How to Easily Run Further, Longer and Faster

0:00 now I'm well aware that for a lot of people the mere mention of running ignites a real fight or flight reaction and I've spoken to a lot of people who say I'm not a runner I suck at running I could never and I'm here to tell you I'm here to announce to the world that you are in fact a runner you do not suck and you very much could if you want it to so we're going to cover your bases for the

0:26 fundamentals that you need to know to become a runner to make running feel more enjoyable to make it easier and even if you are a runner you do some running already who doesn't want running to feel easier so first up is going to be training intensity how hard do we want to be going in our running sessions some running technique tips are going to make running feel easier then we've got training volume so how much running

0:50 should we be doing per week and how do we progress that over time then it's just a little bit of Gym training to become a faster more efficient Runner with less risk of injury and and then just some mental tips to change how you think about running so that you can enjoy your run so that you look forward to your next run if you guys find this video helpful please give me a big thumbs up so that we can share the news

1:11 that running doesn't have to be hell basically it can actually be I'm going to say it enjoyable let's talk about training intensity I feel like the classic way that we've been taught to think about running is time half uncomfortable sweaty and if you haven't finished really tired you haven't had a good session and listen I know where that comes from I remember being at school and doing the beat test or the Pacer

1:42 test you know you're going to die even when it was time for cross country your teachers and your friends are going to ask what time you got you know you're going to die well maybe you had a coach who would scream at you if they thought you could give more I'm putting my hand up for that one and even in different training settings like if you train at the gym you're always hearing go close to failure and so it's easy to create

2:03 this idea that harder equals better the first step to becoming a runner and not just any Runner a damn good runner is just to forget all of that I know why it feels that way but it's not at all necessary and there's more and more research piling up to suggest that it actually might be less effective for improving your running when we run at really low intensity and I mean low whatever means to you something really

2:32 interesting happens up to a certain point as we increase our speed and effort our blood lactate concentrations stay pretty consistent pretty level and lactate is just a byproduct of when your body uses glucose or sugar for energy after a certain level of effort or a certain level of speed your blood lactate concentration starts to just slowly creep up from that Baseline that consistent blood lactate concentration but but if you were to run at an even higher intensity and even higher speed

3:04 your blood lactate concentration would stop increasing at this chill steady rate and just suddenly go exponential go off the charts see your Baseline nice KN you peace out and that's because lactate is accumulating at a faster and faster rate and our body just can't clear it quick enough now back to that first part that point where your blood lactate concentrations just slow slowly start to creep up from their Baseline is called your aerobic threshold and that first

3:35 Zone where your blood lactate levels are steady is what sport scientists call Zone one it's super creative I know and this Zone one is where we're going to live it's a very happy place unfortunately for us the sports science also shows us that training in this zone is very effective at training our Aerobic System training your Aerobic System is important because it improves your body's ability to supply working muscles with oxygen over a sustained period of time plus it increases your

4:06 mitochondrial density and just causes a whole load of adaptations so your steady state Pace gets faster and faster and your steady state pace is just the pace you can sustain for a long period of time and by moving at a comfortable slower pace which you can sustain for longer than if you were trying to run fast you also improve your running economy so your body learns to use less energy to run cuz your brain has had

4:31 more repetitions to practice that running motion and find those small inefficiencies so I'm not just saying this because I want you to enjoy running which I do but also because I want you to really improve your running start off super strict at going slowly what we really really care about is that total time spent in zone one accumulating all of those benefits When You're training your Aerobic System I feel like a natural question is how slow should we

5:01 be going how do we know when we're in zone one and that depends that's very different for everyone there are a couple of easy ways to kind of figure out or estimate our ballpark Zone one my personal favorite is the Tor test can you maintain a conversation for a few minutes and I'm not just saying a few words I'm saying be elaborate tell me about your meal yesterday what did you put in it what kind of spices are you

5:26 using tell me the story of this meal oh dried pasta ly little bit of chives tell me what it means to you if you can tell a story then you're probably in zone one and this is the one that I use cuz it doesn't take any equipment so if you're seeing me out running and I'm talking to someone you look to my left no one there you look to my right no one there I'm just doing the talk test okay so we're

