329: Bad Running Advice Part 1

Let's face it, running more doesn't always translate into running better. That's one of the big myths we're busting today as we expose the truth about effective training strategies for runners. From strength training to setting realistic goals, we're unpacking some bad running advice out there and understand what to do instead. You'll walk away with a fresh perspective on how to optimize your running performance.

We're talking goal-setting,  stretching, and the secret sauce to avoiding injury. Plus, we're diving into the world of 'food doping' and why fueling your body even on rest days is crucial for your running game.

Finally, we're taking a hard look at HIIT versus strength training, particularly for runners. While HIIT is often marketed as a fast track to fitness, we're challenging that notion. We're all about functional strength training, focusing on the quality of movement and building muscle power. So whether you're a seasoned marathon runner or you're lacing up your shoes for the first time, today's episode is a must-listen. As always, we want to hear from you, so don't hesitate to share your experiences, your triumphs, and even your fumbles. After all, we're all in this race together!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 329 bad running advice, part one. If you're looking for ways to bring more joy into your running and you want to be a physically and mentally stronger runner, you're in the right place.

Speaker 2: 0:20

This is the real life runners podcast, and we're your hosts, kevin and Angie Brown. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Now let's get running.

Speaker 1: 0:30

What's up runners, welcome to the podcast today. Today we are talking about bad running advice. Now, this was something that Kevin and I had some fun with trying to brainstorm like what are some bad Pieces of running device that we have heard throughout the years? So what we decided to do was just hit record and kind of go off on our our opinions, a Lot of them very scientifically based. So it's not just pure opinion. There's a lot of facts in here as well. But basically we want to start to break some of these pieces of bad running advice down, to kind of expose them, so that, if you believe any of these, hopefully we can expose them and Make you think twice about them and make you kind of reconsider your position on some of these.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Right, possibly come up with some some better running advice, some more productive running advice right because you guys know we don't like to say things are good or bad with absolutes around here and Obviously there's going to be nuance to anything and we're gonna get into the nuance of some of these things in the episode. But I would love to hear your advice. So if you guys aren't connected with us, I shouldn't say I would love to hear your advice. I'd love to hear your take on some of the pieces of advice that we are going to talk about today on the podcast. So if you're not connected with us yet, head over to real life runners on Instagram and send me a DM. I'd love to connect with you guys over there and say hi and thank you for listening to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Yeah, or reach out and share any of the bad advice you've gotten over the time that's. It's just fun to listen to some of these things. That that sounds so solid. Sometimes, and they're just not yeah, sometimes.

Speaker 1: 2:09

The other thing I wanted to mention also is I've just created a new strength training Resource for runners. It's the strength guide for runners. I had a strength guide Out in the past few years and I've updated it and have made it more robust with some more information in there for you guys. So if you want a copy of the strength guide for runners, head over to real life runners comm forward, slash Strength and you can get that new strength guide for free. So real life runners comm, port, slash strength, excellent, excellent.

Speaker 1: 2:41

So let's jump into some of these pieces of what we think are bad running advice so that we can expose the truth. Excellent, done, done. I feel like we need to play some like detective music or something.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Yeah, the da, da, da, that's a good one, done, done.

Speaker 1: 2:55

All right number one.

Speaker 2: 2:56

to become a better runner, you just need to run more.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:01

I mean, it sounds logical, makes sense if you just keep running, you're going to get better at running right.

Speaker 1: 3:05

So I mean this piece of advice makes a lot of sense, right? Like to get better at something, you just have to keep doing it more.

Speaker 2: 3:11

It's like the 10,000 hour principle if you just do a thing a lot, you're going to get better at it right, and while that sounds good in theory, it's incomplete.

Speaker 1: 3:20

So for a lot of us this is true in order to become a better runner, we could benefit by running more. Where it becomes a bad piece of advice is when you say to become a better runner, all you need to do is just run more. That takes away a lot of pieces that are necessary for you to become a better runner right and that's exactly the issue with this is you only need to run more?

Speaker 2: 3:47

Yeah, that that misses the boat, because most people can. In fact, as you just said, most people will improve Almost everybody would improve by adding a little bit of extra running to their week, as as long as the extra running doesn't break them down. And that's where just adding running could be an issue. If your time constrained and you're like, oh well, if I could just stick an extra 10 to 15 minutes of running every day, that's not necessarily going to be your best thing. Maybe you could find an extra 10 to 15 minutes on a couple days and maybe those 10 to 15 minutes could be used to do something more productive on other days.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Right, because, as a runner, you're an athlete and you need to train as an athlete. And athletes, when they train, don't just play their sport over and over and over again. Any athlete does other things to help make them into better athletes to a better swimmer, a better soccer player, a better basketball player, whatever it might be. If you look at Professional athletes or even amateur athletes, right? Well, let's, let's take the sport of basketball, since our youngest daughter is trying out for basketball right now. Yes, she needs to practice her skills in basketball, but she would also benefit from Running, because running is going to help improve her endurance. She would also benefit from strength training, because that will make her stronger and more powerful and able to run faster and jump higher.

Speaker 2: 5:10

And get the ball all the way to the basket.

Speaker 1: 5:12

That would be helpful, right? So there's other skills that are Necessary, but will both skills and then a foundation for which to live, to put the skills on top of yeah, it's that foundational block that sometimes people are missing when they just run more.

Speaker 2: 5:28

So many people think of base training as Running as much as I possibly can, and as much as you possibly can when it's purely running, is Probably less than you think it is. If you're not supplementing this, especially with appropriate strength training, there's gonna be a limit to how much running you can just add on right and that limits different for everyone.

