Ryan Hall's Blog, page 288

Unique Recovery Gear That Works

Photo: Greg Lambert

Recovery and self-care certainly aren’t as fun as lacing up for a run, but they’re essential to staying healthy and logging long miles. We rounded up some of the craziest gear and gadgets to help keep you injury-free, plus a few more to solve problems you didn’t even know you had.

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Acumobility Eclipse Roller, $70

With an unusual, angled notch, this model has four distinctly shaped zones, plus five pressure strips, to work different muscle groups. The result is a whole-body recovery workout with one tool.

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Addady Boomerang Massage Roller, $48

In addition to targeting hard-to-reach areas, this flexible strap has three medium and three hard massage balls for customized relief. Half of the balls also have a special coating that grips skin to truly work pesky knots and pressure points.

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BFF Turbo Electric Foam Roller, $300

It looks like a giant buffer, and it is. It even comes with different covers to smooth rough skin or massage in pain relief gel. The soothing vibrations also relax and rejuvenate muscles, increase blood flow, release tight fascia and treat trigger points. No rolling required.

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Falke Impulse Short-Sleeved Shirt, $220

Knitted and silicone nodules are incorporated into the shoulders and back of this sleek running shirt to stimulate fascia and, ideally, improve form. A patch in the lower back makes it difficult to fall into a late-run slump, while the shoulder nodules encourage better arm swing.

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Knuckle Lights, $60

For those who don’t like wearing headlamps or carrying a flashlight, knuckle lights are an alternative nighttime solution. Each light shines 140 lumens in a flood beam pattern to illuminate your path. Sold in pairs, they come with rechargeable batteries and a charging stand.

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The Healing Sole Flip Flops, $150

Slide into these when you hop out of bed—or post-run for on-the-go healing. A raised platform for your big toe enables muscles to relax, medial heel cutouts cushion the plantar fascia, a firm sole and just enough arch structure provide support and a rockered sole reduces foot tension.

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Shift Watch Band, $40

Made from flexible silicone, the band fits securely over the thumb and rests in your natural sightline for easy, on-the-run readability—meaning no awkward arm bending and no watch banging on your wrist bone. It comes in small, medium or large sizes, with attachments to fit most sport watches.

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Published on February 16, 2016 16:02

4 New Must-Read Running Books

Four new books we recommend for late-winter running inspiration.

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Running Your First Ultra: Customizable training plans for your first 50K to 100-mile race by Krissy Moehl

With 15 years of experience and more than 100 ultra races under her belt, there is no one more qualified to get runners across the ultra finish line. In “Running Your First Ultra,” Moehl provides runners with a comprehensive guide to training both the mind and body for these
grueling races. In addition to sharing stories about her own experiences on the trails, she provides customizable training plans and leaves room for readers to personalize the book by allotting space to write down goals and fill out a checklist before race-day.

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Hansons Marathon Method: Run your fastest marathon (2nd Ed.) by Luke Humphrey with Keith and Kevin Hanson

In the updated edition of “Hansons Marathon Method,” the coaches of the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project reveal their innovative marathon training program that has helped runners become true marathoners and outrun their personal bests. Their training approach tosses out mega-long runs and high-mileage weekends—two old-fashioned running traditions that often injure and discourage runners—in favor of spreading those miles more sensibly throughout the week. In this edition, the Hansons program welcomes newer runners with a new, lower-mileage “just finish” program.

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How Bad Do You Want It? Mastering the psychology of mind over muscle by Matt Fitzgerald

The greatest athletic performances spring from the mind, not the body. In “How Bad Do You Want It?,” Fitzgerald examines more than a dozen pivotal races to discover the surprising ways elite athletes strengthen their mental toughness. Each chapter explores the how and why of an elite athlete’s transformative moment, revealing powerful new psychobiological principles you can practice to flex your own mental fitness. The new psychobiological model of endurance performance shows that the most important question in endurance sports is: How bad do you want it?

