developing the whole athlete

I know I have written about this before but the more I work with distance runners and especially distance runners of the computer age I realize that you need to develop athleticism. As distance runners we spend so much time moving in the sagittal plane and some don’t even do that properly. There needs to be time spent working on becoming more athletic. Now don’t get me wrong you don’t get better at running by doing drills. But the more you can do the more you can do. If you cant stay healthy running miles you will never reach your full potential. In order to stay healthy or get stronger so you can run more you need to spend time doing functional strength and conditioning. I think you can do a lot of functional strength through incorporating into warm up and cool down activities. You can do a different series before easy runs, long runs, workouts, weight sessions. You can make some of these movements or drills core work, plyos, flexibility all wrapped into one. Functional strength should be worked on daily. Like running this is not something that can be improved immediately but you need to pay attention and make deposits in the bank often. Start simple and work to complex when the movements are mastered. Just remember the more you can do the more you can do. My two cents for the day.