Speaker 1: 5:48

You know, kevin, when you were in your 20s and you were running in college and you are running a lot more miles per week than you are now. I mean, granted, back then you also did have a lot of knee problems and other issues, yes, but you were doing strength training According to whatever your coach or trainer or whoever gave you right.

Speaker 2: 6:10

Yeah, we're strengthening twice a week.

Speaker 1: 6:11

But was it different than what you're doing now and like? Was it different like your level of focus and commitment to that strength training?

Speaker 2: 6:18

Yes and yes it was definitely different. The whole environment was different because it was. It was strength training with the varsity team, and so we happened to share the weight room with I forget if it was lacrosse or hockey, but it was somebody that was you said hockey in the past.

Speaker 2: 6:33

It was somebody who was very intense and so like. Like the trainers would get up in there and be like screaming at them in their Faces. They were trying to like, squat huge amounts of weight and our strength program was not as intense it was. You know, it was a strength program from the early 2000s. So, it was a lot of low-weight, high-rep kind of stuff and strength training has four runners.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Has evolved since then thank goodness.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Yeah, but it's. You needed that foundation right, and that's a foundation that you were lacking and that led to injury for you. And that's what happens to a lot of runners. A lot of runners try to Increase their mileage without first building the proper foundation. And that foundation that base that we often talk about it that includes mileage, it includes mobility, it includes strength training, it includes rest and recovery and nutrition and all these things to make your body stronger so that it can withstand Increased mileage when you do want to start running more.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Yeah, I kind of lucked into strength training during my summer training both in in high school and in college, because I liked Going to the gym with my dad like that was just a thing that we could do. We could go to the gym and I would, I would lift weights and I kind of had sort of a a broad routine. Did I need all of it? Nope, but I just. I had a wide-ranging List of strength exercises that I did, as he did other things around the gym also, and it was just something that we did together. So that was really nice. So I didn't necessarily have the perfect strength training routine, but I had one because I had a reason to go to the gym.

Speaker 1: 8:02

So it's better than nothing. Yes, but maybe not ideal.

Speaker 2: 8:05

I was probably overkill on certain things that were not giving me any benefit for running.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Right, but I think that we can agree that, to become a better runner, running more often will benefit you, but it's not the only thing that you need to be doing. We here at real life runners think that there are four core pillars that you need to focus on. You need to, obviously, focus on your running. You need to focus on strength and mobility. You need to focus on your mindset and the way that you're thinking about yourself. You're running all of it and then you have to focus on your Recovery and your nutrition and all of those pieces when, when you put them together, will help to make you into a stronger runner and to become a better runner the runner that you actually want to be.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Yeah, and I mean that's, that's the complete picture.

Speaker 1: 8:46

The better runner is really the most complete runner that you can possibly be, I think right and also to help decrease your risk of running injuries and allow you to actually go out and run more in the way that you want to what to decrease your Chance of injuries is ultimately going to increase your consistency, not from day to day, but literally consistency from year over year.

Speaker 2: 9:06

And that's where you start seeing those massive improvements. To be the best runner you can. It's not like, oh, I've been consistent for the last three weeks. It's like, well, I've been consistent for the last three years, and now you're starting to see that like hockey stick growth of like, wow, I've really come a long way, not over the last 90 days, but over the last year upon year upon year. Look at the progress that I've been able to make.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Yeah, and if you think that all you need to do is keep running more this, I like to think of this as Learning the guitar like equivalent not equivalent, but similar to learning the guitar. Okay because there's a lot of people that think you brought up the 10,000 hour rule.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Yeah and so it's this idea of if I want to get better at something, I just have to keep doing it over and over and over again, but that fails to recognize the quality of the work that you're putting in.

Speaker 1: 9:56

And so if you want to learn the guitar, yes, you absolutely need to practice, but if you're practicing the wrong things, it's never going to sound right.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Like when I was learning the guitar a couple of years ago, I was learning how to play the very basic chords and I, when I first picked up the guitar, I literally could not even make my fingers make the correct shape to hold the strings down on the neck of the guitar. Like they, my fingers would not go into that position, and so I had to do a lot of practice and, like you know, move my fingers and really like practice getting them in the right place. And so my point here is that if for me to play, let's just say, a C chord, if I had my fingers on the wrong strings, it's not going to sound like a C chord, no matter how often I practice it, because I would be practicing the wrong thing. So I could go over there and I could put my fingers on a couple strings and strum, as you know, for 10,000 hours. It still wouldn't sound like a C chord, unless my fingers were on the right strings.

Speaker 2: 10:58

Well, I mean, that's the cliche of practice makes perfect. No, no, it doesn't perfect. Practice makes perfect, but it's hard to practice perfection. But what you do need to do is to have concerted effort that you are trying to continue to improve. Doing the same thing and more of it is not necessarily going to improve you. You want to, like, do something and look back and see how did that go? Can I improve from what I just did? So your fingers kept gradually sliding into better places as you were gripping the neck of the guitar and your strumming improved and playing guitar, and now the strength in my fingers improved too.

Speaker 1: 11:32

So it wasn't just my skills that improved, it was also the strength and the mobility in my fingers in order to actually be able to make that shape. And there's still some chords there. Well, there's so plenty of chords that I can't play like I know some, but there's plenty of chords that I can't play right now because my fingers won't hold the strings down in the right way to actually make the guitar sound like that chord.

Speaker 2: 11:58

Right, but this is the opposite of the original statement. You also haven't played the guitar in a little while. So well, becoming a better runner, you just need to run more is not exactly true. If you want to become a better runner, running must be involved. If you want to become better at playing guitar, you are going to have to regularly pick up the guitar and strum. If you want to get better at running, you are going to have to run. You can't just do all the other periphery things.

