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Andy Larmour from Ocean Physio - Common issues for runners and how to overcome them.
62 Plays4 years ago
In this episode Matt speaks with Andy from Ocean Physio and amongst other things they chat:
Common runners injury issues.
Pre-hab, how to help yourself not get injured.
Foam rollers and massage guns, good or bad?
And more....
You can follow Andy on Twitter and Instagram
Here is the link to the dynamic stretches Andy mentions in the podcast https://youtu.be/ZnKqKPi4Ceo
Enjoy this weeks podcast!
#ukrunchat
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Matt and Andy
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello and welcome again to another UK Run Chat podcast. Myself Matt Upson is at the helm again today and I'm joined by a special guest Andy from Ocean Physio. Andy is a local legend down here in Devon and works with lots of performance athletes as well as kind of non-performance athletes like myself, slow ones who need a bit of support, a bit of guidance on their journey within running. Good morning, Andy. Good morning. Thanks, Matt. I don't know about local legend, but thanks for the intro.
00:00:32
Speaker
Yeah, definitely a local legend as far as I can say and you've got me on the straight and narrow a few times. So, gives a bit more of a background of yourself and yeah, tell us a bit about your business and what you do and kind of, yeah, just fill us in.
00:00:44
Speaker
So yeah, hi, hello to everyone. I'm Andy, I'm a physio based down in Devon. We've got a kind of a large team at a clinic called Ocean Physio and Rehab. So we've got physio, massage therapist, podiatrist, that kind of thing. Based down in Devon, we've got several clinics, one of the university, one in East Devon, and a few at a roundabout. So it's great, really enjoy it. Really great clinic, great bunch of team
00:01:08
Speaker
people that we work with. Um,
Andy's Running Philosophy
00:01:10
Speaker
and I love running. So I've always run, um, running something I've done all my life just cause I really enjoy it. And I love working with runners. Brilliant. You've been out for a run this morning, haven't you? I have. Yeah. I've been out up on the coast path cause I lived down near the coast bar. So I've been up on the coast path this morning, which was really nice actually today. Uh, it's probably about, I don't, we'll probably get into this, but I'm not timing.
00:01:38
Speaker
distance at the moment, having a little bit of a non-distance timing thing, non-technology time. I'm not sure, probably about five miles, something like that. You're just running for yourself? Yeah, I'm just kind of running for myself because I got really competitive the last couple of years, did a couple of marathons over the last couple of years and got really kind of time heavy and very
00:01:59
Speaker
specific on distance and heart rate and all that sort of stuff, which was great at the time, really helped me do the marathons. But now I've kind of stopped that. I think you've listened to it, but there's a podcast I did with a guy called Ray Elston, who's an 81 year old runner, who is an amazing man who kind of ran. I did a little run alongside him and he didn't have a watch on and nothing like that. And I kind of was inspired by him. So I took the watch off, stopped using a Strava and I'm just running for fun at the moment, but that might change in the future.
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's brilliant. I listen to that podcast, and for those who listen to this one, if you want to search those out, they're amazing. Listen to Ray. He's 82, isn't he? And he's still running a 10K. And what was it? 52 minutes? Yeah, he's an amazing guy. So he only started running when he was 50, and has basically built up over the years. And at 81, around a 51 minute 10K, he's an amazing guy. The day I met him,
00:02:50
Speaker
I was kind of running along quite pleased myself having done five miles and he was jogging beside me at a real good pace and was in the middle of a 12-mile run, really hilly run. No watch, nothing. I was just like, okay, this guy's amazing. So yeah, I spoke to him and it was great, really inspiring.
00:03:08
Speaker
I think the thing that kind of caught me from the podcast you did with him was actually a lot of his trainings on Hills. I'm a real fan of Hills. They kill me. But you know, it's always been said to be a friend of mine, Karen Seale, used to tell me, you know, Hills are speed working disguise. And it's, it's definitely true. If you can smash a hill, it races them become so much easier. Yeah. I mean, he actually used that phrase himself and it's inspired me. So I've gone out now kind of off-road, hilly, not worrying about time and just really enjoying that. Not to say I wouldn't go back to that in the future, but
00:03:39
Speaker
Right now, I'm just really enjoying getting out and about and running around without that kind of added pressure of Strava and times and heart rate and that kind of thing. Yeah, it's quite easy to fall into that, isn't it? I think that when we come on to talk about injuries, I think that can also be a bit of an issue why people end up getting injured because they push themselves rather than listen to their bodies.
Injury Challenges and Solutions
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm terrible at that. I've been laid out for a while and I'm back out then. I'm kind of beating myself up at the fact I'm not as fast as I was and I've got to kind of remember that it takes a while to get back the speed and the kind of fitness you once had. So yeah, it is a bit of a struggle. So obviously you're doing lots of coastal paths running in America. Is trail running kind of your favourite kind of go-to or have you always been a roadrunner or what's your background?
00:04:26
Speaker
Well, my background is basically road running. But in essence, I would say I kind of grew up in Devon and was essentially running on the trails, but mainly training for football. And then I went into running a lot at university, but just for fun. And I only actually have really done competitive running in the last sort of seven or eight years or 10 years. I built up for a triathlon.
00:04:50
Speaker
did a couple of triathlons which I really enjoyed and they were great sort of consistency for me but then I actually sort of realized I enjoyed the running bit of it more than the other two bits so then I did a bit more running did a couple of 10k races which were really good off-road 10k races then I thought right I'll do a half I did a couple of halves which
00:05:16
Speaker
I really enjoyed the biggest shot of events and I thought, right, I'll have a go at a marathon. And yeah, the first time didn't go very well. It went very well for the first half. I made all the classic mistakes that you should make in your first marathon. I ticked off very nicely in that I went off. It was incredibly hot, really boiling hot day. I had a time in mind.
