Putting on the brakes

While reaching optimal or top speed can be important, it's important to be able to STOP your momentum.

After all, imagine rushing down the freeway at 60-plus mph, pressing on your breaks, and nothing happening!

Well, you need to be able to slow down and stop yourself when performing dynamic exercises such as running, jumping, and cutting (changing direction) as well. You also need to guard against potential injuries caused by a lack of bodily control and stabilization, and allows excessive, often damaging movement.

The key to deceleration is eccentric contraction. You may know it as "the negative". During an eccentric contraction, muscles lengthen while loaded to control movement. That means when you RLH (sprint) or JS (land from a jump) as we call it in UBC, your muscles need to optimally dissipate and control the force of your stopping, directional changes and landings. In relation to the legs specifically, your hamstrings (back of thighs), need to shorten slowly, relatively speaking, while the muscles controlling the ankles stabilize the feet.

Stay tuned for more on how to improve your ability to decelerate and improve your performance at UBC.

Training for life!

Intervals or Fartleks?

Since no one was able to make the interval run/walk at Tryon Creek State Park yesterday, I took the opportunity for a solo run. I ended up doing two fartleks and one interval around the Big Fir Trail. As I ended my run (and thinking of you all as I so often do) I thought it would be good to address the difference between intervals and fartleks.

Fartlek (pronounced fahrt-lek) is a Scandinavian word that means "speed play." It is an informal training method that involves intense activity interspersed with low effort. Basically, fartleks are a change in speed for a short and undefined period of time or distance. This allows the runner to experiment, and keep things fresh while increasing performance. You decide when to begin and end your high and low intensity periods based on how you feel (via introspection) or by picking a landmark to race to. Run fast for as long as you can, then recover as long as you need or based on another landmark.

For runners, fartleks are a great way to increase overall speed and self awareness. Walkers who want to begin running can use fartleks by running as long as possible then walking for recovery.

Intervals, on the other hand, are more formal in that they are timed. Periods of high and low intensity have definite start and end times. Runners should build a foundation of easy paced, continuous running for 30-60 minutes before doing intervals, or speed work. Walkers transitioning into running can use intervals to increase their time spent running versus time spent walking.

Ratios for intervals generally begin at 30 to 60 seconds with a 30 second to 1 minute recovery time. On the high end, it is not recommended to do intervals lasting longer than 5 minutes since the goal is to push your anaerobic threshold (in simple terms, pushing your maximum and out of breath).

Check out these websites for more info:

www.coolrunning.com
www.slowtwitch.com
www.runnersworld.com

Keep moving, keep learning!