4 Marathon Running Myths Debunked by Reload
At Reload, we like to stay abreast of the latest in scientific research that matters to people who want to get fit, maintain their health, and live pain-free. We feel it is our obligation to continually challenge traditional thinking in our field and to do the best we can for our clients.
Many of our clients are marathon runners or have the ambition to run a marathon. Many of these have been hampered in their ambitions by four common myths that cause them a mental block and prevent them from running further or faster.
What are the running myths that are slowing you down?
Myth # 1: You don´t need strength training/strength training is bad for runners
The first of the running myths is that it’s all about how far you can run, not about how strong you are.
No. Well, not entirely. Of course, it’s about how far you can run, but you need the strength to do so.
We know that strength is important to runners. But what kind of strength? This is where the confusion lies, and where many runners following an uncoached training regime fail.
What is strength training? If you’re a weightlifter, then bench presses will help you. But if you’re a marathon runner, 16 weeks of bench pressing will not help you to run faster or further.
To do the right type of strength training that will enhance your ability to run long distances, it’s crucial that you understand the relationship between strength training and running. And it can be a little tricky to know how strength training fits into a training regime for an endurance activity like the marathon.
“We need to create strength training programs that aren’t so intense that they steal from the running workouts, but are intense enough to maintain our strength reserve,” says Marc Jacobchick, PT at Reload. “You need to be able to handle a lot more than the maximum stress your body will be put through when running a marathon – that’s a solid strength reserve.”
Ideally, a runner should maintain a ceiling of what his or her body can produce. To do this, we should focus on higher levels of force without higher volumes of force. We keep reps and intensity low, while achieving a high force output. This way, your strength training doesn’t steal from your running workouts.
You need to teach your body to maintain a strength ceiling reserve. You don’t need to kill it. You simply need to get there and show your body that it needs that reserve. Then you need to rest.
Myth #2: Measuring mileage and pace vs. RPE
A lot of runners measure their performance by how far and how fast they can run. And that’s a reasonable assumption to make. Until you realize that there’s a third hugely important piece of the performance puzzle that this simplistic measurement misses: how your heart and lungs are performing.
Now, you may believe that the heart rate monitor you are wearing gets over this issue, but does it really? Does this give an accurate reflection of the intensity and effort you are placing on your heart and lungs?
For example, if you are running and reach a heart rate of, say, 120bpm, how intensely are you training? Are you doing enough to build your stamina and strength? What if we told you that there are people whose hearts run at 120bpm while they are doing no more than sitting?
Yep, heart rate is an indicator of the effort you are putting in, but it may not be the gold standard that many believe it to be.
We believe a better measurement is the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE). This is a scale of how you feel when exercising. We place the scale between 1 and 5, with 5 being how you would feel right at the end of an intense fitness stress test, for example.
As you’re training, over time your body adapts to the work you are doing. Your lungs and heart are the slowest to adapt. So, by working out at an appropriate RPE, you’ll be helping your heart and lungs to adapt more effectively.
That heart rate you’re pushing isn’t the target you need to set yourself. Instead, you should be working out in zones 3 to 4 of the RPE scale. If you don’t, you’ll find that your strength is good enough to handle the marathon, but it’s your heart that will let you down.
We accurately measure RPE by conducting a cardiometabolic test using a PNOE device. This lets us assess individual heart rate zones compared to heart rates. You’ll find that training to your heart rate zones rather than focusing on pace and mileage is more effective to develop the cardiovascular base you need to really push your pace and mileage to where they can be.
Myth #3: Running is bad for your body
Are you worried about injury? Most people are. And many people are concerned about the long-term damage that running might do to their bodies. Or running with an injury.
Now, there are common injuries in marathon runners. They can all be repaired and prevented with the help of the right type of training program. But wear and tear? Another myth. If your body is in good condition, marathon running can improve knee damage. And there is a whole bunch of research that demonstrates runners are less likely to suffer from knee arthritis than people who spend most of their time sitting down.
Of course, we’re not saying that the potential for injury or an existing injury shouldn’t be factored into your training regime. It should. This is why when we create a personalized marathon training program we consider:
Current physical fitness
Existing injuries/conditions
Current capabilities
In addition, we’ll factor in your goals, lifestyle, work routines, family life, and more.
Myth #4: The one-size-fits-all program
We see a lot of clients who have tried following a standardized program. Now there is a huge amount of great resources and information available online, but it’s confusing – and some it’s contradictory, too.
The important thing is to take what is pertinent to you, and then use this to build your training regime. You also need to be aware of what to do, and how to adapt, when things don’t go as planned. You miss a session because of a work commitment. You catch a bad cold from your kids. You slip off the sidewalk and injure your ankle.
If your aim is to get fit, maintain pain-free fitness, and run a marathon, you need someone you can trust to guide you and tell you what’s appropriate for you and what isn’t. There is no one-size-fits-all program that will get you to where you want to be. You need the advice of a professional.
Here’s how we work at Reload:
Only when we understand you, can we then create a program that focuses on the correct load management and provides effective recovery periods between workouts. And then we adapt along the way, continually monitoring your progress and staying flexible as we advance your program. It all starts with an initial evaluation.
Here’s how Marc describes our process:
“Most of the time, clients come to see me after experiencing some sort of injury. They may be a few weeks into their training program, and they need to figure out why they are experiencing pain.
“I’ll sit down and ask them questions, and look at their program from a load management standpoint. I’ll figure out where there may have been too much load that they weren’t prepared for. Then I’ll backtrack and try to prepare them for the remainder of their program.
“It’s like reverse engineering to figure out where things went wrong: when did they feel the pain, how long ago it happened, and so on.”
How does this work in action?
“A client I had was experiencing foot pain,” Marc says. “One weekend she ran more than she expected, and at their next session with their trainer, she had terrible pain in her foot.
“I went back through the steps with her, figured out how much she had run, and the pace, and how much she was supposed to run: how much she was prepared for. She explained that she had felt ready to push her distance and pace.
“That’s when we did a physical examination to figure out what parts of her body started to fail when exposed to too much load. We found different parts of her legs that were not performing as well as the others. In this case, one side was not able to absorb the impact as well as the other.”
From there, we were then able to explain what was happening, and ‘prescribe’ a revised training program that would help her weaker muscles catch up to the rest.
“My goal is to give clients a sustainable solution that helps them understand what went wrong, what can be done about it, and how can we prevent it from happening in the future to make sure the rest of their training goes smoothly,” Marc says. “Some of that is finding the right exercises to do and progressing the right biomotor qualities, but a lot of it comes down to programming and making sure the program is not too much for that person to handle.”
You can start your journey to your full marathon potential today. All you need to do is sign up for a complimentary fitness assessment with Reload today.
