Adding some running drills after your run once or twice a week might help with your form. It feels pretty dorky and you look kind of weird, but I think they help if you do them consistently. Pick a field or 50 ft stretch of sidewalk, track, etc so you can do these down and back. There's probably a website with these, but from memory they are: butt kicks exaggerated skipping (think about lifting your knees and jumping as high as you can while you skip) running while lifting your knees really high and quickly (think small, quick steps...this will be much slower than a normal run) running backwards bounding (an exaggerated run...focus is on pushing off and almost leaping forward) That's all I can remember right now. As far as your ankle rolling, there are a few things you can do to prevent it from happening. Because of the way we're built anatomically, when you land on your forefoot you're much more likely to go into inversion (or roll towards the outside of your foot) than when you land on other sections. You may/may not be a forefoot runner, but if you are try to shift it back so you're landing on your midfoot instead. Also, you can strengthen the muscles above and below your ankle. Get a TheraBand and do exercises while you watch TV (work dorsiflexion, plantarflexion, inversion and eversion...if you need more explanation with any of these you can PM me). Do heel lifts with both legs and unilaterally. Work on your hamstrings and glutes. And, if you're like the majority of runners work glute med like crazy. Many running "injuries" are caused by weak glute med. Strengthening those will provide more stability to your ankle and prevent additional spraining.
Instead of working sprints into your long-distance run, do them separately. I have weak ankles from rock climbing, and sprints have been helping them a lot. But, doing sprints in the middle of a run is not going to achieve the same effect. Do more stretching on a regular basis. Try to run on the balls of your feet, not your heels. If you're going as slow as you do, you're probably heel striking. There's more than enough info out there about this, so I'll let you find it yourself unless you have specific questions. You'll probably have to reduce distance at first while you adjust to this. Along those lines: Try reducing distance and running a bit faster. Try to run 1-2 miles at an 8 minute pace and see how you feel afterwards. Often, it's hard to maintain good form because you're running so slow. (My form gets better as I get faster, to the point that anything below an 8 minute mile is downright painful.) Try taking a break from running for a month or so, and replace it with swimming. This will help your joints and tendons recover a bit, it sounds like they are chronically overworked. Vibrams: I wasn't a fan of them, others love them. I can't recommend them though, I just didn't like them.
Make sure that you take care of yourself by doing a shit ton of stretching and foam rolling. Try to do it daily. I know that my joints have felt much better as I've upped the mileage because I upped the recovery work. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are trying to change running form, dramatically lower your mileage. You will have a much higher chance of injury occurring, since you will be working yourself in a way you aren't used to. It will be worth it to have better form in the long term, though. Replace some of the running with cross training such as swimming, biking, or anything else, just make sure not to overdo it. I'd also advise that if you are going to do form work, do it before a run. If you do it afterwards, your form may have already deteriorated due to fatigue.
This question is for anyone who does Mike's Beginner Workout Program (or something similar). Do you keep track of your workouts in an Excel form, and if so would you care to share them? I'm just interested to compare my own weekly progression with someone who is doing the same program. Thanks.
Check out In Strength, it's the forum that replaced the old Chasing Kaz forum on TMMB. Lots of people doing that program and posting it in the Workout Logs section.
I'm starting my new workout routine on Monday. I'm actually pretty pumped to start it, going to do 45 minutes lift, 45 minutes swim M-F. Here's my goals: I want to put on more mass/weight, but I also want to improve athletic performance, particularly quickness/jumping/explosiveness. Other than killing myself on squats, what would you all recommend?
Cleans and deadlifts work legs really well. If you're comfortable, Good Mornings are also really good for legs/back. Be careful with your form and don't try to lift too much weight, especially with the last two exercises. The exercises themselves force an increase in your desired traits because they work your hamstrings, glutes, calves, etc in ways that aren't seen in everyday activity, which in turn will increase their strength. I wouldn't worry about specialized plyometrics right away, build up your legs first.
I haven't done any real lifting in a long time, so I'm probably going to start off lifting 4 days a week on a M/T Th/F schedule. For now, I'm only going to do squats, bench and rows the first day, deads, pull-ups and military press the second day. I'm going to probably do the elliptical on Wednesday (I know a lot of people hate the elliptical, but it has been totally awesome for strengthening my knee and ankle post surgery), and swim all five days. After I get comfortable with those, I'll start adding/mixing things up.
The swimming will hinder this goal to an extent. Doing intensive cardio takes away from process for rest your body needs in order to build that mass/strength. Also be careful with swimming in general (unless you swam competitively at some point) it takes a lot more energy than you would expect. I do not know your history, but if you haven't been active in awhile, be careful of taking on too much too quickly, it makes it easier to burn out.