00:05:40
Speaker
And for some reason on the start line, just thought, nah, I'm just going to go for it. And just absolutely went for it. And then the first half marathon thought, oh, wow, this is really going well. I've like PBed a half marathon. I'm really pleased with that. And then had that crushing realization, thinking, I think I might have gone a bit quick there. And then spectacularly hit the wall at 20 miles, which had never happened to me before. But then I had to do another one to get to kind of make sure that I didn't do that again. And then I did that. And that was last year. But now that's really good.
00:06:09
Speaker
and now I'll probably move off road, I think. Yeah, I'm similar. I've only done one marathon. It's put me off of life. But yeah, I did the same. I went off far too fast. I think it's quite a common thing for people who are kind of new to it, isn't it? If you've not got that kind of rain backward, you feel good on the day. You're going to get swept along by the crowd, and suddenly you realize you're doing really well. But then forget, second half is going to be a lot longer than the first half. It's a long way. It's a long way to do a marathon. And I think I was kind of, I've sort of got a history of applying for marathons.
00:06:38
Speaker
Like I trained in London 20 plus years ago and thought I'd do London marathon, but I've kind of sort of applied every year since then and not got in. And then I've done nine times now, but still haven't got in. If you have probably done about 20. So then I thought, well, maybe I'll have a go at the good for age time and the good for age time.
00:06:58
Speaker
was all set, I was kind of going for that. And then about 10 days before, this is like in 2018, they dropped the time by 10 minutes, which is a lot obviously. And rather than just thinking that's not gonna happen, I thought I'll have a go at that instead about a week before. And that kind of meant my timings were out for that. So it didn't kind of work out. Yeah, that's pretty awful. So what's your favorite distance then? You've done kind of most race distance. What's your favorite distance?
00:07:30
Speaker
probably in reality to go out running probably just for time probably about 45 minutes that type of thing so I think you know I did I did the marathon on I'm just quite busy so I did the marathon my maximum mileage was about 35 miles in a week so in order to get significantly better at a marathon I knew I'd have to do a lot more than that and I just haven't really got the time I quite like going out for half hour 40 minutes
00:07:58
Speaker
Um, I'm really enjoying it and getting back and then at the weekend, maybe go a bit longer. Yeah. I do. I do just enjoy it. I just enjoy running, but I don't want it to become an absolute chore that it's something that I need to do. Yeah. Yeah. I think it can be getting that kind of, that kind of rust, isn't it? Where you know, you got to go and do something and it's like, kind of, I've got to do it. I don't want to do it. I don't feel right. It doesn't, you know, but you just dragging yourself out and it doesn't become enjoyable then, does it?
00:08:25
Speaker
It does for me, I probably do like one or two events a year. And I'd like to say I wasn't that well, I didn't need that. I think I probably do. I probably do need something to aim for and kind of work towards and it kind of helps me to do that. So I probably would will probably do something in the next year or two. But yeah, probably off road.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm, I'm trying to look at races again, cause obviously I do that external motivational a little bit. I'm not very good with, um, kind of just ticking over. Um, and I've had so many races this year, obviously with COVID canceled. Um, but I've noticed a lot of the trail races started up again because also they can manage it in smaller numbers in the field and they can do a bit of kind of, they can stagger starts and so on. So it seems a lot easier for them to, to get started again. Um, one of my favorites is the wild night running ahead of those, the wild running, wild night runs.
00:09:16
Speaker
Um, so it's all head torches across Dartmoor or kind of on Dartington state or whatever. So I might put myself down for one of those in the early spring and just get going again. But, um, yeah, that's still well, but beef is still talking about, um, doing a half Ironman. So that is also in the offering maybe in September next year. So, um, we'll see. So I didn't do my triathlons weren't as long as that, but I can see the appeal.
00:09:44
Speaker
When you do loads and loads and loads of training, when I did loads of training for the triathlons and then you sort of do a sprint or an Olympic, the actual event is relatively short. You sort of think, oh, I probably could go a bit longer and enjoy the actual event a bit more. So I can see the appeal of a half Ironman, although again, the distances are quite extreme.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah I think for me the worry about half Ironman and I've said if beef does it I'll do it with him because we were going to do it last year but then obviously Covid kind of cancelled it. I'm quite glad to be honest, I was never in a state where I was actually properly fit for it either. I did a couple of triathlons last year not fully fit and you get frustrated but I find with a sprint especially you're on the red line continuing from the moment the start of the race to the end of the race whereas at least with something a little bit longer you can set into a bit of a rhythm and kind of
00:10:39
Speaker
plod it through but I even found with the Olympic distance I find that I enjoy the Olympic far more than sprint because you do get a chance to settle into what you're doing but it's still I think I quite like the idea of a challenge of a longer one but I'm still also absolutely petrified about the fact that it's a long way. It's a long way yeah but I think as you say I think you can enjoy the experience a bit more because like I say with sprint triathlons you'll sort of feel like you are redlining that whole way round
00:11:05
Speaker
and absolutely maxing out whereas you just can't do that with a half Ironman so it's kind of a different concept which I did find quite difficult with a marathon I have to say because I quite like running fast or feeling like I'm running fast and the patience of a marathon was quite a difficult discipline for me.