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Dirty Inspirations: Lessons from the trenches of extreme endurance sports by Terri Schneider

In “Dirty Inspirations,” Schneider presents the unique perspective of a woman who has made it her life’s work to exceed her limits. The book takes readers through environments as majestic as they are unforgiving—from the brutal heat of the Sahara to the deep jungles of the Amazon and the awe-inspiring peaks of Denali in Alaska. Part philosophical journey, part spiritual awakening and part riveting drama, the stories presented in “Dirty Inspirations” embody the incredible resiliency of the human body and the indomitable nature of the human spirit.

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Published on February 16, 2016 15:24

Why Runners Should Do Eccentric Training

Common exercises like the calf raise can be made eccentric with a small tweak.

Eccentric training is a term that sounds complicated, but it’s really not—if you’ve ever tortured yourself with an exorbitant amount of hill runs, you’ve done a form of it. Eccentric training is simply capitalizing on the eccentric action of muscles, which occurs when tension is applied to a muscle as it lengthens. Consider your quads as you run downhill—they’re absorbing the weight of your body as they lengthen in order to control your descent. Without your quads working eccentrically on a downhill, you would quickly wind up with a mouth full of dirt/asphalt.

Why Add Eccentric Training?

To put it simply, eccentric training will make you a more injury resistant and efficient runner. Remember those hills I talked about earlier? As many runners know from experience, hills can leave you with a nasty case of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), the kind that makes sitting on the toilet a monumental and painful challenge. Eccentric training can help protect your muscles from the effects of DOMS via the repeated bout effect, which is an adaptation caused by a single bout of eccentric training that protects your muscles against damage from subsequent bouts.

All runners know flexibility is important; however, too much flexibility can be a detriment to your running performance simply for the fact that it has the potential to decrease musculotendinous stiffness, a quality critical for efficient transfer of energy. Eccentric training can help increase range of motion while maintaining and improving strength as well as increasing both dynamic and passive stiffness of the working muscles and tendons, thereby increasing running efficiency.

Lastly, running, particularly sprinting, requires significant work by the hamstring muscles, putting them at risk for injury. The strength and flexibility gains observed in eccentric training may reduce your risk of hamstring injury. A recent study published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that an eccentric hamstring training program positively addressed different factors of hamstring strain injuries, by increasing eccentric and concentric strength, improving hamstring-to-quadriceps ratio (which also reduces your risk of knee injury), and increasing flexibility, ultimately reducing the subjects’ risk of hamstring injury.

How to Add Eccentric Training

If you’re sold on the potential benefits of eccentric training, it’s time to talk about implementation. To get the most out of an eccentric training program, it’s best to actually plan out specific training time, which may deter some of you since training time is hard to come by. The good news is, because eccentric training causes a decent amount of muscle damage (a good thing in moderation) you only need to do it once per week, twice maximum if you’re an overachiever. Another plus is the energy costs associated with eccentric training are relatively low, which means it won’t interfere with your running like traditional strength training can.

Adding eccentric training can be as simple as adding a few extra hill descents into your current running routine. However, to get the full beneficial effect, it’s smart to hit all of the leg muscles, especially the hamstrings. Eccentric training can be performed using true eccentric exercises like Nordic hamstring extensions in which there is no concentric phase (when the muscle shortens under tension) or you can opt for traditional resistance exercises with an exaggerated eccentric phase. Exercises such as the hamstring curl, straight-leg deadlift, good morning, squat and calf raise can be used by shortening the concentric phase to one second and extending the eccentric phase to at least three seconds. For example, during a straight-leg deadlift lower down as slowly as possible until you feel a mild stretch in your hamstrings then quickly return to standing.

Working eccentric training into your current training program is relatively easy and inexpensive in terms of energy demands. Begin conservatively to avoid excessive muscle soreness. Choose two to three exercises per session, completing one to two sets of five to 10 repetitions with lighter weights. Gradually increase volume and weight as your tolerance and strength improves.

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Published on February 16, 2016 12:34

Photos: More Amazing Images from the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon

The U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon was held on Feb. 13 in Los Angeles. It was an amazing display of competitive racing, courage and perseverance as runners faced temperatures that reached the low-80s. Here are more images from the day of racing from photographer Matt Trappe.

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