Speaker 1: 12:24

Right, and if you want to progress as a runner and progress as a guitar player, then you have to basically master or get very good at some of those basic skills before you continue to add on, add on, add on.

Speaker 2: 12:38

Yes.

Speaker 1: 12:39

I think that's. Another important piece is you know, I've gotten very good at playing a lot of basic chords, so I'm pretty happy with my guitar skills because I can play some songs, and that's really what my goal was. My goal is not to become the next guitarist in U2. I mean, I would like to play with you with a Bono, but like, let's get real. So that's not the goal of my guitar playing. So my practice reflects that, because that's not my goal. But we're getting off on a little bit of a tangent here. Let's go on to the bad running advice.

Speaker 2: 13:13

Number two you need to stretch more to prevent injury.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Oh goodness.

Speaker 2: 13:19

Doctor, take it away.

Speaker 1: 13:20

Stretching does not prevent injury.

Speaker 2: 13:22

All right, number three yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:24

Exactly Because if you think that you need to stretch more to prevent injury or to treat injury, that leads to a lot of wasted time because stretching does not prevent injury.

Speaker 1: 13:36

There's lots of evidence to this, especially if we're talking about static stretching, which is what most people refer to when they talk about stretching. So there's two different types of stretching there's static stretching and there's dynamic stretching Basically means putting yourself into a position where you feel a pull or you feel a stretch on whatever muscle it is that you're stretching and essentially just hold it for 30 seconds to a minute. That is what's typically thought of when we think of static stretching. Dynamic stretching is basically moving into the area of resistance in the muscle, so stretching into a muscle until you start to feel a pull and then holding it maybe 5 to 10 seconds and then coming out of it and then doing it again. So dynamic stretching is more movement-based, where you move into the stretch and then move out of it. Move into it and then move out of it, whereas static stretching is just moving into the stretch and holding it for an extended period of time and then moving out of it.

Speaker 2: 14:38

Yeah, I think I did the worst combination of both of them back on my grade school football team because we would just move into it. We would just move into a stretch and then count to 10 as a big group and then we'd move to the next one. So it was a short enough time that it was essentially static, stretching, dynamic, dynamic. But we didn't like move into it and then out and then back into it. It was like, all right, bend over and try and get near touching your toes, count to 10 and now move on to the next stretch.

Speaker 1: 15:01

Yeah, and so stretching, when people talk about stretching and improving flexibility, what you're trying to do is lengthen the muscle. People think that like, oh, it's just tight and so I'm just trying to loosen up some tightness. But when you're actually stretching a muscle, what you're doing is trying to lengthen that muscle. And in order to lengthen the muscle, you actually have to tear the muscle. And they're micro tears. They're not huge, massive tears in the muscle. That's obviously not the goal. But when you're stretching a muscle in order to make it longer, you're essentially ripping little pieces of it so that it's not as tight as you can, that it's not as tight as it was before. I think about a rubber band. If you want to stretch a rubber band, if you just kind of stretch it and then let it go back and stretch it and let it go back, it's going to stay about the same. Yep, right, but it's going to feel a little bit looser, like if you've ever gotten like a brand new rubber band, like if you, they're pretty tight.

Speaker 1: 15:59

they're pretty tight, but if you stretch it a couple of times then it feels looser and more pliable.

Speaker 2: 16:03

And, if you like, leave it extendedly stretched out for a long period of time. It doesn't really spring back.

Speaker 1: 16:09

But if you leave it like, if you extend it and do like a static stretch on a rubber band, part of what you're doing is you're breaking down some of the fibers in there, so you're changing the elasticity of the rubber band and if we're trying to do that to our muscles, we're creating these micro tears in our muscles in order to actually lengthen the muscles. And so most people they think that they're doing that during static stretching. But there was a study done I forget what year it was done, I'll have to look that up but basically it showed that for you to actually create a change in the length of your muscle, actually increase the length of your muscle and increase your flexibility, you have to hold a stretch for three to five minutes at a time. You have to perform stretching five days per week and you have to do that consistently for 10 to 12 weeks before you see an actual change in the length of the muscle.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Which is not really what most people are doing, Although the idea of you need to stretch more that protocol certainly would be more like a single stretch of you know, I'd like to lengthen my hamstring. Okay, bend over and touch your toes and now hold that for five minutes every day, almost every day, for the next three months.

Speaker 1: 17:24

But also think about this, though we're talking about you need to stretch more to prevent injury, but what you're actually doing is creating micro tears in the muscles to try to lengthen them and thinking that that's preventing injury, when in fact it's not so. Most people especially when it comes to running, most people actually have enough flexibility to go out and run. Most people are not limited. Running is not a sport that requires a huge range of motion.

Speaker 2: 17:54

It's really not.

Speaker 1: 17:54

Right. So most people have enough range of motion in their legs already for them to just go out and run and not have a problem. What most people need to work on is mobility, the smoothness of the motion, and that there's different things that contribute to that. There's the mobility of your joints and then there's the mobility of your soft tissues, which are your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments, all those kinds of things, and so both of those things and the way that they move and the quality of the movement, that contributes a lot to injury and to your risk of injury. So by increasing and improving your mobility, the way that your body moves, the quality of your movement, that is a very good thing to help prevent injury. And so the actual flexibility and actually trying to statically stretch and increasing the length of your muscles does not show, according to the research, does not show that it has a preventative effect on injury.

Speaker 2: 18:51

All right, I got a question for you on the stretching here. Okay, we've pretty much covered. I think that it does not connect to preventing injury. Does stretching more if you lengthen the muscle beyond what it needs to be? Because we've covered that most people are flexible enough and stretching the muscle out to me that's going to lose some of the springiness and power that you can get off your muscle.

Speaker 1: 19:12

Right.

