Restoring Human Movement - For the Outdoor Lovers

Ready to find out why your pain keeps coming back dispite trying everything? Book a free Discovery Call here. https://www.p2sportscare.com/webinars/ Do you get a persistent, dull ache or sharp pain right on the outside of your hip when you run, hike, or even try to sleep on your side? Outer hip pain—clinically known as Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome (GTPS)—is one of the most common yet mismanaged issues among active outdoor enthusiasts and field athletes. In this episode, we demystify GTPS and break down what is actually happening at the lateral hip socket. While it was historically labeled as "trochanteric bursitis," modern sports medicine shows that GTPS is most often a compression and load-management issue involving the gluteus medius and minimus tendons. We explore why crossover running strides, steep hiking trails, and aggressive IT band stretches create excessive compressive force over the bony trochanter, worsening tendon irritation. Most importantly, we share actionable, step-by-step strategies to offload sensitive tissues, adjust daily posture and sleeping habits, and build true lateral hip capacity so you can get back to training without pain.

Ready to find out why your pain keeps coming back dispite trying everything? Book a free Discovery Call here. https://www.p2sportscare.com/webinars/ To learn more about customized training programs for adults 40+ or to connect with Oliver and his team, visit Thrive Training Irvine For adults over 40, prioritizing personal health often feels like an impossible luxury. Between managing demanding careers and caring for family, most people spend decades putting everyone else's needs before their own. On the Restoring Human Movement Podcast, host Sebastian Gonzales sits down with Oliver Nam, owner of Thrive Training in Irvine, California, to discuss why busy adults must adopt a "selflessly selfish" mindset. Being selflessly selfish means recognizing that carving out dedicated, non-negotiable time for your own physical health isn't selfish at all—it is the essential foundation that allows you to stay strong, energetic, and capable for the people who rely on you. Many active adults fall into the trap of "yo-yo fitness" because they try to force their bodies into the same high-intensity, bodybuilder-style routines they used in high school or college. These outdated workouts fail to match their current schedules, stress levels, or joint capacities, inevitably leading to joint pain, injury flare-ups, and frustration. Coupled with common barriers like gym intimidation—the anxiety of stepping into crowded, male-dominated weight rooms—and the persistent fear of "getting bulky," many people end up retreating to low-impact cardio machines or quitting altogether. Oliver Nam emphasizes that weight training won't make you bulky without extreme caloric surpluses, but shifting away from isolated muscle splits toward time-efficient, full-body movement patterns is what truly builds functional resilience. Overcoming these barriers requires a shift from short-term fitness projects to a sustainable, lifelong lifestyle. While motivation fluctuates, finding an empathetic community and structured guidance builds long-term accountability, helping empty nesters and active adults reclaim their strength. By committing to progressive overload, proper movement mechanics, and targeted strength work, adults can eliminate chronic pain, travel comfortably, and participate fully in the activities they love. .

Guest Coach Jason Fitzgerald - Strength Running Podcast strengthrunning.com/strength/ for strength content Ready to find out why your pain keeps coming back dispite trying everything? Book a free Discovery Call here. https://www.p2sportscare.com/ Plantar fascia pain plagues countless runners, but finding its root cause and treating it effectively can feel like a frustrating trial-and-error process. On a notable episode of The Strength Running Podcast, host Jason Fitzgerald brought on Dr. Mandy Riehl, a rehab chiropractor, former D1 cross-country athlete, and running specialist—to dive deep into what actually causes runner's heel pain and how to solve it for good. Rather than relying on temporary fixes like aggressive calf stretching or resting, Dr. Riehl emphasizes the need to evaluate total foot load tolerance, intrinsic foot strength, and running gait biomechanics. A critical step in true recovery is establishing an accurate differential diagnosis, ensuring that persistent heel pain isn't actually medial calcaneal nerve entrapment, tarsal tunnel syndrome, or referred lumbar radiculopathy masquerading as classic plantar fasciopathy. To build long-term capacity in the foot, treatment must transition away from passive modalities like ice and orthotics toward heavy slow resistance (HSR) and progressive loading. Heavy loading systematically rebuilds damaged fascial tissue and increases lower leg stiffness, which drastically improves energy return, lowers ground contact time, and enhances overall running economy. Endurance athletes often shy away from heavy weight training due to the common myth that lifting will make them bulky. However, because of the interference effect, the metabolic tug-of-war between anabolic and catabolic signaling during endurance volume, runners can safely perform heavy resistance training without adding unwanted mass, gaining vital structural resilience instead. Building this lower-body foundation not only resolves heel pain, but also protects against other frequent overuse conditions like patellofemoral pain syndrome, Achilles load, and plantar overload.

Ready to find out why your pain keeps coming back dispite trying everything? Book a free Discovery Call here. https://www.p2sportscare.com/webinars/ Is a deep, aching pain in your glute ruining your runs or stopping you from enjoying long hikes? Deep buttock pain is one of the most frustrating and persistent issues for endurance athletes, often making every uphill stride, high step, or long descent feel like a battle. In this episode, we break down the most common causes of deep buttock pain during running and hiking. From high proximal hamstring tendinopathy and deep gluteal syndrome (including piriformis irritation) to sacroiliac (SI) joint stress and nerve entrapment, we explore why this region gets so overloaded under endurance conditions. You'll learn how repetitive hip extension, steep inclines, and lower leg mechanics contribute to localized joint compression and tissue tension. We also share practical strategies to offload sensitive tissues, adjust your stride or hiking mechanics, and safely rebuild load tolerance so you can get back on the roads and trails pain-free.

