How To: Lacing Your Shoes

How you lace your running and exercise shoes, although it may not seems so, is quite important. While working out, especially while running, your feet swell. It is a natural thing that comes from putting extra pressure and force over a prolonged period of time on your feet. Your feet are strong enough to take that force IF they have room to swell and move. That is why one important part of buying shoes for running/working out is to buy a 1/2 –1 size larger than normal, depending on the shoe brand.

When lacing these shoes of yours, there is a special technique that I learned when I got my first fitted pair. (Which I definitely recommend going to a store where they can watch you run when you buy your first pair.)

The key is to leave the toe box (widest part of your shoe) able to expand with your foot. Thread laces through the first set of eyelets and then straight up each side without criss-crossing at all. Continue this way for two or three holes. Once you've passed the forefoot, begin criss-crossing and finish lacing as normal.See how the laces don’t cross til the middle of the shoe?

Then at the end, make a loop with the lace and pull through to tighten. You can do sort of a shimmy with the laces to tighten before tying. This prevents too tight of tying.

I attempted to make a video out of this…but lets just say the pictures worked out better.

By the way…there is also a correct and incorrect way to TIE your shoe. Who knew? Not me, until I saw this video on RunnersWorld.com the other day.

Rollin’

Running hills can be super intimidating. Especially if it is a sand hill (who does that?) As intimidating as it is though, it is incredibly beneficial to your endurance and cardiovascular health.

A 1977 article in the European Journal of Applied Physiology concluded that runners who followed an intense six-week program of hard uphill running enjoyed "significant improvements in training distances, anaerobic capacity, and strength." A chapter in the International Olympic Committee's 1992 book Endurance and Sport reported a study of runners who did 12 weeks of regular training, plus "hill training with 'bounce running.'" After the 12 weeks, the subjects' running economy (or how efficiently they ran) increased by an average of three percent.

There are varying degrees of hills…short, long, steep, gradual…try them all out. Each have their own benefits and difficulty levels. Here is more info on hill training.

that’s a very dirty hill run.

So I thought I’d leave you will a recent hill training run I did on the treadmill. Because I live near some hilly neighborhoods, I usually like to run outside doing my hill workouts. It makes them more exciting. However, this 25 degree weather is not working for me.

warm-up:	5 minute	jog/walk	1% incline
hill one:	1 minute	run	4% incline
	1 minute	jog	1% incline
hill two:	2 minute	run	4% incline
	2 minute	jog	1% incline
hill three:	3 minute	run	3-5% incline
	3 minute	jog	1% incline
hill four:	4 minute	run	3-5% incline
	4 minute	jog	1% incline
hill five:	5 minute	run	4% incline
	5 minute	jog	1% incline
cool down	5 minute	recovery jog/walk	1% incline

To make it harder you can increase incline or speed during the runs. To make it easier you can walk the recovery jogs, decrease speed, make it a total walking workout or shorten the workout. Make it your own! I really liked it. Let me know if you try it!

**Hill running isn’t recommended for beginners, just because of the stress it puts on muscles too soon. HOWEVER, I would recommend adding some walking at in incline or walking hills during or after your runs. Your legs will thank you :)

~Do you run hills as a part of your workout regimen?

Run For Your Brain

A recent article in Runner's World talked about the benefits of vigorous cardiovascular exercise on your BRAIN. That is correct. Not only are you exercising your heart and lungs, and burning calories, and adding years to your life…but you are also improving brain function! Research indicates the more aerobically challenging the exercise, the greater the mental payoff. Here’s how:

1. Running sparks the growth of fresh nerve cells, called neurogenesis, and new blood vessels, called angiogenesis, says J. Carson Smith, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Maryland in College Park who studies the role exercise plays in brain function. Older adults who exercised regularly increased the volume of their hippocampus—the region linked to learning and memory—by two percent, compared to inactive peers. That may not sound like much until you realize that this part of the brain isn't known for increasing at any point in adulthood. What's more, running appears to "rescue" many brain cells that would otherwise die.

2. Cardio exercise helps you get better at learning and storing new information and memories, and can potentially stave off age-related dementia. Adult mice "runners" grew new neurons that made them better at making fine distinctions between shapes and colors than sedentary rodents.

3. Lacing up regularly may make the executive functions that happen in the frontal cortex—decision-making, planning, organizing, juggling mental tasks—easier. In a 2010 Japanese study, people who'd just completed bouts of physical activity scored higher on mental tests than those who did not.

4. Being aerobically active is key not just to making memories, but finding them when you want to. In a study of patients diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, those who exercised were better able to recall names of famous people.

5. Running may be just as effective—and in some instances better—than SSRI drugs in treating depression. These antidepressant meds work by keeping neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepineprhine in the synapses longer, improving mood and outlook. Turns out, aerobic exercise does the same thing.

~Why do you exercise?

Have a great weekend!

Off Balance

Years ago my family was at a family reunion and my sister and I were talking to my cousin’s husband, who is a physical therapist. My sister had rolled her ankle playing tennis recently but she felt like it was getting stronger and she was ready to play. He decided to see just how strong it is and asked her to do some balance tests on both feet. To say the least, her non-injured side was much stronger than her injured! She pretty much fell over herself when trying to balance on her bad ankle.

Runners World recently came out with an article about making sure your body is balanced and equally strong. This prevents injury and improves performance.

Every physically active person has a dominant side. The key is to figure out which side it is. A simple balance test (below) will tell you if you have a weak side. What's the value of knowing which side is stronger? When you favor one side, the resulting weakness on the opposite side can leave you more vulnerable to injury.

Your body uses two strategies to balance on one foot. First, it tweaks ankle and foot muscles. The second is a "hip strategy"—you twist your torso to steady yourself. But when you run, you're not using the ankle strategy at all, putting the strain of compensating for your weaker side entirely in the hips. "Leg dominance won't cause injury," he says, "but strengthening the hip and working on balance will help you avoid it."

THE BALANCE TEST
Stand on one leg, eyes closed. Time how long you can hold without toppling or putting down your foot. Switch legs. If both sides are close (30 seconds on each side, or 30 on one and 25 on the other), you've got good equilibrium. But if the difference is wide—five or 10 seconds on one leg, up to 30 on the other—you're out of balance, and may have hip-muscle issues.

Here are a few exercises to do after workouts for 3 weeks. Then try the balance test again and see some improvement!

HIP-ABDUCTOR STRENGTHENER
HOW: Loop an exercise band around the ankle on your strong leg. Keeping your outside knee straight, raise the outside leg to the side. Lift for two seconds, return for two seconds, controlling the movement. Do three sets of 10 reps.
WHY: By training only the weak side you build symmetry. There is twice as much muscle activity for the support leg, so your inside leg is the one reaping the balance-improvement benefits.

CORE STABILIZER
HOW: Stand with your weak leg on a pillow. Balance for 30 seconds (you can use a light touch on a wall). Repeat three times. Tip: When you can balance relatively easily for 30 seconds, increase the intensity by closing your eyes, which makes it harder to balance.
WHY: Supporting yourself on your weaker leg while standing on an unstable surface forces you to employ an ankle and a hip strategy to balance, and helps your weak leg catch up to your strong one.

Are you off balance?