Speaker 2: 19:13

So when you land your muscles kind of like, they're essentially like a spring, especially like the Achilles is a big one that compresses and then springs back and helps propel you to move forward down the road. If you start stretching all your muscles out, they're going to be less able to propel less spring like.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Right. And so, yes, stretching like over stretching.

Speaker 2: 19:33

Over stretching.

Speaker 1: 19:34

And then you can have a negative effect on performance, especially if it's done before whatever activity you're doing. So this is like. The other thing about stretching is people often ask should I stretch before or after? Oftentimes, when people are talking about stretching to prevent injury, they're talking about stretching before they go out and do something. And so if you're going out and stretching before injury and actually creating micro tears in your muscles, that's going to impair your body's ability to perform whatever activity you're going out to do so, in our case, running. However, with that being said, dynamic stretching going out and warming up your muscles and dynamically stretching them kind of into a little bit of resistance and then out of that that's a very good thing and that can be very helpful for you.

Speaker 2: 20:22

That's a great part of a warmup is a dynamic stretch. Everything just feels better. It feels like things are moving better because the muscles have been warmed up. Essentially Like if you take a rubber band to go back to, the rubber band move. If you stretch it and compress and stretch and compress, the rubber band itself starts feeling warmed. Does the same thing literally kind of happen with your muscles here? Essentially, as you're moving the muscle, in that you just warm the area up and then it's able to just move smoother. So as you take off running, everything just looks smoother and that's less injury prone.

Speaker 1: 20:51

I mean think about when you just rub your hands together. They get warm, right, the friction creates the warmth. And like think about molasses right If it's cold versus if it's warm.

Speaker 2: 21:00

Flashbacks to my eighth grade. So much eighth grade references here with my football coach and my eighth grade teacher. She loved the line you're moving slower than molasses. In January that was like her go to cliche.

Speaker 1: 21:10

Was she a nun?

Speaker 2: 21:11

No, she kind of could have been, but she was not.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Okay, let's move on to number three. Okay, so number three push harder if you want to get faster.

Speaker 2: 21:20

Yeah, that also seems right. I mean I ran that way for years right up until I was broken, and then I ran that way again until I was broken, and then would run that way again until I was broken. I think I found the pattern. So third time is a charm At least I'm not sure how many times I went through the cycle, but it was always push harder, like so many times it was like, well, if you want to get faster, you have to run faster.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Makes sense, it's very logical. Again makes sense. Like a lot of these things, when you say them out loud, they make sense.

Speaker 2: 21:52

And my high school had coach had a great line and he's a very good coach. He had a line that said you can't race faster than you train in practice. So when we would do workouts on the track, I would just, I would go as hard as I could to make sure that I would. I was able to race quickly because I had to be faster on the track than I was going to be. You know when I actually ran in a race. But the flip side of that is sure, some of it needs to be faster. But he, after that day, on the next day and the next day when we were recovering, every single time before I headed out, brown, take it easy. Take it nice and easy. It's an easy pace. Today, when we hit the track it needed to be fast enough, but on easy days it needed to be easy enough. So there's a balance.

Speaker 1: 22:37

And you didn't do that.

Speaker 2: 22:38

I did not do that. I took great pride.

Speaker 1: 22:40

Because you knew better.

Speaker 2: 22:41

Obviously I knew better than the like multiple California state coach of the year I was 15. So clearly I had the answer. But there is something to be said that pushing harder gets you faster, but only if you balance it with appropriate recovery. I took great pride at the age of 15 and 16 in winning the recovery runs.

Speaker 1: 23:01

Well, and that's what a lot of people think is oh well, you know, normal people need the recovery need the easy run right, but I don't need that. And if I can shortcut my recovery, that's how I'm going to beat the other people out Right, like oh, they will be taking those easy days, but on the easy days I'll be pushing harder, so I'll be getting ahead much faster than they will.

Speaker 2: 23:27

That was exactly what I thought I was like okay. So the hard days is when I actually improve and so, while they're pulling back and recovering, I'm going to stack another brick. But that's not how it works. The hard days sort of creates a brick, but it's all crumbled up and it's not creating a stack. It's there, you now have the material, but it's the recovery days that allows you to actually take that work that created the brick and stack it and start building the wall. So I just ended up with this messed up, broken pile of bricks and no wall at all.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Yeah. So the piece of advice push harder if you want to get faster is true, but not on every run.

Speaker 2: 24:06

That's the caveat. Twice a week.

Speaker 1: 24:07

Twice a week Once. One to two times a week, depending on who you are, what you're training for, what your training load is, depending on a lot of different factors, but it's one to two times a week. Yes, you do need to push hard if you want to get faster, but most of your runs still need to be at an easy effort level so that you are not overdoing it and just breaking your body down day after day after day.

Speaker 2: 24:31

Yeah, so you're not overdoing it when you actually improve in fitness and it turns out recovering. Just one out of six days was not not sufficient for me.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Not so much, all right, no, you should eat less on the days that you don't run. This also sounds super logical, yeah because a lot of people get into running trying to burn calories or trying to lose weight.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Yeah, and so you know this kind of goes back to the whole myth of calories in, calories out. Some of these bad pieces of advice are connected to myths that don't make any sense either, that sound logical but are wrong, and this one's connected to calories in, calories out. So if I'm not burning that many calories today because I didn't go for a run, then clearly I don't need to put as much food into my body.

Speaker 1: 25:16

Right.

Speaker 2: 25:16

Logic.

Speaker 1: 25:18

It can be logical, it makes sense, right Of like. Okay, today I am going to consume 1500 calories, 2000 calories, but then I ran and so I burned 500. So now I can eat 2500 calories, but on the other day that I don't run, that's, I should consume 500 less calories because I didn't then burn that off. And if I don't, if I consume the same amount, then I'm just going to gain weight.