00:11:23
Speaker
It's a different mind game as well, isn't it? It's just rather than kind of putting yourself in the horrible kind of zone and kind of just fighting your way through it, which you can do on shorter races. You've got to kind of just, it's the long game, isn't it? It's kind of just making sure your head's in the right space to continue at that pace for that time. That's
Training Techniques and Tips
00:11:40
Speaker
where, for that type of training, that's where heart rate training really helped me because I'm not brilliant at perceiving how much effort I'm putting into it. So I found the heart rate training,
00:11:52
Speaker
really changed my ability to cope with that. So that was kind of, I needed educating on that personally, you know, how it felt, because it always was amazing for me in the first mile. And then I realized I'm running like really, really, really, really fast or, you know, so that heart rate training really helped my discipline for me.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, I hope to do a, do a session, a podcast with Andy from X-ray science. And obviously I want to talk to him a lot about heart rate training. Cause obviously he knows all about it and it's something that I've always looked at to do, but I don't really know enough of it. A bit like it sounds like you, but I want to try and look at it, especially if we're going to half Ironman training, just to make sure that I can do it properly rather than getting injured.
00:12:30
Speaker
Well, I did train with him. I did all the profile testing and lactate testing with him and it's just really efficient. So he will give you proper zones and you will get proper zones where you think I need to train this session in that zone, this session in that zone and this session in the other zone. And it kind of adds something to the variety of training. It makes it a bit more interesting because you're doing different things all the time and it helped me a lot.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah, brilliant. So should we get on with this podcast about injuries? That's what we were here for in the first place, but I could talk about running all day. Um, so let's get started. You know, you're a physio, you work in a, in a predominantly a clinic, predominantly the C athletes. Um, you know, what's the most common issues you normally see with runners? What, what is the kind of go-to thing? Is there a common thing that you see? I would sort of describe the main thing. We don't just work with athletes, we work with everyone. So the most thing I see with,
00:13:26
Speaker
runners is what I describe as over enthusiasm injuries essentially doing too much too soon I think the simple way to think about running injuries is that because running is so addictive and it feels a bit like a drug it feels so amazing when you go running that you want to do more and more and more of it and in essence your cardiovascular system so your engine improves much more quickly than your body your chassis and then you've got this really toned engine fairly quickly
00:13:55
Speaker
And the body can't quite keep up, so that kind of over enthusiasm of doing quite a lot of mileage quite quickly causes problems. So would you suggest the 10% rule is definitely the way forwards? It's massive, yeah. So I think it's really easy to say that, but incredibly difficult to do.
00:14:15
Speaker
The thing that watches are really good for is plotting your time and mileage. If you can understand exactly how much mileage you're doing in a week and then keep that really consistent and like even under 10% for some time it really will help you build that base. It's so difficult and when I look at times when I've been injured
00:14:37
Speaker
i've got over enthusiastic and thought this is great i'm really enjoying my running i'm getting loads of it i'm doing really well and then you increase ridiculously quickly and it's so hard not to because you're just enjoying it so much and then and then something something starts hurting you get some kind of breakdown somewhere
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, because it's not all about just 10% on your run distance, is it? It's about your weekly mileage as well. I think people get hung up on the fact that I've done 10K, so I can then do 11 and build it up that way. But if you're building your mileage, it's about your mileage on the week, isn't it? It's not just about your actual one-off run distance. It's about how much you do in a week is more important.
00:15:11
Speaker
Would you agree? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Patrick Sang, who's kind of Kipchoge's coach, has got this brilliant phrase that he says, slowly by slowly. And that's how he tries to get people better, slowly by slowly. And I always kind of use that phrase in my head of thinking with runners, if you can just be super patient and just
00:15:28
Speaker
improve slowly by slowly by keeping it really consistent for several months, then you'd generally be okay. It's just these really quick peaks and also quite big troughs where people can do double mileage one week compared to the previous week that discourses problems.
00:15:47
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm the, I'm the worst one for that. My head tells me I can do kind of serious training, even though I've had a couple of weeks off or injury or whatever. And I go back and I kind of then go back into all or nothing. And then I ended up back in square one, which is, I think it's quite a classic for a lot of runners, isn't it? I think you forget the fact that you've had a couple of weeks off or you're injured or you've been unwell or whatever, and you kind of try and go back in at the same level rather than building back up. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's loads of challenges out there where people maybe haven't run before or haven't run ever or haven't run.
00:16:16
Speaker
six months and they come back and try and run every day for a month or something and that's just like really hard unless you're doing relatively small distances you know and you can build up very gradually to run repeatedly every day is just quite challenging and your engine will cope with it fairly quickly but like I say your chassis is going to find that your body's going to find that quite quite quite a challenge
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, so is it tend to be legs? Do you tend to see kind of hamstrings? Is it kind of knees? Lower limb and lower back type issues. In essence, overload related issues due to either
00:16:54
Speaker
predominantly mileage related issues. So if you actually, it's a lot easier now that used to be, cause you can just say to somebody, show me your Strava account, and they'll come straight up with a mileage they're doing every weekend. It's normally really obvious that you can just sort of say, well, look, you've, you've gone from 10 miles to 20 miles to 30 miles or something like that. Um, it's just, it's just a massive increase. It's that type of thing so that you can get on kind of bone related issues without joint related problems or, or soft tissue related problems. And it's all that kind of area.
00:17:24
Speaker
Where do you sit on the shoe debate? Do you think shoes are a massive deal breaker when it comes to injuries? Or do you think it's more of the body getting used to what you're doing? I think shoes are basically where it's comfortable. Wherever you've got that's comfortable, wherever you're happy with.
