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Learn How to Target Your Weaknesses by Training the Right Muscle Fiber Types

Do you ever wonder why some runners are better at shorter distances while others are far more suited to longer distances?

Well, a lot of this has to do with the type of muscle fibers you’re predisposed to having.

But, what many runners don’t know is that there are ways to train to specifically target certain muscle fiber types and thus improve our weaknesses.

In today’s episode, Coach Andie is going to take an in-depth look at muscle fibers to better understand how they influence your training.

You’ll learn what the different muscle fiber types are and what they do and how to specifically target each in your training.

Now, don’t worry, you don’t need a science degree to follow along, she’ll keep it simple.

Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. And this is the run to the top podcast podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runners connect dot net where you can find the best running information on the internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. Understanding the why of training and the science behind your workouts is important even if you're not writing your own training first with the multitude of training plans and books available, it allows you to distinguish between what's good and what's nonsense. Second, understanding the scientific purpose behind specific workouts helps you get the most out of each session while tailoring them to your needs. In today's episode, coach Andy is going to take an in depth look at muscle fibers to better understand how they influence your training. You'll learn what the different muscle fiber types are and what they do and how to specifically target each of them in your training. Now, don't worry, you don't need a science degree to follow along.

She'll keep it simple. However, by developing a basic understanding of the different types of muscle fibers and how they work. You can learn how to target them specifically to control your training. Do you find it difficult to hit the right spots when foam rolling or find it too difficult to control the pressure when you're on the ground? Then you need to check out mobility wall, the foam roller that mounts to your doorway, which makes the pressure much easier to control. I'll tell you more about them later in this episode, but you can check them out now at mobility wall dot com. Backslash R T T T he tones have been one of the most well researched chemicals when it comes to endurance performance. The only downside is that it typically takes two days to fasting for your body, produce them in quantities that would help your performance. But thanks to Delta G, you can boost your ketone levels to those seen after two days of fasting in just 20 minutes. Learn more at runners connect dot net slash Delta G. Everyone. Coach Andy here with today's coach chat. So now we'll get to the topic at hand along the way.

The topic at hand, which is talking about your strengths and weaknesses as runners. Are you somebody that really, really excels at the endurance side of training or you want? Are you somebody who really excels at the speed side of training? So we'll kind of get into some of the differences, why that's the case. Um And then we'll also talk about why is this important to you guys? You know, we, you have your training plan, you follow it to a t all those kinds of things. But how can you actually utilize your training plan, knowing your strengths and weaknesses on that front to better optimize your own training as given? So for the most part, so we're the big thing here is that we're talking about muscle fiber types. So each of us genetically has a predisposition to, you know, some ratio of muscle fiber types. So there's three different types. We'll get into those, I'll share kind of a little bit more about them. Um But basically we, we all have a predisposition to one type or the other or compositions are actually kind of our ratios.

There are different amongst different people. So people who maybe are really, really good at the end, maybe your endurance monster side are going to have a higher composition of those slower twitch muscle fibers. So those are our endurance muscle fibers. So if you have a large composition of that, you may be able to hold a good solid case for a long time at that, maybe at that easier cadence or whatever or that also is really well suited for the marathon. So the marathon, maybe something that you really excel at. Um you may if that's the case for you, if you have a lot of those slow twitch muscle fibers, you may struggle to get the pace to be faster, the shorter you go in distance. So five Ks, 10 Ks may feel a little bit more difficult or you may notice that your pace doesn't change drastically from what you're in the marathon. And so there are ways that you can train that side of things to make sure that we are able to kind of get some of that speed under us. If we are an endurance monster, just requires a certain amount of training, a certain way of training. And more of it comes from just understanding what's happening.

