Think back to the first time you consistently trained a squat- Linkin Park blaring, a thin haze of aerosolized pre workout and chalk filling the air- and being able to add 5-10 pounds, like clockwork, week after week after week. It’s the honeymoon phase of strength training- nothing hurts and there’s seemingly no impediment to riding this sweet, sweet train of linear progression to, inevitably, being able to sit down and stand up with the weight of a Honda Fit on your back. But, like all marriages, reality eventually has to settle in.

In the lower body, the concepts of “squat” and “hinge” run the show, and these have obvious biomechanical correlates to the thing we all care about; locomoting as fast and far as humanly possible without pain…

…not all strength training is created equal. A lot of the exercises that we think may be helping us in the gym may, in fact, be robbing us of range of motion, decreasing stride length, efficiency, and increasing the risk of overuse injuries. 

Before I get to the list, it’s worth briefly recapping my past article, “Why runners should strength train”. In short, there are two primary reasons why it’s useful for runners to do non-running work in the gym. One, to improve movement availability with the goal of reducing overuse injuries. Two, to improve lower body power production to increase stride length (and ultimately, run faster). It’s helpful to keep these reasons in mind as we go through this list.

As with many other things that rehabilitative and strength fields, “it depends” is the most correct answer to the above question.  I would, however, assert that MOST of the time I DO want an athlete’s knees to go over the toes whilst squatting. We’ll begin with a look at where the myth of “no knees over toes” came from, why I’ve gotten away from cueing that in recent years, what I cue instead, and when it may be desirable to squat with a more verticalized tibia (not shoving knees over toes). Let’s dive in!

If you ask most runners if they do any “lifting”, they’ll likely stammer something about a groundbreaking upper body and core routine they saw in Running Times in 2006 and have been faithfully executing at least once per election cycle.  They’ll probably be stoked about the 5 variations of lateral raises and 8 versions of planking they know.

Note: This article is written for my fellow PTs in mind, however non PTs may learn a useful morsel or two.

I recently finished Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is The Way, an excellent distillation of stoic philosophy abounding with real-word examples and actionable advice.  

We live in a world populated by individuals afraid to get out of their comfort zones.  Afraid to try things for the first time for fear they won’t succeed.  Afraid to learn, afraid to grow.

What if I were to tell you that there’s an activity that we do close to 20,000 times per day? In fact, there is- breathing.  We have, on average, 20,000 repetitions per day to “practice” this life-enabling skill.

I bench pressed pain-free for the first time since high school yesterday, which was pretty damn cool.