The “Up & Down” is a hill running specific workout based on the ‘Out & Back‘ session usually done in the Base Period. It teaches you to run at the fastest pace you can sustain aerobically, that is, burning mainly fat and oxygen for fuel and incurring minimal oxygen debt while climbing long hills similar to…
Category Archives: Library
‘Why would I run at a higher cadence’? (a detailed look at stride rate)
Cadence (definition): the beat, rate, or measure of any rhythmic movement (Dictionary.com) “Walking and running speeds (metres / second) depend on two characteristics: stride length (m/s) and stride rate (strides/s). Running speeds will increase if stride length remains constant and stride time decreases (stride rate increases) or if stride rate remains constant and stride length increases.”…
Four things to think about during your marathon taper
When I ran my first marathon, in my very first year of running, I decided to ally with a coach from the very beginning. I felt that there was no point committing all my efforts to such a lengthy race and then risk having a bad performance on the day. In the end it turned…
Running (technique) – simple, complex or just complicated?
Shouldn’t running just be about going out the door and putting one foot in front of the other? There is an old saying in soccer that it is ‘a simple game, complicated by idiots’? Have we done the same to running? As the science around running has expanded and the commercial interests in the sport with…
5 reasons your running injury won’t go away…
Injuries are the scourge of the running community today. Depending on what study you read 50 to 90% of all runners are injured every year and despite all the ‘advances’ in medical science and shoe manufacturing, nothing has made the slightest dent in this trend. So the constant irritation and frustration of injury remains hanging…
RADIO PODCAST: Running surfaces and running technique
Jason and Rene appeared on RTE’s Ray Darcy Show and Matt Cooper’s ‘The Last Word’ last week to join in on the debate about running surfaces, injury and running technique. If you missed the interviews, listen back below and don’t forget to read our detailed response to Ger Hartmann’s article in ‘Roads are not to…
Road running is not to blame, YOU are…
This article was written as a response to the radio interview ‘Road-Running will leave joggers on the scrap-heap’ with Ger Hartmann. We will discuss our view here on TodayFM tonight at 18:30 GMT. You’re driving along, inattentive, shortly after acquiring your driver’s license. As you look up from your mobile,…
Glutes or feet – what really causes your running injuries and muscle pains
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 (TOE-GA)
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…
Should runners train their upper bodies?
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…
PODCAST: CE & Barry Murray on nutrition and performance – part 3
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…
ARTICLE: Runner fix your foot – toe and foot drills for injury free running (‘toe-ga’)
“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…
PODCAST: CE speaks to Barry Murray on nutrition and performance – part 2
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…
REVIEW: ‘The Complete Guide to Bodyweight Training’ by Kesh Patel
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…
PODCAST: CE speaks to Barry Murray on nutrition and performance
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…
PREVIEW: Primal Athlete/Running workshop – Barry Murray explains what you can expect
Getting fitter and healthier is about more than training hard, shedding pounds and trying to clean up your diet. Even with optimal diet and exercise, there are still many elements of performance and health that you may be ignoring to your detriment. We are not simple beings when it comes to health and performance rather…
Interview with Kesh Patel, author of ‘Complete Guide to Bodyweight Training’
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…
FARTLEK step aside! It’s time for RYTMLEK
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…
Why train with bodyweight?
Introduction From a human motor development perspective, the efficient manipulation of our own bodyweight played a key role in our physical maturation. During this process, the external forces of gravity and ground reaction, alongside the internal forces of muscle contraction and elasticity, influenced the size, structure and function of our bodies. When viewed through an…
What pace will trigger glycogen depletion on long runs? (a response)
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…
ARTICLE: All about the Achilles (tendon)?
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…
TRAINING: How to manage stress and your workouts
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…
SPOTLIGHT ON: Plantar Fasciitis (running injury)
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…
Natural workout sample – Gate Protocol #1
This workout can be used by any runner who has been instructed in basic jumping, balancing, vaulting, lunging and sprinting techniques. I came up with it on the August Bank Holiday as a quick morning workout that takes less than 30 minutes including warm-up and cool-down. Equipment needed 1 x gate (1m high or so)…
The Mile Distance – how to use it
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…
Time trial (Technical)
Time trials are one of the most important, and one of the most misunderstood, components of your final preparations towards peak race day. They are not workouts to determine how fast you can run a given distance: their purpose is to combine and coordinate the what you have attained in previous phases of training and…
What a difference a day makes – running workshop video
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…
Bring true quality in your running training
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…
Should cadence increase in sprinting?
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…
Beat the mileage trap – count outputs not inputs!
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…
