BEGINNER CORE STRENGTH ROUTINE

Four basic exercises that will strengthen core muscles and improve posture
By Chris Carmichael, Runner's World

1. Prone Core Bridge
Lay on the floor on your stomach. Lift your body off the ground, supporting your upper body with your elbows directly under your shoulders and your forearms flat on the ground. Keep your body in a straight line from your shoulders to your heels and hold for 30 seconds. Work up to holding for 60 seconds or longer.

2. Side Plank
Lie on your left side with your legs, hips, and shoulders in a straight line. Prop yourself up on your left forearm so your elbow is directly under your shoulder. Lift your hips off the floor to create a straight line running from your right shoulder down to your right ankle. Place your top arm along your side. Hold the position for 30 seconds, then lower your hip to the ground. Switch sides and repeat. Work up to holding for 60 seconds or longer.

3. Elbow-to-Knee Twisting Crunch (or Bicycle Crunch)
Start out on the floor, on your back, with your knees raised and your hands interlaced behind your head/neck. Curl your left elbow toward your right knee, bringing them together over the center of your body. Return to the starting position and repeat with your right elbow toward your left knee. Continue alternating nonstop for one minute.

4. Reverse Crunch
Start out on the floor, lying on your back with your arms by your sides. In one smooth motion, bring your feet up off the floor and crunch your knees toward your chest while pressing your hands into the floor. Crunch far enough to raise your hips off the floor. Lower your hips back to the floor and uncurl your legs until they are straight, with your feet one or two inches above the floor. Repeat nonstop for one minute.

Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles' Foe, It's Fuel

By GINA KOLATA
Copyright 2006 New York Times

Everyone who has even thought about exercising has heard the warnings about lactic acid. It builds up in your muscles. It is what makes your muscles burn. Its buildup is what makes your muscles tire and give out.

Coaches and personal trainers tell athletes and exercisers that they have to learn to work out at just below their "lactic threshold," that point of diminishing returns when lactic acid starts to accumulate. Some athletes even have blood tests to find their personal lactic thresholds.

But that, it turns out, is all wrong. Lactic acid is actually a fuel, not a caustic waste product. Muscles make it deliberately, producing it from glucose, and they burn it to obtain energy. The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid.

The notion that lactic acid was bad took hold more than a century ago, said George A. Brooks, a professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. It stuck because it seemed to make so much sense.

"It's one of the classic mistakes in the history of science," Dr. Brooks said.

Its origins lie in a study by a Nobel laureate, Otto Meyerhof, who in the early years of the 20th century cut a frog in half and put its bottom half in a jar. The frog's muscles had no circulation — no source of oxygen or energy.

Dr. Myerhoff gave the frog's leg electric shocks to make the muscles contract, but after a few twitches, the muscles stopped moving. Then, when Dr. Myerhoff examined the muscles, he discovered that they were bathed in lactic acid.

A theory was born. Lack of oxygen to muscles leads to lactic acid, leads to fatigue.

Athletes were told that they should spend most of their effort exercising aerobically, using glucose as a fuel. If they tried to spend too much time exercising harder, in the anaerobic zone, they were told, they would pay a price, that lactic acid would accumulate in the muscles, forcing them to stop.

Few scientists questioned this view, Dr. Brooks said. But, he said, he became interested in it in the 1960's, when he was running track at Queens College and his coach told him that his performance was limited by a buildup of lactic acid.

When he graduated and began working on a Ph.D. in exercise physiology, he decided to study the lactic acid hypothesis for his dissertation.

"I gave rats radioactive lactic acid, and I found that they burned it faster than anything else I could give them," Dr. Brooks said.

It looked as if lactic acid was there for a reason. It was a source of energy.

Dr. Brooks said he published the finding in the late 70's. Other researchers challenged him at meetings and in print.

"I had huge fights, I had terrible trouble getting my grants funded, I had my papers rejected," Dr. Brooks recalled. But he soldiered on, conducting more elaborate studies with rats and, years later, moving on to humans. Every time, with every study, his results were consistent with his radical idea.

Eventually, other researchers confirmed the work. And gradually, the thinking among exercise physiologists began to change.

"The evidence has continued to mount," said L. Bruce Gladden, a professor of health and human performance at Auburn University. "It became clear that it is not so simple as to say, Lactic acid is a bad thing and it causes fatigue."

