Some runners sometimes shrug off the importance of strength training when it comes to avoiding injury and improving performance. However, strength training should be part and parcel of your training program, as it will help you in many ways, including avoiding injury and improving your performance.

One of the regions you should be focusing on as a runner, to increase strength and mobility, is your hips.  The hips are one of the most important, and yet ignored, aspects of biomechanics. Hip weakness is a major injury root-cause, so when it comes to warding off running pain (especially knee pain), your hip strengthening exercises are some of the most important you can do.

By committing to a hip strengthening routine two to three times a week, you can increase stability and support of your core region. By starting with one set of eight reps and gradually building on it so that you are doing three to four sets of 12 to 15, you should start noticing major improvement in less than two to three weeks. Here are some suggestions:

Single Leg Bridge

• Lie on your back with both knees bent and feet flat on the floor, arms pressed against the floor by your sides. Lift your hips, tone your thighs and squeeze your glutes.
• Next, raise your right leg up in the air as straight as possible, keeping your foot flexed and extending it whilst raising your lower back. Lift your hip as high as possible by engaging your abs and pressing down through the left heel.
• Hold the position for five to ten seconds, and then lower your hips to lightly touch the ground. Now switch legs.

Donkey Kicks

• Get on all fours, with your hands directly under your shoulders and your knees under your hips, and your wrists aligned under your shoulders.
• Draw your abdominals in as you gradually lift your leg behind you until it’s almost parallel to the floor, with your knee bent and your foot flexed.
• Hold this position and pulsate your flexed foot towards the ceiling by engaging and squeezing your glutes. Keep the motion small and controlled with the muscle doing most of the work.
• Focus on the muscle, and avoid using momentum. Also make sure you keep your back straight and spine in a neutral positon.
• Lastly, return to the starting position and complete one rep.

Bird Dog

• Get on all fours on your hands and knees with your palms flat on the floor and shoulder width apart. Your knees should be directly under your hips and your hands beneath your shoulders. Make sure to keep your lower back and abdomen in a neutral position.
• Next, engage your core to keep a good balance. Raise your left arm and extend it straight out in front of your body as you raise your right leg and straighten it behind you.
• Hold this position for three to five seconds, and then return to the starting position and repeat.

Until next time,

Mohsin Salya

Even if you absolutely love to run, you can’t run all the time – this will just set you up for injury and burnout. Runners are well known for having imbalances and weaknesses, as running is a high-impact, repetitive motion. Therefore, switching up your routine by adding group fitness classes can address the holes in your fitness. Not only that, but it will mix things up in a social and fun environment.

However, with all the different fitness classes on offer, knowing how to pick the right one can be confusing. In this post I’ve listed my suggestions on which fitness classes runners will get the most benefit from.

Treadmill classes

This is the perfect stepping stone for runners who are new to group fitness classes. Treadmill classes combine approximately 30 minutes of intense running intervals with another 30 minutes of strength training. This is done in a high energy studio with loud music, which is great for motivation and a definite change from your usual quiet run. These classes are great for encouraging you to push yourself harder and introduce you to speed and tempo work.

CrossFit

CrossFit focuses on total-body strength and power moves, including squats, deadlifts and thrusters. Because of this, it can be a complete game changer when it comes to optimising your running efficiency. With CrossFit, you get a huge upper body component that other runners may overlook. The stronger your upper body, the more your body can stay in control and work as a single unit rather than having your upper body flail around like many other runners’.

Indoor cycling classes

The biggest benefit of cycling is that it’s low impact. As a runner hitting the pavement regularly, this can take its toll on your joints. Taking part in some cycling can enable you to take some stress off your joints whilst still getting a great cardiovascular workout. Even though running and cycling are both lower body dominant exercises, cycling emphasizes a slightly different blend of leg muscles then running does. When it comes to reducing the muscular imbalances and preventing injury, this is critical.

TRX classes

TRX (Total Body Resistance Exercise) naturally challenges the core and the stability of the body, which is incredibly important in running. When working with a TRX, you will learn how to fight instability, which will come in handy when you’re out running and are getting fatigued. It will also help with different types of running, such as when you’re trail running.

Until next time,

Mohsin Salya

Broccoli

Always associated with this time of year, there’s no denying broccoli is super. Just 175 grams of broccoli supplied 276 per cent of your daily vitamin K needs.

Good for: Vitamin D levels. Especially key during the winter months as many people in colder climates become vitamin D deficient due to the lack of sunshine.

Kale

You’ve probably heard about all the benefits of Kale already. There’s no denying it’s a superfood, as it’s loaded with the compound xeathanthin, best known for helping to prevent age-related loss of vision.

Good for: Vitamin K and manganese – also known for protecting your body’s cells against premature aging. After all, you want to be able to run for as many years as possible.

