019 Running economy

So when we're talking about running performance or a cycling performance or any endurance uh sport And we have obviously uh the cardiovascular system, so we tend to talk about VO two max, we tend to talk about lactate threshold, and obviously the other component is then the economy of the movement. Now, most of the um kind of endurance sport is going to cover all three of those uh kind of components.

Um, but with strength training we can actually influence the economy of the movement. So we're going to talk about the economy of the movement from a strength training perspective today. Um that's really all I feel that I'm able to kind of comment on from a um point of view of an uh you know, the ex the expertise that I have.

Uh people keep asking me to comment on cardiovascular reductions and I keep telling them it's not gonna happen. I would need ten years to really get my uh kind of head around all of that the way that I've got it around strength training and I don't really have that urge to do that. So um basically we're just going to limit ourselves to that uh economy side of things. So basically in the literature there are a number of uh kind of investigations that have been made.

into how uh strength training can improve running economy, um, much less so on the cycling economy side, but uh there's a decent amount on the running economy side. Now basically I think there are two really solid candidate for how strength training can improve running economy. The first is

an improvement in what we call vertical stiffness. So essentially every time you're running along you have a vertical oscillation, uh movement up and down of the center of mass. And if you have higher vertical stiffness, that uh movement up and down of the centre of mass will be smaller. If you have lower vertical stiffness, obviously, then your uh kind of oscillation is much greater and you're actually using a lot more energy.

So if we have greater vertical stiffness or if we can maintain greater vertical stiffness throughout our running um kind of um uh sort of uh race or whatever we're doing, then we'll be able to achieve a superior running economy.

Now, broadly speaking, how do we increase uh our vertical stiffness? Well, um, it is pretty much what you would expect. It's eccentric strength. So essentially if you have higher eccentric strength, um capacity, especially in the uh kind of fibers that you'll be using in the running activity, then you're going to be able to display greater verticals.

Now I'm specifying greater uh eccentric strength with the fibers that you're using in the running activity because a lot of people when they uh kind of look at eccentric tr strength training, they'll realise that a big chunk of the eccentric strength gains in the context of uh of strength training programs come from increases in motivating accrument or coordination in the strength training activity. Obviously not relevant for what we're talking about.

Really what we're going to want is uh kind of actual muscle fiber related eccentric strength. Now of course that can come from um peripheral adaptions like you know kind of hypertrophy or lateral foretransmission, but you know, potentially you could also get it from titan as well. So um ultimately we're looking at a series of fibre related adaptions that are going to contribute to an increase in our eccentric force producing capacity.

So, um, in terms of what type of strength training will do that, well obviously uh any strength training that involves high activation or high ish activation, um in the eccentric phase. Um so heavy strength training is gonna be a lot better than sort of moderate or light load type strength training because you will get at least kind of fifty percent of activation in the eccentric phase, which is kind of what you are going to be using in the running gate cycle more or less.

So obviously, you know, theoretically you might get a little bit more benefit from eccentric training, but I suspect that the muscle damage is probably going to outweigh the uh benefits there.

So um the other variable or the other uh kind of uh way that we can contribute to an improvement in running economy is just by increasing the moment arm of the muscles involved in the running movement. So Generally speaking, hypertrophy will increase moment arms. Moment arms will give you a greater amount of joint torque for the same muscle force and therefore will enhance your ability to produce uh torque with lower levels of

um muscle activation, which is obviously going to be helpful to you'cause you'll use less metabolic activity for the same output. So obviously um hypertrophy is going to be an interesting um kind of uh way to produce an increase in running economy from that perspective. Now, obviously in terms of cycling economy, um only their moment arm is gonna really make a difference. The uh vertical stiffness effect is not uh kind of uh apparent.

So you're really really gonna have the um momentum of hypertrophy creating an i an impact. So heavy loading is gonna be more interesting from a running point of view, um, not really quite so relevant from a cycling economy point of view.

Now, just kind of ra wrapping this up, um, a couple of things to be aware of. There are a number of other um kind of potential ways in which economy of movement could be improved. Especially on the running side. People have talked a lot about the stiffness of the tendon. Obviously if the tendon uh changes its stiffness, that will change elastic energy storage.

Um but ultimately if you have a tendon which is um kind of more compliant, then it tends to alter vertical stiffness as well. So so you actually have an interaction effect between your vertical stiffness and your tendon stiffness. um obviously uh affecting the elastic energy storage. So at the moment it's really difficult to get at the true effect of elastic energy storage or, uh, you know, kind of uh

tendon behaviors and their contributions to uh running economy. So on balance I'd probably say it's not probably a big deal, or at least if it is, then it's kind of variable and and depends on the relationship with vertical stiffness. So uh very, very hard to pin that one down.

