Monday, September 25, 2006

Strength training

I've been doing hour sessions, three days a week of strength work for the last six weeks and I'm going to continue these except for before and after race weeks until the end of the year and look at things then.

I read somewhere that "Deek" had exceptional core strength that allowed him to keep his form right to the end of marathons. In my last race my wife watched me come into the finish and said I looked a bit wobbly and that it looked as if I was weak in the stomach area.

After she got up off the ground......Joke. I took her advice and made myself a nice workout that combines power yoga with weights and some traditional exercises. Happy to pass this along if anyone wants details.

Anyway I feel much stronger already and with a diet that has me eating only fresh food, no coffee, beer or milk I have cut 10cm off my gut and I've toned up. Even though I've not cut my weight people are commenting on how I'm looking "buff" no well "healthy" at least.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for your comment Scott.

    Like you I am trying to focus my diet and strength to enable me to be fitter and run faster.

    I am working on my core strength and I already feel it in my arms and lower back that I have better form. Looking back - last week I should have tapered more and cut out the weights if I wanted to do my best at the 10km. Oh well we learn from experience.

    What is power yoga?

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  2. G'day Scott,

    Good luck with your blog and your running. Increasing core strength is definitely the way to go. I do 2hrs per week and will bump that up to 3 hrs per week in the lead up to the Gold Coast Marathon next year.

    My tip is to do 10 push ups immediately followed by 'the bridge' for 30 seconds after every rep. For example 10 bench presses immediately followed by 10 push ups, immediately followed by 30 second bridge. A five rep workout means you end up doing 150 pushups and 450 seconds of the bridge.

    Cheers
    M

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