The Most Important Habit for Your Running and Health Span
Key #3 - MOVE -Chapter 9: Lift - Build and maintain muscle mass for longevity.
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Chapter 9: Lift - Build and maintain muscle mass for longevity.
How do you stay strong as you age as a runner? You have to work at it!
Many runners believe that running alone is enough to maintain strength, but this isn't true, especially for older runners. Every year, we lose muscle mass, but we can counteract this with strength training.
Strength training is incredibly important for us runners over 50, you've got to maintain your strength to pull everything together. The idea is to get in a routine, a habit, so that you're doing something every two to three days. You want to always be moving and lift heavy things whenever you can, but for a more structured approach, the easy way to get started and to get a routine going is to do bodyweight exercises.
I'm going to teach you five simple primal bodyweight exercises you can do without having to go to the gym and you can just do in your backyard or even in your house. After that, you can graduate to kettlebells, which are very easy to do, and you can do them by yourself by watching some videos, or then really step up, go to a personal trainer and, and do some heavyweights.
Lift action #1 – Bodyweight exercises
The simplest way to get started with strength training is bodyweight exercises. I want to go through the five core exercises that you can do at home, bodyweight exercises that will get you on your way to building strength. These exercises are the push-up, the pull-up, the squat, the lunge, and the plank.
Pushup: On push-ups, there's a standard we want to get to. For men, you need to be able to do 50; for women, you need to do 20. So push-ups are pretty straightforward. You want your hands shoulder-width apart, keep your back straight, go down. If you have difficulty doing a push-up, go from your knees to start off, but start working on those reps two to three times a week and just build up until you can get to that standard.
Pull Ups: Pull-ups, are tough. They're even tough for me and you really have to work on them. For men, you should be able to do 12. For women, you should be able to five. You can use a chair or something like that to get the movement going and add more arm action to it as you get stronger. The other thing you can use if you're at a gym is rubber bands; those work fantastically to give you an assist to slowly get better. It might take some time, but that's a really, really good exercise. Your ability to do pull ups can get you out of tricky situations that may save your life!
Squats: The other great one is squats. For both men and women, you want to be able to do 50 of these. When you do a squat, make sure you stick your butt out and then squat down. You want your knees tracking over your feet, so everything's in line. You can have your legs spread apart and splayed just a little bit, but the key, get that butt out and then drop down as far as you can. You want to actually work to get your butt below 90 degrees. So, get down, like you're squatting as much as you can. If you have difficulties doing squats, just grab onto something and try it that way. So you can use a pole or a door jam or anything like that to kind of do an assisted squat until you can get those reps up.
Lunges: Number four would be lunges. So lunges are similar to squats. You want to keep your body upright, and you want to keep your front shin straight up and down and you want to work on your hips and it's okay to drive your hips a little bit. There's a natural rotation when you run where your hip is driving. You want to be able to do 20 on each leg for both men or women. Lunges are extremely good for runners. To change it up, do front lunges one session, then step back and do reverse lunges the next session.
Plank: The fifth body weight exercise is a plank. The plank is by far the best way to build your core muscles. You don't have to worry about sit-ups or crunches anymore. To do a plank, it’s basically a push-up motion, except you're on your forearms. If you have difficulties doing that, you can put your knees on the ground to start off, but for both men and women, you should be able to hold a plank for two minutes. Once you get good at doing it for two minutes, then you can do a Spiderman where you actually bring your knee up, touch your elbow, get more core engagement while you're doing it.
These bodyweight exercises aren't hard. They don't take a lot of time. So you should be doing them at least two or three times a week, that should be your base. I call them my “calisthenics”.
Lift action #2 – Micro workouts
A great way to incorporate strength training into your busy day are micro workouts. Microworkouts are quick strength moves that you do throughout the course of the day. They can take a few seconds or a few minutes, they can be structured or unstructured, and you can roll them into the more mundane parts of your day, like waiting for your morning coffee to brew or going out to get the mail. These brief, at home workouts don’t seem like much while you’re doing them, but the effects compound over time.
As an example, when I worked in a cubicle office, I would do some air squats, lunges and pushups through out the day. I also had a heavy planter I would deadlift a few times.
You can do this at home with a few rules to encourage the habit. A rule would be, whenever I walk through this doorway, I do 3 pull ups. Whenever I take out the garbage, I lift that heavy landscape rock overhead 4 times. Whenever there is a commercial, I do some lunges or air squats. Strategicly placing workout items like kettlebells, bands or bars around the house can make this easier to follow.
A great way to add a short micro workout is to do a quick strength workout after your run. A great one is do 20 single leg reverse lunges per leg, followed by 20 single leg step ups per leg. This only takes a couple of minutes and you’ll feel it!
Lift action #3 – Lift heavy
When talking with runners about lifting heavy weights, the first reaction is “I don’t want to bulk up!” The reality is that due to our age, it is very difficult to add bulky muscles. It just won’t happen. The other reaction is the fear of injury from over doing it. I get that. But when done correctly, you can get all the benefits of lifting heavy things without hurting yourself.
When you lift lighter weights with many reps, you actually only train one type of muscle fiber. By lifting heavy, with fewer reps, you work all your different types of muscle fibers that need to support each other and you also trigger more fat burning hormones such as growth hormone and epinephrine.
The key to lifting heavy is to limit the weight to about 80% of max and to do just one set of 6 reps with a 60 second rest between reps. You only need to do this a couple times a week. Good exercises to do are squats, deadlifts and Olympic lifts. I suggest you work with a personal trainer to get your form right and the correct weight.
You don’t have to go to a gym. You can do this with dumbells or kettlebells at home or like me, have a couple of heavy rocks out in the yard.
Lift Homework
Commit to a structured workout
Incorporate micro workouts
Lift heavy things occasionally
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