Improve Your Running Times with These 6 Functional Exercises
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Hey coaches, athletes, Michael Hughes here with your co founder of Gymnazo Edu and movement specialist talking to you about running. And the amazing skill and athleticism that I grew up with from junior high all the way to senior year in high school. I was a sprinter, I was a runner, and I loved it, I loved how my training and conditioning really fed into my athleticism. But as I got smarter and more educated, I realized that there’s so many things missing. And at the end of this video, we’re gonna be showing you six functional exercises that really tie into the sport of running, whether it be for distance, or whether it be for sprinting. But they’re key elements that we believe the traditional training and conditioning community around running is missing. So I’m going to dive in deep, and really try to unpack in a quick way, but also in a thorough way, how we think there’s a spin to run if there’s more to it in the training and conditioning world. So it gets let’s get ready to dive in right now.
So the typical problems that we see with running programs is that they’re missing components. That’s just really, they’re just missing components. There’s nothing wrong with what’s going on. But I see a lot of kind of couch to half marathon, or that kind of feels like let’s just get up and let’s start running. But that’s the one thing that whole, I’m really looking to dive into and say no, in fact, we don’t want to have people running when they come to us and saying, Hey, train me for better running. In fact, we see a lot of these things are just lacking a warm up lacking preparing yourself, instead of just putting on the shoes and heading outside for a run or say, well, we’ll spend 510 minutes inside your home office building whatever the case is, before you go and start running, don’t let your warm up be your run, in a sense, and also came back off that run just taking those shoes off, go and shower with cases, get back to your day. But we got to spend another 510 minutes at the least letting your body know that you’re going to transition itself from this very repetitive motion pattern to something different. So right then, and there, I’ve covered a lot of the big issues with running programs and traditional runners, and what they need to add to their program, even if it steals from the length of their run, which I know is a big issue, right? I only have half hour to run, I need to run as far as possible as long as possible. But I’ll say you’re going to better suit your body for the long term and even short term by shaving five, maybe 1520 minutes out of that runtime to prepare and D prepare in a sense, or prepare for the next run. From a biomechanical standpoint, this is the big miss the big misses understanding that our pelvis when we run goes through rotational movement, that our thoracic spine shoulder girdle girdle goes through rotational movement, and it goes through those in opposing or out of sync timing at the same time. So just a quick understanding when we golf when we throw baseball or if cases it goes through in sync motion, meaning that the trunk and the pelvis, both turn right both turn left not at the same time. But they both do it essentially relatively at the same time. But when running, when I’ve ticked my right foot and stride forward, my pelvis is rotated left again, with my right foot steps forward, my pelvis is rotated left. Again, I’m overdoing it, but just so you can see it. And when I’m pumping my arms, I’m not just pumping my arm, my shoulder, elbow wrist Mashi pumping my thoracic spine, and it’s actually rotating to the right when my left hand comes forward. Again, when the left hand comes forward, my shoulder girdle rotates to the right, that’s an out of sync pattern as we like to call it. And that right there needs to be really dove into an express because that’s where art or I like said our efficiency comes in, right that’s why we can run and locomote for so long compared to all other land animals. Because we have that efficiency in that free energy. Right think about a rubber band, you’ve just spun up right you just turn turn, turn turn turn the what happens when you let go of one side right it freely Unturned, right all that all that potential energy stored up in that band is released and produces kinetic energy or movement energy. And that’s what our obliques to keep it simple do as well when we run when my right foot strikes for my pelvis rotates to the left, my left arm pumps forward and takes my thoracic spine to the right. Boom, those oblique say thank you very much for that free energy that I have now stored. I’m gonna release it and not only release it, but I’m gonna store it and then give it to the opposite side. And so it stores into that opposite side. Obviously there’s still muscle contractions that happen but it’s not 100% muscle contraction. It’s also momentous. I like that word. Even if it’s not a real word. It’s that freedom of motion that gets stored up on the other side and then continues to release itself as it goes And that’s what makes running so efficient for the human body is free energy, when you don’t have that free energy. And there’s a lot of other places through through the body, especially the Achilles tendon. But there’s a lot of other places where you don’t have that free energy, it takes more energy, therefore, to do it, so therefore, you don’t have enough to propel yourself to go even faster, or don’t have enough to prepare yourself to go even longer, etc, etc. So that’s the one big thing I don’t want this