saturday, but I've not really targeted like any like a half marathon or a marathon yet and certainly nothing competitive for about 10 or so years now and I kind of like it that way. But yeah, nothing too serious at the moment. Um, let me bring you up to speed with, uh, this season, uh, well, that I have, uh, with strength training. So, um, this is going to be like the fourth episode within the season, which is dedicated to strengthening for runners and just educating the runners about the importance of strength and conditioning. Uh, so we've, we've already discussed the, the injury risks around strength training and how significantly low it is. Um, and. We. I was sort of educating people about the link with running related injuries and strength training. There's not necessarily a lot of evidence emerging at the moment with a reduction in like running related injuries. But did a whole episode on the benefits that strength and conditioning has for an endurance runner and also the debunking myths around gaining like muscle, muscle mass. in the gym and making several references from your book, the strength and conditioning for endurance running, um, along with some other research that I have been doing, but the, um, the runners have, they're well informed now of the why. So now I want to talk about the how, how can runners implement things? Yeah. So, um, I wanted to come up with a scenario. And I've got a recreational runner who's building up for a half marathon. Um, hasn't done any strengthening before and as realized the benefits and the performance benefits of strength and conditioning. Um, so where can we start? Let's just say, um, if you have such a runner, uh, what information would you like to know, what details would you like to know about the runner? before implementing some sort of strength and conditioning? Yeah, that's a really great question. And I always like scenarios because I think when it comes to actual training prescription and how we integrate strength and conditioning, it is always very much sort of, it depends and one size doesn't fit all, unfortunately. Otherwise we'd all be doing the same program. So yeah, when I was first meter runner, So I first find out about what their goals are for their sport. So this person's gearing up for a half marathon. So what sort of time they're looking to hit, whether they've done any half marathons before. And then I always ask about any running related injuries they've had. So have they had any niggles quite recently? Have they picked up any more kind of serious injuries which have kept them out of the sport for a prolonged period of time? And as part of that, I'll ask if they can provide any sort of physiotherapy reports or if they've worked with other practitioners as part of a sort of sports science support team, like they might have a physiology report, for example, or a nutrition profile. I'll ask for some details around that because that's always quite helpful in looking at the bigger picture. And then in terms of their strength and conditioning, so you mentioned this, in this scenario, they haven't done any. But I might ask them, like, what kind of I'd sort of frame it slightly differently and say what non-running type activities do you do at the moment and what have you done in the past? Yeah. Cause some of them might say, Oh, I stretch every evening. I do 10 or 15 minutes after every run. Um, I often find a lot of runners, uh, big fans of kind of course stability type training and we'll be doing that several times a week. Um, and some of them might be doing strength and conditioning without even realizing it. So they might be doing some sort of running drills before maybe an interval session. Um, and I would kind of, I would kind of frame that as, as low intensity plyo metrics, which is a, which is an important type of strength training, whereas they just, a runner would just see it as, as kind of part of their warmup. Um, so I'll try and get as much detail as I could about any kind of strength and conditioning work that they were currently carrying out. Um, and then I'd try and get an idea of how, like what the kind of expectations are around strength and conditioning. So. Are they doing it because they're really having an injury? Are they doing it because they want to offset the risk of getting an injury? Um, or they mainly just bothered about trying to improve, improve their performance. Um, and then more specifically, like how they see it's fitting into their training week. So as part of that, if they're, uh, if they're given up this half marathon and they've got a full-time job, um, a busy lifestyle, they might have a family, they might have a busy social life. Like these sorts of things need to factor into the decisions that you make about where you place strength and conditioning within the training week and then I guess really importantly what facilities and equipment they've got access to because there's no point in me sketching out a program that involves squat racks and Olympic weightlifting platforms if If the runner turns around and says well, I'm going to be doing this in my living room at home Like it's just unrealistic. So I kind of need to know what the constraints are in terms of the environments that they want to be doing strength and conditioning. Cool. All right. So, um, just breaking down any past injuries, which is very key. If we know anything from like, what's your risk of injury moving forward? It's if how many injuries you've had in the past, uh, what they have access to, what their aim is, what their goals are. And if you are discussing this with a runner, are there any common objections you have that you come across when you're discussing this sort of dialogue with a runner? I think it depends. If a runner is currently in pain, so if they're on the sidelines with injury and they're having to miss training