5:50 pushing a little bit we can feel that our heart rate's up but we can still maintain a steady deep sometimes conversation if you have a heart rate monitor researchers have roughly tried to estimate where that aerobic threshold is and they tend to estimate that it's about 70% of your heart rate Max now remember that's the threshold so Zone one is beneath that but if you want a good heart rate Max estimator I've also put one in the description box and if

6:18 you're familiar with tracking your heart rate during your workouts it's really important not to confuse those three intensity zones that sport scientists talk about with the five heart rate zones intensity Zone one is basically heart rate zone two so here's a couple of tips and tricks to make sure you're getting all of those Zone one benefits that we were just talking about walking is not cheating we want to find that conversation level of intensity sweet spot so if that means that you need to

6:50 run for a minute walk for 2 minutes I don't care I literally don't care cuz you're still going to be in zone one and you're still going to be making those adaptations that improve your Aerobic System and over time you'll find that that running to walking ratio will kind of go up and that is perfection so don't worry about where you're starting the second thing is pace yourself at the start I see a lot of people make this

7:15 mistake I actively want you to be holding yourself back for the first 5 10 minutes of your run if you're too aggressive at the start you're going to overshoot that aerobic threshold but you'll also get tired quicker which means you're going to cut your own short and then you're going to be spending even less time in zone one start slow uphills are Zone one killers they are out to kill your Zone ones it can be really easy to overshoot your aerobic

7:41 threshold here so when you get to a hill I want you to maintain a constant effort that you had when you're going on a flat so if that means walking then walk it don't try and be brave about it you're going to spend the rest of the Run trying to recover from that with a super elevated heart rate even Elite Runners are very conscious about what hill can do to you and they don't want to spend

8:02 the rest of their race recovering from that hill at the end of your Zone one runs I want you to still be feeling fresh feeling as if you could have kept going if you're new to running and you really want to make it stick this time then start off by just thinking about either distance or time spent running as soon as we combine the two to get speed it's super easy to get distracted by trying to go faster when we haven't

8:29 built the aerobic Foundation to our running once you can continuously run in zone one for 20 to 30 minutes or for 2 to 3 miles then we can start thinking about distance and time together when we start adding in some Zone 2 training so when do we move out of Zone one training do we ever move out of Zone one training the vast majority of elite Runners training programs use something called polarized training so basically 70 to

8:56 80% of the time they're training in zone one and then 10 to 20% of the time they're training in Zone 3 which is a really high level of intensity it's about a 9 or 10 out of 10 effort level they'll do a little bit of that in between training which is called zone two but it's only a small proportion of their training but if you're new to running I wouldn't be so strict about it there can still be a lot to gain from

9:21 zone two running once you can comfortably run at that zone one pace for 25 to 30 minutes or for 2 to 3 miles then we can start thinking about bringing in some zone two training so pick a distance that feels a little bit ambitious but also doable and then you're going to run that in zone two so at an intensity level of 6.5 to 8.5 out of 10 effort you can't maintain a conversation but you can say a few words

9:47 and you're going to track your time and your speed and you're going to do that run every 3 to four Zone one runs so the bulk of your training will still be Zone one you're just going to sprinkle in a little bit of zone two as a chance for you to see your running get better and better and better and better if you're a beginner those Zone 2 runs can be 1 to 2 miles that's great if you're more

10:08 advanced you can push those zone two runs to three to six maybe seven if you're feeling brave miles but we're still going for one zone two run every 3 to four Zone one runs okay so I just quickly want to say that this video is sponsored by Lululemon specifically their brand new Blissfield 2 running shoes now last year I ran in the first generation of the blissville running shoes for my 24-hour run they were the first shoe developed from scratch

10:36 specifically for women they scanned over a million women's feet to come up with the blissville running shoe now these are the second generation I was actually part of their Global launch campaign for these shoes so we've had a few 12-hour days in fact wearing the shoes if I was going to describe them I'd say lightweight I'd say they've got cushioning to make you feel springy but they're also not too bulky my favorite kind of and Lululemon just want you to