video to show up on from a biomechanical standpoint is do does your pelvis have rotation at each acid tablet? And does your thoracic spine are all 12? Major vertebras have that ability to rotate? Well, if not, again, stick to the very end of this video, I’m gonna show you six drills, where we can help free that up in ways that will maybe you probably will more than likely haven’t seen before. So this is the big thing, why do people want to dive into running? Well, the benefits of it is are so great to me it is the one movement pattern that human body is great at it is great that like throwing right those two things like the human body is is exceptional at those two things. So if you’re gonna do it, if you’re gonna train your clients in it, let’s see if we can dive into why functional training of running is going to not only prevent injuries, or avoid injuries or lessen them, but it’s also going to increase your your performance in it. Because we believe if you can understand how the body moves to, to avoid injuries, you can’t prevent all of them but avoid a lot of them, then those same strategies reversed are going to go into the sports performance. So as we let’s just kind of understand real quick, the the movements that running is going to kind of cover and then we’ll dive into the exercises. So let’s just take it, let’s break into two steps. First is when your front leg is landing on the ground. And then the second motion is when your back leg is pushing off the ground. Because remember, running is a single leg sport, but we can’t always train it in the facility or the case is out on the track on a single leg. Because that could that produces a lot of stress. And we want to have training conditioning that not that gives us more potential for runs, doesn’t always stresses, stresses stresses, because to be a better runner, you kind of have to run a lot, especially for those marathon runners or for those distance runners, those ultra marathon runners, you got to put miles underneath those feet, no matter what. So how do we make your training conditioning, not remove those miles from your feet because you’re so tired or so under trained. So what we like to do is train not necessarily in a two stance, but in a single stance, but a little bit of support, a little bit of support. So we have the sensation of loading when I mean by loading, I mean by tension that’s coming through the body as if I was actually through eccentric load, just kind of think about that, where I’m slowing down motion. So that’s our first drill. And in that we’re going to have as relative foot, ankle pronation relative, right, so I’m gonna use that word a lot, because it depends on a lot of factors, whether it’d be the slope of the trail slope of, of the road, but biomechanically, we want to have the ability for our foot to go through pronation and absorb the ground. From there, when we get pronation at the Foot Ankle, we’re going to get tibia and fibia, internal or spinning in motion. And that’s going to result in the knee and the femur to get some internal rotation, that’s going to create a little bit more valgus in the knee. Not a whole lot, right,
that’s too too crazy. But a little bit, I like to think about knee valgus Ng and running is like taking a shower, right? That’s a hot burning shower. No one wants that. But that’s a cold freezing shower. No one wants that either. We want a little bit of warmth, a little bit of warmth, which gives us the ability to internally rotate our hip, a D, Dr. adduct. Our hip, and of course is going through flexion that allows that glute muscle to go through three dimensional or try loading. Loading is is is basically eccentric muscle tension, right? And it’s like pulling a bow and arrow back right, the more we can get that bow to come back, the more the arrow can shoot forward. So if we can get biomechanically relative, those motion patterns, that hips, gonna say that post your hips, gonna say thank you very much, I’m ready to kick and fire forward. And I just mentioned the glute, there’s obviously the entire leg muscle that goes through that as well. But that’s the big player. That’s what we got this big back, but right here, and not a big front, but because we propel ourselves forward, way more powerfully than we go backwards. And backwards running is a whole nother amazing topic that we’ll have to dive into later. Basically, I’m gonna show that at the very end of the end of the video. So if we want to have that now when we have that hip, internal rotation, hip ad duction or abduction or hip flexion, we’re going to want to have upper body rotation to the the opposite way. So that’s going to be rotation to the right, we’re going to want a little bit of kind of flexion in our trunk. Now, depending on how you’re going to be running, we want to have a little bit of flexion to the side to that same side. And then of course, we’re going to want to have extension through the thoracic spine, and we call that upper body coiling, or thoracic spine, try loading as we’re running in and that pattern, and that gets our lateral motion going, that gets our core and our front going. And of course, it gets our rotation going as well. So we can propel out of that, and run as well. So again, in the six exercises below, we’re gonna dive into how that happens. So that’s how the front leg and the upper body goes, what about that back hip, whew, that backup, we have prone pronation in front, when we’re pushing off, we’re gonna want to have relative supination on the back, that’s gonna be that kind of rolling outfield, right, that big rolling out field, where the foot starts to lock up, all