Winter Squash

Better known in the butternut variety, winter squash is an annual fruit representing several squash species.

Good for: Offering a wealth of potassium and beta-carotene. Winter squashes also provide fibre, vitamin C and B vitamins.

Spring Greens

Despite the name, spring greens are available all year round. Known as collard greens in the US, they are a type of cabbage that lacks the hard heart.

Good for:  Being particularly high in fibre, magnesium, potassium and calcium (more than a quarter of your recommended daily allowance in 190 grams cooked). Magnesium and potassium are crucial for healthy blood pressure, and studies have shown that spring greens may improve blood-flow to exercising muscles.

Brussel Sprouts

Famously hated at the Christmas dinner table, it’s really worth re-considering leaving your sprouts. With light steaming, the fibre in the sprouts can work to regulate cholesterol levels.

Good for: As well as providing cholesterol-lowering fibre, a 100 gram serving can also provide most of your daily vitamin C needs. They also provide as much vitamin K as broccoli does.

Enjoy your greens!

Until next time,

Mohsin Salya

Hydration is an important consideration for any runner, as you need to keep your fluid levels up to maximise your performance. You may want to switch from water to sports drinks from time to time, as they’re specially designed to help you stay hydrated on longer runs. Here are the five best sports drinks for runners…

Lucozade Sport

For a cost effective option, you can’t beat Lucozade Sport. The UK’s leading sports drink, Lucozade Sport has been scientifically developed to include glucose, carbohydrates, fluid and electrolytes, to maintain hydration and power your muscles. You can purchase Lucozade Sport from leading supermarkets.

Gatorade

Gatorade is another good option for long distance runners. The US sports drink contains electrolytes such as sodium and potassium, helping regulate the body’s “fluid balance.” It also contains carbs, which can allow you to re-stock your energy levels. You can buy a Gatorade four-pack easily online.

PAS Pro Iso

In its list of the best sports drinks for runners, London newspaper The Evening Standard included PAS Pro Iso. It was developed by the Welsh national rugby team’s own nutritionist and comes with a two-to-one sodium-to-potassium ratio, maximising hydration. PAS Pro Iso comes in 21 flavours, to suit the preferences of any runner and you can buy bottles from its website, www.pro-iso.co.uk.

iPro Sport

Billed as the “the natural choice of isotonic sports drinks,” the increasingly popular iPro Sport certainly lives up to its name. It is naturally sweetened with Stevia and lacks artificial components, while boasting B5, B6, B7 and B12, aiding hydration and giving you a daily dose of vitamin C. If you visit the drink’s website, iprosport.com, you can grab a few bottles for very affordable prices.

Coconut water

If you’d prefer something completely natural and incredibly tasty, opt for unsweetened coconut water. It contains a tonne of electrolytes e.g. potassium, aiding hydration, while some evidence suggests that it’s even better than water. You can buy unsweetened coconut water from various retailers and all good health food stores, either in-store or online.

Hydrate with care

I’d advise you to try out a few sports drinks, and once you find out what works for you, stick with it. But make sure you do this well before the big day, as one of the worst hydration mistakes you can make is to experiment with different sports drinks just before running a marathon. If you consume something that isn’t compatible with your body, you could seriously damage your performance. But with the right drink, you’ll make it through the race easily!

Until the next time,

Mohsin Salya

There’s so much demand on our time these days, that it can be hard to fit running into our schedules. But if you really want to start pounding the pavement, consider handling other pressing tasks while you run, so you can keep up with everything. Here’s five easy ways to multitask while you run.

Change the world

So many people decide to run marathons to support good causes, such as Cancer Research or Operation Smile. Join them, so you can raise money to make the world a better place and get an extra motivation for running. It’s easy enough to spread the word about your fundraiser. Create a crowd funding campaign on sites such as Just Giving and share the page on social media, so your loved ones can get involved!

Do some errands

If you plot your running route carefully you can do some errands while jogging, making more time in your day for other activities. You could, for example, include your local post box on route so you can drop off any letters you need to send. It’s a good idea to invest in a lightweight backpack here, which you can buy easily enough at most good sports stores, so you can hold these items while running.

Expand your mind

You may be occupied physically, but your mind is free. Put it to good use, by listening to audio books as you jog so you can educate yourself. Download audio books to your phone, and buy a running armband to keep it secured to your bicep, allowing you to listen. You’ll need sports headphones, and the Monster iSport Strive is a good option here. The cheapest model in this range, these can be secured to your ears easily, so you can listen without fear of the buds being jostled out of your ears.

Thinking time

The beauty of running alone, is that it gives you a lot of time to think. You might want to turn this to your advantage, by working out the pressing issues in your life as you pound the pavement. You could take the time, for example, to do some brainstorming for work, coming up with new ideas to impress your boss. It’s wise to invest in free voice capture apps here such as Smart Voice Recorder, available for Android phones, so you can capture your brilliant ideas as you go.