Speaker 2: 25:44

Yes, yeah, I mean that's the reason behind it. The issue is your base level is not. Your body doesn't go up and down in how it burns calories from one day to the next, drastically based off of your exercise input, you essentially have how many calories you burn and your body adjusts other functions. If you burn a whole bunch of calories through exercise, it just reduces its calorie burn in other areas. So you kind of have a level that you burn at and do you burn maybe a little bit higher on days that you run, Maybe. But sometimes you burn a little bit higher on the next day because you're doing the recovery and your body's trying to like build muscle and recover from all the stuff that you put it through the day before. So you might actually need more food on recovery day than the day before where you were just like really pushing it and working out hard.

Speaker 1: 26:40

Absolutely, and this is what often happens here. That we see is that people that restrict calories on the days that they don't work out often end up having low energy both on that day and then on the days when they get back into their workout. So the next day or the day after that, because you're restricting and food is fuel and, as a runner, you are an athlete and you need to fuel your body for the activities and for the goals that you have, without thinking okay, well, that's 200 calories and this is 100 calories, and so everything needs to work out like a perfect math equation on every single day. Otherwise, I'm gonna gain weight or otherwise I won't lose weight, and we're gonna get into weight loss either in this episode or in part two, because this is just part one.

Speaker 1: 27:27

We came up with so many pieces of bad running advice that we wanna break down for you guys that this is gonna be a multi-part series, but what we want you to understand is you don't need to eat less on the days that you don't work out. In fact, you might need to eat more on those days because, like Kevin just said, your body is recovering and repairing itself from those harder workouts. So, yes, it's very important after your workout to refuel and to get calories into your body as soon as possible so that your body can start the repair process. And it's also important for you to continue fueling your body throughout the rest of that day and even into the next day, so that your body can build back stronger than it was before, so that you can actually gain the benefits of those hard workouts that you're putting your body through.

Speaker 2: 28:16

Yeah, a personal story on this one. Sometimes on Sundays, when I go like extra long, like extra extra long, it's hard Like I am burning more calories on those days. Like I said before, your exercise amount does not drastically affect how many calories you burn over the day, but sometimes, if you do have so much extra exercise, you do end up burning more calories on those days, on the days that you run 40 miles, yes, there's going to be some extra calorie burn on that and it's difficult to take in enough calories on the rest of Sunday to make up for it.

Speaker 2: 28:50

But I usually like I'm tired but I feel okay on Sunday. It's when I go to Monday and I don't continue this like crazy overfueling, when I'm like, oh, it's back to my general normal eating habit on Monday. It's not that I under-fuel, it's not that I like drastically cut calories, it's that I'm not just still trying to eat everything that's not nailed down, that I end up by the time it's dinner. I've got a headache. I feel terrible and it's not from the workout that I did on Monday, usually after a 40-miler, after something really long on Sunday.

Speaker 2: 29:21

I take Monday off and I just haven't eaten enough because now I'm at school all day and I'm working and there's not as much time to just be constantly snacking. And if I can figure out how to snack all day long, then I feel fine by dinner. Then I feel fine and my body was actually able to benefit and gain all the recovery and the growth that it needed to on that Monday. Or I feel terrible by dinner and I think to myself not only do I feel terrible, my stomach's upset and I have a headache, but I probably did not gain anywhere near as many of the benefits as I could have from what I just did to myself on Sunday.

Speaker 1: 29:54

Right and this is one of the things that they're starting to talk a lot more about in the research is this idea of fueling and fueling more than you think you need to.

Speaker 2: 30:03

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:04

So do you wanna talk a little bit about this idea? I mean food doping.

Speaker 2: 30:07

Food doping is this whole idea? And it's generally coming from cycling, because a lot of exercise research comes from the word of cycling. Especially all the big tourists, tour de France and there's a few other big ones that come around and it's not just the leaders but there's so many cyclists in that and they're testing everything in these athletes. They're fueling hundreds of calories per hour. And runners if they can figure out how to also take all this in, because running has a lot more jostling so it's tougher on your stomach to try to digest, because there is the actual impact of running. But cyclists and cross-country skiers and all these other sports where you're out there and pushing yourself very difficult, they're able to take in huge amounts of calories and are performing better than ever. So sometimes, like within these, these athlete groups, they've stopped counting calories and they're counting grams of carbs and it's like can I take in at least? They're aiming for 90 to 120 grams of carbohydrates per hour.

Speaker 1: 31:09

Which is way more than the old recommendation which used to be like 30 to 40 30 to 60. Yeah yeah, and now it's more like 60 to 90, and now you're saying even up to 120.

Speaker 2: 31:18

The cyclists are pushing that and and trying to hit triple digits as long as they can handle it, which is it has to be a gradual process.

Speaker 1: 31:24

Well, yes, and this is one of those things that you have to train as well, like, just like you have to train Yourself running and strength training, you have to train yourself to fuel and you have to allow your stomach to get used to Taking in more fuel during your run. This is part of practice and part of training, but what they are finding is that people that are fueling more during their runs, especially longer runs like the marathon and ultra marathons they're performing way better than they ever have before because they actually have fuel in their body.

Speaker 2: 31:54

So they're not hitting the wall, they're not bonking the way that they used to, because they're actually fueling themselves better but it's a crazy mind switch because People are literally doubling the calories that they have taken in during the same length of a training ride. And you have to get there and you have to accept that the first time that you take in that much food it might not feel good, kind of like the first time that you go on like certain speed workouts it doesn't feel good. Training when you're pushing yourself is difficult and pushing the amount of of Carbs and calories that you're taking in during a train or a race is Is a new challenge, so it's not always going to feel great.

