In my last post “Improve your running performance by including strength training“, I discussed how it appears that adding “heavy weight training” and “explosive” weight training can improve your running economy.
Ironically, I picked up the June (06) copy of Runner’s World today and they have an article titled “How do you get faster?”. The article suggests that “maximal” interval training was the “clear winner”, with performance improvements of 4% to 6%. Supramaximal intervals lead to improvements of “2% to 4%”. And “explosive sport-specific strength training” produced endurance benefits of “2% all the way up to 8% in some studies.”
I am not sure how a top end of 6% is better than a top end of 8%, but it may be due to consistent results? They don’t address that difference.
One thing that is worth noting, is that the author (Amby Burfoot) also noted that Arthur Lydiard was a believer in the benefits of plyometrics, specifically uphill bounding.
something to consider, reading this article
1. The researchers whom Burfoot got his information from only reviewed studies that looked at “veteran endurance athletes”. There are questions that someone should ask themselves, including; what is a veteran endurance athlete? Since it is not defined, do we know if we would be classified a one?
My Take: Many runners would improve by remaining consistent in their training. Knowing performance research, I would have to guess that a small percentage of Runner’s World readers would actually be similar in demographic and physiological make-up as those that were researched.
2. What was the definition of “performance”. As a runner, when I think about performance, I want to know 2 things: results and time. But this is not what many researchers use to define “performance”. In some research, “performance” is defined by VO2 max improvements. Considering the articles mentioning of “oxygen consumption”, it is probably a safe bet that VO2 is used as a performance indicator is some of the “22 best studies”.
My Take: If it has ebbed feet and quacks, it may not always be a duck. And it doesn’t say if they were actually measuring race performances.
Last Thoughts
The author doesn’t give the source of the article written by the two researchers (Paton and Hopkins), but he does give the title. I’ll try to dig it up and see if I can answer any of those questions I just posed.
The take home message for me as I read the article was that it most likely didn’t apply to the large majority of runners reading the article. I firmly believe that consistency is the most valuable training variable for the “age-group” runner, so stay faithful, get enough rest and remain injury free.
Stayed tuned as I continue to share ideas on how you can use strength training to improve your running.