Be social

It can be so hard to make time for your family and friends, with modern life putting so many demands on our time. You can kill two birds with one stone, by making your own running group and recruiting your loved ones to join, so you can spend time catching up with them while getting fit together. You could also join a running group and meet new people, which can be difficult when you’re busy!

Maximise your time

There are so many physical and mental health benefits to running. It can help you do everything from tone your muscles and improve your heart health, to boost your brain activity. But if you take the advice in this article, you can get even more benefits when you’re strapping the running shoes on, as it will ensure you can maximise your time. What more do you need to begin jogging right now!

Until the next time,

Mohsin Salya

It takes a lot to prepare for a marathon. It’s a good idea to develop an extensive training regime, so that when the race arrives, you’re ready to face this demanding but very rewarding task. At this point you may be asking “what speed should I run at when training for marathons.” Well here’s the answer…

Go with a game plan

If you’re training for a marathon, especially as a beginner, it’s crucial that you go in with a game plan. There’s a lot of work involved with marathon training, so coming up with this strategy will help you reach your goal, as well as figure out how you’re going to fit it all into your life. First things first – to come up with this strategy, familiarise yourself with the basics, so you know what you’re up against.

Finishing times  

When it comes to training speeds, it’s handy to know what you’re going to be expected to do, and how long people typically take to do it. Be aware that marathons are around 26.22 miles (42.195km). It’s impossible to run those kinds of distances quickly, even for professionals, so you should expect to run a long race and therefore, your training sessions are going to be time consuming.

It’s hard to say with any certainty how long it takes to complete a marathon. According to Very Well, it can take just over two hours even for the best runners. The average, however, is 4 hours, 19 minutes and 27 seconds for men and 4 hours, 44 minutes and 19 seconds for women, so you should be looking to cross the finish line in the region of these time frames.

Figuring out speeds

We can use these averages to work out how quickly you’ll have to run to complete a marathon. It’s around 9 minutes 54 seconds per mile for men and 10 minutes, 51 seconds per mile for women for the optimum marathon pace. You should look to train at these speeds, in order to prepare yourself properly for the rigours of marathon running.

However, if you’re new to marathon running, you won’t be able to start at your desired pace straight away. You likely won’t have the stamina to run nine or ten minutes per mile at the beginning. Your feet won’t be used to the pressure, so you could injure yourself – taking you out of the race completely. Instead, follow this advice from Runner’s World to take a more measured approach.

The suggestion is that you start out an easy pace for the first ten or 20 minutes of marathon training. There’s no real rule of thumb here – but as a base-line, try making your easy pace half of the average marathon time for your gender. After this, you should accelerate your pace throughout the rest of your run. You may need to train for a while before reaching your marathon pace however, so you can prepare your body properly.

Your own pace

There’s no one ideal speed that everyone should train at, when preparing for marathons. Even the average is only a base-line, and it’s really important that you know your body and understand your physical limitations, so you can figure out how long it’ll take you to run a marathon, leading you to the right training speeds. Nobody wins when you push your body too far, so it’s always best to go at your own pace.

Until the next time,

Mohsin Salya

For those of you who took part in the recent London Marathon, this article will be about a subject that is probably very close to your heart at the moment: the importance of recovery. It’s a vital part of our running lifestyle – not just in terms of giving yourself a chance to recover from a big race, but also a fundamental element of your preparation and training. So firstly, what do we mean by recovery, and is it really that important?

The right kind of rest

One thing to make clear straight away – by rest and recovery, I don’t mean doing nothing. When your body is used to daily activity, doing nothing at all isn’t a healthy option. Instead, these rest days are for staying moderately active, by taking a walk, doing some stretches or going for a swim. Strength training is also a great option that really complements the miles you’re putting in on the road during the rest of the week.

The rest days you build into your training programme serve a number of functions. Firstly, it’s simply to let your body recover – a really important benefit to remember if you want to avoid the injuries that come with overtraining.

Building on your training

These days are also a chance to bed in the training you’ve during the rest of the week. What do I mean by this? Well, many of the gains you make in terms of fitness and performance in fact occur on the rest days – so your time away from pounding the pavement actually improves the quality of the training you do on the other days and ultimately improves your performance.

A healthy mindset

Another important aspect of taking a rest day – whether those that form a part of your training regime or that come in the days following a big event – is that they’re a great way to avoid mental burnout. By giving your body some time off, you’re also allowing yourself some vital headspace away from running.

My advice is to bring the same level of discipline and focus on the days when you don’t run as on the days when you do – your body will thank you for it.

Until the next time,

Mohsin Salya.