00:17:44
Speaker
will normally do really well. Broadly speaking for the vast majority of people, a good neutral trainer is going to really be better than most other things, like really extremist minimalist trainers or really extreme stability trainers on the other side of the spectrum kind of are quite specialist trainers and they shouldn't be warned by everyone. You need to be able to, most people, we're built to run. Yeah, running's good for you and most people will do pretty well with a good pair of neutral trainers if they build their mileage up gradually.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's my belief as well. So on that kind of injury side of it, this is courtesy of Beave because Beave added this to my kind of notes. When do you think an athlete should really go and see some professional advice if they've got an injury or a niggle? Is it a case of resting it for a while and then if it doesn't go away, see someone or do you think people should see or get advice early?
Injury Identification and Prevention
00:18:36
Speaker
I think it depends. So I think you've got to accept that with running, you've got to understand the difference between
00:18:43
Speaker
aches and pains that are natural from just coming into running. Running is hard. It's physically quite hard on the body, certainly initially, and you will pick up little niggles and strains. And often, most of the time, if you just have a sensible training plan and work your way through it very gradually, they'll be fine, absolutely fine. You come through it and it won't be an issue.
00:19:02
Speaker
if something's not going away and repeatedly, or certainly if it's getting worse, or if it's really, really painful, then yeah, you need to speak to somebody and find out what it is. But most of the time, if you just have a really sensible approach, you can minimize most injuries. Yeah. And obviously in a run, I think the classic, I see quite a lot, and I'm guilty of it as well, is if you might take a little stumble or you might feel something's not quite right, but rather than stopping and going, right, okay, that's it for today,
00:19:32
Speaker
Lots of people run through it, don't they? And that's probably not a good idea, is it? Yeah, it's not a good idea. If it's getting worse, you need to pack it in and see what's going on. But I think it's trying to balance and learn. It's all a learning game running. It's learning to understand your body and learning to understand certain parts of running.
00:19:52
Speaker
are pretty uncomfortable. You know, as you get into more and more running, you kind of get used to that feeling of it feeling kind of uncomfortable. And the better you get at tolerating that feeling of feeling a bit uncomfortable, the better the runner you'll be. But once it becomes painful, then you need to look into it.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, I have this kind of stunning phrase on coaching my running club is the fact that, you know, if you want to go fast, you want to be at time, you've got to get more and more used to sitting in that hurt box and kind of just accepting the pain. For certain parts of training, I think that's where really understanding your training really helps at certain runs. So like maybe 20% of your runs will be towards that limit. So if you've got a normal sort of training program where you've got like a long slow run,
00:20:44
Speaker
the vast majority of people would do that long slow run basically too fast. So if you slow down for the slow run, that really helps. So that's not that uncomfortable. And at the top end, if you've got a faster run in there, most people would do that faster run basically too slow. So they do a very similar run all the time. They always running three or four miles. That's they always do that. They do that three, four, five times a week. And that variety, the body doesn't like that. If you get variety in there and have a lot of a long slow and is genuinely slow,
00:21:15
Speaker
and a faster run that's genuinely quite fast. And then some intervals in there.
00:21:20
Speaker
which reduce the ground reaction time, which minimize the time your body's pounding on the pavements. Intervals can be your biggest friend. Yeah. That that's, that's a big thing that I would say is variety and running and then cross training with things like cycling and stuff as well. That's why triathlon is so amazing because it's, you're always, even if you're training twice, if you do two of those disciplines a week, that's six times a week and that's a lot of training. So that's great.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's why I came to triathlon. That's why I ended up doing it. Cause I was getting injured quite regularly for doing too much mileage. And someone said, you should kind of mix, mix up a bit on the bike, go for a swim. And kind of the rest was history really. Um, yeah, it just, it's good for the body, isn't it? It's good for the body. And also when you, if you have a niggle from running, you can, you can cycle or more often than not, you can cycle and do a really long, good cycle and it will be fine. And you're still maintaining that engine.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, the running club, the extra-based UK run chat running club is quite weird because we don't actually run. People laugh at us when I say that, but we don't do long runs together because it's a real mixed bag of people. We've got different fitness levels, different speeds. So I tend to just do interval training or hill work or fartlet with them so that everyone can work together, everyone can be together for a period of time. But we do the sessions that you don't want to go and do in the dark winter nights.
00:22:46
Speaker
And it means that actually, personally, I've found a massive improvement and other people I know have as well. Because those are sessions that people tend to shy away from. I don't know about you, but it's much, I find that most people are much happy to go out and do a five, 10K run where they're going off with their own podcast on or they're doing whatever and it feels comfortable, but they're not so keen on doing the kind of the hard sessions. Absolutely. I've heard of Zatapek, Emil Zatapek.
00:23:12
Speaker
So he's a runner from the 1950s. So he's a very famous runner from the 1950s. And basically he's the only man ever to run in the Olympics and gold medal, the 5K, the 10K and the marathon. And he basically won the marathon in his first effort. This is Helsinki, I think it was in 52. Anyway, he only ever ran intervals. That's all the training he ever did was interval training. Never did anything else other than interval training.
00:23:41
Speaker
It's a great book on him called Today We Die Little. It's a brilliant book for any runner who's keen on reading running books, but essentially he was just an incredible guy who trained solely intervaly and went on. His first marathon was like 2.28 or something ridiculous. Won the gold medal, but interval training is really, really good for the body because you work hard. It trains that top end of your kind of lactate threshold. It really works you hard.
00:24:11
Speaker
but actually you're not on the floor for that much. So you can do a hard session of 30 seconds on 30 seconds, walk 30 seconds on 30 seconds walk. And it really, really works for a lot of runners getting back from injury. That would be the session we, we get them to do. So it's so basically walk run. Um, so they're actually running at a reasonable pace, 30 seconds and then walking. So the, for the fast running is kind of very low impact on the body.