days, then I would try and direct them towards a physiotherapist initially, just to try and get to what the root cause of the problem is and to get some treatment. And then I'll try and work with that physiotherapist. try and put together some sort of rehabilitation program. I think that's the only scenario I can think of where, yeah, I might kind of not program for them initially, or not take them into a gym setting and get going with some testing. And I might refer them on to somebody else. I think the only other scenarios that I've faced before, so I mentioned some of my research at the moment is looking at low energy availability. So this kind of... I'm sure most of your listeners would have heard of the female athlete triad and it's kind of been reframed as the relative energy deficiency in sports syndrome now. It has quite a high prevalence with competitive distance runners especially and particularly females. So if I'm sort of picking up signs that maybe had a succession of bone related injuries, so stress responses, stress fractures. And I might be thinking, okay, they're probably not fueling well enough or they're not getting the right type of fuel. And again, I might refer them onto a nutritionist or try and advise them to get some, um, some help from a nutrition expert before I start loading them up with loads of, uh, loads of strength training, which, which might do more harm than good in the short term. Um, so I think those are the two scenarios where, yeah, I might kind of stop. that point of the screening and say, okay, we need to seek help from colleagues here. Yeah. I actually did a blog a couple of weeks ago regarding the Reds and what was previously the female triad. So if anyone is a bit confused about that, they can just follow that on social media. And I think it's outside the scope of today's podcast. I will do an episode down the track regarding that. Back to this scenario. So, uh, let's just say if you've discussed the goals with them and if they're training for this half marathon and they're not necessarily wanting to, um, push for a certain time, but they just want to finish, um, uh, like within their capabilities and they just want to get it done. I think that's a common, um, goal for most people when they first do a half marathon and marathon, just, you know, maybe run the whole way, um, realistically. how much time are they committing or how much would you like them to commit in terms of time and frequency within the week? Yeah, that's another great question. And I guess the best way to answer this is to take your scenario and to add a couple more scenarios in there. I mean, uh, yeah, if we're sort of going purely off what the scientific evidence says, we need, we need a minimum of two strength sessions per week. And so that's usually what I would try and aim for. And again, I guess through my experience, two sessions a week is usually enough. How that's then kind of organized within the week is, is again, a little bit more tricky and is quite individual. And so if this runner, if I said, okay, could you map out your training week for me, describe what you do on a day-to-day basis. If they're running every single day of the week, because they've sort of built up to that kind of level and they enjoy it enough, so they're getting out six, seven days a week. I would actually say it's safe and based again on the research, effective to drop one or two of those runs to try and accommodate some strength training. And so if they can reduce that down to maybe five runs a week in order to get some strength and conditioning sessions exclusively into a couple of days, then that will usually be really effective. And that kind of extra rest. will actually help their running. It kind of seems counterintuitive that you almost do less in order to gain more but that extra rest should help their harder sessions a little bit and because as you say we know that strength training helps reduce injury risk and improves performance like overall that should lead to a more effective well-rounded training program. I guess another slightly different scenario so quite often what I face is I present that option to runners is they're not very willing to do that. So particularly if we've got somebody that's running maybe three or four days a week, or at a more elite level, they don't want to drop runs out of their training program, we need to look to try and find, okay, where can we add the strength training to the program, which isn't going to compromise the running sessions too much. And so if possible, I would try and add some Adds the strength training sessions separate from the running sessions with around about six hours recovery or more if possible. And so that's kind of running in the morning and then trying to do a strength training session in the evening, if possible. Um, quite a lot of runners like to do their strength training on an easier running day, so it doesn't kind of interfere with, with harder, um, like tempo type running sessions or interval type running sessions, which is completely fine. And other runners prefer to do it on the harder days. So they kind of adopt what I would term a sort of polarized approach to the week where you have very hard days, which include your harder running and your strength training sessions. And then very easy days, which are essentially just a slow, easy recovery run in order to get over the harder days work. And I guess a third approach, and this is something that I've used with several recreational runners quite successfully, is to actually not treat strength training as two individual sessions through the week, but split it up into smaller training units and so work for about 20 or 30 minutes every single day of the week instead of two like one hour sessions for example. And so if we split it up like that it suddenly becomes a little bit