The Benefits of a Strong Back

Keep the muscles along your spine flexible and strong to prevent injuries. A healthy back is as important to your running as fit legs. If your back muscles aren’t strong, they will tend to fatigue faster, taking energy away from other muscles, and

While training outdoors is the preferred training workout especially when the weather is nice, however,  often times you will get much more out of an indoor focused workout. Training indoors allows you to train and focus on the specific workout without being concerned about traffic/weather/interruptions such as stop signs,

Nutritional Building Blocks

The subtle elements of training, such as stretching, strength training and sleeping, often get neglected because we are so focused on swimming, biking and running. This is also true of your nutrition plan; it is easy to focus on the big picture of the typical endurance

Hills are an invaluable training tool for all levels of triathlete, and the benefits of hill running are greater than simply getting in challenging workout. The good news is that proper hill repeats do not have to be agonizing. Consider a dose of training to always produce strain that is

Losing Weight – Setting your Calorie Deficit

If you are trying to lose some excess body fat quickly before beginning serious training for an event, you should aim to consume 300-500 fewer calories per day than your body needs to maintain its current weight. This deficit is sufficient to

Every athlete knows that being lean and light is beneficial for racing performance. However, it is not possible to maximize weight loss and fitness gain simultaneously. Maximizing weight loss requires a level of calorie restriction that will sabotage training performance and recovery. Therefore it’s important for athletes to keep their

Understanding Cramps – As many as 39 percent of distance runners may experience a cramp in their calves, hamstrings, or quadriceps before they finish a race. While many people blame dehydration, exhaustion is usually the culprit. There are a number of exercises that can be done to fix and even

Seeing your name on the DNF (Did Not Finish) list is tough especially if it was because of a lack of mental strength.  Missing cut-off times and injuries can be causes of the DNF but not being able to keep going because of being tired is no excuse in

The iliotibial (IT) band lies along the outside of the thigh from the hip to the knee. When you run, your knee flexes and extends, which causes the IT band to rub on the side of the femur. This can cause irritation if you take up your mileage too quickly,

Shinsplints refers to medial tibial stress syndrome, an achy pain that results when small tears occur in the muscles around your tibia (shin bone). This makes up about 15 percent of running injuries.

Who is at Risk? Shinsplints are common among new runners and those returning after an extended