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Video: Stretches for Your Upper Body = More Efficient Running!

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Everything is connected right? If that’s true, than do you ever think about how your upper body affects your legs when running? If not, then today’s video will shed new light on how everything is connected!

Our spine and rib cage are the anchor points for many of our core muscles. In order to utilize our core muscles properly, we need full motion of those anchor points. So…in order to fully engage our core muscles, we need enough mobility throughout our entire spine.

Also, think about it this way. As your legs swing back and forth in a reciprocal pattern, it creates rotation in your lower body. That rotation has to be counterbalanced, otherwise you’d lose your balance quick! So, your upper body has to counter-rotate. Because of this, if your upper body doesn’t rotate adequately, it’s going to restrict how freely your legs can swing back and forth.

On another note, if your core workouts don’t seem to be getting the results you want, consider whether mobility of your spine and rib cage is a factor. Again, all too often we try to isolate muscles when doing our ‘core’ workouts. But in order to get the full benefit, we need to make sure that we’re teaching the muscles how they’re supposed to fire and through all their ranges of motion.

At the risk of getting too geeky here…your core muscles will be inhibited by lack of proper motion in your spine and rib cage. No amount of crunches or planks will change this. As a supplement and primer for your workouts, think about doing these stretches first. Then you’ll get more bang for your buck!

We’ll cover this topic more in depth during the next facebook live session on wednesday. Please share this with a friend and give it a try every day for the next week and see how you feel!

Video: 5-10 Minute Upper Body Routine for Runners

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Strength is an important aspect of running, with most of the attention given to our core and legs. But let’s not neglect our upper body as well! While running, our upper body is critical for balance and efficiency. Without proper strength and motion, our core muscles will have a difficult time working properly, and our arms won’t be able to generate the leverage and recoil needed to help propel our feet forward. Unfortunately, the upper body work that most runners do is minimal and isolated to specific muscles. Rather, we should be working our arms in a way that integrates well with the rest of our bodies.

That’s the approach for today’s video. The format is rapid-fire exercises that will be challenging to keep up with, but will leave you feeling muscles that you didn’t know you had! These exercises are meant to be done anywhere at any time, perhaps you can challenge your teammates as part of your warm-up for a group run!

Be careful with these if you have any concern of shoulder pain or past injury, especially the very last one! Otherwise have fun and let me know these go!

Video: Upper Back Exercises

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Upper Back stiffness is very prevalent across our society. But what does that have to do with running? Simply put: a lot! In order to effectively engage our core muscles and counterbalance our hips and legs, we need our entire spine to move properly.

Today’s video features ways to get your Upper Back (aka thoracic spine) moving to allow for better posture with daily activity and especially running! Please share with a friend and leave a comment with suggestions for future videos and how these exercises work for you. Run fast friends!

Hip flexibility and core efficiency

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We all want a strong core right? We can all agree that having a strong core is necessary for running efficiently. So does this mean that simply strengthening our abs will accomplish a finely tuned core? Or is it possible that other factors are involved in affecting your core’s function while running?

This brings us to Jacob. He is a superstar high school runner looking to make his form better and eliminate shin pain. In watching him run, his calves and shins do not jump out as the area needing the most improvement. Let’s see what he looks like initially.

What stands out most is the forward lean and side to side swagger of his upper body. What this indicates is that he is not using his hips and hamstrings properly during the loading phase of running. This is causing his core to work differently to absorb and rebound that load. Essentially his core is not able to function properly, and no amount of crunches or planks can overcome this pattern. In order to correct this pattern, he needs to have improved hamstring flexibility and improved loading through his gluts. Only then, will his core muscles be able to fire properly and work as it should to make him a better runner.

So, here’s what we did about it. First, a simple dynamic hamstring stretch. This could easily be done on a stair or bench if one’s available. A key component to this also (which Jacob is demonstrating so nicely!) is to keep the low back straight instead of rounding, this helps ensure that the movement comes from the hamstrings instead of the low back.