00:24:40
Speaker
That sounds brilliant. I'm glad that we're doing the right thing then. So how can how can runners help themselves? How can they stop themselves getting injured? What kind of top tips do you kind of give your runners to try and keep away from injury? Well, I think it's really the first thing is to do the basics really well. So understand mileage, understand time on your feet, understand that if you can do several months of a very similar amount, it will serve you better than being over enthusiastic and going at it too quickly.
00:25:08
Speaker
So several months of consistent sort of slowly by slowly efforts really, really helps. And adding into that probably some cross training so that if you're keen to, if it's not enough for you and you want to do some more, that's fine. Get out on a bike, sit on a bike, on a what bike or something and just put some engine training in that's less heavy on the legs would really, really help. Then the main things I kind of say
00:25:36
Speaker
I think the other side of stuff of spending lots of time doing passive work is more debatable, but the biggest thing that would really help the vast majority of people is what I was saying about the engine getting better quickly and the chassis taking time to build up is do some strength work, do some strength and conditioning type work that looks at building up some tissue tolerance, of getting stronger, looking at any of the major flexibility issues and really working on that side of things.
00:26:06
Speaker
So back to what Beef was saying last week with kind of squats and pistol squats and single legs and lunges and all those kind of bits of pieces which will aid you in the long run. Yeah definitely and it's a real simple test for that sort of thing that is really easy to do is like a single leg calf raise where you go on a bottom step see how many calf raises you can do in a row and
00:26:30
Speaker
Good runners should be looking to be able to do one a second, getting up towards 30 or 40, 40 being ideal. And if you can't manage that, then your chances are your calves are fatiguing really quickly while you're going out on a run. And that will cause some problems. Something like a broad jump, which is like a distance jump. So just a standing long jump, seeing whether you can jump longer than your height. So if you can jump further than your height, it's giving you a good idea that you've got good explosive power.
00:26:59
Speaker
pushing through your legs. And I think that kind of ability to look at that and get a number and then re-measure it really helped. So there we are. So we'll put that out there for everyone over Christmas. So if you tweet into UK Run Chat and also add Ocean Physio, you can put in your score for your calf raises on your step.
00:27:19
Speaker
and tell us where you are. We'll have a bit of a share, see what I'll do it later. I'll literally do it after we finish the podcast and I'll put it out there when we've launched the podcast. So see, it's coming up to Christmas. So I've got the classic Christmas present ideas. Theraguns and foam rollers. Are they any good? Are they worth getting? Are there any kind of cautionary tales? Is there anything you can say about them? So massage guns and foam rollers.
00:27:49
Speaker
I would say, to me, they fall in the category of marginal gains. And I think about Bradley Wiggins with that. Bradley Wiggins quote on marginal gains was, the 1% don't make much difference if you haven't got the other 99%. And I think that if you can get that, if they work for you, fine. I've never used them. But if they work for you, I would say it's fine. There's not an issue to use them. But the vast majority of really, really good runners are really, really good because they run really consistently.
00:28:18
Speaker
So they're really consistent in their running. They're really consistent in their recovery. So they sleep well, they eat well, they run really, really consistently and know why they're running. They're not getting there because of things like massage guns and foam rollers, but not to say that if your legs are struggling, they might help and they may do. Where do you sit on ice baths? It's quite interesting. Ice baths have had a tough time in the literature.
00:28:42
Speaker
ice baths were like, you know, they were the only thing everyone should be doing. And now, in essence, I think the what they're pretty much saying from what I can gather is that ice baths help visit, you know, the mental state. So they're really amazing for making you feel better psychologically, but actually from the tissue
00:29:00
Speaker
you know, from the tissues adapting to the work you're doing, there may not actually be that helpful. So if you consistently ice bath thing after doing running, in essence, the tissues are changing and tissue tolerance is building up. It might get in the way of that, unfortunately. Okay. Yeah. See, I'm a wild swimmer, so I do like an ice bath because obviously I'd tend to run and go for a swim on the beach where I finished normally. So, but yeah, not as much. I'd do that as well. So I love running, swimming in the sea.
00:29:30
Speaker
Um, I think you just got to really understand why you're doing it. If you, if you've injured yourself and you've sprained something and you, and you feel, you know, there's a potential damage there and some bleeding, then, you know, ice is your friend, isn't it? Cause it's going to constrict all the blood vessels and calm everything down for the first couple of days. So brilliant. If you're wanting tissues to adapt and evolve and grow and strengthen over time, then if it gets in the way of that, then. Yeah, maybe not.
00:29:57
Speaker
It's quite interesting, because obviously I do a bit of teaching first aid, and obviously there's been lots of talk about tissue injuries and how we support them. We always used to talk about ice, whereas they're now talking about a mixture of ice and heat, aren't they? It's that kind of combination of two. Yeah, and I think that's not, again, that's all sort of changed a little bit. So the phrase optimal load has come out rather than complete rest. So I think you injure yourself.
00:30:23
Speaker
by and large it used to be if you injure yourself like don't do anything for ages and make sure that you could completely rest and don't cause any problems but now they're sort of saying actually if you really want things to recover you're alright to keep going as long as it's not too painful and just push on a little bit as long as you know it gets significantly worse afterwards it's just that actually speeds up the healing process yeah cool
00:30:44
Speaker
So that brings on to warming up really. See, there's so much conflicting ideas about what you should do for a warm up. I have to say I'm one of those runners that is really poor in the fact that I basically do a slow run. My runs start from the front door. I don't do any stretching. I don't do any warming up of any form. But I always kind of are mindful in my first kind of 5-10 minutes. I'm going to go easier. So if I'm going to do a fast session, I will do a warm up.