those mid tarsal joints get bound together, where the heel goes inward. But still, here’s a big big key, where that’s going to create external rotation at the TIB fib, external rotation at the femur, but relatively internal rotation at the hip. Because this hip is rotating so much further and faster than this bone is turning outward. If you look at a relative speaking, we have internal rotation. And of course, our trunk goes through the same thing just up on the opposite side as we push off. So if we can understand those motion patterns in running, then we can train and condition for so much more performance, and therefore reverse engineer to understand how the body is overdoing itself for injury. So let’s dive into how the six exercises that I’ve picked are not the only six by any means. But to get your your mind wrapped around how you can train the upper body, how you can train the core, and how you can train the lower body and then how it does it all together. So you can start to make your training and conditioning that much better. But before I go there, understand that a warmup and cooldown what does that really mean, for us? Right? It’s means it’s preparing the body through its elasticity ranges of motion. That’s what I like to think about a warmup and cooldown, what are motions that we want to do? How do we get the body to be that springy rubber band effect? And then how do we allow that springy rubber band effect to be powerful? And then how do we cool it down. So we don’t just go back to our desk to our chair and the muscles are still in that hyper tone, or that kind of really excited state where they’re still in that contractile sense. And then it limits our ability to recover, because we want to have the flushing system right. When you’re done washing the dishes. What do you do with that sponge? Well, I hope you don’t just let it all soaked up, gunked up on on the counter, that’s not a healthy looking sponge, it smells after a little bit, right, you wring it out, you flush it out with some fresh water, you keep it clean, and then you wring it out really good. So when it’s done on the countertop, it’s ready for the next use. That’s a cool down, right? That also happens from the muscle, but from the fashion to the chemicals in your blood in your lips, and your intracellular and extracellular fluids. Right. That’s why nutrition is super important too, because you want to start flushing in a sense, right when you use that word, that system for the next workout. So without that being said in our running a warmup, and cooldown. That’s another video. But let’s go into the exercises of running for the biomechanics and the functionality in the performance. What we’re going to do now going to start with the upper body and start with a drill that maybe a lot of you haven’t seen, so she for these first two, I’m gonna grab on to a MOBE stick, or this could be any sort of broomstick with the cases. But I love this drill, because it allows for the upper body to get warmed up and prepared for running, grabbing onto a stick and we’re gonna call it an underhand swing. So I’m going to swing at you. And basically it looks like I’m paddling backwards in a canoe. But if you look at how my shoulders are moving through this underhand figure eight movement, as we like to call it, you can see how my, my spine and my trunk are actually rotating. I’m actually getting lateral flexion. And because I’m going under hand I’m scooping up actually get extension through my thoracic spine, kind of feels like running actually, at least through my trunk. And that’s really the most important thing. Me pumping my elbows up pulling my arms is good, but it’s not even close to as powerful as what this thoracic spine can do. Now if I was a thrower just real quick, I can go overhand right, I can go overhand as well it just it quickly if you’re into the pitching into the kind of the throwing aspect and then another amazing tool that’s really getting a lot of press right now. And it’s a huge asset and your training and conditioning facility is what’s called an RMT rope. As arm T rope is essentially an extension of what that the boobs To can do but if you can add that same motion into a rotational pattern as well, you get much more freedom of motion through the arms. Because this is not a fixed rod in a sense. And it’s a more of a elastic kind of flow, this rope allows us to get a little bit more shoulder, and I can get into a running position as well. And I’d have to get some good motion. And I can even add a double motion. And if you just heard or saw, I just whipped my leg. So I love about the arm T rope, it allows you to have instant feedback is if you’re angulations if your motions are accurate, or at least balanced on both sides, so I can go through a double one as well as I come to one side and do it again. And see I get extra lateral flow, lateral flexion, a little bit more rotation, as I dive deep into it, I can switch to the opposite stance, I can put more weight on my front, I can put more weight on my back, and you can go for speed. As well, as you work through that tool. That’s an RMT rope. Reach out for any comments, you have more questions about that, we have an entire training on how that rope could be moved. And it’s again one of the most up and coming x pieces of equipment that I feel it will revolutionize the training and the conditioning world. Now, those are some upper body drills. What about some lower body drills, let’s not forget about the word locomotion. Now because running is locomotion, and it’s actually it’s running. Right? And but we can run not just forward because when we run