Speaker 1: 32:31

I'm very curious if they have any information yet I'm gonna have to look this up after the episode but if they have any information about people that are doing this. Obviously, a lot of this research is done on elite level athletes. But the people that are Overfueling themselves I don't want to say over, but you know, increasing their fuel intake significantly Are they noticing any sort of weight gain or Body composition differences that you know of?

Speaker 2: 32:58

not that I know of, but most of the stays are happening on elite cyclists, and so the thing with elite cyclists is, the more they weigh, the more they have to drag up the mountain.

Speaker 1: 33:07

So I can't imagine that they're getting a whole lot of of Overweight, of increase in weight, certainly by anything Significant part of what I'm thinking right now is if you are actually going into a run Better fueled and are fueling your body better throughout the course of the run and you're not depleting yourself as much, then that's going to lead to less binging afterwards, like a lot of runners, especially Marathon runners, that they end up gaining weight during the course of their marathon training and they a lot of them Think that this is a very unpleasant side effect of marathon training, but it happens because they're typically underfueling themselves and so they end up binging later. And the other thing is, your body is wanting to hold on to more Storage in the form of glycogen. Glycogen also makes you hold on to more water, which one can argue and we've argued before on the podcast and in other things that that's a good thing for us as runners, because we want to have more fuel storage. We want to have more water storage. That's going to actually help us to run better.

Speaker 1: 34:14

But I'm just wondering if you, if your body knows that it's going to get more Fuel, then I'm thinking it might not have to store as much because our bodies are so, so smart, so they know that if I'm being deprived and if I feel like I don't have enough fuel, then I need to store some more on me for next time. So that way, if I ever am presented with this challenge again, I know that I'm gonna not be starving. I know that I'm gonna have enough fuel in the tank and in the reserves, that I'm still gonna feel okay. But if we are actually giving ourselves the fuel that we need, I'm thinking that our body is not gonna need to store as much. So I'm wondering if that would actually lead to less Chances of gaining weight by eating more during the training process.

Speaker 2: 35:01

I mean, I think, generally during the training process. If you fuel enough during your run and I would argue that most people do not fuel enough during their training run, like actually during the run itself If you fueled more during that, you're gonna be less prone to start binging on things three hours later.

Speaker 1: 35:18

Yeah like you just are because you have an absolutely less likely to gain weight right, because I think it's a lot of.

Speaker 2: 35:23

It's not the During the run, it's the a few hours later and that evening, when you're still hungry because you haven't fueled all day long, that you start making Not as wise choices about what goes into your mouth. Yeah, so that's probably an aspect of it, but I don't know if it's that your body's gonna be hanging on to less. I think that is. I have not heard that Fueling well during your training run suddenly means that you don't need to car blow and that's all about holding on to as many car, as much glycogen as possible, right as you build up into the race itself.

Speaker 1: 35:53

Well, but that's a very temporary thing right before the race true. I'm talking about people that gain like 10 pounds over the course of a couple of months.

Speaker 1: 36:00

Yeah you know that's. That's what I'm thinking more of, and again, these are just my musings and theory. None of that that I just was talking about is Is shown in the research that I know of. So I'm gonna do some digging and some researching here on my own to see if I can Find any information on that, but I'm thinking that it might not Be covered yet in the research because this is kind of an emerging area of research as it is.

Speaker 2: 36:24

I know, but it's a fantastic area of research. Is everybody trying to figure out, like, how much Food, how much food do we actually need, how much fuel, and then realizing that all your body systems are connected with each other. So if you under fuel, it screws up all of your hormones and then your hormones control everything in your body. So you've got this low energy availability and you know all of your body systems just aren't working correctly. Just the whole idea of eating less on days you don't run which is where we started here is silly. You need to eat enough at all times, always be eating enough, and air on the side of possibly. I wanna make sure that I've got enough, because your body is going to burn off what it doesn't need.

Speaker 1: 37:03

All right. So, moving on from food, the next topic that I want to address is strength training, specifically the advice surrounding runners, or the most effective way for runners to strength train is HIIT high intensity interval training. I always said HIIT training, but then you're just saying high intensity interval training, training.

Speaker 2: 37:26

Like putting your pin number into the ATM machine.

Speaker 1: 37:28

Yes, exactly so. But HIIT stands for high intensity interval training and HIIT was all the rage maybe five to 10 years ago. I feel like it's still popular, but it's not as popular as it was like, say, five to eight years ago.

Speaker 2: 37:45

Yeah, I was gonna say like that eightish, what was there? Was a specific Tabata, was that a thing? Yes, where there was like a specific 40 second intervals or 20 second intervals, I forget. There was like a protocol within it. Yes, you could do this amazing workout in four minutes. Yeah, it'd be the greatest shape of your life.

Speaker 1: 38:01

It's a four minute workout. Yeah, it was 20 tens it's going all out for 20 seconds with a 10 second rest. I believe was the classic Tabata.

Speaker 2: 38:11

I tried it one time. It just seems silly.

Speaker 1: 38:13

Well, it's not silly and it's used for good reasons. It's just not the most effective ways for runners to strength train, because part of the idea behind HIIT is that HIIT is this shortcut to fitness. You can get a super effective workout in in just 10 to 15 minutes a day. That's all you need to do and you'll be burning calories and you'll be in better shape than you ever have been before.

Speaker 2: 38:40

I mean that's one of the big selling points. Is the afterburn of HIIT right? Is you only work out for 15 minutes and then you burn calories for the next 12 hours? Which does that actually work? Is that? Is there anything to that?

Speaker 1: 38:53

So there is like there is science behind HIIT.