00:31:10
Speaker
of a K or a K and a half before I then go into my harder session. What's your thinking on warmups? Should we be doing stretching? Should we, you know, is it okay to just do a gradual warmup of a run? Or where do you think we should be, what we should be doing? Well, I think you're probably like the vast majority of runners, including me, some years ago that most people don't do any warmup. They just, you know,
00:31:35
Speaker
just go for it and just gradually build up and actually a lot of people just go running really fast really quickly and that's a lot of people do that and don't have any issues but I would say broadly speaking doing some kind of dynamic warm-up and routinely doing it for three or four minutes before you start every single run is massively beneficial so if you can do that and get in the mindset saying right before I go running I'm definitely going to do this this warm-up and some dynamic
00:32:05
Speaker
Not static stretching, just some dynamic movements. I can put a little link out for you for video on it. We've got one that we use. It's only three or four minutes. It works really, really well. It gives you a chance to stop before you start wanting to think, well, what am I going out to do here? What's this run about? Get a very similar pattern where you just do that exact same warm up every single time before you go out.
00:32:25
Speaker
you will feel better when you finish. It just, it just is kinder to the tissues. It gives the tissues time to think, okay, something's about to happen. I'm not just sitting at a desk and now what next thing you know, I'm running down the road. It's breaking between those two activities. I do every single time before I got running guaranteed and have done for some years now and definitely helped my recovery. I do, I coach football. I do every single session with the footballers. They, they just wouldn't,
00:32:52
Speaker
train without doing that and these are kids and it's just routine for us and it just works really well it just gives a little pause before you start and then and then you're off I think it works well
00:33:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? I think we always think of running, it's all about timing, isn't it? As in a lot of us time pressure. So we literally go, well, rather than a five minute warmup, we'll spend five more minutes running. But actually it's probably not a good idea. That five minutes of spent doing something to get yourself activated is probably well worth it because it means you're not going to get injured a month or so down the road.
Warm-Up and Recovery Insights
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah. And I've definitely been guilty of that where your time's squeezed and you're thinking, well, I'm just going to have a quick 30 minute run out there and just go hard for 30 minutes, which,
00:33:34
Speaker
For one session of a week might be fine, but I think it works, it's more disciplined to have a sensible kind of warm up dynamically. There's nothing too dramatic. It just takes a few minutes. Actually, it doesn't really take that long. And you will start running better. You'll feel better straight away.
00:33:55
Speaker
Brilliant. If you can, well, when we release this podcast, if you can kind of put a link out, that'd be great. Yeah, that's fine. We can have a look at that then. So then that comes to cooling down as well, because obviously cooling down is something that I have to say that I'm not the best at doing. I might do a few stretches of doorstep, but I tend to come in and get kind of consumed by family life straight away, which is I think the issue of a lot of runners. You know, what should we be doing in the cool down? What should it look like? Should it be static stretching? Should it be dynamic?
00:34:24
Speaker
should there be a little bit of kind of, I'm trying to get in the habit at the moment with my fast sessions to, and I always just be kind of really bad at this, obviously being a Strava kind of addict as I am, I would never do a run at the end of a run which was slower because it would affect my Strava kind of information. So what I've started doing now is I've stopped my session and then restart again so it's actually logged separately and I'll say right I'm going to go and do
00:34:50
Speaker
a K or a K and a half of slower running just to kind of bring the body heart rate down and kind of get rid of the lactic acid. Is that a good idea or should we be looking at something? That sounds very sensible. I'll talk about Strava in a second, but I think the evidence behind warming up is pretty strong. It's doing some kind of dynamic warmup. The evidence behind cooling down at some kind of static stretch is very weak. So I think it doesn't make a massive difference. And I think if you can just slow down, I think it's more
00:35:18
Speaker
probably more important what you eat or drink immediately. So if you're thinking that you've run hard or you've run for long and you need some kind of recovery, probably what you eat or drink at that time is important to hydrate, take on maybe a shake of something with some kind of recovery component to it, or even just milk. That's probably more relevant to you than spending the next 20 minutes stretching, which again, no one's got time for.
00:35:47
Speaker
I think that would be more relevant.
The Impact of Competitive Running Apps
00:35:50
Speaker
I think that's quite important to get across with Strava as well. So the first reason of why I see people, I would say almost a good chunk of that is Strava. The problem is with Strava, it's a brilliant tool, but it basically compares you always to your best, you. So always your personal best. So even on every little segment of every run, it has got the tendency, if you're not careful and you're not disciplined, to turn every run into a race.
00:36:17
Speaker
So you've got to really understand the difference between training, like this is a training run and this is now a race. So Strava basically is super competitive and it makes everything a race. So you're always racing against your best time on that loop or that segment or that component. And then your leaderboard of all your mates who've done that segment or that route, and then everyone who's ever done it, it's so easy to be really competitive and absolutely go for it on every single run. And I've definitely been guilty of that.
00:36:45
Speaker
I'm not as bad as that, but I have got a habit now where I'll, I always take my watch with me. I can't not take my watch with me. I'm pretty impressed that you can do that. I don't know. It's just, I guess, a bit of a, a bit of a techno geek, kind of a bit of a, kind of a light to the stats, but I've been getting to the habit of putting my watch in my bag.
