Marathon Running Tips: by Brendan Brazier – World Class Ironman Triathlete

Why Endurance Athletes Need Strength:

Clearly marathon running is an endurance event, and not necessarily a strength sport. But for a marathoner, the ability to lift more weight offers a significant advantage and benefit.

For example, if two runners are equal in every respect except for muscular strength, the stronger athlete will be faster over any distance. If one runner can squat 10% more weight than another, his muscles will not have to work as hard to move the body forward, maximizing his endurance gains. And when muscles don’t need to work as hard, they also don’t require as much oxygen or circulating blood, putting less demand on the heart, lowering one’s heart rate and improving endurance significantly. Greater strength equals greater endurance!

What Body Parts to Train:

While you would expect the focus for runners and cyclists to be the legs, muscle gains and upper-body strength can offer a significant performance advantage.

Using your arms and upper body improves the muscle function in those areas. Each time muscles contract, oxygen levels and nutrients in the blood are needed. As with the legs, your arms will draw upon the heart to deliver oxygen and nutrition and remove waste products (lactate) so that they can continue moving fluently. Therefore, it makes sense to increase your upper-body strength as well so that it doesn’t become too much of an oxygen draw on your system and increase your heart rate.

Training Fuel:

Nutrition is a vital part of physical training. Of course, what you eat becomes the building blocks used to reconstruct the muscle tissue that your training has broken down. Make sure to consume a nutrient-packed smoothie after each workout. Quick and efficient recovery from each workout is key. The faster you can recover, the sooner you can train again. This is what leads to true gains and will improve your performance more than any other single principal. Visit Brendan’s site at www.brendanbrazier.com

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