In terms of other stuff that um people talk about, there are certain um kind of adaptations. I just hinted at it when I was mentioning the eccentric uh strength stuff a moment ago. Sometimes you'll see people writing up uh kind of reviews and describing how running economy might work. or might be influenced by strength training and they'll refer to things like motivated recruitment changes.

Well, recruitment isn't really going to change anything um in a submaximal activity. So so yeah, sure, recruitment will help you increase maximum strength in a maximal effort, but recruitment it uh changes aren't gonna change um how you perform a submaximal activity. So yeah, maybe it would contribute in a um, you know, kind of uh sort of a a maximal sprint situation, although I'm not really sure even then I see how the logic works.

But it's it definitely not going to contribute in the submaximal activity. It just can't really do that logically. So I think really what we've got then is two really solid candidates for how strength training can improve running economy. uh uh you know and obviously that vertical stiffness changes and or increases and uh moment arm increases of the muscle. And then on the cyclic economy side, really just the one, which is the um muscle moment arm increase. So

That's the physiological introduction. Um I'm obviously now going to ask Rob how he is currently programming um strength training for anybody who is uh, you know, wanting to compete in uh endurance activities like running or cycling. Rob, let's start with the running one'cause obviously that's probably going to be the more interesting one for most people.

So programming for that, I mean I keep it super simple. Like you said, heavy strength training is gonna be the way to go. So heavy loads, you know, three to six ish, you know, kind of rep range there. low volumes. Um, definitely avoiding high volumes because if people are doing a lot of running, obviously you're gonna get toast. The post workout recovery is gonna be really bad. So usually two, three full body sessions a week.

Um, for the lower body. I think a lot of people tend to think you need like movements that look kind of like running ish, um split squats.

Hip thrusts, say it a million times. Short position, super recoverable. Um, hamstrings, a lot of leg curls, things like that. Generally going with leg curls a lot. Um, you know, just Super easy to recover from a line, leg curl, something like that. Uh I I tend to keep things very, very simple on the strength training end when people are running a ton. And then just some calf work. Um I would say the big note on calf work that I said to you before the podcast.

For some reason everyone comes in thinking they're gonna have to like train their soleus preferentially and train their their anterior tibialis with like a tip raise machine. Immediately off the bat, I'm like, we're not doing any of that. I'm just gonna have you do heavy, straight leg calf raises on a leg press, a hack squat.

standing calf machine, um, anything like that, and just getting, you know, full stretch through the bottom and then coming up about halfway. Uh, another thing with calves is everyone thinks they need some big squeeze and a pause at the top still. And if you want to get a lot of load in your calf raise, you'll notice really immediately, um, if you have someone pretty strong and they're doing like quite a few plates per side through that bottom range.

All of a sudden you make them do a full range, they go all the way towards the top, you know, like three, four plates shy per side. So you're not getting significant loading in in the calf and the Achilles and that um with those really contracted position focused calf raises, and certainly not on a bent knee seated calf raises. when the load is gonna be super limited and, you know, just not really very useful.

a really big difference between the amount of uh kind of weight that we can lift in that uh bottom position compared to the top position. Um definitely uh also why you know, we uh generally recommend that people are using exercises uh that train the bottom uh range of motion uh in bodybuilding context for the gastroc because ultimately it turns the exercise into more of a soleus exercise.

if you use the full range of motion. So uh it's it's it's really actually very interesting because there's a there's a kind of um There's kind of a uh a sort of a disagreement in the literature where there's some researchers who think that the uh the the moment arms go the opposite direction.

It's really strange because um you know everybody kinda knows that they can as you describe, you can use lo loads more weight, um you know, essentially if we are working in that bottom range of motion because the

You can also find people who are kind of saying, Oh no, we've we found the opposite result. We we think that, you know, maximum leverage is actually in the top position. I'm like, Well just find me somebody. Find me somebody in the gym who can do that. I'm like

uh leg curl, you had a lying leg curl in there. Um, you got your uh kind of stretch position, um, kind of uh straight leg calf raise, um What have I missed? Uh you had a I hope thrust in that.

keeping them long, I was gonna say another thing I I wanted to mention was that people always think that their strength training work to improve their long distance running should kind of feel similar to their distance running in terms of like short rest periods.

high reps, you know, getting their heart rate up, things like that. And sometimes it does take a good amount of convincing to get them on board with, hey, like, no, we're gonna do sets of five reps, we're gonna rest a few minutes between. You're only gonna do probably two work sets. And just, you know, breathe and relax between and the especially people that love cardio, they want to feel like they work hard and they wanna feel like they're doing something super significant.

