#CoreCrew Family Weekend Miles – What an amazing weekend!!! So many miles logged by our little family! I’m only counting the miles added to our activity chain and I have a feeling not all the miles got logged there, but that’s ok. The miles added up quickly!
Total #CoreCrew miles Friday 9/1 – Sunday 9/3 = 341.72!
Pretty amazing Crew! If y’all liked this activity chain, I would love to keep it up every weekend. Let me know if you like this idea. 🙂
Monday Day 4: All About Arms!
Distance running is mentally and physically costly. It requires large outlays of energy. Almost every aspect of the activity adds to that energy expenditure, like holding your body upright and metronomically swinging first one leg and then the other forward and toward the ground. But scientists and coaches know that pumping your arms, although requiring energy, reduces the overall metabolic cost of running by helping to balance the moving body, increase forward propulsion or, perhaps, provide a bit of bounce, helping to lift us off the ground with each stride. In this theory, swinging the arms makes it easier to run.
Since our arms are part of the package and make it easier to run, building their strength is another important part of our training. We don’t need huge guns, but we don’t want weak noodle arms that flail around or fail to support us during tough runs.
Today’s workout targets key areas for our arms and will help us build the strength we need to use them to our advantage. Strong arms can make all the difference between a new PR or a disappointing finish.
While running work on keeping your arms by your side, swinging back and forth but without crossing in front of your body. Push backwards with your elbows to propel you forward. Keep you shoulder, hands and wrists loose to avoid cramping or tenseness in your upper body. Building strength in our shoulders, biceps, triceps and back will make the proper upright & stable posture more comfortable to hold for long periods of time during exercise. While you’re doing today’s exercises, make sure to hold your core tight! No swinging from the waist or rocking back and forth.
Day 4 Plan:
- Quick Morning Workout
- Day 4 exercises
- Bonus Push Ups
- Quick Before Bed Workout
- Plan your weekly speed work
Quick Workout Routines:
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#QMW
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#QBBW
Day 4 exercises: 2-3 sets of 10
- Bicep Curls
- Hammer Curls
- Tricep Overhead Extensions
- Chest Presses
- Plank – :60 or more!
Bonus: Push Ups – 2-3 sets of 10 – There are numerous ways to modify push ups to your fitness level. Start from a higher plane like a bench or wall, do knee push ups or go for it and do full body push ups!
Speed Work: Speed work makes us faster. If you want to improve your times, feel better during long runs, and increase your ability to breathe comfortably while running, you need to add speed work to your weekly routine.
If you normally do speed work once a week and you are racing today (really racing not just running a holiday race for fun) this is your weekly speed work. The rest of your workouts this week should be at your easy pace.
If you are training for a half or full marathon, and usually put in more than one day of speed work or add a tempo run, you can still do another speed workout this week. Just make sure you are putting a rest day or two in between.
Why 800m again?: IIP – Introduce, Improve, Perfect
This will be the 3rd week doing the 1/2 mile repeats workout. the RRCA (Road Runners Club of America) promote the concept of introducing a workout, improving upon the first session, then perfecting the workout. So we are doing the same workout again this week. If you have done this a couple times already, you should be feeling more comfortable with it and can use this week to push harder and see how far you’ve come!
Why are 800m (1/2 mile) repeats so effective? In the last 800M (1/2 mile) of a 5K, the last mile of a 10K, the last 5K of a half marathon, and the 10k of the marathon, YOU have to show up.
This workout is all about chasing that 800m repeat effect: It’s learning how to fight fatigue and battle the breakdown that will come when you’re pushing yourself hard. When you come around the last curve of your final 800M repeat, knowing you finished what you started, you will understand the reason behind speed work. When you finish that goal race and the jet-power showed up, it will be because YOU called for it.
Workout: 800 meter repeats (1/2 mile repeats) – The # of repeats you do will depend on the race distance you are training for.
- 5K – 800M x 4
- 10K – 800M x 5
- Half Marathon – 800M x 6
- Marathon 800M x 8
- Start with your warm up of 1-2 miles. This also depends on you. I prefer a nice long easy warm up and always shoot for 2 miles. In reality, I would love a 3-4 mile warm up because that’s when I really start to feel good!
- Take a few minutes to stretch and do some warm up drills like hip hurdles, butt kicks, lunges, slow skips, side skips, bounding, etc…
- Go into your workout – take a 2 minute rest in between each 800 meters (1/2 mile). Do NOT take longer than 2 minutes. Force yourself to keep going without letting your heart rate come all the way back to resting.
- Finish your full workout.
- End with a nice easy 1-2 mile cool down.
Day 4 “how to” videos:
Bicep Curls: Use a barbel or dumbbells, keep your back straight and strong and use your arms without swinging or rocking.
Hammer Curls: Next in our series is our hammer curl, called that because it looks kind of like a hammer. So instead of having your palms facing up, like you do with most bicep exercises, you’re going to have the weight perpendicular to the floor. Just like you’re holding a hammer.
Tricep Overhead Extensions: When we’re running and need to push our elbows backwards to propel us forward our triceps are doing the work. Strengthen them with this tricep Overhead extension.
Chest Presses: You can do this exercise using your stability ball, a bench if you have one, or lying on the floor. Our video shows how to do them from the stability ball. The same form technique applies to all positions.
Forearm Plank: The basic plank doesn’t involve moving at all. This is referred to as an isometric exercise. The key with the plank is to engage you core muscles in the right way so that through the effort of balancing and stabilizing your body, you are giving your core muscles a fantastic workout. And if you don’t think you can get a good workout by holding still, just wait until you try to hold a plank for 30-60 seconds…you’re going to feel it!
That’s all for now Crew. Once again…it’s time to DOMINATE MONDAY!!!
Our storm has finally run out of rain and we are tired of being cooped up and idle. Most of us have power (a few are still out 😦 ) but we are strong and ready to get back to regular routines.
When life gets hectic and time is short, that’s when it’s even more important the time find the calm in our chaos.
Strong to the Core 