So that you know how to manipulate what's given to make sure your um you know, meeting the needs of what your body needs in order to see that improvement. So then on the other side of the coin, we have, the more people who are a little bit more speed oriented. So speed demons, you know, those people that are really, really good with the short and the fast and they struggle with the longer they go. So the tempo workouts, some of the long runs can just be really draining on them. And so that's primarily because they most likely have a higher composition of intermediate or fast twitch fibers. So uh to give you an extreme example of this, so if you've ever seen a sprinter do their thing, sprinters tend to have most of their training, they often do short, they'll do a rep pretty much flat out and then they'll take really long recovery in between. And that's because these fast, the faster muscle fibers, fast twitch, muscle fibers fatigue really quickly. So they die out quickly. So they need a lot more recovery time.

Um And that just means that those types of, those types of printers are gonna be training in such a different capacity. Um That's also why if you were to see you same bolt out running, uh He would, he would probably not make it as far as some of you guys. So you guys could probably run faster at a mile than um you, you say mom probably could. So I'm not saying that I know that information, but for the most part, he doesn't necessarily have that musculature for training at long distances. And that's why you don't see a lot of sprinters that are, that are doing long distance training or going out and running miles. They're often doing shorter reps with longer recoveries, different things like that just because they're mostly just trying to find and recruit and continually improve their fast twitch, muscle fiber response, um their exclusiveness, all of those different things. So that's kind of some of the differences here when we talk about just your strengths is actually coming down to your muscle fiber type, your, your, your composition.

And so now we're going to get into a little bit more. I'm gonna explain a little bit more about what these different fiber types are. And then what kind of get into, how can you manipulate your own training? How can you apply this so that you can make sure that you're getting the most out of your own training to meet the needs of your specific body type. So understanding the scientific purpose behind what's being planned will be really helpful for you to know how you should run your workouts. Because I think we talk often about making sure you don't overrun things. And some of that also though is going to be, it's difficult to really discern in some ways because you may notice that some workouts come easier to you than others. And so we're gonna kind of give you an understanding of how you can make those decisions of. When can we push just a little bit more and when, when should be kind of be able to hold ourselves back just a tiny bit. And so we'll go over some of those things too. So we can kind of work your way through your training so that, you know, even if you are pushing a little faster and say a speed workout because that's your, your strength.

Um, is that okay? And often times it just, it comes down to some of these types of things. And so we'll, we'll kind of help you give you an understanding of how you can find out, you know, what's my, what's your particular strength and what how can we, how can you manipulate? So, um so here's, here's the three different muscle type fiber types. And we'll kind of describe some of these. So type one better known as slow twitch fibers or the body's primary method of explosive sustained movements. They do not contract forcefully and less, require less energy to fire, which makes them well suited to long distance running. More importantly, they house our main supply of oxygen boosting power plants, mitochondria, myoglobin and capillaries. So these are gonna be the your muscle fibers that are primarily kind of fueling your longer efforts, your easy runs and things like that. And so, you know, if you're somebody who is, you know, is running too quickly on your easy runs, you may not be developing your type one fibers as well as you could be.

And so that will kind of short change your ability to endure at distances longer and longer distances. So that's one thing to always keep in mind when you're training, some of the reasons why we want that easy runs to be as easy as they are is also so that we're making sure that we're recruiting and training those long distance muscles that we need for the endurance aspect of training to make sure we can make it through a marathon or whatever it is that we're training for. So we really want to make sure we have enough of those in order for us to be able to um you know, sustain for a long time, slow twitch fibers do not mean that you only have them if you are slow, they are really just kind of the muscle fibers that aren't necessarily going to give you that, that speed and that quick burst of energy that you can get when you kind of all of a sudden need to, you know, take off in a sprint. So those aren't those fibers, but they are important for endurance runners. So, um to our best known as the or type two X are best known as the fast twitch muscle fibers. These are the muscle fibers primarily responsible for fast explosive movements like sprinting.

