Friends: This is my last week producing the RLRH newsletter, but don’t worry–You’ll keep receiving it in the weeks to come. I’m voluntarily retiring and turning the reins over to Brady Holmer, writer, exercise physiologist, and 2:26 marathon runner. He was my first pick for the job.
You don’t have to do anything with your current subscription. RLRH will keep reaching your email inbox through the same channels as now.
I’m proud of the authoritative, specialized running newsletter that I began in the early COVID-19 days, and I have been gratified by your support and readership. Thanks so much. Stick around to continue receiving the best and most evidence-based news about running stronger, faster, and healthier.
I won’t be far away. I plan to contribute articles and more to Marathon Handbook on a regular basis. You’ll be alerted to these and lots of helpful running content if you subscribe here to the free MH newsletter.
Stay well. Amby
The Impressive Power Of Progression Runs
During his best running years, Tom McGlynn qualified for 3 Olympic Marathon Trials. Then, he switched focus to his online coaching business at RunCoach.
Now, a dozen-plus years later, the Penn State grad with a 2:20 marathon best has less time for training. He’s down to four runs a week. This has made him recognize the power of progression runs.
He’s seen it in his own running and also among RunCoach users. “Many of our runners perform better with this negative-splits approach to their training runs,” he says.
The benefits derived from progression runs are also the topic of this article by Matt Fitzgerald, another training expert. He and McGlynn define progression runs as workouts where you finish faster than you start.
Usually, progression runs are done by road runners on the road rather than the interval sessions on the track, which are favored by elite stars aiming for the Olympics.
Fitzgerald writes: “As a broad guideline, I recommend that all runners include at least one progression run per week in their training.” These sessions are perhaps best suited to low- and modest-mileage runners.
I started doing them myself for the first time last summer. I didn’t want to slog through long runs in the heat and humidity.
Instead, I ran several 6-milers each week with the last 2 miles at half-marathon or marathon pace. When I began doing these workouts, I thought I would dread them.
I didn’t. In fact, I always looked forward to the last 2 miles. For some reason, concentrated running is often easier than mindless running, even when the mindless stuff is slower.
Besides, half marathon pace and marathon pace aren’t truly hard–not when you only do them for 2 miles. They simply require a little more … well, a little more focus. And a slightly quicker stride turnover.
Psychologically, they’re easier than those slow, earlier miles due to a well-known phenomenon that Fitzgerald refers to as “smelling the barn.” I think he meant “smelling the hay in the barn,” but it’s all basically the same. More at Outside Online, including Fitzgerald’s descriptions of three different types of progression runs.
RELATED ARTICLE: Progression Runs, Explained + 5 Progression Run Workouts
Make Sure Your Strength Training Is “Functional”
This seems an excellent time to talk about “functional” strength training. We all know we should include more strength work in our training programs. But we don’t always focus enough on functional strength training.
What’s the difference between functional and traditional strength training? The latter aims to build muscle size and definition across all parts of your body. Among other things, it produces an Instagram-worthy “look.”
Functional strength training, on the other hand, doesn’t care about your whole body. This sounds limited, sure. A bit distorted. But wait a minute.
Functional strength training simply wants to strengthen the muscles that will help you perform better in a given event (like running) and/or help you recover from injury. Marathon runners don’t need bulging biceps. But more powerful calf muscles would be nice.
Here, researchers performed a randomized, controlled trial on young adults with knee pain. All subjects trained with an experienced physiotherapist 3 times a week for 6 weeks. Half did functional strength training aimed at improving “hip and knee muscle control” during “daily movement patterns.”
In other words, all exercise was weight-bearing. Running is an intense, weight-bearing activity.
The other half did traditional training that included “non-weight-bearing exercises.” Picture someone sitting on an exercise bench–or reclining on one–while performing strength routines.
Result: Subjects doing the functional strength training enjoyed greater improvements in both “pain reduction and function” than the traditional training group.
Conclusion: Among individuals with knee pain, functional training “may result in greater improvements in pain and knee function” than training that is not insistently weight-bearing.
The study didn’t include any measures of endurance running. However, these would benefit more from a functional approach than a traditional approach—more at J of Orthopedic Surgery & Research with free full text.
