I agree. I used to target low reps, heavy poundage to build strength and muscle, at my peak I benched 465# for 4 reps. Heavy compound movements, with a different muscle group split every day. Loved leg days the most. When I say I destroyed my right shoulder, I had a hills-sachs fracture, hills-sachs lesion, bankart lesion, slap lesion, and two 2x2cm full thickness tears in the rotator cuff. Between injury, surgery, and rehab... it left me without the use of my right arm for quite a while. And now there are a lot of lifts that still bother my shoulder where going heavy just seems unlikely. I swear the damn shoulder has gone arthritic on me.
You don't have to go worlds strongest man anymore. But some leg curls and extensions and presses should be a part of any runner's training, I would think.
You're right. I also need to increase the core training as well. I've been shopping around for a decent place, but I'm also trying to avoid a long term contract and $50/mo. membership. One of the biggest issues I'm having is a lot of places around here have gone the "fitness" route, and just don't have a lot of the leg equipment I am looking for. In a perfect world, I want a good squat cage, leg press, hamstring curl, quad extension, and calf stations. The place that had all of that has closed recently, so I am back to looking.
Look on Craigslist. People buy all kinds of exercise equipment and quit using it after a month or so. You can probably find everything you need cheap and set up your own training room in the garage or a spare room
Going low carb was the best thing I ever did because I discovered that I have non-celiac gluten sensitivity. I was able to get off of three prescriptions and my body was able to repair the damage that reflux and gluten-induced IBS had caused over the years. I'd love to start running... every time I start up the asthma and shitty air in Louisiana knocked me back down. Since I really enjoy backpacking and hiking, my ultimate aim is to start trail-running.
If running is going to be your basic form of exercise, then you should be getting 50 to 60% of your dietary intake from carbohydrates. You need to split them up between high glycemic and low glycemic. Fast-acting high-glycemic is good for pre and post race activity since that's what your muscles are depending on. Bananas are good for that. You should be using low glycemic carbohydrates on a daily basis. That might include something like whole grain bread or whole wheat pasta. You also have to consider that some people are just more geared toward the shorter races while some are more natural at longer distances. You just may not be a long-distance sort of runner. If you're interested in middle distance, then I think you're on the right track to be working on 5k's at least 3 to 4 times a week. Running just may not be your thing or maybe you're just in one of those ruts that sometimes happens.
5k is not a middle distance. It's a long one. I've heard that East Africans are so good at long distances because they tend to have what is known as a slow twitch muscle structure while people of West African descent make the best sprinters because they have fast twitch muscles. That seems to be true when you consider who wins the sprints and who wins the marathons. I don't know how that works for white people. TT is a former big guy who probably has the natural body structure of a big guy. Running for miles is probably a major struggle for him. In high school I ran the 400 and the 400, 800 and mile relays. I could maintain full speed for 100 to 200 meters and was able to force myself to finish well at 400 but even then when I was in the best shape of my life I couldn't run even 1 mile without slowing down to a walk to finish. It's probably all in the genetics. @KyleK posted one time that he had run something like 40 miles without stopping. Are white people from western European ancestry naturally faster over short distances than people from Eastern European ancestry? I don't know. The last white man to win the 100 meters in the Olympics was Valery Borzov, a Russian. Americans have done well in the marathons up until ,more recently being outrun by Kenyans and Ethiopians. Bill Rodgers and Alberto Salazar were two great American marathons about the same time in the 70's and 80's. Rodgers was born in Connecticut and is the quintessential white man, while Salazar was born in Cuba and was a naturalized American.
I'm a former big guy thx to a LOT of juice and weghts over a 12 year period. I'm no longer convinced of my invulnerability, and since my late 30's have gone from trying to be as big as possible to longevity and health. I discovered in my late 30's that I have things to live for, like my 12 year old, career path, and my girlfriend of 8 yrs. I have run dozens of 5K and 10K's, and will run my 2nd 15K on Oct. 1st. I will admit I am at a disadvantage simply due to my size. Being 6-2 and 190 pounds, I am on the bigger end of the spectrum among the men runners I run against, but I do routinely finish mid pack in my age group, and fair a little better overall in the mens division. I guess it's just the high temps and heat indexes at the moment. Before June I was running a 4x a week, a 5M base 2x wk, and 6.5-maybe 8M on my long runs 2x a wk. Just seems I am struggling now to cover 4M a run, but again, that may be due to extreme heat temps.
