Category Archives: Topic – Training

Toe Touch Your Way To Stronger Legs

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Here is a video showing The Toe Touch Matrix. This exercise really works the proprioceptors in your feet. It mobilizes your hips, knees, and ankles. Instead of touching with your hands in a balance reach, touch the 10 matrix spots with your toes. Spend close attention to the back corners of the matrix as those spots really hit difficult areas of your body. Again, this is a multi-directional, multi-joint, and multi-muscle exercise.

Take a few moments to shake up your balance and fire this one-legged exercise that you will feel way up in your glutes!

Push-up Matrix

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Traditional push ups are a wonderful way to build upper body strength. This video shows the variations that you can do to work different upper body muscle groups. Have fun with your new push up routine!

Advanced Stretching (Functional Flexibility)

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How should you finish any workout for any sport? The answer is Functional Flexibility! This video shows how I finish my day. Check out this video with the 3D Stretching routine. It is the best way for your body to find restoration and recovery. Functional Flexibility is against gravity, free from artificial stability, using multiple joints, multiple muscle groups, with 3 dimensions, and in 10 directions.

With the use gravity, doorways, medicine balls, dumbbells, and tubes, there is elongation without pain. It is the most incredible way to stretch your way to improved flexibility. This is an advanced stretching routine, but one that anyone can do.


Functional Flexibility is mobility and stability training that is done with a specific purpose, and it is done in a three-dimensional and multi-directional way against gravity, so we don’t over stretch and cause instability and tissue damage.

Mobility is how effectively and efficiently our body moves throughout the range of motion.

Stability is how well we can control that mobility and our body in a three-dimensional and in a multi-directional way.


Remember: Too much flexibility will cause instability.



I only do these exercises after I am done with my training/running. When my muscles are warm and the lactic acid has been produced, I do these three-dimensional moves to elongate my muscles. I do not look to elongate my muscles before I train or compete. I use the lunge matrix, squats, and balance reaches to mobilize my muscles and joints and get them ready to fire.
I hope you enjoy this new way of finishing your workouts. It will give you the confidence before you get in your car to drive home that you have cooled down properly and efficiently.

Resistance Training (Part 2)

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This is Part 2 of my resistance training program. The video is set on Siesta Key Beach in Sarasota, FL. Watch how different this training is versus traditional weight training. I work on my horizontal power and strength each day that I do not race. I travel with my JC Bands, dumbbells, medicine balls, and pvc hurdles in my car throughout the event. It is my training office on wheels. I work vertical power to horizontal power as I try to stay fit and strong through the course of a grueling 2 month event. Have fun checking out this video workout on the beach:

Resistance Training (Part 1)

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Part of my strength workout utilizes tubes. By using the tubes I can work lateral or horizontal power.


Here are the two main reasons why we believe horizontal resistance training is important:



1. When we are running, our bodies are opposing two types of forces, vertical (gravity and ground forces) and horizontal (air and wind).



2. When we are running, we are swinging our arms and legs powerfully to displace our bodies forward, but we are also required to work against the backward swing.



To control and dominate these forces and not let these forces control us and slow us down, we must train not only vertical resistance, but also horizontal resistance.

This is where the strength training with the tubes comes in – working that horizontal power!

Check out this video to learn more:





Part 2 of my Resistance Training Program will come next week.

Avoid Back Pain And Strengthen Your Core

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Add this medicine ball routine to your core workouts. Using a 4-6 pound medicine ball, be certain to keep your back in neutral at all times. Remember, strong muscles do not protect the disks in your back. Great form and technique will.

Strength Exercises After Running

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Many runners think their workout is over after they run, but I feel that is the perfect time strength workouts should begin. From hurdles to medicine ball exercises, this is the time to build strength and protection for your races. Remember that strong muscles do not protect the disks in your back, so be certain to keep your back at neutral during these exercises to avoid lower back pain.

Here is a photo after the Boom Box Mile as I use the hurdles to open up my hips after speed work:



Here is a video showing some of our post running workout:

 


Have a great time getting stronger as well as quicker!

Running Exercises

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At the end of 2008, I met with a foot doctor who wanted to immobilize me in a “walking boot” for one month due to my injured Achilles tendon. Not liking that scenario, I searched for a second opinion and that is how I met Juan Ruiz Tagle. Juan, who is now the training consultant at www.OneMileRunner.com, changed my training program and my running style. Functional training and a “stiffer” and more powerful running style has now taken me to the brink of my new event – The New England Marathon….One Mile At A Time.

Take a look at this video showing a few of my running exercises.



I hit the road tomorrow as I drive from Florida to New Hampshire. If all goes well, I should arrive in the New England area on Monday afternoon. My first race is the initial mile of the Boston Marathon on July 1st.

Proper Running Technique

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Proper running technique has been discussed and debated for decades. After experiencing Achilles tendon pain and plantar fasciitis pain, I needed to take a closer look at my running style and technique. Thanks to the guidance of my trainer, Juan Ruiz Tagle, at http://backtofunction.blogspot.com/ I have altered my running technique to allow other parts of my body to help take the pounding of my mile running.





Please take a look at this running video as I discuss what I have changed for optimal protection and optimal performance:



I will post my next blog, “Running Exercises,” on Friday evening, just before I take the long drive to New England on Saturday morning the 27th of June.

Planks Will Make Your Core Stronger and Not Hurt Your Lower Back

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Planks done properly are a terrific way to strengthen your abs while protecting your lower back. The days of isolating and shortening your ab muscles are history! Your core is for stabilization, not isolation. Just because you feel an isolated burn in your abdomen while doing crunches does not mean that you are strengthening your abs properly. Functional training uses multiple joints and multiple muscle groups. The video below will show you different variations of the plank.

Some people feel that planks are boring, but this is just one of the ways that I strengthen my core while maintaining a neutral posture. By realizing the value of a plank, I think you will find an effective exercise for core development and strength. So walk away from the ab machines and “walk the plank” to core stabilization.