However, they lack the endurance boosting ability of slow twitch fibers and can only be used for short periods of time. So these muscles when you've burnt them out, they are done, they're not gonna use, they're not gonna, they're not gonna be super usable after that point. And so if you ever gotten out too quickly in a race, you've probably activated more of your fast twitch muscle fibers early in a race which makes them basically virtually unusable for later on. So we don't want to burn these fibers out too quickly. So that's another reason why we want to make sure that we don't start too quickly in a race. We don't want to be usual izing these muscles that are going to be necessary for us to sustain later on because just like fast twitch, muscle fibers can fatigue. So can our slow twitch, those can also get to a point where they're also fatiguing and we kind of have to shift into a different muscle fiber type. And so if that happens within a race, we want to be able to call on those other muscle fiber types. So it's almost as if we want to be utilizing are slow twitch fibers for as long as we can within a race before converting.

And it's very similar to kind of how we, we've talked about fueling is how we want to be able to, you know, sustain and kind of hold back from having to use all of our resources early on. So that's this is another reason if we burn out those fast twitch muscle fibers, it's hard to get them back and you'll probably find yourself in the end, just not having any kick, not having any ability to kind of surge or pick up the legs. And so this is an important consideration on that front. So, um and then the third one, which is probably what we have, a lot of them that we train a lot of is the intermediate fiber. So these are a blend between fast and slow twitch fibers. They have some aerobic capability, but not as much as a slow twitch fiber and they can fire more forcefully but not quite as explosively as a fast twitch. So distance runners probably have a decent amount of bees and we really do want to make sure we are building these all three of these up, these intermediate fibers help us to sustain longer. They also help us to give us some of that speed to be able to hold a fast pace for a longer period of time.

Because obviously, if we're going super quick, we're not going to be able to really complete, really rely on slow twitch fibers. So having that combination can be really beneficial for us to be able to sustain for long periods of time at a fast pace. Um So, and just like I said, each individual has a genetic predisposition to certain muscle fiber types misconception that many runners have is that each fiber type is exclusive. I you can only use one or another. So the misconception is that we can't train those, but we really can, there are ways that we can manipulate and improve them and help ourselves to recruit more of what we need for whatever given distance that we're training for. So if we're training for speed, we really want to make sure that we're recruiting some more of those. If those, those type two A and type two X fibers, those those two intermediate and fast twitch fibers, we do want to be able to train out a little bit of that. If we really want to be able to call on them and we, we need those most is going to be in any race where we do need to have some power and some forest and we need to be able to pick up the pace, we need to be able to finish strong, we need to be able to follow moves, whatever it is.

So, um, so when we're training, we do want to make sure that we are kind of mindful of what things are we trying to recruit here and how can we best do that? And so um they're gonna go through each of these different things, but this is going to talk about kind of how we can convert, how they function in some different ways that we can utilize them. So um first we have the recruitment ladder, this process starts what we call the recruitment ladder. Recruitment letter is a way of envisioning how and when each fiber type is activated. So it at the bottom of the ladder, we have the slowest, then we have the least, which is the least explosive. And then we have the um the type one slow switch and then the near the top, you have the fast twitch fibers. So you kind of have this ladder of, of lowest or slowest to fire, two highest and quickest to fire. So that's kind of where we're looking at. So even with the letter based on how much force you to generate to stay in a given pace, if you were to head out on the streets right now, begin running easy. Your body would start using slow twitch.

If you would pick up the pace, your body would start recruiting some of the intermediate fibers and, and then if you were to start sprinting, you would be recruiting some of the fast twitch. So that's kind of how that's going to work. Um Fatigue and additional intensity and other factors in muscle fiber recruitment is fatigue. As you get further into a long run, the slow twitch fibers you've been using start to get tired and you can no longer fire them as efficiently as a consequence, you start to recruit some intermediate fibers to help maintain pace. Of course, these intermediate fibers require more glycogen and they're not as fatigue resistant as slow twitch. So it won't be long before you find yourself slowing dramatically as your muscles start to fail. So these are two things that are kind of happening as we switch between what we're doing. So, um you know, starting from an easy run, very easy run, just getting out the door to picking up the pace as you go to sprinting. If you're crossing a street or, or doing a pickup or any of these different things, we're going through a lot of different of different uses with muscle fibers. So that's one way that we're working with them and then fatigue.