Speaker 2: 38:56

Right, like it didn't just come out of nowhere and people were just like, yeah, let's all get on board. Like there was some research here.

Speaker 1: 39:01

Yeah, definitely, and it is beneficial for some groups of people. I just don't think it's the best way for runners to do their strength training. Because HIIT there is part of what makes HIIT so effective and so quote unquote efficient is that it's combining strength training and cardio into one workout. So you're getting the benefits of doing strength exercises, but you're also getting your heart rate up really high so that you're creating an oxygen debt and you're trying to actually improve both your cardio and your strength at the same time.

Speaker 2: 39:38

Right, you're trying to do a two for one. That's why it seems like it's a shortcut, because you're training both systems.

Speaker 1: 39:43

Right, exactly, but we, as runners, get plenty of cardio from running. We don't need to also work on our cardio fitness during our strength sessions.

Speaker 2: 39:55

That's a very good point. I get plenty of cardio. Exactly, strength is strength. I don't need to put cardio into the thing.

Speaker 1: 40:02

And that's the thing is when you're trying to do both things simultaneously, you end up doing both things not as effectively.

Speaker 2: 40:11

But I'm phenomenal at multitasking.

Speaker 1: 40:13

Right, and this is like the same jack of all trades but a master of none right? Yes, you're doing both things in the same workout, so it is more efficient technically, but is it effective? Is it as effective as you going out and actually spending a dedicated time running and a dedicated time working on your strength training?

Speaker 2: 40:35

Okay, so here's the thing. The way that we've got this written down is HIIT is a shortcut to fitness. For runners Ah for runners. If we cut off that last part, is it pretty solid advice? If you say, all right, let's ignore the fact that our entire podcast audience is runners, and you just say HIIT is a shortcut to fitness, can you get general fitness like couch two? I'm going to be fitter than I currently am based off of HIIT training.

Speaker 1: 41:02

Yeah, you can become more fit by walking too.

Speaker 2: 41:05

Fair enough.

Speaker 1: 41:06

Right, like. Think about this. Like yes, you can get in better shape by doing HIIT training. Yes, you can also get in shape by walking more.

Speaker 2: 41:15

You could also get in shape by just doing strength training, like you could get in shape with all the different things.

Speaker 1: 41:20

It depends on how you define fitness. It depends on what your goal is here.

Speaker 2: 41:23

And that's where the whole idea that hits the shortcut to fitness for runners is. It's probably not the best, most efficient use of your time to strength train and improve your running fitness on a cardio side.

Speaker 1: 41:35

Well, here's the thing Strength training for runners needs to be functional, in my opinion. I think that it is very important for us to lift heavy because we want to actually build muscle size, we want to build lean muscle mass, we want to build power, we want to build all of those things. So it's important for us to lift heavy. And in order to lift heavy, if you're trying to do a high intensity interval training, oftentimes what that looks like is we're going to go really hard for 30 seconds to a minute, maybe a couple minutes right, it depends on which workouts you're looking at so we're going to go super high intensity for this amount of time, then we're going to take a short rest break and then we're going to do it over again. Short rest break allows a small recovery, but it doesn't allow your heart rate to come all the way back down.

Speaker 1: 42:23

If you're trying to lift heavy, to actually build muscle size and power and all of that, you want to be focused on the movement and the quality of the movement and I would argue you want to have slower movements, because slower movements, especially focusing on the eccentric end of the contraction, right, there's two phases of muscle contraction. There's the concentric, which is the muscle shortening, and there's the eccentric, which is the controlled lengthening of the muscle. So any movement that you do, you're going to shorten the muscle Like so, if we think about a bicep curl right, lifting the weight up towards your shoulder is shortening the muscle and then lowering the weight back down to the ground is lengthening the muscle.

Speaker 2: 43:05

So lifting is concentric and lowering is eccentric. Anything we should focus on eccentric.

Speaker 1: 43:09

Well, there's been scientific studies that show that the eccentric phase is more effective for building muscle strength and muscle size.

Speaker 2: 43:18

Okay, let's flip it to like a leg-based thing. So squats, the eccentric is moving down.

Speaker 1: 43:26

Which muscle group are we talking about? Are we talking about the glutes?

Speaker 2: 43:29

Sure.

Speaker 1: 43:30

Yes.

Speaker 2: 43:31

Moving down is eccentric. Oh, because squats actually do so many different things.

Speaker 1: 43:35

Right squats is a compound movement.

Speaker 2: 43:36

That's why.

Speaker 1: 43:37

I chose biceps curls because it's a very simple movement that's easy to isolate.

Speaker 2: 43:42

So within a squat, then on the way down, are you eccentric with some muscles and concentric with others, and you're working both muscles.

Speaker 1: 43:49

Yes, that's why it's a compound exercise.

Speaker 2: 43:52

So really you should just move nice and in controlled through the entire process. It shouldn't be like slam it down and then explode back up. It should just be a controlled movement so that you can actually get stronger.

Speaker 1: 44:03

Right, and what we often see with HIIT is that people are trying to go as fast as they can through these movements and the quality of the movement breaks down, which actually leads them to putting themselves at a higher risk for injury and also not getting the full benefits of the strength training, because in order to go faster, you have to lift lighter weights, but in order for you to build muscle mass, you should be lifting heavier weights. So it's kind of two different sides of the coin.

Speaker 2: 44:35

So if you were going slower, sorry if you were going faster in HIIT training. Hiit training again, if you're going faster.

Speaker 1: 44:43

I know it's hard, not to say training.

Speaker 2: 44:44

I know, if you say, if you're doing the movements faster, and you're telling me that like saying I'm gonna do I don't know lunges as fast as I possibly can, I feel like I'm not gonna get as deep at all. Right, like one, I'm definitely not doing as heavy of a weight, but I'm not going to have as great of a range of motion. Is that causing problems also?