11:00 find the perfect running shoes so they're giving everyone a 30-day trial so pick them up go for a test run go for 30 test runs if you end up feeling like they're just not for you you can just take them back and get your money back you just can't lose let's talk about running technique cuz in most cases we can make running feel more comfortable and easier with just a few fundamental technique cues that will help you become more efficient

11:30 first things first everyone's form is going to be a little bit different we have different biomechanics we have different lengths and strengths my femur are disproportionately long compared to my torso so it affects my squatting it affects my running everything that's okay that's just what makes us different popular running rules tend to spread very quickly amongst the running Community generally when sport scientists test these rules they generally find that they don't improve running performance or risk of injury

11:59 because it ignores the runner's individuality so I'm just going to lightly suggest some fundamental tips for you to try out first up just keep those shoulders relaxed relaxed shoulders and arms bring a lot of balance and Rhythm and contribute to that overall stretch and swing of our body and beginners tend to get really locked up so just start off by relaxing your hands UNR round your shoulders pull them back and up a little bit that's really going to open up your chest we

12:26 don't want to be constricting our Airways which is what we do when we're looking down if you want to look down at the ground cuz it makes you feel more comfortable that's completely fine but just do do one of these ones so with relaxed shoulders and your head in a nice neutral position you're going to get a nice rhythmic swinging of the arms next up I want to touch on Cadence which is basically just your step

12:51 frequency at a fixed speed so let's say that you're running at 6 M an hour some people will take 190 smallest steps per minute and some people will take 155 longer steps per minute everyone has a different natural Cadence based on your biomechanics so we don't want to prescribe a generic optimal new Cadence in fact we regularly see that trying to impose a new Cadence that's too far away from your natural Cadence doesn't improve running performance as an

13:22 example when you look at some of the best Runners they tend to be running at a step frequency of about10 steps per minute and so some people have taken that to say that to become a better Runner you also need to be running at 180 steps per minute but what we see when we've tested it a bunch of times is that you can't just force a step frequency that's completely different to People's Natural Rhythm so finding the right Cadence for you based

13:48 on your biomechanics is a lot about practice keep getting those repetitions in and your body will get closer and closer to its mathematically optimal Cadence one thing to potentially look for though is over striding over striding is basically just making contact with the ground with your front foot a long way ahead of your center of mass and it applies a small amount of braking force and that small break basically means you're going to need to add extra propulsive force in every step

14:17 so it's basically like driving with your foot slightly on the brake overstride is something I'm currently working on myself I had my running analyzed recently cuz I'm training for my first 100 m marathon and when we looked at the running footage back with the physios you can see my foot is out ahead of my body as it first touches the ground and also my tibia or my shin is at a slightly diagonal angle so it's not

14:43 pointing straight up to the sky even if you overstride it's not always an issue but research is suggesting that Landing with your foot slightly closer to your center of mass reduces those breaking forces which could improve running efficiency for some people and it could also help with injury because it reduces impact there can be different reasons for over striding but one of the most common fixes is to do with cadence now we do not want a whole new Cadence that

15:12 just completely ignores your natural Rhythm but we could try a slight modification to your Cadence to see if that helps you find running easier and less impactful so if you're over striding at the moment we can try and increase your Cadence by about 5% and see how it feels and see if that over striding actually corrects itself to find your natural Cadence just film yourself running at a comfortable speed for 30 seconds and then just times it by

15:37 two then to find your test Cadence which is going to be 5% faster than your natural Cadence just times your natural Cadence by 1.05 download like a free metronome app on your phone and just play it out loud when you go for your next run and try and hit the ground on every little beep beep beep beep beep I have mine just L on in the background when I'm running sometimes I don't even listen to music

16:02 I'm literally just listening to the metronome after a little bit of practice film yourself running again at your new Cadence and then check check to see if that overstride has reduced a little bit and then depending on how running feels with this new Cadence like is it easier does it feel softer you decide if you want to keep it our last technique point is about landing and this is more if you're someone who feels like you get a