If when we get tired, we have to start switching between them. So that's another way that we're kind of, um, requiring our body to be able to shift and change and manipulate. We all know how important foam rolling is for staying injury free and just plain feeling better for every run. But let's face it. Many of us skip it because clearing out space on the floor feels like too much work. The pressure is too painful and difficult to control or you can't seem to hit the right spots. That's why I was so amazed when I saw the door mounted foam roller from mobility wall, the mobility wall device mounts to your door frame in just a few seconds. And it's easy to move up and down the frame in just a few seconds. Not only does this get you off the ground and ready to foam roll in just a few seconds. It also allows you to easily hit muscles in your neck and shoulders that aren't possible with the traditional foam roller even better because you're off the ground. You don't have to control gravity to adjust the pressure. You simply use upward and inward pressure, which is much easier to control. The days of painful foam rolling are over because of how much easier it is to use.

I've never been more consistent with foam rolling. Plus I am able to target muscles I never could with a foam roller like my persistent high hamstring pain and my neck and shoulders. I feel so much looser and more dynamic. Now, if you've been wanting to get more consistent with your injury prevention work this year, the mobility wall foam roller will be a game changer. Plus we've got a special offer for you. Just go to mobility wall dot com backslash R T T T or enter R T T T at checkout for 20% off your first order. Plus, it comes with a free app that gives you video instructions on exactly how to hit every area. Once again, that's mobility wall dot com, backslash R T T T for 20% off your first order. Everyone. This is coach Jeff stepping in for finn to talk about one of the products that we currently are super excited about. You may have read a lot about the last few years about the benefits of ketones for endurance performance such as mitochondria efficiency and glycogen sparing. For those that don't know, ketones are a type of chemical that your liver produces when it breaks down fats.

Your body uses ketones for energy typically during fasting long periods of exercise or when you don't have as many carbohydrates. The problem is that you typically need to severely reduce your carbohydrate intake in order to take advantage of them, which is difficult to sustain even for the most dedicated runner. But thanks to Delta G and collaborations from the U S military and researchers from NIH and the University of Oxford, they've developed a ketone drink that can boost your ketone levels. To those seen after two days of fasting in just 20 minutes. The academic literature on the effectiveness of ketones for running performance is more numerous than I could listen to podcast. But here's some quick data. In 1995 study showed that when the heart was fueled by a mix of ketones and glucose, its efficiency increased by 28% compared to the heart fueled by glucose alone. A more recent study from 2021 demonstrated that the ingestion of delta g improved mitochondrial efficiency by 7%. Finally, a 2019 study concluded that using ketones significantly enhanced endurance performance while minimizing overtraining.

These are just some of the studies that have shown the numerous performances advantages of delta G ketones. If you want to see more of the research head, two runners connect dot net slash delta G plus, use the code R T T 20 when you do and you'll save 20% on any purchase you make. Again, that's runners connect dot net slash delta G and use the code R T T 20 to save 20%. There's some different things too when you talk about what your genetic predisposition is. And so people who have typically have a higher composition of slower twitch muscle fibers tend to also be able to sustain slightly faster, easy paces than somebody who's who is say a slow or fast twitch runner. If you think about this, if you think about this in a, in your head. So we have this runner that has a really high composition of slow twitch fiber. And so they've got the endurance muscles down pat. So they're gonna be running at a slightly faster pace at, than somebody who would say fast switch. Because if you think about them, they have a smaller composition of slow twitch fibers.

