You're wrong. Strength training is so much more than lifting weights.

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TRAINING BREAKDOWN

“A key part of your S&C sessions comes before you’ve even touched a weight”

By Emma O’Toole

Hello and happy Sunday,

After sending out our previous newsletter on why strength training is essential for runners and cyclists over 30 which you can read here, I wanted to dive into a common misconception with strength training for runners & cyclists:

Strength & conditioning = only lifting weights.

Strength & conditioning sessions for runners and cyclists are so much more than that. One key pillar of every strength session that I prescribe comes before you’ve often even touched a weight! This is mobility work and typically takes place during the dynamic warm up phase with the intention of priming your body for the upcoming session.

Mobility work isn’t only about preventing injuries, it also helps improve your running and cycling efficiency helping you run/ride faster and for longer.

• Mobility

• Stretching

• Strength training…

It can feel overwhelming to try to include everything on top of your actual running and cycling training and often this results in something falling by the wayside. Rethinking your strength sessions to include an element of mobility is key to helping you unlock your performance for better running and cycling and I’m here to help you do so!

This becomes even more important for runners and cyclists over 30 who are often chained to spending long hours at a desk, and who often struggle with postural issues due to lifestyle. Issues such as kyphosis can limit your performance and comfort when training. This is because our muscles adapt to the positions they are exposed to repeatedly in the day, and for many of us this is prolonged sitting!

On top of this, running and cycling are deemed to be one dimensional sports so our muscles are adapting when we are training (often for hours) to these positions.

In today’s newsletter we’re going to cover 3 areas of mobility work that you can do to improve your training and performance and help challenge the positions your body is being regularly exposed to.

(Free mobility program? - skip to the bottom of this email and hit “yes” on the poll!)

1. Breathwork.

Now whilst not strictly mobility work, breathwork is something included in every strength and conditioning session I prescribe and surprises a lot of runners and cyclists! Whilst breathing it is an automatic process completed without thought, improving your breathing helps improve your movement, recovery, mobility and tissue qualities.

Picture a runner after performing 100m repeats, how do you see them?

I’d expect them to be keeled over, head down, hands on their knees trying to “breathe”. This is because breathing has the power to shift the body from “fight-or-flight” (sympathetic) to “rest-and-digest” (parasympathetic) and it’s ability to make that shift is impacted by the position of our body especially the spine.

Shallow breathing can limit the range of the diaphragm and lung capacity, not something we want as endurance athletes who rely on our aerobic (aka with oxygen) system. You may not even be aware you are shallow breathing until you actively question it.

Adding breathwork into your S&C training program helps prepare your nervous system for the upcoming session. The following exercises are examples of breathwork exercises.

Example exercises:

• All 4’s breathing

• Crocodile breathing

Once the breathwork has been completed, I typically divide mobility work into 2x key areas. These are: Thoracic rotation exercises and Hip and Lumbar mobility exercises. There are lots of exercises out there that you could choose, the examples below just scratch the surface.

2. Thoracic rotation exercises:

These exercises are designed to help reduce stiffness in the mid-back and increase spinal mobility.

Example exercises:

• Quadrupled T-Spine Rotations

• T-spine rotation with reach

• T-spine rotation with rib-grab

3. Hip and lumbar mobility exercises:

We see most of these in our S&C warm up due to the importance of the hips and lower back from an injury prevention and performance standpoint. These exercises are designed to help reduce stiffness and increase mobility in the hips and lumbar spine.

Example exercises:

• Hip 90/90s

• Psoas march

• Hip lift overs

• Multi-plane hip flexor stretch

• Dynamic hamstring stretch

• Clamshells 

• Bodyweight glute bridges

Putting it all together:

Here’s a sample mobility workout that you can include at the beginning of your next strength training workout after you’ve done a quick pulse raiser, eg 3 minute jog/spin.

2 sets of the following exercises:

• All 4’s Belly Breathing- 5 x breaths.

• Quadrupled T-Spine Rotations- 5 each side.

• Hip 90/90s- 10x repetitions.

• Dynamic hip flexor stretch- 5 repeitions each side.

• Dynamic Hamstring Stretch- 20 seconds each leg.

• Bodyweight Glute Bridges: 10x repetitions.

• Banded Clamshells- 8x repetitions each leg.

Short on time?

We can be savvy with our programming and use mobility exercises that target multiple areas at once, for example the dynamic hip flexor stretch with reach additionally targets the thoracic region of the spine as well as your hip flexors of course!

Here’s how that same session above would look:

2x sets of the following exercises:

• All 4’s Belly Breathing- 5 x breaths.

• Dynamic Hamstring Stretch- 20 seconds each leg.

• Dynamic Hip Flow Openers- 4x repetitions (2 each side)

• Bodyweight Glute Bridges: 10x repetitions.

• Banded Clamshells- 8x repetitions each leg.

Free mobility program?

Do you want a free mobility program that features 2x sessions that you can do in your week with exercise videos and sets/reps detailed? Hit yes below!

Mobility is another layer of your training and including it into your strength training sessions is a great way of getting it done.

Stay tuned for next week where we cover part 2 of why strength training is so much more than lifting weights!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Emma

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