As for the idea that lactic acid causes muscle soreness, Dr. Gladden said, that never made sense.

"Lactic acid will be gone from your muscles within an hour of exercise," he said. "You get sore one to three days later. The time frame is not consistent, and the mechanisms have not been found."

The understanding now is that muscle cells convert glucose or glycogen to lactic acid. The lactic acid is taken up and used as a fuel by mitochondria, the energy factories in muscle cells.

Mitochondria even have a special transporter protein to move the substance into them, Dr. Brooks found. Intense training makes a difference, he said, because it can make double the mitochondrial mass.

It is clear that the old lactic acid theory cannot explain what is happening to muscles, Dr. Brooks and others said.

Yet, Dr. Brooks said, even though coaches often believed in the myth of the lactic acid threshold, they ended up training athletes in the best way possible to increase their mitochondria. "Coaches have understood things the scientists didn't," he said.

Through trial and error, coaches learned that athletic performance improved when athletes worked on endurance, running longer and longer distances, for example.

That, it turns out, increased the mass of their muscle mitochondria, letting them burn more lactic acid and allowing the muscles to work harder and longer.

Just before a race, coaches often tell athletes to train very hard in brief spurts.

That extra stress increases the mitochondria mass even more, Dr. Brooks said, and is the reason for improved performance.

And the scientists?

They took much longer to figure it out.

"They said, 'You're anaerobic, you need more oxygen,' " Dr. Brooks said. "The scientists were stuck in 1920."

Six Spectacular Strength Exercises from Cathy Vasto

Copyright © 2000 by Hal Higdon, all rights reserved.

RUNNERS NEED TO IMPROVE THEIR SPEED, and one of the best ways to do that is with strength training, so claims Cathy Vasto, a personal trainer with The Lodge & Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. "The benefits are amazing," says Vasto.

Vasto is one of America’s top-ranked runners with a best of 15:38 at 5,000 meters. She already has qualified to run that distance in July at the U.S. Olympic Trials at Sacramento, California. It is her third time qualifying for the Trials. She also has run 2:07 for 800 and 4:18 for 1,500 meters.

Look at Vasto, and you would not mistake her for a bodybuilder, yet she has bench-pressed 180 pounds. She uses her strength to compliment her speed. "Strength helps at the end of a race when your form starts deteriorating," advises Vasto. "The faster you can move your arms at the end, the faster you can move your legs and the higher you can lift your knees, propelling yourself toward the finish line."

Vasto’s clients include everybody from young men hoping to look better at the beach to one 75-year-old woman, whose goal is to maintain strength so as to enjoy life. She offers the following advice for runners who want to develop their strength—and speed!

Go High/Low: If you’re training for a race like the Gate River Run, you don’t want to bulk up. Extra weight will slow you down. To avoid putting on pounds, keep the pounds of the weights you lift low and the repetitions high. Vasto recommends lifting 50 to 60 percent of the maximum weight you can lift in a set of 12 repetitions. Two sets of 12 work well for most of the lifts described later. For maximum benefits, without wasting a lot of time, do your strength training two or three times a week, after you run, not before.

Look Good Lifting: Keep your form—not for vanity, but to prevent injury. Think 90-degrees. Most seated lifts work best if your body parts are at right angles: legs straight, feet flat against the floor, trunk erect, chin up, eyes forward. Practice the pelvic tilt where you press your torso back against the chair, or floor, to keep your back from slumping. "Good form works in lifting as much as it does in running," says Vasto.

Breathe Right: The worst mistake you can make while lifting is to hold your breath. That simply tightens the muscles that you want to keep loose. Inhale while you prepare to lift the weight, then exhale while lifting it, inhaling again while lowering it. "The best way to breathe is naturally," says Vasto, "so that you’re not even aware you’re doing it."

Rest by Stretching: When moving from exercise to exercise, don’t rush and don’t waste time chit-chatting with friends. Stay focused on your workout by stretching in between. "It’s very important while strength training to have a stretching routine," warns Vasto. "You don’t want to lose your flexibility, which can happen if you forget to stretch. Eccentric contractions (which occur when lowering the weights) actually can tighten the muscles." Stretching while strength training provides a double dose of conditioning in a minimum of time. (For six sensational stretching exercises, see: Stretch.)