So in order for them to have their slow twitch fibers be able to sustain the length of an easy run, they end up going actually a good bit slower on their easy run so that they're not burning through that slow twitch fiber quite as fast. So that's kind of the difference there is that oftentimes you see slow twitch winners actually having a faster sustained, easy run pace compared to somebody who is a little bit more on the speed side where they may have a slower sustained, easy run pace. And it's just kind of comes down to their composition of muscle fiber type. And so that's one thing to keep in mind, some people to also who are, you may find, this is something that you can find within your own training. This will help you to decide what is your genetic makeup on this front is how you basically recover from different types of workouts. So do you feel more drained or fatigued coming off of a speed workout or do you feel more drained and fatigued? Coming off of a tempo or something longer term like that. So kind of understanding how you recover from different workouts will give you a good sense of kind of what is my strength.

So if your strength is the the tempo efforts or those longer sustained efforts, you're probably not going to feel quite as fatigued from them. Comparative to maybe some of the speed workouts, which may take a lot more out of you because you have less to draw from. When you're doing those workouts, you're having to work really hard to recruit more fiber, all those different things. So you may, these are some things to just keep an eye on and pay attention to in terms of how you feel with training and just, and, and once you can kind of get a good understanding of how you respond to different workouts, then you can kind of manipulate your recovery coming out of those knowing that, hey, I'm doing a speed workout coming up. I know that I have a harder recovery time coming out of the speed workouts. So I'm gonna take it extra easy to make sure that I recover from this and, and ready to go for the next one. And so that may mean that maybe you take it super easy on your recovery days, you really back off the pace. Um We always say there's no too easy. So, you know, if you're easy run grange, if you need to go a little bit slower than that to make sure you're recovering well then.

Great. That's, that's definitely what we want to do. Um So let's move on here though. So how can we improve muscle fiber recruitment act, innovation and conversion. So long runs target the slow twitch fibers making them more efficient, building aerobic capabilities and also making them more fatigue resistance are resistant. Continuous long runs also helped convert a greater percentage of your muscle fibers into slow twitch fibers, which is one reason you continue to get better with years of mileage. So that's one of those things is that we're kind of constantly building up that, that fatigue resistance. And that's something that will carry on from years, two year as you train more and more. Um That's one reason why we can kind of slowly increase our mileage year to year. As long as we're able to stay injury, injury resistant. All those kinds of things being able to kind of build that mileage up is because we're able to, we're building up some of those slow twitch fibers were getting recruiting more of those. We're creating more of those capillaries in order for us to be able to um do more and sustain more and be more fatigue resistant.

And so, um as long because we're getting those long runs in and we're doing our easy runs easy enough, then we're gonna be doing a good job recruiting these things. This is also one reason why you may notice if you're training for some shorter distance races, we don't necessarily need to go as long as on our long run because we are trying to maximize as much as possible, being able to fill some of our composition with more of the intermediate and fast twitch fibers. So we don't need to be going quite as long as on our long runs. And that's actually a benefit to us to kind of pull those because it will help us to actually increase our speed for our five Ks and 10 ks or kind of or mile training. Really? Any anything like that, we don't necessarily need to have a huge volume of training. You may see some elites that, that have high volume still when they're training and that's also gonna probably come down to their muscle type and their capabilities. So some, some short distance runners do well with higher mileage and some do better with lower mileage. And a lot of that comes down to again, muscle fiber types.

So um tempo runs, they help us to, to target the slow twitch and intermediate muscle fibers, slow twitch fibers reach maximum recruitment and contraction speed at tempo pace, which is one reason why tempo runs are so critical to endurance training. In addition, tempo rooms help us to improve recruitment patterns of intermediate fibers with slow twitch fibers. In essence, it approves the ability of both fiber types to work together for maximum effectiveness. So this is why another reason why the pacing on tempo runs is pretty, pretty crucial to our overall performance. If we're able, if we're doing this in the right way, then we're doing, we're doing more than just building our fitness. We're helping our body to understand how to recruit and how to utilize both of these to do different fiber types to help us to sustain for the longest time possible. So, um these are help. So it's basically, it's saying that it's improving our ability to switch between them. It's, it's proving our ability to um you know, make sure they're working together properly.