On the other hand, swimming is one of the few aerobic activities that also uses your upper body. I found it to be a great supplement when I was weightlifting for increasing shoulder/arm/chest strength, and managed to put on a lot of muscle during those periods. I usually did about 45 minutes before my usual weightlifting.
When I say I want to put on more mass, I mean going from my current 6'3" 187 to about 200-205. Think more muscular wide receiver, not linebacker. I know the swimming will make the gains slower, but it's a good cardio workout rather than having to try to run (we get snow 4 months a year) or parking my ass on a bike or treadmill. I swam competitively and played water polo, so I'm used to being in the water.
Do what Harry suggest and head on over to InStrength and do a whole lot of reading. This will help you immensely in the long run. Also in regards to your goals I would prescribe doing Starting Strength (google it) as a programme and doing an absolute MAXIMUM of two swimming sessions. From your weight and height I'm guessing you're relatively lean (10-12% BF) and you struggle to put weight on and swimming five times a week will hinder your progress. A fact that you'll also learn very quickly is that the most important thing when trying to achieve weight, strength and conditioning goals is diet. I can't stress this enough. Do some reasearch, but I'm again making an assumption here that you will need upwards of 3000 kcals a day to even get close to putting on muscle and mass.
Doing any conditioning at all during starting strength will bring down a mad.crazy voodoo hex from Rip. But I 100% agree with that suggestion.
Having not gotten to into hardcore lifting, I want to ask the difference between putting on muscle and mass? I usually hear mass in regards to putting on bulk, or bulking, terms Im not 100% on. Mass I guess is putting on weight ala muscle and fat before "cutting"? Then you throw in terms about strength and kcals and I am all confused.
Mass is just what is sounds like: Any kind of weight. Muscle is lean tissue. The problem with people saying that they're trying to clean bulk (only add muscle mass) is that for most people, and by most I mean 99.99999%, it is not going to happen. In order to gain weight of any kind, you have to be in a caloric surplus. Your body simply can not build muscle if your caloric intake is below your basal metabolic rate. For most people, they are going to gain some fat when they bulk. It may be a small amount or it may be a large amount, but they are going to add some fat. I'm not a physicist, but I think some guy named Newton wrote about it a few years ago.
My first workout is in the books. Only swam for about 15 minutes, I was beat from lifting. I was sore from the squats pretty much immediately. I googled 3000 calorie diets, and I've started that as of today, too.
First off, lemme say that you guys are so helpful that it never ceases to amaze me. Especially shimmered and Evolution, who have taken the time to answer endless PMs about all things workout related. I have a quick question about sequencing. I want to have a half hour/ 45 minute per day workout, every day. I'd like it to focus on HIIT, bodyweight exercises and light running. The reason I'd like it to be every day and short is because it would be easier for me to establish a pattern if I wasn't going and then stopping. Any ideas on how to structure it? I'm kind of in the weeds here. Off the top of my head I thought: Monday - Easy run Tuesday - Body weight exercises Wed - Easy run Thursday - HIIT (sprints) Friday - Run Keep in mind, every day I walk/hike about 5km with my dogs, so a true rest day probably isn't going to happen. Am I screwed up in how I'm planning this?
I didn't see much in your program about developing explosiveness. For that, you'd be well served doing athletic activities. Easiest thing to do is to do the activity you want to train for. If you're a soccer player, play soccer. If you're a basketball player, get in some pickup games. Beyond that, improving quickness and agility requires a lot of specialized work, which as a precursor means pretty specific analysis of what you want to improve. Do you want quicker hips, quicker 10 yd acceleration, etc. Depending on what those specific agility goals are, the things you can do to help yourself will vary to some degree.
I'd probably do something more like this: Monday - Easy run Tuesday - Bodyweight exercises Wednesday - Rest / cross training Thursday - HIIT Friday - Bodyweight exercises Saturday - Easy run Sunday - Rest / cross training Assuming you wanted to use your format. I'd change it up a bit if you wanted to get a longer run in, but it also depends on your schedule. It would also probably be more helpful to get in more bodyweight stuff, but once again, it all depends.
You should try to incorporate HIIT and bw exercises into the same workout. During the breaks between sprints, do your pushups, pullups, lunges and whatnot. I prefer to do this and it works well for me. I usually go to a nearby elementary school with a big open ball field and some great hills because I feel stupid doing pushups on the sidewalk with people passing by. That way, you can have one free day to just hike with your dogs and recover.