When I speak to runners who have recently been treated for injury one of the most common pieces of the information they share with me is that ‘the physio told me I had weak glutes’*. This often goes with a comment that ‘I have tight hips’ and a prescription to do an exercise like this…
Toe drills or ‘toe-ga’ is a series of drills invented by Lee Saxby and taught as part of the VivoBarefoot Coaching certification education. Please find in this article a simple video showcasing coach René Borg executing some of the moves.* Read our full article on the topic here Note the drills shown here are…
The short and snide answer to the titular question could be: Because you will look better. But vanity aside, the real answer is more interesting and no less true. We need to begin by abandoning the notion that running is primarily a lower body exercise, when in reality it is a ‘full-body movement’. We will…
René Borg speaks to Barry Murray, performance nutritionist and owner of OptimumNutrition4Sport, after our first of joint workshop in Wicklow. This time we are taking questions submitted by you. This is Part 3. Listen to Part 1 or Part 2. Listen now (note we had a few outages, they have been largely edited out) In part 3…
“In the first year after you took up running – what did you learn most about – shoes or your feet?” This was the simple question I asked the audience at my recent talk at the Dublin Marathon Expo 2014. When I asked “Was it shoes?” all the hands went up and when I asked…
René Borg speaks to Barry Murray, performance nutritionist and owner of OptimumNutrition4Sport, at the time of our first joint workshops in Wicklow held on the 1st-2nd November. This is Part 2. Listen to Part 1. Part 3 now available here. Listen now In part 2 of this 3 part series we cover What’s the story…
So what’s the story with Kesh Patel’s third book ‘The Complete Guide to Bodyweight Training‘? The plot can be summarised something like this: “Once upon a time, as we grew up, our own bodyweight was the only tool we had to develop our movement ability, strength and other basic abilities. Through playful experimentation we began to make…
René Borg speaks to Barry Murray, performance nutritionist and owner of OptimumNutrition4Sport, ahead of the first of our joint workshops in Wicklow on the 1st-2nd November. Listen now In part 1 of this 3 part series we cover Why are nutritionists talking about movement and lifestyle and why coaches are talking about food? What’s up…
Thanks to everyone who attended and took the time to listen to our team’s talk. We have put together the most relevant links and a few of the more ‘information-hefty’ slides for you below for your reference. Learn more about the full workshop experiences here Further reading – books This list is by no…
We continue our warm-up to the much-anticipated release of the book ‘Complete Guide to Bodyweight Training’ with an interview with the author – Kesh Patel. For the previous instalment read Kesh’s guest article ‘Why train with bodyweight’. ***Update: Our review is now available >>>here*** Kesh, for our readers, perhaps you can briefly sketch out…
We’re big into our wild and wacky Fartleks in ChampionsEverywhere – these workouts are a staple part of every athlete we trains weekly training during the general practice and conditioning period. First engineered by Swedish coach Gösta Holmér, Fartlek means ‘speedplay’ and is a way to shake yourself out of that metronomic trance that can…
Earlier today a runner wrote me an email: “René, congratulations on you contribution to coaching. I am following Lydiard’s philosophy – 2 years now. I read an article by (ed: Peter) Snell on the long run – he said you need to run the 20 milers at 7 min pace to recruit the 2II fibres after glycogen…
The life of the Greek hero Achilles ended in tragedy and mention of the proverbial “Achilles tendon” tends to invoke more fear than joy when brought up in conversation with modern athletes. Yet, the Achilles tendon is a crucial part of the success in running – at least when it is done properly. Heel-striking and…
Autumn cross-country is almost upon us again and there is no better time to experiment with “Fartleks“, the Swedish concept of “speedplay”. When I look around the internet there are many examples of Fartleks but in our opinion, the format is still not being used to it’s full potential. This is a session to be…
The world is full of stressors: toxins, lack of sleep, emotional outbursts (that nasty boss or evil-eyed spouse!), physical exertion and more. Every time we are subjected to stress our mind switches into a state controlled by a part of your nervous system called the “sympathetic nervous system” – our “fight or flight” response. The…