more manageable and so for those runners that can't train twice a day and do a run and strength training they just have to do their run. have a little recovery and then go and do some form of strength training, um, every single day of the week. If we go back to that, um, the other scenario talking about when we're doing, um, two or three strength training sessions and you're suggesting an idea of, uh, doing a run and a strength session within the same day. Um, you would recommend doing the strength sessions later in the day. Um, after a run or Does it matter if they swap and do the strength training in the morning, wait six hours and then do a run later on that day? I think for somebody that's just starting out strength training, it really doesn't matter. Like the most important thing is that runners are engaging with it. And so like if it's dictated by their lifestyle, that it's better that they go to the gym in the morning and they prefer to run in the evening, I wouldn't have any problem with that at all. In more well-trained athletes. So athletes that have perhaps been doing strength training for years and years, we do probably need to be a little bit more scientific about it. Um, but still if the main goal is to get fitter for running, I would still argue that it's probably better to do a run first in the day and then the strength training session later in the day, particularly if that run is, it's got to be of a relatively high quality. Yeah, that makes sense. And for those who decide to do a strength, or combine their strength training on an easy day compared to combine their strength on a hard running day. Is that just a trial and error thing for someone to try for as a runner? Yeah, I think so. And again, the research evidence around this is pretty weak. So we haven't got any kind of consensus with what the scientific evidence is telling us. And I think it sort of makes logical sense that if you've got two or three really hard sessions within the week, so some sort of hill sprints, some sort of interval training sessions, some kind of race pace type tempo effort, then doing anything else on that day, which is going to make you tired, um, doesn't really make a lot of sense. Um, and so if people prefer to do it on an easier day, that's completely fine. Um, so they do their easy run. and then the priority on that day is to do the strength work. I then kind of played around a little bit, and this was more with the elite athletes that I was working with, who obviously don't, they only have part-time jobs or they don't work, so they've got much more time to recover and to choose when they're gonna do their sessions within the day. So we played around, like you said, through trial and error more or less, with trying to do the strength work. a few hours after their hard running session. And for those runners, it seemed to work quite well. And so they're able to recover quite quickly from their hard running session in the morning, go to the gym, do their strength work, and quite often they would do another run in the evening. And then they adopted that type of polarized design through the whole training year. And so it was kind of, it is sort of trial and error. And as I said, I think with recreational runners, it ends up being dictated a little bit by lifestyle. by access to facilities and so on. And so when you take those sorts of things into account, it ends up being a kind of individual decision based around what's best for that runner. Yeah, makes sense. And like you said before, they're the issues and the availability things that you're identifying when you very first start working with them. They're the questions you ask, what's your availability? Like what access do you have? What equipment do you have? So you're laying that groundwork and you've got those ideas in your mind from day one. It's all to come coming together quite nicely. And I like how we have this scenario of this half marathon, but we're also deviating a little bit from different types of runners. So we're covering a lot, which I like. If we go back to this half marathoner and you say, okay, two sessions a week and let's just say they don't have a lot of access to a gym. They have a few bites at home. Do you have any rough guidelines around reps and sets? for them to do because for those who aren't much of a gym goer, you can go quite heavy and say work five sets of three or you can go quite light and do three sets of 15, 20, 25. So is there any guidelines around where they should start if they haven't had much experience? Yeah, absolutely. I think... I mean in a home-based environment it's obviously quite difficult to add any load unless we're being quite creative and innovative with what we've got around the house, so like filling up rucksacks and so on and so forth. So doing exercises with body weight on two legs is often a good place to start for runners but it will become easy quite quickly. So for example if we have somebody doing a glute bridge or a double leg squat Oh, that's probably fine for the first few weeks, but it will become fairly easy. And so if people do have light dumbbells at home or they can put a rucksack on their back, then that might add a little bit of load. But usually the strategy that I would use for people that haven't got access to a gym is to try and work on one leg as much as possible. Because obviously when we're working on one leg, we've got to move our entire body weight just with half the muscle masses as we do when we're doing two-legged work. And so doing things like single leg squats, single leg glute bridge, split squats, and different other different lunge patterns will usually be enough loading for somebody that's not done any strength work before to drive a meaningful adaptation. And in terms of repetition range, so on those body weight type exercises, I think people will be able