And so if we're not training at the right pace is for that, then we will probably find ourselves not getting those recruitment turns down and will probably not be able to shift between them as well. So maybe, maybe that means that we have a harder time getting locked into that marathon pace from our easy pace. If we're not doing enough stuff that is a little bit faster, we're not getting that. And the same side if we're going to quick, are we, are we not using enough of the slow twitch in order to train the body's ability to kind of manipulate between them too? So think about that and that's why I always try to say, you know, early on in the season, especially that's when we really want to make sure that we are keeping the pace is a lot more controlled. And as we get stronger and faster, we can kind of start edging those things up. But if we start to quick the beginning of the season, we're really forcing that to happen, we're really kind of breaking down the long, the effectiveness of what we're doing. And so we probably will feel burnt out sooner, those kinds of things can happen.

So we really want to make sure on the early side of the season that these tempo runs that were kind of being a lot more, it's fine to be a little on the slow side on the early side of the season. Um It's fine to just caution on being slower and having a little bit more progression through your tempo runs. We want those early workouts to feel a little bit more comfortable and then as we go through, we can start pushing our limits a little bit on that. And that's why you often see towards the end of some of your training blocks, some of those tempo cut down workouts where, um, where it's as, as fast as you can. So often times those are gonna be closer towards the goal race time when we see those run as fast as you can kind of things written in there. And that's because at that point, we've kind of really already done a lot of the work to develop both of these muscle fiber types. And now we're just kind of working to shift, maybe we're trying to shift towards some of that, some of our fast twitch muscle fibers and figuring out how we can turn them on effectively because now we've already kind of gotten down pat the parts that are going to really fuel our race, which are the intermediate and slow.

And then now we're just kind of incorporating this last little thing to help us to kind of finish strong or be able to find ways to recruit those when we're tired. And which is something we also want to train. Um But it's definitely a step process. So we start on the controlled side and then as we get faster and more developed, we can start, you know, pushing that a little bit more. Uh and it goes along with our fitness. So um short repeats in traditional interval workouts like 12 by 400 m help recruit intermediate and fast twitch muscle fibers. But you being used together, these two fiber types learn to interact more efficiently by reducing activation of unnecessary fibers. More importantly, improves our neuro muscular coordination, the speed at which the brain can send signals to the muscles to fire, thus may making you more efficient. So this is why you'll still see some of these somewhat faster workouts either on the front side of big training. But if you're training for something longer, um you also kind of see some of these speedier workouts intermixed into some marathon training because we do want to make sure that we have the ability to do to contract.

And um we want to be able to send, we want to be able to practice, sending these brain signals into the body, knows what muscles to fire. So we still want to make sure we still have a decent amount of, of use of all these different things. And so, um you know, another way that we work that capacity well is strides and things like that's why we still want to make sure we include strides in a marathon block. So we want to make sure that they're, they're still present within training. And so um within speed development, sprint work, which is stuff like strides, hill sprints, maximum effort, sprints on the track help recruit the maximum amount of fast twitch muscle fibers. Well, this may not seem like a necessary benefit to someone running the marathon. This type of training makes each stride more explosive and enables you to generate more power without increasing effort. This increased power is what makes your stride more fluent and efficient. So, um you know, working on these kind of things improve when it improves our efficiency. Then that mean that's going to improve our even our slow twitch fiber generation, how we're how we're utilizing those muscles.

Because essentially, if we are able to do things more efficiently by using some sort of speed development that is activating some of our fast twitch muscle fibers, then we're probably doing something that's also going to increase our speed that we're able to run using most of our slow twitch fibers. So doing these types of things can help it so that we have a little bit more efficiency and form and so that we can, we can hold off on being able or switching into some of these intermediate, too fast twitch fibers, too early in a race. Um So that's why those things are also really important. We talked about how they're important for form and all those things and how this all comes back down to that is just, you know how it is form and efficiency actually play into what muscle fiber types we are using and in a lot of ways it, it is contributing to um you know, just how, how, how do we know what does our body no, what to do and how does it know and how are we sustaining for longer? Um at faster paces?

