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Hi Jae
I love the suggestions and I’d like to add a thought about the running success and well-being of older runners. They (all of us adults, really!) are slowly, ever so slowly, losing muscle mass and strength as the years go by. Surely, a basic weight-training program to counter this is going to benefit the running of a huge population of athletes over the years, albeit indirectly? And, in my experience, that weight-training program would be comprehensive and balanced, with strength and conditioning for all the body, especially the parts that don’t directly benefit from the act of running.
Yes, that’s certainly true, Nigel! This is meant to round out your fitness as a runner, though of course there’s more that could be done, and even lower body strength training that might be useful. But this is a good place to start.
ReplyIn the second of the strength exercises, your right arm and right leg moved (then the left arm and the left leg) rather than the right arm and your left leg (then your left arm and your right leg) why? If I have understood what you have said in the past, the emphasis should be on connecting movement of the one shoulder to the opposite side hip
ReplyThat exercise was surprisingly hard to see in the video, Clancy, I’m not sure why. Both legs are actually moving: as you press the weight up with your right hand, your left knee comes in (and the right leg straightens). When you do the exercise you’ll feel this does actually connect opposite shoulder and hip. The connection is that the right hand pressing the weight up and allowing your upper body to roll slightly to the left activates your entire upper body to flex slightly towards the left hip. Meanwhile the flexing of the left leg causes the left side of the lower back/abdomen/pelvis to also flex slightly towards the right shoulder. It’s much more difficult to describe than to do.
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