to manage somewhere around about a dozen or so repetitions initially. And I think once you get to a point that that's starting to feel quite easy, you do need to start thinking about adding load rather than just going up in repetitions. And so as I say, one way to add load is to work on one leg and yeah, to work back up towards 12 repetitions. And then I think when runners get to that point, yeah, we then need to start thinking about, okay, how can we try and drive a little bit more strength adaptation with what we've got available to us, which is, which starts to get tricky. Absolutely. In those initial stages when you're doing those dozen rep ranges, if they have access to a TheraBand, anything that they can start with, if they have access to that. Yeah, sure. So yeah, elastic resistance is really useful. So mini bands, thera bands, and I mean the thicker resistance bands, which practitioners often call like monster bands, don't actually cost too much money. So I think like certainly in the UK you can get like a decent resistance band for around about 18 or 20 pounds, which isn't too much. And so if you were to wrap that around your shoulders and stand on it, and do some sort of exercise against that resistance. That's certainly helpful. And that's one way to try to add a little bit more load. And I've used door frames and things like that before. So if you press up against the door frame and try and do something like a car phrase, for example, it's a kind of static type contraction. But that's usually again, enough to start overloading individual muscles quite nicely. Yeah, no, I've never thought of that before. It's a handy tip. Like you said, you need to get creative. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, and yeah, like I've, I've seen people, like I mentioned before, load up rucksacks with heavy books and, and things like this, and we've got to think about safety, safety a little bit and the way it sort of pulls you out of position. But, um, again, it's, it's better than nothing and probably better than paying a gym membership for a lot of people. Yeah. Um, so it's a good tip that you were saying if you. If these exercises like bridges, lunges, squats, calf raises, like all those variations, once they start getting too easy, um, trying to avoid, uh, increasing the reps from 15 to 20, 25 and start increasing the load. So, um, I'll kind of read in between the lines and saying that a gym membership would be more effective, or if you do have access to weights, that would be more effective to start applying load. And once they start. progressing and transitioning into that phase, are you recommending similar movements, so we're still keeping with the squats, the calf raises, the lunges, but just applying more load? Yes, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, as you're alluding to there, it gets to a point fairly quickly that it's difficult to apply more load. So using some free weights and barbells, dumbbells, and so on, like sort of becomes necessary. And I'm by no means trying to sell gym memberships here, but, uh, it's, it becomes difficult once we get to, yeah, that kind of 12 repetition, 12 repetitions, and we're just using body weight and we're not really getting much from it, that it's better to, uh, to add loads and yeah, to answer your questions about exercises. So typically I will always have runners doing one or two bilateral exercises on two legs. So something like a Romanian deadlift and a back squat. and then a couple of single leg exercises. So I've really just got two sort of main, what I call movement streams. So stepping patterns and lunging patterns. So the most simple form of a stepping pattern is just like a sort of dead leg step up or stepping up onto a low box with hopefully some sort of loads on your back. And the most simple lunge pattern is just a split squat. So if you take an exaggerated step forward, so your back heel raises off the ground, And you can kind of feel your weight pushing through the front heel. It's just lowering your hips down towards the ground and then pop them back up to, uh, to the start position. Um, and so yeah, those four exercises form a kind of quite nice, well-rounded lower limb resistance training program. Yeah. It sounds nice. I think the strengthening side of things can be quite simplified and it can be overcomplicated. I think there's a. a balance between the two people like to get quite inventive and creative and come up with these weird work exercises, but it can be just as basic as what you're describing. If they're starting out, well, if they're becoming more experienced, should we, if you're taking on more and more load, should you stay around the same rep range if we're wanting to see those benefits through that half marathon? and still continue with that half dozen, but just continue applying heavier and heavier weights. Um, yeah, so I would lower the repetition range to, to try and drive more to sort of pure strength adaptation. So the example that we started off with in a home-based environment, I think moving up to around about a dozen repetitions is fine and people will get stronger doing that. Typically if a runner is starting in a weights environment or I'm working with them in, in a gym setting right from the start, I'll typically not go much over eight, maybe 10 repetitions. But then as they get more experienced, I'm looking to increase the load and actually bring the repetitions down a bit. And I don't mean we get really, really heavy like a powerlifter might do, but with some more well-trained runners, I would go as low as about three repetitions. So I'd be working around about three to six repetitions as they've accumulated a number of months experience. And then when they go back to the start of the training cycle again, I might periodize it. So... They go back up in terms of their