RELATED ARTICLE: 8 Must-Do Marathon Strength Training Exercises for Runners
When Processed Foods Might Be Good For You
Something new is happening in the world of ultra-processed food: Knowledgeable experts are beginning to defend some processed foods.
That’s a big change. In the last decade, we’ve all read hundreds of articles about processed foods and how they are contributing to obesity and illness rates.
The most demonized foods are those containing added sugars, salt, and saturated fats. Also, additives, emulsifiers, colorings, and other unpronounceable and never-seen-in-real-life ingredients.
I’ve just finished reading a half-dozen recent articles on processed foods. None propose that pre-packaged strawberry yogurt is better than plain yogurt with fresh strawberries. They simply note that there are some really bad processed foods (chips, sugar-sweetened sodas, processed deli meats) and others that are often good food choices (pre-packaged, fruit-flavored yogurt, for example).
In a NY Times column, a diet researcher wrote that definitions of what is/is not a processed food are so vague as to “border on useless.” A nutritionist wrote in Slate that she ate 80 percent processed foods for a month. “At the end of my experiment, I actually felt better than I had before.”
How about this recent headline from Vox? “You’re being lied to about ultra-processed foods.” Meaning: Most articles are “wildly misleading.”
In the New Yorker, physician Dhruv Khullar goes deep into the subject, interviewing many top-rank experts. In particular, he describes the work of my favorite nutrition researcher, Kevin Hall. Hall performs strictly controlled obesity research at the National Institutes of Health.
Several of his recent studies have basically refuted his working hypothesis that ultra-processed foods would automatically lead to weight gain. They did when the foods contained lots of fats, sugar, and salt. But they didn’t if they were processed with minimal fats, sugar, and salt.
The latter might include packaged apple-cinnamon oatmeal. Or, again, flavored yogurt.
Near the end of his article, Khullar tours a New York supermarket with Marion Nestle, one of the country’s veteran, highly regarded nutrition experts. (And, no, she’s not a member of the Nestle big-foods company known for its KitKats and hot chocolate powder.)
Walking along the breakfast-cereals aisle, she can barely contain her disgust. She picks up a box of Apple Jacks and says: “This is where it starts. ‘Hydrogenated coconut, modified food starch, degerminated yellow corn flour, yellow six, red forty, blue one. Yuck, yuck, yuck!’ ”
Next ,she eyes a box of Shredded Wheat, apparently her personal breakfast favorite. Shredded Wheat is obviously a highly processed food. You don’t find perfectly bite-sized wheat bundles in any farmer’s field. But Nestle nods approvingly since the only ingredients are wheat and wheat bran.
Then she confesses her dirty little secret. Every morning, she sprinkles a little sugar on her Shredded Wheat. I do the same with brown sugar in my oatmeal. Now, I don’t feel so guilty.
I think the message here is pretty clear: Eat the processed foods you enjoy that don’t include an excess of fat, sugar, salt, and weird chemicals. Increase the fiber in your diet whenever possible.
Doritos? I don’t think so … except maybe once a year on Super Bowl Sunday—more at The New Yorker.
RELATED ARTICLE: Marathon Training Diet: What To Eat While Training For A Marathon
SHORT STUFF You Don’t Want To Miss
HERE’S WHAT ELSE YOU WOULD HAVE RECEIVED this week if you were a subscriber to the complete, full-text edition of “Run Long, Run Healthy.” SUBSCRIBE HERE.
• Stop doing this TODAY! The # 1 injury prevention tip
• How strength training improves your biomechanics endurance
• Find the “sweet spot” for interval training success
• Can omega-3 fatty acids boost your performance & recovery
• What!!?? A shirt that helps you run faster?
• How to build stronger bones now
• You probably don’t know your “floating toe score,” but it’s affecting your performance
• Abraham Lincoln’s advice about “discipline”
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. This is my last edition of RLRH, but you’ll continue to receive the same great content next week from Brady Holmer. Keep reading to stay up-to-date on the best, most evidence-based news about running stronger, faster, and healthier. I’ll be following along with you. Amby
