Strength - Inner and Outer...learning about your core and what you're really made of.

I'm in week 8 of my training cycle and I've written previously of how I'm getting into the high-mileage part of my training. And with the high mileage, I'm starting to feel worn out more mentally than physically as I can attribute this to doing regular calisthenics, especially focusing on my core to keep my body upright while in the act of moving myself forward for any given distance.

I learned running my first marathon, it starts to become very difficult keeping your body upright in the far distances of a full marathon (mile 2). I found near the end of the race my abdominals and back were sore from keeping my head up so I can breathe more efficiently. I didn't want to be like those weekend shuffle joggers, with their heads down gasping for their last breath, looking down at their shoes thinking about that hamburger at the end of their run that they so earned...

So I wanted to start working on strength training, especially my core. You have to remember in a marathon there are people cheering at you (or maybe laughing?) and you want to look good for the marathon photographer as he's snapping them lovelies for your facebook profile photo.

Ok, so what is this 'core' everyone keeps talking about? People associate core training with working on abdominal exercises like crunches and sit ups. But the core starts from your neck down to your pelvis which is the primarily the center of your body. This is mainly muscles attached to your spine and torso which  includes Shoulder, Upper Back, Mid Back, Lower Back, Abdominals, Obliques, and Hips. Strengthening the core provides stability for all movement, especially with running. It also helps reduce back pain. Stronger, balanced core muscles help maintain appropriate posture and reduce strain on the spine.

From sportsmedicine.about.com

Core strengthening exercises are most effective when the torso works as a solid unit and both front and back muscles contract at the same time, multi joint movements are performed and stabilization of the spine is monitored. Abdominal bracing is a basic technique used during core exercise training. To correctly brace, you should attempt to pull your navel back in toward your spine. This action primarily recruits transverse abdominus. You should be able to breathe evenly while bracing and no hold your breath.
There are many exercises that will strengthen the core. A large number of core strengthening exercises can be done at home with no equipment while some require the use of equipment and gadgets.

Core specific workouts include: Plank, Side Plank, Bridge which are foundations derived from Yoga. I do that along with good ol' calisthenics to help with my strength training regimen.

Now as I previously posted, my place of employment has a gym which I use yearly. Since my running days are Tuesday (Speed work), Thursday (Tempo Run) and Saturday (Long Slow Distance) with some recovery runs on Sunday or Tuesday during my lunch hour, I normally do my gym workouts on Monday and Thursday with Wednesday being the Yoga day. The workouts I do are circuit based, meaning I'll do 3 or 4 exercises at 10 reps 2 times with resistance and the last set with no resistance until failure. I rest about a minute to 90 secs between sets.

Before I start my calisthenics I like to warm up with jump rope. I do that for 5-10 minutes as that builds coordination, agility, quickness and endurance. Plus it's easy to carry and your not taking up someone's treadmill time. Some days I'll skip for 15-20 minutes and I'm pretty much done...I've completed my cardio and full body workout.

This is a sample of my circuit training workout below. If you're going to try this, I would suggest don't use weight and resistance bands at first, I've been doing this for 1 year consistently and I still have a long way to go. I'm not aiming to be no fitness model but be able to look good when marathonfoto.com comes to snapping my pic:

Osty told me to wear all neon so they can find my body if I get lost in the woods

Incline crunches twisting with weight - 10 reps

Dips with resistance band - 10 reps

Pull ups with resistance band - 7/8 reps (I'm trying for 10)

Dumbbell squats - 10 reps.

So I do this in a circuit with the weight and resistance bands 2 times with 60-90 seconds rest between sets. On the last set, I will do the same exercises without the weight and resistance bands until failure and I don't do the dumbbell squats as I'm pretty bagged by then. When I'm on the last set to failure I can sometimes do 15-18 reps or 5 reps depending on how I'm dialed in or if I'm tired or just having one of those days.

I don't always do the same exercises. Our gym has a universal machine which I don't really use, we don't have a squat rack, which I'm bummed out about, but we do have a lot of dumbbells which I like to use when I do dumbbell complexes which I'll show in another post with videos. But about 80% of my workouts are bodyweight exercises and plyometrics. I'll get my buddy Osty to show how we do plyometrics and medicine ball workouts. This is how we learned our dance moves...believe me, you'll love it.