repetition range. So back up to around about eight to 10 repetitions. And then they're working back down again, getting heavier and heavier, um, as, as the training progresses. So it's as much about varying, um, reps and sets and loads as it is about, um, like actually sort of, yeah, what, what the actual repetition range we're looking to work to. Yeah. And I think it's important just to include at this stage, if someone were to, uh, start. applying load, making sure that they're reaching the adequate range for the exercise and doing the technique correct. I think it's obvious to say, but should probably be included. Do you focus a lot on technique initially with the runners that you used to work with? Yeah, and that's exactly one of the reasons why I'd start with a slightly higher repetition range with novices. Because typically... They wouldn't be doing the exercise in the first place if they weren't moving effectively just with bodyweight But the second that we start adding loads in the form of barbells or dumbbells They need to be able to hold their form well And so if we're just working three repetitions, they don't really get the opportunity to acquire the skills because They haven't done very many repetitions of practice and so working more up around eight to ten repetitions gives us the opportunity to practice technique, make sure it's fairly strict, but also still acquire strength. And so that kind of middle ground is one of the rationales for why I would pick that. But certainly as you say, and probably as I should have mentioned when we're talking about screening right at the start, so after I've done a sort of verbal screening with an athlete, the next stage before we start doing any sort of resistance training is actually to put them through series of assessments. So that can be some strength assessments, but also some movement based assessments. And so if I have a runner that can't perform, just can't control their body weight very well. And so they're losing the posture, they're losing maybe ankle knee hip alignment, like their weight distribution across their foot isn't quite right. These are the sorts of things we'd work on initially just with body weight until they could control the movement well and perform exercises through range of movement with good form. And then we would look, start adding some load after that. And, uh, the second it starts breaking down, as you said, it would, uh, would take a step back and regress the exercise and, uh, and try and tidy up the techniques a little bit. Yeah. And you do have a chapter in your book, which illustrates that really well. All those breaking down those movements and looking for any faults or like just a check box kind of list. Okay. Is this, are they achieving this, okay. Tick, tick, tick. It's all okay. I think I like to add. when I'm working with my runners as well, if they are doing a certain exercise at, if it's a new exercise and they're doing a high rep range, um, just asking where they feel the fatigue as well. And, uh, knowing if they start feeling in the right areas, okay, that's probably a good chance to progress. But if they're feeling their back or somewhere in their shoulders and they're not really, um, meeting that, that fatigue factor, it's probably worth either like modifying the exercise or finding slight variations in technique variations so that they can start activating the right muscles, would you agree with that? Yes, 100% and yeah it's often one of my criteria when I'm going through those assessments. I think something like a glute bridge is a really good example of that, so an exercise you'd expect them to be feeling at fatigue or at least working and activating within their gluteal muscles. If they're feeling a lot of kind of tightness and overactivity in the lower back, then yeah, that's then a sort of little bit of a cause for concern and something you might look to address or keep that exercise in the program for a period of time until they can feel it a little bit more through the muscles that should be working. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Let's say someone, a diehard runner comes to you and says, okay, Rich, I'll follow your strengthening program. Um, I'll do it twice a week and I'll continue running my usual running program. How long until I can start seeing benefits with my running? What would you say? Yeah, it's a, it's a good question. Like you sometimes it's probably a bit of a placebo, but you sometimes have runners that do a single session and the following day, yeah, they feel a little bit stiff, a little bit sore, but then the day after that they have a absolutely blinding session. So they have one of the best sessions I've ever had in their life. Oh, that strength session you did with me, it worked so well. I just felt amazing when I was running. Um, which is always nice because you get that little bit of buy-in that you need to, um, for them to, uh, to keep up the program. Um, yeah, it's always, it's, I guess it's sometimes tricky to see like a real tangible benefit. I mean, the main thing that runners are concerned about is, is the time that they, uh, that they get on it on a given distance, or like you say, just getting around an event. And so if they achieve that and they hit their target, then that's gonna be a product of both the running training that they've done and any other non-running based training. And it's quite difficult to obviously separate those. I mean, obviously what we can look at is to the research literature, which typically shows that after a period of two or three months, a couple of strength training sessions a week. we usually see running economy improve. So running economy is how much oxygen or energy that we're using at submaximal running speeds. So we usually see running economy improve by something around four to 5%. And it's difficult