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Select chapters from Dr.Romanov's books. Find out what others are raving about. Learn how to succeed in sports and stay injury free!
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INTRODUCTION TO STRENGTH CONDITIONING FOR RUNNING
from "Pose Method of Running. Strength Conditioning, Hamstring & Hips Exercises" booklet
By Nicholas Romanov, Ph.D.
 At the beginning of the running boom of the 70’s neither athletes nor coaches were paying enough attention to strength development for running. To get better at running, they thought, you just have to run more. Instead of providing for the overall development of the human organism they focused on cardiovascular and respiratory systems as the key to enhanced performance.
High volumes of training, they believed, would improve these systems and result in faster marathon performances. However the results were not faster times, but generations of broken down runners. Combination of high mileage with poor technique and the absence of strength training was a formula for disaster.
By the end of the 70’s some more enlightened coaches began to rethink the strength training issue and started recommending weight programs for their runners. While mainstream runners still did not come to this, the efforts of leading scientists and coaches have now been acknowledged and the value of strength conditioning for achieving endurance running results has been undeniably proven.
Our Pose Method relies specifically on gravity for momentum and rapid release of the foot from the ground. These movements are very simple and repetitive, but there is also a substantial requirement of strength not only to perform those movements, but also to withdraw from any extraneous movements.
There should be no wild swinging of arms, no over striding, and no excessive vertical oscillation, that will drain energy and detract from the overall performance. The body must be well conditioned and disciplined to continue to stay within the running frame without deviation for mile after mile after mile.
Strength training for running will give you the physical capacity to flow like nature’s best runners, cheetahs, or gazelles. This requires very specific preparation that will take the disparate muscle systems of your body and fuse them into a single system ready to run.
A poorly prepared body, without sufficient strength development, will prematurely display all the trademarks of poor running technique: elongated stride, clumsy movement, general slowness and facial evidence of psychological and emotional discomfort. Conversely, the properly prepared runner will move with a quick, compact stride and will have a serene, focused countenance.
The following types of exercises fulfill the requirements for basic strength conditioning for runners: a) hip muscles conditioning, b) hamstrings conditioning, and c) muscular elasticity development. The latter will be discussed separately in a different book.
Running in different environments presents a special challenge and requires the ability to deal with varying terrain. There are specific exercises and techniques to prepare the runner for that, and those are: sand running, uphill and downhill running, trail running, and barefoot running, all detailed in our book on Pose Method.
This doesn’t exclude any other exercises that you may want to incorporate into your overall routine, but these exercises are necessary to optimize your running potential. Remember, there are no bad exercises, per se, but there may be poorly performed or poorly implemented exercises that will not contribute to your overall development.
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