Ready to find out why your pain keeps coming back dispite trying everything? Book a free Discovery Call here. https://www.p2sportscare.com/webinars/ Are you dealing with deep groin catching, hip stiffness, or localized runner's hip pain? In this solo episode, sports chiropractor Sebastian Gonzales breaks down the exact symptoms of hip impingement (Femoroacetabular Impingement / FAI) specifically caused by Cam and Pincer morphologies. Learn how to recognize the telltale signs of a Cam lesion (bone buildup on the femoral head) versus a Pincer lesion (extra coverage by the acetabular rim), how these structural variations alter joint clearance, and why they cause deep, pinching discomfort during hip flexion or internal rotation. Stop guessing about your hip stiffness—learn exactly what these symptoms mean for your stride and how to manage them effectively.

Ready to find out why your pain keeps coming back dispite trying everything? Book a free Discovery Call here. https://www.p2sportscare.com/webinars/ When navigating knee, hip, or heel pain as a runner or hiker, your upper body is probably the last place you look. In this episode, host Sebastian Gonzales covers the pressing pattern—the final foundational piece of our upper-body resistance training series. We move past basic mirror-muscles and unpack how pushing patterns are the true cornerstone of a highly functioning core. Discover the biomechanics of the Anterior Oblique Sling—the crisscross highway of muscle moving from your right shoulder to your left hip (and vice versa)—and learn how it stabilizes your pelvis, unloads your lower body, and prevents common endurance flare-ups like adductor strains and sports hernias. Sebastian breaks down how to choose the right pressing angles for your anatomy, utilizing functional modifications like the half-kneeling "soft lumbar lock" to protect your back and eliminate joint irritation while building compound strength. Listen to learn: Why building maximum capacity in your appendages prevents compensatory overload in your spine and knees. The relationship between overhead extension, excessive back arching, and silent lumbar nerve referrals. How to use a "soft lumbar lock" in a half-kneeling position to enforce spinal neutral under load. Modifying your line of drive: Comparing floor presses, incline variants, and standing cable configurations. Speed vs. Strength: How to manipulate velocity with lighter loads to turn a press into an athletic power movement.

Guest Coach Jason Fitzgerald - Strength Running Podcast strengthrunning.com/strength/ for strength content Ready to find out why your pain keeps coming back dispite trying everything? Book a free Discovery Call here. https://www.p2sportscare.com/webinars/ Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (00:02) All right, welcome back listeners. This is Dr. Mandy Wayne Fan, now Dr. Mandy Real, for those who have heard my name before. thank you for joining the Movement Movement. Today we have a very special guest. This is Jason Fitzgerald, coach, strength training extraordinaire in the running field. So Jason, for those who don't know you, give us a little bit about yourself. Jason Fitzgerald (00:22) Well, thanks, Mandy. yeah, Jason Fitzgerald. I've been running for good lord, twenty seven years now, which which kind of ages me a little bit. I think I'm pushing twenty-eight years in in as a runner myself. I've been coaching since two thousand and ten and I also host the Strength Running podcast. yeah, I really just try to help runners achieve their potential and get their performances where they want them to be. Jason Fitzgerald (00:50) which is often not where they are, but hopefully through conversations like this we can help get runners over that hump and get them to where they want to be. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:00) Totally. Yeah. For for those of you out there who found our podcast through kind of trying to run through an injury, fix an injury, this information today will be a really good bridge from, okay, I'm kind of sorting through the injury now what? How do I stay out of that? Of course, but what can strength training build for me apart from just, you know, fixing my foot pain, for example. so before we get started here, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:28) We're gonna have a pretty general focus. So there's gonna be a lot of information in here. So I would recommend not skipping around too much because we may be referencing things that we talked about earlier in the podcast. So stick around through it all. We'll have a great little takeaways at the end of the show. but we're gonna go over a ton of fun stuff today. Jason Fitzgerald (01:49) Well, Mandy, I I also want to say not only am I excited, I'm a little bit jealous that you probably have a bigger Monstera behind you than I do. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:59) It's it's taken some punishment over the years, but it's it's doing okay. It's about the size of covering up my maps, so I'm not gonna know what to do at that point. Jason Fitzgerald (02:10) Yeah, my mine is pushing seven or eight years old and it's also taking a little bit of abuse. It's not in the the best position right now, but you know, that that that's what you're gonna have to deal with when you're dealing with a jungle vine in your office. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (02:23) Right, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (02:24) right, yeah. It's my only couple plants in here that haven't died yet with my little window. So well Jason Fitzgerald (02:30) Yeah. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (02:30) cool. So so Jason, you're in the strength training world. you are deep, deep in the strength training world for runners. as you mentioned earlier too, if you have not checked out the strength running program podcast, go ahead and check that out after the episode. It's fantastic. but Jason, how did you come to realizing that strength is important? Jason Fitzgerald (02:53) Well, I came to it through a lot of trial and error. it was because I was hurt all the time. You know, it really stemmed from Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (02:59) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (03:00) my personal journey as a runner. You know, before I was a coach, you know, I I ran cross-country, indoor and outdoor track throughout high school and again at the collegiate level. And I I was a very injury prone runner, you know, with Achilles tendinopathy and plantar fasciitis and you know, all kinds of different strains and SI joint problems and Jason Fitzgerald (03:22) IT band syndrome. I mean, you name it, I've probably had the injury. And it wasn't until my first marathon, I ran the New York City marathon. And I realized afterward when I had started to, you know, try to return to running again after about a week off. And I I felt terrible. And pretty soon I developed a case of ITBS that laid me out for about six months. And I had to go to four physical therapists. And I was just seeing all these different people and and Jason Fitzgerald (03:53) Trying to leave no stone unturned on how to get past this injury. But then more importantly, not only just get healthy, but what do I do with my training after I get healthy so that I don't have to waste another six months sitting on my couch watching reruns of house because I Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (04:09) Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (04:10) I'm just bored. I really just like to run and I want to get back out there and keep training. So it was a little bit of a process, you know, like I think at the very beginning of of that whole journey for me, Jason