for a runner to tangibly feel that because you don't feel how much oxygen you're using, you just end up speeding up a little bit. And so, yeah. I think... runners sometimes sort of describe it as a sensation of, I felt really strong, I almost had like a second wind in the latter stages of a race. And I think that's actually sort of how this changing running economy probably manifests itself in a kind of mechanistic sense. So I guess, yeah, to answer your question, you typically see that sort of change after a period of two to three months. And so, yeah, I think if you've got your half marathon runner building up, as long as they've got. three months before that event that they can get in as decent block of strength training that they should be able to see a benefit. Great. And if someone wants to progress to any plyometric exercises, do you have any good examples that you like to use? Yeah, I'm really pleased you brought up plyometrics because I mean, it often seems to me, and this is listening to other podcasts and speaking to other strength and conditioning coaches that work with runners that... Plyometrics almost seems to be this sort of training activity that people think is reserved for advanced level athletes and elite level athletes, which it's not at all. And I mean, if we just sort of think about what plyometrics is, first of all, it's essentially jumping, hopping, skipping type activities that are trying to improve how much elastic energy that we're able to store in our tendons. And if you think about skipping, for example. it's very similar to running and so running is a plyometric activity and so we only need to kind of nudge the intensity of running very slightly in terms of a plyometric activity to get an actual benefit and so those sort of low intensity plyometrics can be used with novices and people that haven't done very much strength training before and so we've sort of spent quite a long time talking about resistance training with body weights and with free weights. But alongside that resistance training I would always have some form of plyometric training in there. And I guess the beauty of plyometric training as well is it doesn't really require any equipment. And so people can do a series of skips or a series of jumps for height with a short ground contact time or a series of little hops in a row and they don't need any sort of equipment or any fancy facility. And so that can be done at home as well. And the transfer you'll get with that type of work will be a little bit quicker as well than resistance training, just because it's that little bit more specific. And sort of biomechanics are very similar to the running action. So I would always start runners off with low level skipping, some little jumping exercises, and maybe some mini hops. And then gradually again, similar to resistance training, raise the intensity over time. So, get people jumping on and off boxes eventually, going over little hurdles and then bigger hurdles. And then I guess ultimately we want people doing hops for distance, so maybe six to eight hops where they're trying to hop as far as they possibly can. And I guess the ultimate plyometric that I use with some of my elite runners is speed bounding. So bounding for speed where they're trying to cover as much distance as they possibly can with each step. And I've even tried doing a little bit of that uphill. and up small slopes, which is really quite a potent stimulus. Yeah. It requires a lot of like neuromuscular control as well. Like a good firepower. It does. And that's, that's why I certainly wouldn't use it with people that's years before we get to that kind of point. Um, and so yeah, I wouldn't be recommending that, uh, if people haven't done it before they dive straight in and go bounding up a steep hill. Yeah. Very wise. Um, I have a theory that I want to talk to you about, uh, as we just wrap up this interview because there's miles of evidence that, uh, looks at the benefits of strength training for increasing endurance running performance. Um, but it's what Tom Goom sort of calls skimpy when it comes to weighing up the evidence to running related injuries and will it reduce your risk of injuries? The the evidence isn't as backed up. And if they have, if you have a look at a runner or like a bunch of runners and you say, okay, you guys are weak runners, you guys are strong runners, um, continue with your normal running miles and mileage, they get injured the same rate. And, um, my theory being, I don't know if someone's already caught with this, you can let me know, but, um, you never see a sport where there's like a there's no ceiling on it. So when it comes to a runner, like a recreational runner, they're always striving for more and more and more. And we know that injuries are load dependent. You've exceeded your capacity. We all know that. But for a recreational runner who does a half marathon, they go straight into, okay, let me do a marathon. And you never have, I'll say this on a couple of other episodes, you never have a basketballer who gets really good basketball and says, okay, let me try doing three games of basketball at once. Now it doesn't happen. There's like a capped ceiling when it comes to some sporting events and you never really see, um, such an open-ended like sport like running. And so people not only have this, um, ability to do more and more and more, but they want to go faster and faster. And they always see themselves wanting to be. two steps ahead of where they are now. So they're always wanting to run faster and run further and doesn't matter on strength that it's irrelevant of strength. You always want to better yourself. What do you think of that? Yeah, that makes complete sense. And I think, yeah, I've heard others sort of, um, yeah, articulate that kind of theory before and in slightly different ways, but, um, yeah, I