16:25 little bit more injured when you're running a recent study found that retraining Runners to think about running softer so basically Landing softly helped massively reduce their risk of injury after a year so that cue so Landing softly Landing a little bit more quietly is one I regularly give for people in the gym doing explosive movements and if you think about what more quiet running would be like that could alleviate some of the stress in your knees and also at the bottom of

16:54 your feet if that's where you tend to feel little niggles now I want to talk about increasing your training volume so adding in more miles progressing and just going further in general now a classic piece of advice that you may have heard if you've ever typed running into YouTube or you've read an article about it is this 10% rule which basically says do not increase your running mileage by more than 10% a week and this is kind of

17:22 really widespread amongst the Running World and some people are very religious about it I've looked at this Sport Science literature and I don't think the research supports being that strict at all and a lot of the sports science researchers agree as well we want to add mileage at a very particular rate specifically you're trying to balance three things number one feeling good in your body without too much stress ache or injury number two enjoying your running and feeling excited about your

17:52 next run and number three challenging yourself and the order is really important number one is your foundation you can't think about what's the most enjoyable thing if you've got an injury to think about first and you can't think about making it more challenging for yourself by adding more mileage if you're not enjoying your workouts so we add miles which is layer three at the rate that is allowed by layers one and two you can't be adding miles if you're

18:19 not enjoying it you can't be adding miles if you're injured some weeks you won't add any miles some weeks you might add 15% and that's great but if you're a beginner I'd recommend holding back a little bit from how much you want to increase by just to protect that enjoyment and excitement Factor if you teach yourself that running can actually be enjoyable I promise that your long-term odds of success are going to go way way up now I want to talk about Gym training

18:49 there are a couple of things you can do in the gym to help with your running I'm mainly talking about resistance training and petrics cuz they've been repeatedly shown to improve our running economy and reduce the chances of injury it just makes this whole running thing so much easier when we do explosive movements and resistance training in the gym it helps stiffen the soft tissue in our legs such as our tendons and when we run there's a lot of elastic energy involved

19:17 in every single step our connective tissu stretch and recoil just like a set of Springs the more elastic energy we can provide when we're running the less metabolic energy we need to spend so we want to become more elastic beginner Runners who haven't done much resistance training or plyometric training in general don't have very stiff tendons so they don't store much elastic energy which is like free energy that propels you in every step with the resistance training you can just stick

19:47 to the classic stuff back squats lunges deadlifts hip thrusts your Classics are absolutely perfect when you're just starting out and you might be thinking how heavy so we tested lots of different types of loads from 50% of your one rep max where you could do about 8 to 16 reps all the way to 90% of your one rep max where you're doing two to four reps and they all benefit your running economy so I would just say switch it up

20:15 with explosive resistance training and ply metrics I would just try out a few classic movements try your drop jumps try Pogo jumps I love Pogo jumps I just feel like I'm a human pogo stick coun to movement jump so lowering down quickly and then jumping up nice and high to test that stretch shortening cycle squat jumps are amazing and even skipping is great for that quick rebounding in the calves even just 20 to 30 minutes of

20:42 this stuff a couple of times a week is perfect oh and Sprints even just like 10 seconds of Sprints with 2 minutes rest in between do that five times do it 10 times it really adds nicely to your explosive training and counts towards that so yeah the last thing I want to touch on is your mindset around running running is a feeling boak Runners fall in love with running they fall in love with that feeling and

21:11 feelings come from the heart it's easy to overanalyze running because there's so much data at your fingertips you can overanalyze speed elevation Cadence distance heart rate it kind of never ends and personally for me that gets very tiring running is very very much an accumulation game it's about collecting it's about collecting strides because your running efficiency gets better with every rep is about collecting time spent running in zone one so that your aerobic

21:42 capacity gets better it's about time spent playing the game not about every single run being faster than the last the number one thing you can do for your running is to fall in love with your running and be itching to go for your next run if you focus on that you'll break all the numbers anyway so just slow down and do what makes you feel like a runner I don't know if this is the same around the world but where I'm

22:05 from having the runs is not the same as going for a run so I hope you enjoy going for a run I don't hope that you have the runs and with that I love you guys and I will see you next time bye [Music] [Music] n