Are we using only in your immediate because that's not gonna sustain us for the entire way? So, you know, finding ways to be able to stay in that slow twitch fiber range for as long as possible. Um While also still running on the goal pace is kind of kind of what we're going for. So another super important thing just to kind of point out and we've talked about strength training a lot, how important it is and drills as well. And so it's going to kind of get into that. But drill strength training and dynamic stretching, improve recruitment patterns, the ability of your muscle fiber types to work together, concurrently increased strength and reduced inhibitions by incorporating this type of work into training and develop more biomechanically sound run mechanics become more efficient and train your fibers to work together. We typically talk about trading in terms of metabolic improvements, aerobic development, vo two max lactate threshold, we often forget the important role of muscle fibers play in our fitness and ability to run faster. Next time you're planning your training, don't forget to factor in how you can train your muscle fibers as well.

So, um you know, we we focus a lot on the running side but the this ancillary strength work is also part of that muscle fiber recruitment. So as you know, we've talked about strength training and how it can be good for injury prevention and all that stuff. But this is also showing kind of how doing that type of work is also helping you to train in the most efficient way possible. It's improving your tempo pace is it's improving your speed work, it's improving everything across the board. And so, um you know, learning and this is also showing that you're using all these muscle fibers at once when you're doing some of these, these ancillary things. And so that's why we want to make sure that they're not forgotten in, in lieu of just running because these things are also so important to improving all of these different things so that we, we are coming out on top and that's why we want to make sure we incorporate all the things that um with that, let me switch over. I want to see if we had any questions. I don't think we had any on the post.

So let me go ahead and see if anyone had any questions who's on live here. So I'll flip back and change my screen here. Okay. Um Doesn't look like we have any, any, any live comments. So, um if you don't want listening to this on replay, wants to have any ideas of a coach chat they want to hear in the future. Just let me know. Um I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. I know it's a little bit more sci fi, but I hope that you're able to kind of take away some things with it, especially if depending on your strength, you know, go ahead and see what you can do on those ones. Really try to feel out the efforts and if the pace is maybe for one workout or another or not, are a little easier for you start on the easy side, but then see if you can push it just a tiny bit and stay within the effort range. All of your workout have little notes on them. To tell you kind of what the goal is. And so as long as you're meeting the goal and you're kind of staying in tune to your body and what your body's telling you, then you're on the right track.

So, you know, feel free to use this kind of stuff to help you manipulate your own training, to make sure you get the most out of it because, you know, we all are different. And so some of these things just requires us to kind of look internally a little bit. Thanks for listening to the run to the top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at runners connect also consider supporting our chauffeur for with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content behind the scenes experiences with our guests and premier access to contests and giveaways, then subscribe to our newsletter by going to runners connect dot net back slash podcast. Until next time. Happy training.

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Mobility Wall

We all know how important foam rolling is for staying injury-free and just plain feeling better for every run.

But, let’s face it, many of us skip it because clearing out space on the floor feels like too much work, the pressure is too painful and difficult to control, or you can’t seem to hit the right spots.

That’s why I was so amazed when I saw the door-mounted foam roller from Mobility Wall.

The Mobility Wall device mounts to your doorframe in just a few seconds and is easy to move up and down the frame in just a few seconds.

Not only does this get you off the ground and ready to foam roll in just a few seconds, it also allows you to easily hit muscles in your neck and shoulders that aren’t possible with a traditional foam roller.

Even better, because you’re off the ground, you don’t have to control gravity to adjust the pressure. You simply use upward and inward pressure, which is much easier to control. The days of painful foam rolling are over.

If you’ve been wanting to get more consistent with your injury-prevention work this year, the Mobility Wall foam roller will be a game changer. I can’t believe how much more I’ve been foam rolling since I started using it.

Plus, we’ve got a special offer for you. Just go to mobilitywall.com/RTTT or enter RTTT at checkout for 20% off your first order. Plus, it comes with a free app that gives you video instructions on exactly how to hit every area.

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