THE ULTRA DISTANCE ATHLETE'S STRENGTH PROGRAM PART 2: DESIGNING YOUR PROGRAM
Brian Glynn (Instagram @brianglynnphotography)
In part 1 we talked about establishing your baseline strength numbers, so you have a clearer picture of how you move and your physical strengths and weaknesses.
You’ve identified how you move with weight, your physical competency and how confident you are with certain types of tests, but where do you go from here?
The next step is establishing the right strength program for you, and ensuring it’s tailored to your specific individual needs.
WHAT DOES THE STRENGTH PROGRAM LOOK LIKE?
The type of resistance training is very much dependent on your individual circumstance, as well as your environment and equipment - these are things that you’ve got to have an open discussion about. Whether you are always on the move, train solely at home or in the gym, it’s so important that your program works for you. You may even find a hybrid program that allows you to train from home, in the gym and whilst travelling is the perfect mix for you.
FOUR WEEK PHASES
Training in four week phases, which builds with a taper or a de-load week, is a great way to train; it’s logical, progressive and it allows you to get into the movements, understand the exercises, build adequately across two to three weeks of hard work, and then de-load. This allows you to back off again for a week, learn some new movements, and then build again.
The concept that you can just keep building relentlessly is unrealistic. Your body does not respond to this - it only responds to a stimulus, and you’ve got to then give it time to adapt to that stimulus. So whether it’s running, lifting or a strength training stimulus, you’ve got to give it the time it needs to do that.
Remember, this is still only a framework. Everyone responds differently and evolves at different rates.
You’ve got to have more of an individualised approach to your training to ensure that you are not just seeing general results, or only scratching the surface of your results.
Within those four week blocks, there’s an evolving process, moving things around and evolving exercises along the way, week-to-week. Without that evolution and relationship, you simply won’t ever see the benefits of your strength training.
Brian Glynn (Instagram @brianglynnphotography)
YOUR PROGRAM RECIPE
MOBILITY
You want to make sure your training is built up of the perfect components, starting out with effective mobility work/dynamic warm up routines. This is about optimal movement, getting synovial fluid moving through the joints, warming the muscle tissue up and getting blood flowing. This doesn’t mean going for a run - it means purposeful movement patterns that attack key areas of weakness for you.
In particular, your lower back and hips; you’ve got to get into those areas with specific movement and mobility drills. So get into it, make it a habit, make it a routine and make it a behaviour.
It's about reinforcing quality movement patterns, and attacking key areas of weakness like your hip flexors, lower back, hamstrings and glutes. You've got to be working on the centre console of your body... if you aren’t trained in that area, you are going to be vulnerable in that area.
STRENGTH
When you start your strength training, you should be looking at four or five key strength exercises.
If you don't have much time to play with, you might only be training two or three times a week in terms of your strength and conditioning, with 45 minutes sessions. This might be four or five key strength exercises, double leg exercises, squat deadlift, split squat - something that loads the body. You should then go in with some unilateral work (single arm or single leg) because you're going to be weaker left to right - core work, glute work, posterior chain, hamstring and below the knee - all of these elements have to come into your recipe.
You need to prioritise your whole body.
If you've ever run a longer event, where is the first point of breakdown? It's going to be your shoulders, your head position and your arm swing. All those areas start to crumble from the top down, especially if you're running with a pack. So if you're weak up top, it's going to be your first breaking point that will then resonate down to your lower body. If you're weak in your core, that's going to be your first breaking point. You've got to attack the problem from a holistic point of view, with a full-body approach - you do that, and you're going to be noticing huge differences across the board.
YOUR PROGRAM SHOULD INCLUDE:
Dynamic Warm Up (Mobility)
Band Activation
Bilateral Exercise
Unilateral Exercise
Upper Body
Lower Body
Posterior Chain Focus
Below the Knee
Core Focus
Plyometrics is another huge aspect of building an endurance athlete; the ability to land and absorb force has to be part of your training program. Understanding the progressions of this, and how we build it up throughout our programming, has to be a primary focus in order to help build your confidence in landing and changing direction on multiple terrains.
By following a four week cycle and repeating your baseline testing every 12-24 weeks, you will begin to build up competency, and show yourself that you have the ability to effectively move that type of weight comfortably.
We have programs that run from bodyweight and band work to get people going, through to our Resilience, Athlete and Ultra programming, and ideally we like to build people through the pathway.
If you’d like to learn more about working with us and developing your own individualised program, get in touch!