Getting you running quick means getting you strong in all the right muscle groups.  For those that have missed it, I have already detailed why lifting weights will not make you slow and the importance of strengthening the hamstrings as knee flexors, the hamstrings as hip extensors and the quadriceps.  Now it is time to talk about some of the other muscle groups that will really get you rocketing along; whether you are running a marathon or 100m sprint.  The muscles we will cover here are what I call the lower extremity accessory group.  They are the triceps surae, tibialis anterior and flexor hallucis longus.     Read This Article

This January I traveled down to Sydney to take the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) Levels 1 & 2.  To be honest, it was quite overdue as I had been looking at the material for over two years but never had a chance to get taught it correctly.  In essence, the Functional Movement Screen is a series of seven movement patterns that require some form of balance, stability or mobility.  It is massively popular in the United States at the moment (most NFL teams use the FMS in their training programs) and it is a great method of getting a good idea of where you are at in terms of your injury risk; whether you are an athlete or not.    Read This Article

At the start of the year, I was approached by 2011 world junior surfing champion South African Bianca Buitendag to help her with her training while she was here competing on the Gold Coast.  Bianca is a great girl, really athletic, surfs really well and should be mixing it with the big girls on the World Tour in the next year or two.  Anyway she was nice enough to allow me to share you her two video training programs and the exercises involved for our benefit.    Read This Article

To make sure you are up to speed (no pun intended), make sure you have had a look at Part 1 & Part 2 of The Most Important Muscles To Strengthen For Running and also read this article here.  Now the quadriceps group (as the latin translation suggests) is made up of four muscle heads: vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, vastus intermedius and rectus femoris.  These muscles primarily extend the knee while the rectus femoris also flexes the hip, which makes it a doubly important muscle for running (as we will see in the next part of this series).    Read This Article

A training split is basically what you train or what type of training you do on any given day of the week.  For instance if you train your legs on Monday, back on Wednesday and chest on Friday, that would be an example of a training split.  In the never-ending quest to enhance our training results, athletes, fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders have experimented with a number of different training splits – some good, others terrible.  Here are some of my favorite splits I use for athletic training, fat loss and rehabilitation that you are more than welcome to take or adapt for your own purposes.  Read This Article

It’s Christmas time again and we all know how good this time of year is.  Parties, presents and time away to refresh and recharge should all be at the top of our priority list.  Now I am here right now to give you ideas for what you might give to your family and friends who are health conscious and enjoy their training.  Whether it is a “secret santa” at work or a gift to a loved one, you cannot go wrong picking up presents from the following list.  And if you are still stuck for inspiration after reading this, check out my list of goodies from last year by clicking here.  Read This Article

Just recently I attended the Level 3 Australian Strength & Conditioning Association (ASCA) course with 7 other top strength & conditioning (S & C) coaches.  The best part of this course was that Australia is blessed with world leaders in S & C and nutrition.  The next best part of it all was that we had access to them (and other experts from the United States) for 5 days of “training & nutrition nerdism”.  Here are just a few of the things I picked up:  Read This Article

So everyone understands that getting stronger by lifting weights will actually make you a faster runner and will not get big and bulky, please read this blog post here and this article here.  Also let's quickly revise the dynamics of running.  There are basically three parts to running: the stance phase (which is the amount of time you spend on the ground every time your foot touches the ground), the stride length and the stride rate (or frequency).  To run faster, you have to either a) decrease the stance phase, b) increase the stride length or c) increase the stride frequency.  As I have mentioned here, this applies to every distance from a 100m sprint to a ultramarathon.  The second group of muscles we are going to talk about in regards to their importance to running and why they need to be as strong as possible are the hamstrings and in this case when they extend the hip.  Read This Article

Before you read this, make sure you understand that getting stronger by lifting weights will not mean you are going to get too big or you will lose speed.  This blog post here and this article here explains why this is not the case (with references) and why lifting weights will actually make you quicker!  We should also understand the dynamics of running.  There are basically three parts to running: the stance phase (which is the amount of time you spend on the ground with each foot strike), the stride length and the stride rate (or frequency).  To run faster, you have to either a) decrease the stance phase, b) increase the stride length or c) increase the stride frequency.  This applies to every distance from a 100m sprint to a ultramarathon.  The first group of muscles we are going to talk about in regards to their importance to running and why they need to be as string as possible are the hamstrings and in particular when they flex the knee.

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‘Do not lift weights’ coaches and so called experts say.  ‘It’ll make you slow and too bulky’ they declare.  ‘Just look at those bodybuilders’ they’ll add to back this up.  Unfortunately for athletes that are coached by an anti-weight training coach, they will never achieve their potential in their chosen sport.  Here are the facts.  Read This Article