00:37:04
Speaker
or in my pocket so I actually can't see it. So I know what route I'm going to do and I'll just literally start it, put my pocket and run. Just to try and get away from what you're saying is that whole kind of checking in to see if the pace is good and trying to get back to running on field. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I guess it depends what you're doing. If I'm sort of building up to an event, I'll give myself three, well definitely more than three, four, five months to build up to that event and then I would be quite kind of time and watch kind of
00:37:33
Speaker
busy with that just because I know that I'm not brilliant at perceiving effort but a lot of elites don't do that at all actually but I would kind of do that but then other times when I'm just running because I just want to get out of the house and do some running then I don't worry about that so much. Strava is a really good tool and Garmin and all these things but I think you've just got to know what it's there for and try to be careful with if you're particularly competitive which I am then you just tend to
00:38:03
Speaker
Compete yourself all the time, or mate, or look for kind of like thumbs up.
00:38:08
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, I've been trying to, I mean, Andy from exercise science, been kind of telling me to not beat myself up and look at heart rate rather than kind of speed, especially with coming back because obviously you can always look at times and how long you've done a course or whatever, but the conditions can be completely different. Your fitness is different. Might be different time of day. You know, it's all about perceived effort, isn't it? So it's more on heart rate rather than kind of speed you've done it. It just takes a little bit of time to get your head around that idea. Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, when I did my marathon last year,
00:38:38
Speaker
So I had a target heart rate to finish. And actually I became so in tuned into that that I was kind of more interested whether I hit my target heart rate than my time. And it's a bit more forgiving where I knew on the day that my target heart rate
00:38:54
Speaker
average heart rate is 159 and I actually finished with a heart rate average heart rate 159 so I knew that on that day I couldn't have given it any more and I just felt that that was a fairer kind of test of the marathon that day irrespective of the time that I ran because the problem is with competitive running which is a little bit why I'm moving towards the trails now is that as soon as you say I'm gonna run a half marathon I'm gonna run a 10k I'm gonna run a marathon
Exploring Trail Running
00:39:18
Speaker
the next question people ask is, what time do you run? Which is not necessarily the fairest of questions, because courses can be very different. It can be hot, it can be cold, and it takes away a little bit of that real competitive stuff about the time. So would you go longer with trail racing? Would you go into the ultras, or would you stay at what I call sensible distances? I don't know, really. I haven't really decided.
00:39:47
Speaker
So the next podcast we've got coming out on our Asian Physio ones with Joan Meek, who's an ultra runner. And the distances she runs are ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. And she's so competitive with it. So she's top Finnish, top British female Finnish in the marathon the Sabla. She's amazing, you know, really incredible runner. But actually when you speak to her, she doesn't do significantly longer training than she would do if she was doing marathon training. So
00:40:15
Speaker
And the thing that appeals to me about trail running is that it's not time heavy. No one's going to ask what time you run a trail running. Um, so I think, I don't know, I might not even do races. I might just go and do it on my own, but I think ultra is, I can see the appeal. I can see the appeal. The thing is with any running event, and I think ultra is in particular is that they're so friendly and the only competition is with yourself really. The running is literally the perfect sport, isn't it? It's totally really cheap to do.
00:40:45
Speaker
everyone's really friendly. Whenever people say to me, should I get into running? I'll say you literally virtually never meet an unfriendly runner. If you're running along and then someone's running the opposite way, they'll always give you a little acknowledgement, whether they're running really fast or really slow. It's such a lovely community. So I think trail running kind of appeals to me from that perspective because I bet it's really friendly and not that competitive. Yeah, I completely agree with you. I mean, my experience of road running and trail running is completely different. And I think trail running is a different community completely.
00:41:13
Speaker
I love trail racing because it's a challenge in itself rather than actually being a time thing. That's why you can't look at a 10K speed time. What's your time for 10K on a trail race? Because every trail race is different. Some of the places you go to race and some of the views you see, I did the classic quarter quite a few times as a team event rather than as a wonner. I just love that race just because Southwest Coast Path, as you know, it's amazing. But doing that little bit down the bottom of my corn wall,
00:41:42
Speaker
and you can't go wrong as long as the seas on your left and lands on your right you're going in the right direction but it's just beautiful. Oh it's lovely yeah I mean we're so lucky around here aren't we? Yeah we are yeah we are. I was thinking about the other day I went for an early run along the canal to do a speed session out towards Turf Locks and you know the mist was on the on the river and it was like you know this is pretty rubbish venue really to go running isn't it really you know there's other people on the run around streets in London or whatever it's just yeah far nicer.
00:42:12
Speaker
Oh, it's amazing. So what, um, so you talk about trail racing. Have you got anything planned? Have you got any kind of races in the calendar or what kind of things you're looking at? I know COVID is kind of still causing some issues, but I know trail races are starting to pop up again now. I haven't. And I would say that for me, like I was really, really into it and did those, a marathon in 2018, 2000 and one in 2019. Um, and then I kind of just,
00:42:38
Speaker
enjoyed running and I kind of think I probably will look at something in 2021 or 2022 to have a go at something again just because it's nice to have something in the diary to have a go at and a purpose towards your training but it probably won't be until maybe in the late spring 2021 or early autumn or something like that you know I'll have a look around but it will be off-road I think I'm not going to do another
00:43:06
Speaker
the only reason for me to do another marathon would be try and get a better time. And I kind of know that I haven't really got the time to commit to significantly more mileage. So I think the only reason I'd go to another marathon is I finally get that elusive London spot. Yeah, I've stopped applying now. They've rejected me too many times. And I didn't get the good for age time. So, you know, oh yeah, the only other thing is, you know, when you go into another age bracket, you can have a go at it. But
00:43:33
Speaker
I love the London Marathon, I would love to do it. That's the only marathon I would do if I did another one, would be London. So we'll see. Yeah, I think it's just one of those things to tick off, isn't it? I think everyone who runs, you know, I did one attempted marathon, didn't have any joy because I didn't get it right, I kind of ended up really ill at the end. But I realise why now.
