Runners get stuck. Their training reaches a plateau, and they cannot budge. Same run, same speed, but no progress.
Photography by Geoff Wilkings
Has your running reached a training plateau? Do you find that the busier you get, the more difficult it is to maintain your fitness and speed, let alone improve it? Maybe you need to shake up your running with a new routine.
Drastic changes in quality are achievable in a very short time while revving up metabolism and fat burning in as few as thirty efficient minutes of muscle balancing.
We are often afraid that increasing speed or intensity will lead to injury, but in reality taking it up a notch can improve training efficiency and quality, decreasing our risk of injury. A few minutes of quality running and strength training can lead to more dramatic results than an inefficient, slow ten-kilometre run.
Improvements in speed and efficiency require better muscle recruitment. The circuit outlined in this article is designed to help your muscles become stronger, move faster, recruit better, and help improve muscle imbalances that commonly plague us.
Try this thirty-minute circuit once a week to spice up your workouts and improve efficiency. Whether you are a beginner or advanced athlete, an adult or an adolescent, this workout is designed for running-specific performance or any dry-land conditioning. Check with your doctor before starting any new workout program, and work with a trainer if you have any doubts about proper form.
The circuit:
Equipment needed: treadmill, track, (or any cardio equipment), Gliding Discs(TM) (invented by Mindy Mylrea, www.glidingdiscs.com, and available through Fitter First, www.fitter1.com, or Twist Conditioning, www.twistconditioning.com), or anything that slides on carpet or flooring, exercise ball, free weights, towel (you will need it!).
Time: Each round, thirty minutes, one to two sets.
Frequency: Once per week.
 Treadmill Interval Details:
Intervals can be performed by adding speed or resistance on any cardio equipment. If you prefer not to run, maintain a brisk walk and add hills for the intervals.
First thirty seconds: start walking and move into a light relaxed jog as soon as possible.
Next two minutes: increase speed or resistance every fifteen to thirty seconds, reaching the maximum speed you can maintain with good efficient technique for the last fifteen seconds. If you are learning to run, speeds may be around 4.5 to 7.0 mph for your intervals; if you are an experienced runner you may work between 7.0 and 12.0 mph.
NOTE: Every time you increase speed, re-set your body, always maintaining a light lifted quick technique. If you lose any technique, slow it down to something you can hold and hang in there for the two and a half minutes. If you can see or hear your feet or you are leaning forward at the hips, lift your hips and knees slightly and try to lighten it up. Your foot should be a flexible shock absorber catching quickly under your hips, not a brake hitting your heel out in front. The goal is to get used to your pacing and to learn what you can handle and what speeds actually feel good. Find your technique: the lighter and better you feel, the closer you are to breaking past all of your thresholds! You may usually run at six miles per hour and actually feel better at seven miles per hour. That means it is time to re-evaluate your running speed and allow shorter intervals with walk breaks until you can hold your new speed consistently. Keep at it and watch for great results.
 Dynamic Warm-up: The warm-up is part of the circuit!
1. Knee-up Chest Flys (hip flexor and rhomboid recruitment): For thirty seconds, drive your knee up pulling elbows back, squeezing shoulder blades together. Alternate legs.
2. Squat Leg Kicks (abductor and glute recruitment): For thirty seconds, each leg, squat down and then as you come up kick a leg to the side, the back corner, and directly behind in sequence. Lift ball as you squat.
The Circuit:
3. Treadmill Interval: Two minutes, thirty seconds. (See sidebar for details.) Designed to wake up the anaerobic and aerobic systems and improve speed and efficiency.
4. Mountain Climber Push-Up Holds (for quick leg turnover, hip flexor, upper body, and core recruitment) : Toes on Gliders, hands on ball, elbows bent, shoulder blades back, for sixty seconds, switch legs while holding a push-up position on the ball, leading with bent knees and maintaining neutral spine.
5. Side Lunge Glider Slides (adductors, gluteals, deltoids, and core recruitment): Perform two sets for sixty seconds each. With hips pressed back, your knee bent over ankle, weight on supporting leg , slide one leg out to side while reaching with the ball in opposite direction, and then pull back in. Repeat on other leg.
6. Treadmill Interval: Two minutes, thirty seconds. Try for faster intervals.
7. Glider Three-Point Lunges (core, deltoids, legs): Perform two sets for sixty seconds each. With toes on each Glider, heels do not touch the ground. Keep both knees directly forward, and slide the Glider out to the side as you bend the supporting knee forward and return to the start position. Then follow in sequence by reaching your foot toward the back corner (both knees pointing forward), and then straight behind you. On each leg add anterior raises with the opposite arm on each lunge.
8. Treadmill Interval: Two minutes, thirty seconds. Try to peak for speed at this interval, and stay lifted.
 9. Glider Backward Lunges with Bicep Curls (biceps, core, legs): Perform two sets for sixty seconds each. With the forward foot on a Bosu ball or stabilized on the floor, perform a backward lunge with the back foot on a Glider as you perform a bicep curl with the arm on the same side as the back leg.
10. Glider Push-Ups Abductor Slides (core, shoulders, chest, triceps, abductors): Perform two sets for thirty seconds each. Slide the Glider out to side with each arm as you do a push-up. The opposite leg goes out to the opposite side. Hold hips square, maintain neutral spine. Repeat on other side.
11. Treadmill Interval: Two minutes, thirty seconds. As quick as you can move, with great technique.
12. Glider Jogs with Skull Crushers (calves, hamstrings, glutes, erector spinae, triceps, core): Perform for sixty seconds. Start with your back on floor, heels on Gliders. Extend one leg out, sliding on the floor until you reach the middle of range, and then pull back while alternating with the other leg. As legs alternate sliding, arms are overhead and elbows bend and straighten.
13. Glider Jogs with Chest Flys (calves, hamstring recruitment, glutes, erector spinae, pectorals, core): Perform for sixty seconds. Start with back on ball, hips lifted and square. With toes on Gliders, switch in middle of range as you pull Gliders right under hips and extend out alternately; arms open to sides slowly as legs switch quickly.
14. Treadmill Interval: Two minutes, thirty seconds. As quick as you can move, with great technique.
15. Glider Plank Extensions (transversus abdominis, rectus, and obliques): Perform for sixty seconds. On hands and toes, hands on Gliders, brace abs, and let one Glider out in front. As you pull it back in, the other arm starts moving out so that they pass in the middle. The further you have your arms out in front without your back dropping the harder the intensity.
16. Glider Isometric Crunches (transversus abdominis, rectus, and obliques): Perform for sixty seconds. Seated on floor, with heels on Gliders, hold ball overhead, and lean back until abs engage. Move Gliders away from body as you raise the ball overhead in the opposite direction, bracing abs, alternating sides and to the middle, but without actually twisting the body.
17. Treadmill Interval: Two minutes, thirty seconds, keeping technique and giving everything you have left.
18. Skydivers (erector spinae, rhomboids, lower trapezius): Perform for sixty seconds. Starting prone on the ball, lift body and pull arms back, with hands supinated and open.
19. Cool-down: Finish with a dynamic stretch like the warm-up, then a head-to-toe static stretch.
About the Author
An avid runner, Denise Beatty, CPAFLA (C.F.C.), AFLCA, and C.S.C.S. certified, is the owner of Life Works Fitness and Fitness Fix in Calgary, Alberta. To contact Beatty or order one of her fitness DVDs, see www.fitnessfix.ca.
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