Finally, the key to the exercises presented below is to go slow and remain in control. "You’re not trying to see how fast you can get in and out of the weight room," says Vasto. "You’re trying to win your race on the road." Vasto’s six spectacular strength exercises follow.

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1. Bench Press: This is a basic lift, used by all bodybuilders, but you can use it to build strength and speed. Lie on your back on a bench (although you can also use the floor). For weight, use a barbell or dumbbells. Keep your back flat, your knees bent. Your palms should be facing forward, your hands should be equal distant and over your shoulders. Lift the bar or dumbbells straight up (think 90-degrees) and lower slowly. Do two sets of 12 reps. For an alternate workout without weights, do simple push-ups. (Strengthens the pectorals, deltoids, triceps and biceps.)

BENCH PRESS

Down	Up

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2. Rowing: Gripping dumbbells, sit on the edge of a bench or firm chair. (Remember to keep your back straight.) Hold the dumbbells with your arms extended, palms facing inward against your knees. Raise the dumbbells to just opposite your chest, then return to the starting position. Do two sets of 12 reps. You can also do this exercise while standing, keeping your knees bent at a 45-degree angle and your torso bent forward. Another option is to use a single weight gripped in both hands and bring it up to your chest. (Strengthens the rhomboids.)

ROWING POSITIONS

Starting Position	Finishing Position

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3. Overhead Pull: "This is an easy exercise," says Vasto. "You can do it with a 16-ounce can of soup, a 5-pound bag of flour, or a water bottle if you don’t have a dumbbell. The angle multiplies the effect of even light weights." Take the object and hold it overhead, elbows forward, back straight, knees slightly bent to take the pressure off your back. (You can also do this exercise while seated.) Lower the weight behind your head toward the back of your neck, then return to the starting position. Do two sets of 12 reps. (Strengthens the triceps.)

OVERHEAD PULL

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4. The Curl: Sit in a chair, feet flat on the floor, stomach in, shoulders back, head up. Your elbows should be against your waist above your hips, your palms up holding the weights. (Remember what we said about 90-degree angles.) Raise the weights to your shoulders, lowering slowly. Do two sets of 12 reps. "Two cans of soup work as well as barbells or dumbbells," claims Vasto. (She doesn’t yet have a Campbell Soup endorsement to go with her Asics shoe endorsement, but she’s working on it). This exercise can also be done standing up. (Strengthens the biceps.)

CURL POSITIONS

Curl Down	Curl Up

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5. The Crunch: Although Vasto does 400 sit-ups a day, she recommends crunches to her clients, because it isolates the abdominal muscles. "The abs are your core of balance," says Vasto. "They support your upper body, important at the end of a race." (A crunch is a sit-up where you stop after raising your shoulders off the floor.) In the starting position, your back should be flat against the floor, your head up, eyes on the ceiling, hands gripping the back of your neck, your knees relaxed and bent, feet on the floor. Raise only to the point where you feel your stomach muscles tightening, hold then release, returning your back to the floor. Vasto recommends starting with 3 sets of 15 and working up to 4 sets of 20. A variation is to tilt sideways, pointing toward your "love handles," on alternate lifts. (Strengthens the abdominal muscles, referred to as the "abs." The love-handle variation strengthens the oblique muscles.)

CRUNCH POSITION

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6. The Lunge: The five previous exercises strengthen the upper body, often neglected by runners. The lunge will help strengthen several of the muscles of the lower body. Start this exercise with your feet shoulder-width apart. If you use a barbell, it should rest across your shoulders and behind your neck. If using dumbbells, hold them beside your thighs. Take a long step forward with one leg and descend to a low position, then rise. Bring the lead leg back and repeat with the other leg forward. Form is very important in doing this exercise to avoid injury. "Again, think 90-degrees," warns Vasto. In the forward position, your knee should be over your feet, forming a 90-degree angle. Allowing your forward knee to move too far ahead of the ankle causes unnecessary stress. Similarly, the back knee should not touch the ground. The back lower leg should be parallel to the ground, forming still another 90-degree angle. (Strengthens many of the muscles of the legs, including the quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteals and erector spinae.)

LUNGE POSITION

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Strength is important, says Vasto, not only to improve your speed for running races, but it will make you feel good and look good and improve the quality of your life, throughout your lifetime.