Next, a hip strengthening exercise to develop stability in a lengthened range. This element is critical for teaching the gluts to be strong while they’re being loaded. This exercise looks a little goofy, but it’s intended to be a modified version of a deadlift with a twist.

Next we did a few simple drills for his running form. First, he ran holding bricks out in front of him. What this does is increase the forward load, which forces the hamstrings and gluts to kick in more quickly and brings his upper body into a more upright position.

Next, he ran with the same bricks with his hands overhead. This forces his gluts to load more quickly while running in order to keep his core in a neutral position, essentially decreasing the side to side movement of his upper body.

So after all this, here’s the new and improved Jacob!

Unfortunately the video cut out a little too quickly, but there are improvements with his upper body. The side to side swagger is decreased which indicates that he is using his hips more effectively. He is also leaning forward less which indicates that his hamstrings are doing a better job of controlling the loading phase.

Again, at first glance it would be easy to conclude that he needs to do more core work, but if he’s not using his hips appropriately, his core will always be off balance. With constant attention to gaining flexibility in his hips and teaching them how to work correctly, this will make life happier for his core and translate into more efficiency with running. Great job Jacob!

Core is a movement, not a place

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‘Core’ is such a buzzword in the health and fitness world. But what muscles comprise it and what does it actually mean? We can all think of ‘core’ exercises (e.g. planks, crunches, etc), and we’re core-rect about that (sorry, couldn’t help it!), but we’re selling ourselves short if we are satisfied that these will get us the results we want. Let me also be clear, if the results you want are simply to look good, then planks and crunches will go a long way, but if you want a functionally strong core, then we’ve got to dig deeper.

Since this is a running blog, we’ll keep it in the context of running. Someone please stop me if this gets too geeky.

Think of your core as the place where movement initiates from and pivots. This can vary slightly from person to person. As you lift your knee to take your first step, a series of muscles need to fire to make it happen, this should start around the lower abdominal region, then the hip flexors, quads, tibialis anterior, etc. From there, every time your foot hits the ground, there is a force that travels up your leg (think Newton’s law: for every force there’s an equal and opposite force), as a result of your body weight striking the ground. As that force travels up your leg, your leg muscles should contribute to the shock absorption (think bucket brigade). When that force hits your hip and lower torso area, it should be able to be quickly and readily absorbed, which loads those muscles and allows them to push-off for the next stride. At this point, your upper body should be helping to leverage your lower half in order to make it easy for the next push-off.

So essentially, the forces of your body should pivot around your belly button when you are running. Quite often, this is not the case. Quite often, due to weakness in our lower core, that force has to travel further up our torso before enough other muscles are involved to effectively put the brakes on and send the force back toward the ground. When this is the case, what it can often look like is excessive arm swing, straining of the neck and shoulders, forward trunk lean, or a head that moves too much. Here are a few examples.

What these all have in common, is that their arms and upper bodies are tattling on their cores. Essentially, they have to use their arms and upper bodies differently to help absorb and leverage the forces that should be taken care of in the lower core. This amounts to decreased efficiency and performance and higher susceptibility to pain.

So, let’s pick on traditional core exercises again for a moment. What’s typically lacking is the vertical component for how the muscles need to work. This often means that key muscles (gluts, pelvic floor) don’t get strengthened in a way that actually translates to the demands of running. Can’t you just hear your six-pack muscles saying ‘thank you! can I get some help from below?!’ Here’s an example of a progression that engages your core in a way that translates to running.

There are several ways to modify this also. By using a 5-10# weighted object, that will increase the load, and make you work much harder. By taking bigger strides and going deeper into the lunge, that will increase the workout also. This can also be done as a run form drill, by holding in your arms in any of the 6 positions, based on what tendency you may be trying to overcome. What you should be feeling is the your hips and lower core region is working much harder to keep stability, since you are effectively taking your upper body out of the equation, or biasing it toward a direction of weakness.

Hopefully that all makes sense. Perhaps a more lengthy video with verbal explanations and demonstrations would be helpful. Please let me know if you would like to see this explained in more detail. Let me know how this goes for you!