Looking for the perfect present for a runner in your life? Or maybe you enjoy curling up with a good book after a hard race – either way, here’s a quick run down of some of the best books on running out there.

1. Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn

In the world of distance running, the Kenyans are something truly special. In order to find out exactly what their secret is, Adharanand Finn decided to head out to Iten in Kenya to meet some of the greatest runners in the world.

2. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

As strangely gentle and meditative as you’d expect from Murakami, this account of a life spent on the road is beautifully written. He’s a brilliant writer and draws plenty of parallels between the business of running and the business of writing.

3. Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

Christopher McDougall dives headlong into the world of ultra running, meeting everyone from tribes of Mexican Indians to the researchers working in laboratories for Nike and Harvard University.

4. Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

For many people, the benefits they gain from running are about much more than just the physical effect it has on their bodies. In this book the author takes a look at how running can be a complement to practices such as meditation.

5. Feet in the Clouds: A Tale of Fell-Running and Obsession by Richard Askwith

If you’ve ever looked at mountain and felt the urge to run to the top and back, then Richard Askwith’s passionate story of fell runners is for you. It’s a beautifully written portrait of this most unusual of sports.

Happy reading – and until the next time,

Mohsin Salya.

In our last blog, we talked about how having a number of different pairs of running shoes can be a real advantage, allowing you to match the footwear you need to the terrain you’re taking on. But there is another approach to running – that of stripping back all of the technology and simply running with as little external baggage as possible. Here are a few things you could try.

Lose your watch

I’d also include your GPS, heart rate monitor and your smartphone in this list of things to leave at home. Just take a look at how a dog runs on a beach – freely and without any inhibition whatsoever. When was the last time that you ran – just ran – with that kind of freedom? Running should be a liberating, exhilarating experience that gives you a break from the technology that dominates so much of modern life.

So, try getting rid of all of the kit that you’ve learned to rely on to judge your pace and your fitness, and re-learn the art of listening to your own body for feedback – you’ll find that it gives you a whole new perspective on what you’re capable of as a runner.

Ditch your headphones

I know that many people – myself included – love to listen to music while running. It can be a great way of getting through those longer workouts, and a real motivator when the going gets tough. But again, try and leave your headphones at home for once. You might find that the long run that you thought was dull is actually packed full of new experiences to notice – you’ll hear the birds, and you’ll soon find that you’re more absorbed in the environment you’re passing through. That kind of mindfulness can be a real refresher for a busy brain – lose yourself in the moment, listen to your breath and stop worrying about the list of jobs you’re going to do when your run is over.

Barefoot running

An extreme one this, but there is a school of thought that suggests getting rid of your running shoes altogether and hitting the road barefoot. In the last few years the running shoe industry went through a phase of producing minimalist footwear, that put more of the responsibility for supporting your feet on the muscles in your feet themselves.

It’s an argument that certainly makes some sense and taking it to its most extreme conclusion – running barefoot – is an interesting option. If you’re concerned that letting your shoes take the strain is actually weakening your muscles in your feet and increasing your risk of injury, then maybe give it a go.

Until the next time,

Mohsin Salya.

I prefer to run alone. I’m a runner who enjoys the peace and quiet, and the opportunity to step out of daily life for a while as I exercise. And if I’m honest, I also find it difficult to talk while I run – I like to push myself as much as possible, and sometimes the effort often means holding a sensible conversation can be a challenge!

A shared experience

But I know that for many people, running is a social experience – or at least they would like it to be. I’ve been in races and run in charity events before where I’ve passed old friends (and new) chatting together for the whole length of the course, using the event as an opportunity to catch up. I’ve seen families out running together, using the time out on the course as a chance to reconnect and to spend the kind of quality time with each other that isn’t always easy in our modern world.

However, we don’t all have families and friends who are willing (or able) to join us on our runs. So, what are the alternatives?

Is a running club for you?

The first and most obvious option is to join a local running club. There are thousands around the country and you’ll find your nearest with a quick Google search. But why bother? Well, of course you’ll get to meet other runners and have a bit of company out on the road. But you’ll also get more variety built into your training schedule and perhaps begin to see yourself as more serious and committed runner than you did when it was simply a lone pursuit.

A collective approach

The example of a group of runners in New York offers an alternative to joining a formal running club – simply forming your own collective of friends to run with you regularly, with a loose approach to creating routes and the emphasis firmly on seeing the area where you live through different eyes. “It became, ‘let’s run where nobody else does and see things that nobody will’,” says Mike Saes of the New York Bridge Runners collective. “That’s always been my trick to running — the visuals.”

Another option – a kind of halfway house between informally running with friends and joining a running club – is to head along to a Parkrun. I’ll be focusing on these in another post soon.

Until the next time,

Mohsin Salya.