Speaker 1: 45:00

Yeah Well, I mean, I wouldn't say problems but but I'm not getting the full benefit. The full benefit All right.

Speaker 2: 45:06

That's. What I mean by problems is I'm not gaining all the benefits If I'm strength training. I think our audience knows this. This is not my favorite aspect of training, so if I'm strength training, I wanna reap all of the benefits out of this. So if HIIT's not the answer, then that's not my answer.

Speaker 1: 45:21

Well, and again, this isn't to say there's no benefits to HIIT. There's a lot of benefits, but I just don't think that if HIIT is the way that you are strength training as a runner, I think that your time could be better utilized doing other things, and so you know there's a lot of programs out here I'm not out there that will that runners like to supplement their running with. That involve treadmills and rowers and strength training, and I'm not gonna specifically name any brands out there.

Speaker 2: 45:49

I think you did a good job there.

Speaker 1: 45:50

But those things runners like oh yeah, well, I do my running on this day and then I go to X Fitness on this day and-.

Speaker 2: 46:00

X is the new name of Twitter, that's I don't think they have a fitness brand yet. If there is an X Fitness out there, that's not what I'm specifically referring to.

Speaker 1: 46:07

I'm thinking of X as the integer in the algebra equation, the unknown right.

Speaker 2: 46:10

Nailed it.

Speaker 1: 46:11

There we go. But my point is you know, a lot of the HIIT exercises also are more of the fast-paced, dynamic types of exercises which are plyometrics, and plyometrics are beneficial for runners if you have the proper strength foundation built first. Right, if you just jump right into plyometrics, pun intended there Actually not intended, but then appreciate it as soon as I said it Really well done Right.

Speaker 1: 46:41

If you jump into plyometrics cause plyometrics is also known as jump training originally then oftentimes if you don't have the proper strength or both in the muscles and in the tendons and the ligaments like the tendon is strength you can get injured. You'll start having tendon problems.

Speaker 2: 47:01

I mean this goes to one of the ones that we already covered is push harder if you want to get faster. So if you have, say you generally have two days during the week that you run faster, those are your quote unquote hard days. If you're also throwing plyometrics on a different day and you're not used to it, that's an extra very difficult day. Like I'm not used to a high level of plyometrics Outside of running itself, like running is like low-level plyometrics, I would suggest, because you are still jumping.

Speaker 1: 47:31

So our drills right.

Speaker 2: 47:33

So I've got like a low level plyometrics. But if I went into like an intense plio based class I'm gonna get beat up that day. So that's gonna affect how many other days of the week I can push myself, because you got it still balance hard with recovery.

Speaker 1: 47:46

And that's a good point too, of doing hit For your strength days and making that an even harder day that your body's not recovering right so actually looking at the 80-20 rule that we've talked about in the past, hit then becomes a hard day, and so then, where is your ease? Where are your easy days?

Speaker 2: 48:02

Right, I'm gonna do a speed workout on Tuesday. I've got my hit session on Wednesday, I got another speed session on Thursday, and that way I've run out of days of the week. When do I get my recovery?

Speaker 1: 48:11

Yeah and again. A lot of times when runners start doing this, they see good results because they don't. They don't have problems until kind of later down the road when things start to catch up to them.

Speaker 2: 48:23

Well, yeah, and anything new usually gives you good results in the early phases.

Speaker 1: 48:27

Yeah. So basically, am I against hit? Not completely. I just think that it's not the best and most effective way for us, as runners, to strength train, especially if that's the only form of strength training that you're doing All right.

Speaker 2: 48:42

So you're taking the yes. Maybe you could use it. I'm just gonna go with. Hit training is definitely not for me. I'm gonna take a strong no on this. One is no. Yes, there's some gray area to it, but personally no yeah, again, it depends on your goal.

Speaker 1: 48:58

It depends on your goal, it depends on where you're going. If you're just going for general fitness, hit can be something that you add in periodically. If you're, if you have specific race and performance related goals, you might. I don't know if I don't know if you want to use it. Yeah, I don't know if it's necessarily the best supplement right, but the bad advice is that hit training is the best way for runners to strength training. That is a bad piece of it.

Speaker 2: 49:21

That is just a bad piece of advice there.

Speaker 1: 49:23

All right, so I think that that wraps up part one of bad running advice. Definitely one definitely be a multi-part series and we would love to hear from you as to what pieces of bad running Device have you gotten. So send me a DM over on Instagram at real life runners and let me know bad running advice that you've gotten throughout the years and maybe we will feature it on the next Edition of bad running device on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 49:49

Yes, but you know it is not bad. Running advice is getting the new strength training guide. What is that website that they're going to again?

Speaker 1: 49:53

So good real life runners comm forward, slash strength.

Speaker 2: 49:57

It's friggin amazing what Angie has put together here. It's really really good.

Speaker 1: 50:01

You're so sweet, all right. So, yeah, go grab that free guide and Become a stronger runner. Start doing those strength exercises, not hit style, to become a stronger runner. Today, and, as always, if you guys found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend that needs to hear it as well. And if you haven't yet, please leave us a review on iTunes or on Apple podcasts. I always say iTunes because you know we've been doing this podcast now for six plus years and it used to be iTunes when we first started on whatever, you're listening to leave us a good, leave us review in five stars.

Speaker 1: 50:33

Apple podcasts and Spotify are two of the biggest platforms, and Leave us a review so that more runners can find us and benefit from all this information as well. And, as always, thank you for joining us. This has been the real life runners podcast, episode number 329. Now get out there and run your life. I