So until they see a lot of times the benefits, which, you know, most times is like shaving a ton of time off their half time, off their marathon time, things like that, then they're really on board until then, you know, sometimes it takes them talking. and convincing before they're really in with it.

And I don't think many people in our community, in the strength training community, in the a kind of personal training and strength coaching kind of environment have a clear message that they can give to their clients and say, This is what the strength training is doing for you. This is why it works.

And I think it's really helpful to have that oh right, vertical stiffness. Basically we're reducing how much your um center of mass is moving up and down in every single gate cycle. That's that's what we do.

And by doing that, we're gonna make you more efficient and you're gonna waste less energy in every footfall and you're gonna be a faster runner. You're gonna be well, you'd be a more efficient runner and therefore you can run faster or you could just run longer. I mean, it's up to you. Um so Uh you're also gonna get um, you know, the moment arm increase, which is gonna mean you produce a higher joint torque for the same muscle force or

and the same joint torque for a lower muscle force. So you're using less muscle force, you're using less energy, you're again gonna be a more efficient runner. So really simple messages well ha I say really simple messages. Uh if you're familiar with this physiology that we talk about all the time, they are relatively simple messages. I mean, okay, fine.

if this is the first time you've come across uh me talking about this stuff, it's not gonna sound that simple. But um in the context of what we normally talk about, this is not, you know, kind of massively, massively complicated.

And hopefully there is a a route to communicating that and I think that is a good thing because it not only um sort of justifies or or kind of provides more uh kind of weight to the idea of using strength training in the first place, which is a good thing, but also it gives a very clear programming

kind of um structure. Like the way you've described, you're using those heavier loads. It's like, well, why are you using the heavier loads? Well, using the heavier loads, because it gives you the vertical stiffness improvement. If you don't, you won't get the same magnitude of vertical stiffness improvement. Um

you know, moderate bodybuilding style loads. I mean you wouldn't need to do the heavier stuff if you didn't feel comfortable with that. And I would probably uh focus mainly on the the quads and the glutes. I wouldn't, you know, necessarily do a you know, quite so much on the hamstrings or the calves or anything like that. Uh

Um and of course also you could do a little bit more and get away with it because honestly most of the time the cycling isn't going to cause very much muscle damage at all. So you You can kind of it's very much the easy version. I mean like programming strength training for cyclists is very much the easy version compared to programming strength training for runners. You know, that's that's um, you know, kind of uh the hard mode that you're playing on.

That's that's there's not really a lot more to say. I mean and in fact you've already covered some of the mistakes that you commonly see, which is the kind of the going down the light load, uh kind of high rep uh stuff. um or kind of, you know, using short rest periods or things like that. Um, you know, fundamentally that's probably the opposite to what we need for the vertical stiffness kind of um adaptation that we're looking for, improvement in vertical stiffness.

uh adaptation that we're looking for.

Much more closely tracked fiber size. Um there's a little bit of a kind of relationship there with fiber type as well, but very much it's a fiber size uh kind of thing. So you get an increase in muscle size and the capillarization uh increases to track that. You know, which from my perspective, thinking things through from a muscle physiology point of view makes a lot of sense.

You're basically just saying, you know, the fibre is uh demanding uh that kind of greater uh kind of th that that oxygen uh supply and and the capillarization adjusts to provide it. Um So ultimately I think uh fibre size is probably the bigger bigger factor. So polarization really probably isn't the local muscular endurance uh kind of driver.

that we see after strength training kind of programs. I think it's probably buffering capacity that's mainly doing that. Um so so y so then I think, you know, in terms of a um uh kind of an adaptions point of view from from from the the the endurance guys. Um try trying to drive capillarisation improvements by doing higher reps is just not probably happening. You're probably just getting buffering capacity, which I'm kind of skeptical about whether that would be helpful in most

Um but yeah, so the local muscular stuff probably isn't that helpful. What we're really trying to do is uh kind of target that vertical stiffness or that moment on length. And as I say, you know, heavier loads are gonna do that on the um kind of And vertical stiffness side and just anything that creates hypertrophy or do that on the uh on the c it's kinda crazy when you say it like that. It's like, okay, just train like a bodybuilder and it'll work.