forward, we put certain stresses on certain muscles. But if you’re What if you run backwards, right? What if we get that backwards when you use it as a warmup, we’re gonna start working the same muscles that are used for running forward just in a different intensity. And that allows those muscles to be built up in a way that helps us propel forwards. But we can also run sideways. Now we’re putting more help into the lateral and medial running muscles. But then we got to think about other patterns, other patterns of of locomotion, shuffling Carioca or grapevine or the cases of braided run, I could do a forward shuffle, forward shuffle and put more focused attention on certain muscles that will be an anterior shuffle will the cost we know our lateral shuffle, right. And then we can even do a cross over fixed lateral, which really puts much more work through the to those lateral hips. There is rotational shuttling as well. But again, we have the Carioca pattern, which is a good sideways drill. But we can also do that same drill going forwards. And why bring up these different locomotion drills. Because running is a typically an overuse, injury sport. When we get injured, it’s too much of the same thing. And our body can’t manage it. What if I train a condition with other locomotion drills that still get my thoracic spine, shoulders working, still get my lungs work and still put mileage on my feet? But don’t stress the joints and the muscles in the exact same way? As my long run? would? Would there still be great benefit? I think the answer is definitely yes. So good ways to add more variety and more focused attention on running muscles without actually doing forward running. What about some strength? What about some power, I got a power block here.
What I love about Olympic lifting is that it’s so applicable to so many things. But what I don’t like about traditional Olympic lifting is it’s typically a fixed steel bar with weights on either end, which is not very applicable to most things. So what if I take a hang clean through a single dumbbell, put myself into a running stride, I can take that hand and load into it. Take that dumbbell and load into it, I can power off this foot. Now watch my back foot. As I go into a clean and step forward. You see my hand even came forward authentically, like I was actually running and I can turn that into a pivot, boom, boom. And I feel that glue, I feel that hamstring, I feel that rotational core loading and then unloading just the same way that I would be if I was going through a hard acceleration sprint, I can switch sides and do the exact same thing on the other side. So that’s a great power drill. great strength drill. If you slow it down a little bit more. What about that integrated core that helps us run helps us connect a lower body to our upper body? Well, I’m gonna gonna break it down to some super basic points like a plank. But has we do and how I would instruct you to do for a plank is not hold. Because that’s not how the propria receptors of the running body are trained. They need to be trained through movement. So what does the hips do when they run? Well, they actually flex a little bit and they actually extend a little bit so let’s move that core through them. They actually laterally shift or trans slight and laterally flex. Let’s do that through the pelvis. And of course, as we talked about already, they rotate. So let’s rotate through that core, let’s get that transverse plane involved. Why can make this a little bit more functional, because running is not a two foot sport, and I have two feet connected to the ground. So I can simply lift a foot, drive a knee, and now this foots floating off the ground, like I’m into that kind of drive phase. And I can do that same pattern, that same pattern. And that same pattern, I can even take one elbow off the ground, or the opposite elbow of my input, and have that same feel for the upper body. So good way to play with some planks dynamically, and in three planes of motion. And then what about that all full body put it all together to make it smell like running, let’s grab onto a viper. Let’s put our right foot in front into what we would call a stride or our exit stance. Let’s get our trunk to rotate to the opposite side. Now I’m in the exact same biomechanics, at least lift from a two foot stance as walking, running, and I can propel the body to the opposite side, keep my eyes fixed, hasn’t running forward, and rotate through. And I can even take that challenge some more lateral muscles as they get a little bit of side to side, what we call angulation drive, drive drive, drive drive. The more the speed, the more the power, the more the duration of slow and steady, the more you can train that body to extend and go further. So besides the six reels, so shoujo hope you’re under the ABA to understand how the body moves through running more from a joint by joint segment, you understand the power and the importance of how it is to prepare the body to run versus just go and run as your training and conditioning evolves as you start because the running is the sport that I believe everyone should practice, or at least have the access to and the availability because it’s gifted movement is amazing. And how we do it through locomotion should be expressed more and more and more. hope this gave you some more amazing insight on how the body works. Feel free to like, subscribe, check out some more videos below and check out some descriptions below if you want to understand the biomechanics of movement, just like we do. Take care. See you next time.
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