00:44:03
Speaker
I don't like the distance. I have to be honest, I quite happily like half marathon and 10 and 5Ks. More half marathon and 10s and 10 miles. I actually don't quite like a 10 mile race, especially trail. But I'd be happy to push back to marathon just for London, just like a ticket off and say I've done it really. Yeah, I know what you mean. I think half marathon is a really good distance because you can gradually build up your training.
00:44:26
Speaker
And you do feel when you run it that you are basically running fairly fast, even if it is taking you, you know, whatever hour and a half or two hours or whatever, but you do feel it's a fairly fast run. Whereas I felt with the marathon, I was holding back the whole time, but you do learn a lot from that. Like I learned a lot from the first one compared to the second one. I was so much more patient on the second one and went out so much slower for that first half.
00:44:50
Speaker
which really helped me actually complete it running and made a massive difference. So I think you do just take a few marathons to kind of learn the distance. You can read what you want and speak to who you want, but actually doing it, it takes time to learn how to run them. Yeah. Have you ever done a great West run? Yeah, I have done a great West run. Yeah, I did that half, which was really good. I really enjoyed that. It was a great event actually. A bit hilly. Yeah.
00:45:19
Speaker
It was a bit hilly, but then a kind of a work round there, so I did loads of training runs around there, so I kind of enjoyed that. I did that a few years ago. I think it was a great, great event. Yeah, it's really good. I like the kind of support and stuff, you know, especially being a teacher next day, you kind of see other children that kind of you work with, so it's quite nice. Yeah, I find it quite a comical, a half marathon, the fact that it's very heavily stacked with hills in the second half of the half marathon, isn't it?
00:45:47
Speaker
it's all towards the end. So people go off a lot quicker if they haven't done it before or doing the course and they go off quick because it's a lot of flat and downhill and then suddenly you hit halfway and it's like, yeah, I've got to get all those hills back now. Oh yeah, and coming up by the uni and that whatever that is, mile 9 or 10, that was horrendous, isn't it? And then you go down Union Street and then you end up picking up, Union Road, sorry, and then you pick up from the roundabout by the Ojin and then that hill all the way back to the finish line.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to grasp. But yeah, I did enjoy that event. I thought it was really good. And also finishing in the arena is quite sort of like rocky running, running a little lap around the arena. That was great. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, the only time I've ever done it with the arena finished though, it was a bit of an eventful one because I was running with Kerry and he hadn't trained well enough and the wheels fell off by the time we hit the running track and I was literally carrying him. So, but yeah.
00:46:41
Speaker
That's another story, but hey, hey. So yeah, so thank you. I think we're kind of there, aren't we really? I've kind of got all my questions here. Anything you want to add? Is there anything kind of advice, any top tips or advice you can kind of pass on your knowledge to people that are listening? I think the main thing with running is just enjoy it, do it for fun. There's a lot of sort of gentle peer pressure with running and you can
00:47:10
Speaker
You just need to listen to your body and do it and do it because you're enjoying it. And it's amazing feeling, as I've said, when you get back from a run. It does always feel a bit hard when you start. So, you know, I used to have a friend who was a psychologist who worked with runners and I always feel a bit like, a bit rough when I'm running.
00:47:30
Speaker
And I was chatting to him about how elites feel. And he said, I said, oh, it's a little bit rough when I'm running. How do the elites manage it? And he said, the difference is that they expect to feel like that and you're trying not to feel like that. So once I kind of learned that I would probably feel a bit rough maybe when I was running, and that was fine. It meant I was running quite well. It totally changed my mindset. And so then I don't mind feeling like that. And I enjoy feeling like that in a weird way. So I think just to go out and just enjoy it and not put too much pressure on yourself. Be relatively kind to yourself.
00:48:00
Speaker
with running makes a nice difference because it takes several years to build up to a really good level of fitness. Yeah, I heard 18 months until you kind of feel comfortable within your running speed or running kind of level as it were. I think that's pretty good and that can seem like a lifetime away but on the flip side you sort of think, you know, someone described running to me as a fair master and I think that's fair enough that if you put a bit into running it will reward you but if you try and
00:48:30
Speaker
cheat it, it will make you stop running. So if you just take it steady and build up gradually, you will make massive improvements and anyone can run. It really is a great sport. As I said, it's the perfect sport. It's cheap to do. It's incredibly friendly community. You can run on your own. You can run with a load of mates. You can run whenever you want really. It's brilliant. I think the thing to take away from this is actually listen to your body, isn't it? And just build up slowly. That's the key thing, isn't it?
00:48:58
Speaker
build up slowly, understand mileage, understand pace, understand some kind of strength work alongside just running all the time. A proper dynamic warmup and recovery fuel will really, really help you. Brilliant. Well, um, thank you very much for joining me today. Um, I hope you'll feel, you won't feel upset if I say, I hope don't, I hope not to see you for a while. Um, we know we've been together at the clinic, either if I'm coming to spinning with Andy or if, uh, if I'm asking a question at the corridor.
00:49:27
Speaker
But yeah, thank you very much for joining us today. I've learnt lots, let alone everyone else, I'm sure, so thank you. And feel free to link us in any Twitter stuff or any information you've got. We'd love that. And we'll pass on to everyone who follows us at UK Run Chat. Brilliant. No problem at all. Well, thank you very much. Lovely. All right, Matt. Thanks very much. Yeah. Bye. Take care.