In this new recurring column we take a new look at common running injuries through the prism of the new science of Darwinian of Evolutionary Medicine that informs our work at ChampionsEverywhere. We show how “mysterious” injuries such as plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinosis and tarsal tunnel syndrome are not so mysterious after all. Read this…
The World Championships in athletics are on and today our “Masters of Running” graduates are running their first “Technical Mile Time Trial“, so what better time to have a close look at the mile distance. It is not a distance that get’s much attention in these marathon-days and most of our own clients are not…
Experience what a difference a day makes at the ‘Masters of Running’ workshops. Working with all levels of people who want to learn how to run with great technique, ranging from the chronically injured who were told to quit the sport they love, to beginners and elites. What a difference a day…
Traditional training programmes are often shown as a pyramid and most often with a “base” at the bottom consisting of high mileage endurance focused training. Then follows layers of more and more race-specific work until the peak is reached. This way of training is consistent with the ten principles of old school running that we have…
We participated in a recent Facebook discussion around cadence and barefoot sprinting. Barefoot Beginner posted the key points of the thread. Excerpt on sprinting: ….essentially what we teach in our coaching model about the difference is this: Sprinting involves much higher forces than running and thus you have to land on your toes (rather…
Imagine yourself at the centre of a process that has inputs and outputs. The inputs are the training challenges you expose yourself to: time, miles, intensity, complexity, terrain and so on. The outputs are the outcomes and the results – the PBs, the times, the finishing positions, how fresh you feel, how strong you feel…
Arthur Lydiard first popularised the term “LSD” meaning “Long STEADY distance” as one of the mainstays of a successful athletic development programme. Unfortunately, over the years the concept came to mean “Long SLOW distance” which combined with the often misused phrase “miles make champions” started the descent into “logging miles for the sake of it”…
Chronic Cardio. Where did that term come from? Browse websites supporting the fitness system CrossFit, fitness writer Mark Sisson’s “Primal BluePrint” site and other Paleo-inspired exercise sites (Paleo Sprint, Paleo Hack, Primal North, the list is long) and you’ll find warnings about “Chronic Cardio” The concept of “Chronic Cardio”seems to be used to help distinguish new training…
When Arthur Lydiard published his first running book, he was reluctant to post any training plans in them. Word has it that he worried about runners reading the plans without understanding the underlying principles and would go out and either 1) get hurt or 2) under perform. I have heard many coaches say “Arthur Lydiard…
When rehabilitating yourself from shod-running back to your natural running style, bare foot running is an essential part of your training (as this, of course, was the human body’s default running condition). However, years of atrophy and feet encapsulated in narrow and cushy running shoes means that you will perceive it as quite extreme to…
Arthur Hamilton Newton is not a name that would be recognised as easily today as “Rudisha” or “Bolt” but he’s nevertheless one of the great heroes of the sport and his exploits puts a welcome perspective on much of what has happened to athletics since his heyday. Arthur Newton was a prolific runner and coach…
There is no one set definition of “old school running” but in our coaching model we wrote up this list of ten principles that we teach as the essence of what the old masters (such as Newton, Cerutty, Pilates, Georges Hébert and Lydiard) taught. Each principle loosely precedes the principle before it and they should…
We all want to know the secret to becoming champions so in this article we’ll have a closer look at the long run employed by the runners of famous New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard. Every Sunday, Arthur and “his boys” would start from the front of his house to complete the hilly 22 mile course…
ChampionsEverywhere took the chance to speak to Keith Livingstone, author of “Healthy Intelligent Training – the proven principles of Arthur Lydiard“, during his tour of Ireland and England. During the conversations Keith talks about his own background with Lydiard, why he wrote his book and what he believes need to happen to resurrect Western athletics at…
If you haven’t bought the “Irish Runner” magazine yet, we recommend you do: René contributes several articles to the special “Trail section” of the magazine and has the “honour” of being the magazine’s centre-fold (Donal Glackin’s gorgeous shot from the central pages are below, pity they couldn’t secure a prettier model but the Spink in…