think what it sort of boils down to or what's, um, how I think I've just interpreted what you've said, is that there's quite a lot of different ways that a runner can overload, like quite a lot of different variables, and it's quite easy for a runner to overload too quickly. So I sort of understood that right. And so I guess as a runner's accumulating more fitness, it's very easy to sort of nudge up intensity on easy runs and sessions, which is still obviously overload. Yeah, runners are always sort of looking at their what. and chasing numbers in terms of their weekly running volumes. And again, it's quite easy for people to progress too quickly doing that. And yeah, people have always got long-term goals generally in running rather than, as you were saying, in game sports where there's competitions every single week. And so it's quite easy to set yourself an overly ambitious goal in three, six months' time to run a distance that you might never have run before. So it's quite tempting for people to push a little bit too hard too soon. I've understood that sort of correctly. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's sort of like articulating from different ways, I guess, that the ability just to change so many variables, because it's not only just within one running session, it's over the course of one week, two weeks, like those different variables of speed, terrain, duration, distance. They all. pile together and laid to. Exactly. So, when you put all of those things into the mix, plus you put in individuals, genetics, individuals own little dysfunctions in terms of the way that they move and joint limitations and anthropometrics and so on and so forth, plus all the lifestyle things as well, which contributes stress, like overall stress to the system. like running related injuries incredibly complex. Um, we're probably only scraping the surface with, with the, with the things that we've mentioned between us there. And so when you try and, when you try and answer a simple question around, does strength training prevent overuse injury, it's actually incredibly difficult to try and answer that question with, with a research study. Um, which, which is why I think there isn't really the sort of prospective evidence. Um, which would indicate that it does. It ends up being a more sort of theoretical argument, which I think is still fine. Plus we've got some evidence from correlation literature. So like we know that things like Achilles tendonopathies, Iliotibial band syndrome, patellofemoral pain to some extent are highly correlated with gluteal strength, for example. So it's not a cause effect thing. We don't know for a fact that if we make our glutes stronger. we're going to offset the risk of those injuries, but that would sort of make intuitive sense that to get stronger glutes, we might lower the risk. Yeah. So, yeah, I think overall, it's never going to do a runner any harm as long as we're programming it in the right sort of way. Yeah. And I think anecdotally with the number of examples we've got between us, it certainly seems to add a lot of value. Yeah. And... I was listening to Mike James who was speaking at the run chat live the other day. Oh, I was listening to it the other day. And he just finished with like, when it comes to strength training, why wouldn't you give me like a sound reason why you wouldn't implement strengthening into your program. And if you can come up with a sound reason and go for it, but, um, there's all the gurus out there, uh, knowing all the evidence and like you said, it just makes sense for you to increase. Yeah. Low capacity through the tissues and everything to, um, to help running. So why wouldn't you, um, we're going to wrap up here, Richard. This was a fantastic interview. It went the exact way I planned to have like a lot of practical examples, just breaking it down, breaking down the numbers and some examples of exercises. Congratulations on your book, Strength and Conditioning for Endurance Running. Um, I've referenced it several times within this season. And, uh, for those who are interested in getting the book, there's, debunking myths as exercise examples, assessments, drills, um, planning out your like periodization. There's some really nice case studies in there as well. And it's just a load of information. So, um, let's finish with if someone wants to get the book, where can they get it? And if someone wants to have a chat with you or reach out, is there any social media, um, platforms that they can follow? Yeah. So, uh, I guess the easiest place to get the book is on Amazon. I think that's where it's cheapest as well. So, and yeah, I'm pretty active on Twitter. I think, yeah, people, people share a lot of wisdom on Twitter and there's some really great discussions. So my hashtag is at rich and then underscore Blake growth, spelled B L A G R O V E. And yet people can, can find me there. Great. Awesome. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for the research that you do, sharing your wisdom, taking the time to actually come on and do this interview. We look forward to you bringing out whatever you're working on at the moment, whatever you so happen to bring out in the future. I'm really looking forward to it. So yeah, thanks for coming on and taking the time. Great. Thanks for the invite Brody and yeah, I'll keep you updated. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Running Smarter podcast. I hope you can see the impact this content will have on your future running. If you want to continue expanding your knowledge, please subscribe to the podcast and keep listening. If you want to learn quicker, jump into the Facebook group titled Become a Smarter Runner. If you want tailored education and physio rehab, you can personally work with me at brea Thank you so much once again, and remember, knowledge is power.