Fitzgerald (04:22) I started, you know, incorporating certain body weight, strength exercises, much more mobility work, doing some, you know, band work, medicine ball work, things like that, very running specific, so that I could, you know, get strong in a way that runners care about and that would actually help me stay healthy. and now that's evolved a little bit. You know, I still do a lot of that kind of work and I still prescribe it for my athletes as well that I coach and that I work with, but I'm also fully. Jason Fitzgerald (04:52) in recognition of how valuable weightlifting is in a gym. And yes, it's great for kind of building more durability, more resilience to injury, but in regards to your running economy and your performance and your body composition and all the other lovely things that we love about weightlifting, you know, there's a lot to love about it. And, you know, if you're any kind of performance oriented runner, Jason Fitzgerald (05:17) Which doesn't mean that you're a professional or anything. It just means that, you know, you have some goals. You want to run a certain distance. You want to break a certain time in, you know, a given distance. We have to start thinking much more strategically about your training. And I think strength training is so important. I don't even really call it cross-training. You know, it's just Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (05:35) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (05:36) part of the training process that Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (05:38) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (05:38) runners need to really achieve their best. So it it was a it was a very big journey for me, you know, at the beginning. I didn't even Jason Fitzgerald (05:46) lift at all. I didn't do any strength work. I didn't think it was necessary. You know, I I really was just 18 years old and could get away with a lot of, you know, poor exactly. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (05:53) Right. You made a rubber. Jason Fitzgerald (05:56) You know, I could just go to sleep at night and then any problem I was dealing with would be gone by morning. You know, to be 18 again. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (06:00) Right, right. Right. Jason Fitzgerald (06:03) So I think my youth masked a lot of the training errors I was making at the time. And now that I'm 42 years old, I really have to be thinking a lot more strategically about Jason Fitzgerald (06:15) How I'm structuring my training. And, you know, coming from that college cross-country and track background, it has been very eye-opening coaching adult recreational runners over the last 16 years because, you know, they don't have the same kind of movement fluency that a lot of college athletes have. And so we've got to build a lot of that into the training program so that number one, they just feel much better on a day-to-day Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (06:42) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (06:42) basis, but also. Jason Fitzgerald (06:44) They're building that resilience into the program. They're they're getting the results that they're looking for. They're getting injured less. They're staying healthy for longer. So, you know, I I'm I'm now someone who is such a big proponent of strength training. Now, look, that doesn't mean I love it. I'd rather be out there running a couple more miles. I mean, you know, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (07:00) Right. Right, right. Jason Fitzgerald (07:02) I'll raise my hand. I'm a pure runner through and through. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (07:04) Totally. Same. Jason Fitzgerald (07:06) I don't like being in the weight room, but I understand that it allows me to do what I love to do. And so now I make it a priority. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (07:14) Yeah, it's like going and, you know, buying shoes. It's not I don't have a passion for shopping, but I need shoes, so I will go get shoes. But I know what you mean about the literacy. So just on the side for fun, I I coach high school cross country and having them in the weight room once a week. You know, they're like fourteen year old kids, just the you know, the kids who've been returning and doing all the other maxing out their mileage and all that. but you know, getting them in a on a hex bar Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (07:42) for the first time ever and they're they're growing, they barely know where their limbs are. It's it's a it's a very different coaching experience than say my patients who I'm transitioning out of care that have been lifting for twenty years already. It's a a different type of education and a different type of like coaching queuing situation. Jason Fitzgerald (08:01) Yeah, I think it's really it's always really interesting looking at different types of people in the weight room. And and I'll never forget a conversation I had with a USA weightlifting national coach who was talking about why runners should be lifting weights. And he said, Yes, look, the weight is important, but a lot of what we're doing is simply a movement practice. You Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (08:22) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (08:22) know, we're we're we're working through bigger ranges of motion, different ranges of motion than we would typically get. Jason Fitzgerald (08:30) if we were only doing our run training. And, you know, for the adult who sits at a desk for eight hours a day, or, you know, who isn't going to the playground and doing all kinds of, you know, weird and wacky movements with their toddlers all the time, like you've got to build in some of this movement practice into your program. And so, you know, when you get your 40, 50, 60 year old client in in the weight room, you're probably going to notice that their limbs aren't all over the place. They, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (08:58) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (08:58) they Jason Fitzgerald (08:59) really aren't going anywhere. You know, they they Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (09:00) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (09:01) they're not moving quite well at all. And so that's that's a big glaring red flag in my mind that we just need to do more of this. We need Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (09:08) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (09:08) to get good at it. It's like someone who, you know, can barely run a mile without stopping. It's like, well, maybe we just need to do more aerobic development. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (09:18) Totally. Yeah, I I see it with my patients too. I don't know if you're familiar with attractor state models much, but for trying to change something biomechanically, part of the idea instead of just thinking this is perhaps controversial, so instead of just thinking, you know, run on your forefoot, increase cadence, that stuff can be useful. but if you're trying to change it for say a fifty mile race, you're gonna forget at some point those cues. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (09:48) If you're throwing up at an aid station and then trying to trot out of it, you're not gonna be thinking about like, okay, swing my arms. so part of the way that you can hack that, so to speak, is through attractor state models, which essentially says pattern a movement, load it, and then it'll stick better because you're overloading it, you're demanding more of that movement than you will in your sport. That means that it'll kind of settle into your body. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (10:16) more naturally than if you were to just think about a form change. But you have to have the load. You have to have strength training with it. So super on board with everything you just said. Jason Fitzgerald (10:25) I'm not sure if that was controversial. I've I've been saying some version of that Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (10:27) Okay. Jason Fitzgerald (10:29) for years. I I think Dr. Mandy probably put that in just a smarter way than I would have said it. But yeah, I'm I'm such a firm believer in that. Like if you want to improve your running form, if you want to get more economical, sure, some cues can be generally helpful, but the best way to do that is to do the things in training that help you improve your form, you know, and and there's very varied things like. Jason Fitzgerald (10:55) You could do hill strides or hill sprints. That's really good for your running economy and your in your overall form. So is just running a lot, you know, just practice Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (11:02) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (11:03) running it, you know, at easy efforts. And, you know, heavier weightlifting is also a really wonderful way of building that kind of intra and intra muscle coordination that's really important when you want to get good running economy, which is probably the number one benefit of lifting for runners, is that. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (11:21) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (11:22) You know, you just become a lot more economical at going from point A to point B. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (11:27) Mm-hmm. Yeah, for distance running, it's your body takes the path of least resistance. That is running economy, so to speak. It's how little energy can I spend in order to move forward in a running fashion. and there's, you know, you can get really in the weeds in the science of it, as you obviously know. But for most people it's hey, I want to run a longer race or I want to run faster with the same amount of energy, right? You're trying to not have any gas left in the tank by the finish line. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (11:56) How can I get faster? Well, you get more efficient. And so yes, training more, but having your running economy improve is like a it's a total game changer, right? So for people who are just starting to get into running, obviously both Jason and I are proponents of strength training, but getting more training in in general helps as long as you're doing it wisely. And for those of you who have been in the game for a long time and you feel like you've plateaued and you know you have more there, but you can't access it. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (12:26) That's really where strength training can come in and give you an extra edge if you haven't done it before. Jason Fitzgerald (12:31) Yeah, for sure. And and I I I especially think that it's probably more important for the longer distances. So if you're a trail runner and you're getting into fifty Ks or you're doing some of the longer ultra marathons, you know, the longer event is, the more important running economy becomes. You know, if if you want to become the next Josh Kerr and, you know, run a three forty-one mile, well, you Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (12:53) Crazy. Jason Fitzgerald (12:54) know, you could you could almost Jason Fitzgerald (12:57) Focus on like your your VO2 max and some of the other metrics of performance and and kind of gut your way through a fast mile. But when those inefficiencies are magnified for, you know, a hundred times the distance in a hundred mile ultramarathon, you know, you're really going to kind of see those weak links really be exposed. So yeah, I mean, for especially for for injury prone runners, for those runners who you want to become more durable. Jason Fitzgerald (13:26) and and build some resilience for those long races. I think it's a no brainer. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (13:30) Totally. Yeah, on that note too, so like I mentioned, a lot of people might be listening from a place of either currently having an injury or recovering from one. what's your philosophy on getting into strength training or continuing strength training when there is an injury going on concurrently? Jason Fitzgerald (13:48) I I think you have to let pain be your guide. You know, I'm I'm a big believer in just because you're injured doesn't mean that the training has to stop. You Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (13:56) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (13:56) just have to train a little bit differently. So may even if you can't run at all, can you do some cycling? Can you get in the pool and do some aqua jogging or pool running? and that'll that'll do a lot at at maintaining your aerobic fitness, you know, and and one of the problems that runners often have when they're injured is that they do do a lot of that cross training. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (14:17) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (14:17) And and they Jason Fitzgerald (14:18) keep their aerobic system very topped up. They're still, you know, very fit, but they're just not used to any of the pounding of running because you know they're on a bike or they're in the pool. And so what happens is they come back to running, say, one, two, three weeks later, and they go do a long run or they do a hard workout, or they do two hard workouts and a long run in a single week. And because they just haven't been running for the last like 16 days or whatever it might have been. Jason Fitzgerald (14:46) Their body is so unaccustomed to the impact forces of running that they end up with some new injury or some new little niggle that kind of pops up. So strength training can kind of help, you know, keep your muscles' ability to withstand some of those impact forces when you get back to your run training after, you know, you're healthy and your PT has cleared you to start running again. and it also is just as really good at kind of, you know, toughening up. Jason Fitzgerald (15:14) those those connective tissues and making your joints a little bit more durable as well. So if you're injured, I I almost think it's the best time to start strength training, you know, unless Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (15:24) Definitely. Jason Fitzgerald (15:24) there's obviously, you know, clear pain that is preventing you from doing a particular movement or or lifting, you know, a lot of weight or whatever the exercise might be. You know, so of course let pain be your guide. But, you know, when you're injured, it is often the time to start a new Jason Fitzgerald (15:43) healthier habit, you know, to Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (15:44) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (15:44) kind of revamp your training in a little bit so that the next injury isn't as severe as this current one, or or you can sidestep the next injury. And so if you're someone who hasn't been strength training at all, and then you get this this injury and you can't run for a little while, this to me is like the perfect time to start strength training. As long as you know it's not causing any additional problems, you now have the time in your schedule. You're not running Jason Fitzgerald (16:10) to to focus on that, to make it a habit so that when you do start running again, you know, you can kind of maintain that habit over time. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (16:17) Totally. Yeah. And it's amazing what you can do modification wise. Instead of saying like I get a lot of nerve mediated pain injury folks who maybe they think they had planar fasciitis that's there for five years. It turns out it's nerve mediated, that sort of thing. So there's for me and my patient population, there's a lot of fear around deadlifting, for example. and it's like I'm not gonna deadlift, something's gonna explode. I've had problems in the past. It's like, well, okay. A deadlift is a hinge. They're usually talking Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (16:46) traditional deadlift barbell or hex bar. deadlifting it's a hinge. What other hinges can we do that are not problematic? How can we load that up? How can we make that a stimulus without doing the exact thing that was causing your injury? And then when we're feeling better, obviously we work that back in. But there's so much variability and creativity and strength training. It really doesn't have to just be you must be on a barbell to do deadlifts. You must be doing back squats. There's Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (17:16) There's lots of stuff out there that's kind of in my opinion, clickbaity. But there's a whole lot more that you can do to create stimulus rather than just those straight traditional lifts. Jason Fitzgerald (17:30) Yeah, this is why I I I kind of love lifting from like an academic perspective because it's so similar to running. You know, you you're it's a very pure endeavor. You're just trying to get stronger. It's like running, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (17:41) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (17:42) you're just trying to get faster. And, you know, there's almost an infinite number of ways to modify any running workout or really any strength training workout, you know, by manipulating the exercise, the number of repetitions, the recovery. Jason Fitzgerald (17:59) you know, the load that that you're actually putting on yourself. You know, so I always like to say, like, look, if plan A doesn't work, have a plan B and a plan C D E F G so that, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, you can still do something because almost always something is better than nothing. And I also think it's a wonderful opportunity to, you know, go see a physical therapist or a strength coach or or hire a running coach. And it doesn't have to be like, Jason Fitzgerald (18:27) For the next six to twelve months or something Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (18:30) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (18:30) very long term. You know, you you could hire a trainer at a gym just to show you a couple exercise variations. And so maybe Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (18:39) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (18:39) you only get one or two training sessions with a trainer, or you only go to see a PT a couple of times, or you hire a running coach for like a month. Even these very small investments, it's just enough to learn so that you can then apply it to your own training and you can, you know, have that knowledge forever. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (18:57) Totally. Yeah. I I I tell my patients I'm like, my goal is to not see you again unless I run into you at a race. And so Yeah, yeah, Jason Fitzgerald (19:06) I tell my clients I want you to fire me eventually. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (19:09) exactly. Right. I'm like, well, maybe that's not a great business waddle, but it you know, the the ethos is the same. You should be creating autonomy. You should be go doing what you wanna do and it's probably not sitting in my office or on my telehealth call and talking to me, right? Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (19:26) But I'm curious, Jason, I'm sure you've done a ton of internet research on stuff, just keeping up on research. have you seen anything without getting yourself in trouble? Have you seen anything that just feels ridiculous but has gotten really popular? Jason Fitzgerald (19:41) boy, you you're you are trying to get me in trouble, aren't you? Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (19:42) I'm gonna get emails. I'll I'll Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (19:46) hedge the emails for ya. Jason Fitzgerald (19:48) Yeah, I mean like I I think I think there's a lot of ways that runners go about strength training that I think are sometimes counterproductive, sometimes just less productive than what an ideal kind of program might look like. I I think one of the I think two of the biggest misconceptions that I always cringe a little bit when I see runners doing this is they're in the gym and they're they're basically lifting for endurance. Jason Fitzgerald (20:16) Because we're endurance Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (20:17) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (20:17) runners, right? So we go into the gym and we're like, well, I want more endurance. It's it's very logical. And so you're doing squats, you're doing maybe deadlifts or whatever the exercise might be, and you're doing like four or five sets of 20 repetitions. You're doing very high reps of fairly low weight. And the idea is, you know, muscular endurance. But the problem is we get so much endurance of stimulus from our running. Jason Fitzgerald (20:45) We don't really have to worry about that in the weight room. Those are not our goals in the weight room. You know, we need to be developing power. We need to actually be getting stronger. we need to be developing, you know, a little bit of that kind of, you know, fast twitch responsiveness that you Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (21:02) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (21:03) get from, you know, something like a plyometric exercise or or even a more explosive Olympic lift or something like that. Jason Fitzgerald (21:11) So those are the the real main goals that runners have in the weight room. You know, it's power, it's strength, you know, obviously it's movement patterns and coordination, but it's not endurance. And so when I see runners do that, I go, you know, first of all, something's better than nothing. I'm glad you're in the gym. I'm glad you're Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (21:29) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (21:29) doing something. You're building the habit. But also, man, we're we're we're we're wasting 80% of our time in here. You know, our time would be much better spent doing Jason Fitzgerald (21:40) heavier lifts for much less time. And you know, the good news is that, you know, you don't have to be in the gym for like 75, 90 minutes. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (21:49) Yeah, yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (21:50) The great thing about running is that, you know, most of your time is going to be spent running. You could do a lot of damage on two 30 to 45 minute sessions a week in the gym. So that's probably the the number one thing that I see that makes me, you know, kind of scratch my head a little bit. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (22:06) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (22:07) the other thing that tends to be very common among runners is Jason Fitzgerald (22:10) They use strength training for social time. So they'll go to the gym and they'll take the shred class, or they love their body bump, body pump class over here. And you know, this is a similar but different problem. Not only do we not need to really work on endurance by doing very high reps of things, we also don't need to do things with very short rest and in like a circuit so that we're breathing really heavy, we're we're out of breath. There's literally like a Jason Fitzgerald (22:39) Cardiovascular component to the strength training. you know, it's a metabolic type of a workout. This is similar to endurance. We get enough of that when when we're we're running. so again, I kind of see it as like, you know, a very fun waste of time. But if you're Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (22:56) Yeah. Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (22:58) gonna waste time, you might as well have a great time doing it. But if your goal is performance, if your goal is to build as much injury injury resilience as you want to, Jason Fitzgerald (23:09) To build as much power or strength into your strength training program, there's better ways of doing it than taking all these kind of random classes, you know, or lifting for endurance. the other major issue with all those classes is that it doesn't really leave enough opportunity for progressive overload. So you're you're frequently doing very different things in these classes. And it's sort of like if you had a different mileage level every week. Jason Fitzgerald (23:37) There's good in consistency in a little bit of repetition in doing a little bit more than what you've done previously. That could be more weight, more miles, a longer workout. There's a lot of different ways of manipulating these variables, but you do need some element of progressive overload if you want to become a better athlete. And classes just aren't really an efficient way of doing that. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (24:01) Totally. Yeah, for for our total newbies on the podcast, can you explain in just simple terms what progressive overload means? Jason Fitzgerald (24:10) Yeah, progressive overload means that you progressively have to give yourself a little bit more of a harder training stimulus over time. So when you first start running, you might be running 15 or 20 miles a week, and that feels somewhat challenging. Well, fast forward a year and you're training for a 10K, you might be running 30 miles a week. Fast forward two years, you might be running 45 miles a week. And so over time, Jason Fitzgerald (24:38) you you've got to progressively overload your system with more stress so that you can adapt to that stress, get stronger, gain more endurance, and ult ultimately become a better runner. in the weight room, that usually means more weight, but it can also just mean a little bit more consistency over time. It can mean a slightly longer workout over time. It it's not always more, more, more. We can be more strategic about it, but Jason Fitzgerald (25:06) Generally speaking, overload does usually mean more of something. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (25:10) Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, on that note too, you don't adapt to anything unless you recover from it. Right. You don't get stronger on the day that you go lift. You get stronger in the weeks afterwards as your body does all these processes to create muscle hypertrophy and all the good things we we like. but with progressive overload, for those who have done some research on it and are like, All right, I'm super motivated, we're gonna do it right now, there does have to be a time scale. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (25:39) So this is where a coach comes in really handy. They will either push you if you're, you know, still hanging out on the ten bound dumbbells for a for an RDL. and they can also help rein it in to make sure that you're not totally overloading yourself. Progressive overload is a it's an envelope where if you're within that and starting to push it a little bit, you're doing great. If you're totally like, all right, I went from a hundred pound deadlift to like two fifty in four weeks. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (26:08) Maybe you'll get away with that for a little bit. but but not for long. I'm sure you saw that running wise in the N C double A. Jason Fitzgerald (26:16) Yeah, I mean it's it's really easy as a runner just to go, well, I ran 50 miles last week. I'm gonna run 55 miles next week, and then 60, and then 65, and then you're hurt. Yeah, this draw graph Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (26:26) Yes. Yep. And the beautiful Stravagraph and yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (26:31) looks beautiful. But I mean, look, overload has to happen progressively. I think a lot of people forget that really important modifier at the beginning there. It's not just overload, it's progressive overload. And that does mean. Jason Fitzgerald (26:45) Gradually, methodically. It it's it happens progressively. It doesn't happen all at once. It's not sudden overload. You know, I kind of cringe at a lot of these YouTuber influencers who like run marathons with no preparation. Like, my goodness. Yeah, that's that's just that's just dumb overload. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (26:58) God, yes. You're gonna end up in the ER first off. If you like your kidneys, don't do that. Yeah, yeah, that's you Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (27:07) know no progressive about that. That's just overload. Jason Fitzgerald (27:11) Yeah. And I I I think it's such a strong stimulus that like like you were saying about recovery, it's hard to recover from something that you never should be recovering from in the first place. So Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (27:22) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (27:22) that's a really good kind of idea about recovery and overload, is that you should never be giving yourself so much training that, you know, you've got to go into this like recovery, you know, black box and Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (27:37) Cave. Jason Fitzgerald (27:38) Get on the foam roller and use your compression boots and sleep for 10 hours for a week and use every electrolyte product that exists. And you know, like recovery kind of happens by itself. You know, get your sleep, stay hydrated. It's a natural process. Just make sure that, you know, if your coach told you to run 10 miles, you run about 10. You don't run 12 or 14 or 15, because, you know, that's where. Jason Fitzgerald (28:03) you're trying to recover from something that you were never really prepared to do in the first place. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (28:08) Totally. Yeah, there's there's a trap in that, ooh, I felt really good through ten miles. I know I can do more. Like that's great. I want you to do more on the days that we're targeting. So there will be days if you're racing or you want to do an all out effort that yeah, you can feel really good through ten miles. And if your goal is to run a half marathon, awesome. You got three point one miles to go, go empty the tank. Now the the trap is on your say weekly long run. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (28:38) If you're doing 10 miles, you feel great. It's really tempting to be like, okay, I'm gonna go further. Every now and again, totally. It's the joy of the sport. Absolutely do it within reason. Listen to your coach. If you can wiggle room a little, awesome. If you are really, really, really focusing on performance that may not be as warranted depends on your goal in the sport. But, you know, doing the trap of like the endorphins are flowing, I got my runners high, all of that, and then just Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (29:08) doing an all out effort on a day that you're not prepared for it and tapered for it and all that. It that's how you end up in my office. We don't we don't want that. Okay. Jason Fitzgerald (29:17) You know where I actually like to be a little bit more aggressive with overload is with cross-training because the injury Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (29:20) Hm. Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (29:23) risk is is so much lower. And so I'll do something like where I'll have my runners do a long run on a Saturday. And then on Sunday, you know, they might wake up, they'll do a short, easy run, and then they might do a a weight training session. And the magic comes later on in the day. Now, this is for your runners who really care about performance. They they want to improve. Jason Fitzgerald (29:46) They want to be aggressive with their performance. They're looking for aggressive overload. I like, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (29:50) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (29:51) I like a cycling or pool running session in the afternoon for 90 minutes or two hours. And it's almost like you're simulating back-to-back long runs. So you're getting this an enormous aerobic stimulus on the weekend, but in a way that doesn't have the same injury risk, you know, I I would I'd be very confident in saying that. Jason Fitzgerald (30:13) Most runners are not going to get hurt if they do a 90 minute bike ride every Sunday after a long run, you know, as long as they're not trying to keep up with, you know, the Tour de France riders or anything. Like just keep it Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (30:23) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (30:24) a zone two, you know, type of effort. But that's where you can be really aggressive. You know, you don't have to go 40 minutes and then 45 minutes. I mean, you can kind of start with an hour bike ride and within a week or two, you're up to 90 minutes and then you're up to two hours. And then you can just ride for two hours, keeping your heart rate in that zone two effort. Jason Fitzgerald (30:43) And it's a wonderful way of giving yourself, you know, hours and hours of more aerobic development without the injury risk. And the the volume of it is somewhat aggressive compared to what you can do with running. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (30:55) Yeah. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (30:56) Yeah. I'm I'm sure a lot of us have friends doing triathlons or getting into cycling. I have a good friend who does duathlon, which is essentially it's a triathlon without the swimming. So he came as a runner. Right. Jason Fitzgerald (31:07) That's my kind of triathlon. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (31:08) He's like, This is great. It came up in cross country, right? High school, college, same kind of thing as you and I. he's like, I just don't want to swim. I'll do duathlon. But he can put in just stupid hours on the bike every week. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (31:23) And then go for a trail run with us. And like right, he's running some. He's getting enough stimulus for tissue tolerance to build. But his fitness is fantastic. And it's not like he's doing that much running, but he can go, you know, put down a respectable 1500 on the track. He does for funsies. and you know, it makes such a big difference when you're getting lower impact. Now, I will say I want to put an astrick on the cross training thing. The one injury realm. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (31:52) where this can get a little iffy is bone stress injuries. not because you're going to create impact on, say, the stress fracture. rather because, you know, you're not doing much impact on a bike and you're not doing any impact if you're aqua jogging, but rather the metabolic component for it. So bone stress injuries come often from an imbalance in energy in, energy out. There's a whole Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (32:18) For those of you on the podcast right now, there is a whole lot of episodes on this. I harp on it probably too much. but if you are in an energy deficiency all the time, that equation isn't balancing out, then that's often where bone stress injuries are coming from. So if you're like me and had a bone stress injury in the past and then just went super ham on the bike trying to have some aerobic fitness for when you get back to running, it can delay recovery. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (32:47) So you do have to work with one, someone who knows about energy deficiency in sport, relative energy deficiency in sport or reds is the the formal term. and you need to be working with somebody who can understand why that injury came and then how to build back without you just ending up like on your six week checkup and being like, the fracture's still there. Actually, you need six more weeks on the bike. Right. So you you need to scale it some, but for almost all other injuries, yeah, go to town. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (33:16) You can go suffer. It is not your preferred method of suffering, maybe, on the pike or in the pool, but go for it. Jason Fitzgerald (33:24) Yeah, I'm glad you said that because yeah, bone stress injuries are pretty unique in that, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (33:29) Mm. Jason Fitzgerald (33:30) you know, the hypothetical schedule that I just talked about with your long run on a Saturday and then an easy run on Sat a Sunday morning with a weightlifting session, and then a two hour ride in the afternoon, that's a very dense training schedule. It's clearly for someone who has performance goals and is ready for that. But what I didn't mention is that. Jason Fitzgerald (33:51) You gotta be eating a lot of food to sustain this level of work. I mean, you're basically yeah, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (33:53) Yeah. Yeah, it's a part time job at that point. Jason Fitzgerald (33:58) so you're running a lot, you're lifting weights, you're cross-training. I mean, the energy demands for this kind of a schedule are really high. So you you might as well not do it if you're gonna underfuel. So Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (34:09) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (34:10) the the caveat to to all any training discussion is it's gotta be well fueled, or you're gonna dig yourself into that hole and it's gonna take a lot to get out of it. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (34:20) Yeah, and the more research that comes out on it, you know, it's not they used to call it the female athlete triad. It's certainly not exclusive to females, and this is a problem in the lag in research getting too mainstream is a lot of male athletes get into relative energy deficiency and they're like, Well, that's not a that doesn't happen to men, right? I'm not losing my period. So it it doesn't happen. I pretend I don't see it and I'm good. Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (34:45) Yeah, we we don't have that easy like warning signal that Jason Fitzgerald (34:49) that that will clearly tell us if something's amiss. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (34:52) Totally. No, I've had some of my like high schoolers who were doing sneaky mileage and not telling us get into trouble this way and like okay, go ask I don't treat them, right? I'd keep that separate, but go ask your doctor to run some tests, like go get a ferritin check, all that fun stuff. and then they come back and they're like, my doctor doesn't believe in that. All right. I don't know how to go from there, but Yeah, yeah, Jason Fitzgerald (35:16) They don't they don't believe in medicine. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:18) like no boys don't need iron checks, they you're fine. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:21) All the time. It's okay. So Jason Fitzgerald (35:23) Well, as someone who who used to get in a couple sneaky miles every here and there when I was a high school and college runner, I I love these kids. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:29) Yep, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:31) yeah. I mean how can you how can you not, right? I they they can only cheat so much when we make post on Strava and and track their training though. It's not like you know, when I was running in high school and for most of college for me, it was all Timex watches or or nothing and you just go out and it's like, seems like forty five minutes, I think. so you can get away with a lot. man, I Jason Fitzgerald (35:52) How the good old days. Yeah. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:55) could go for Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:55) Yeah. Before carbon plated shoes, we've got our little waffles. That's it. C Jason Fitzgerald (36:01) Yeah, we we we call that B C before carbon. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (36:04) I love that. the kids will get a kick out of that. Yeah. No, it's different now, but but yeah, going back, just the the metabolic demand is not to be ignored. And for training in general, as you're doing progressive overload, you need to progressively be eating more. And that needs to be the case for men, that needs to be the case for Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (36:24) If you are not in an eating disorder category that you can still underfuel. I think people get in the trap of thinking like, well I I don't have body image you struggles, I don't have eating disorder struggles, like I can't be in this picture. I eat plenty. But if what you're eating is not calorie rich, it doesn't matter. Like it's just it's a straight equation, energy in or energy out. So whoever you however you are medically, however you are training, you need to be putting the energy in in order Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (36:54) to actually adapt to it, but applies to all of this cross training, running and strength. Jason Fitzgerald (36:59) Hundred percent, yeah. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (37:01) I'm curious too. So I know I know there's the protein craze going on. I see I see my clear protein water stuff at the at the store. What's your take on all that? Where's your mind at with protein intake? Jason Fitzgerald (37:14) Well, I I had a protein shake earlier today. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (37:17) Love it. Jason Fitzgerald (37:17) I mean, I am a a master's male, so I'm I'm trying to get ahead of my declining ability to synthesize muscle protein. look, I I I I think it's important. I think distance runners are coming to the idea that it's more important than we previously thought, although it it's still kind of a secondary macronutrient to carbohydrate for for our training needs. You know, we obviously Jason Fitzgerald (37:43) Want to be fueling our training with carbs because that's what's going to give us the energy we need to actually execute the training. protein is more for not for fuel, but for recovery. It's for rebuilding muscle tissue when when it's been damaged. And, you know, that's historically kind of been the the purview of bodybuilders, you know, because they're in the gym and they're doing a lot of lifting, and that lifting damages their muscle fibers. They drink protein shakes. Jason Fitzgerald (38:10) They eat steak, they do all those things, and their muscles repair and they get a little bit bigger. And you repeat that process, and next thing you know, you're you're Arnold. But distance runners are a little bit different in that we're not doing training that makes our muscles bigger. we're doing training that that really just breaks down our muscle. I think anyone who has run the Boston Marathon or a downhill running race. Jason Fitzgerald (38:39) will understand that your muscles can get really, really sore after certain types of running. you know, I I I still have PTSD from track workouts in college when I would be wearing those little spikes that Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (38:54) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (38:55) are very different than the spikes we have today. And Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (38:57) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (38:58) the first workout of the season, you know, your lower legs would all be torn up just because you're you're not Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:02) Crashed. Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (39:03) used to wearing such such, you know, a small shoe that has zero support to it. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:09) Totally. Jason Fitzgerald (39:09) And Jason Fitzgerald (39:10) I I do wish I was a little bit more intentional with protein back when I was, you know, running 85, 90 miles a week and doing really hard workouts and and training at that high of a level. because I think I think we just were were thinking about food. Get in more food. You know, we're just Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:26) Right, right. Jason Fitzgerald (39:27) I mean my friends were a bunch of dumb bros when we were 20 years old. And like we would think to ourselves, the human body can only get full after about 15 minutes of eating. So Jason Fitzgerald (39:38) Have a 15-minute window where you can eat as much as you possibly can. Yeah, like Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:41) Shove it in your mouth. Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (39:44) we didn't have a maybe our disordered eating was on the other side of the equation. We were just eating as much crappy food as as we could get into our bodies. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:49) Arguably better. I don't know. Right. Jason Fitzgerald (39:55) but yeah, we we didn't think about protein specifically as strategically as I would have liked to. so yeah, I think it's important, you know. I think it's it's more important for certain types of people. Jason Fitzgerald (40:07) you know, the I think the older you are, the more important protein is. but ultimately I'm I'm probably more of a carb stand than anything, just because that's what's gonna be more important for our performances. It it's Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (40:20) Mm. Jason Fitzgerald (40:20) it's probably more important for avoiding red S than protein, just because it it is actually the fuel. Protein isn't Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (40:25) Yes. Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (40:28) a good fuel source. So yeah, look, it's important, but it's not everything. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (40:32) Totally. Yeah, fully agree. people who are replacing carbs with protein, I don't love that. adding in, great. I I struggle with protein farts, so I'm still figuring that out. But I'm curious your take. I I've heard a lot of say like female runners between the ages of like twenty five to forty five usually that are scared of getting bulky. and Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (41:00) protein being part of that, strength training especially, that seems to be a fairly big barrier mentally for them to get get started in it. What do you how do you encounter that? What do you say to that? Jason Fitzgerald (41:12) I would I I would sit down and be very honest about what it takes to build muscle as a woman, because Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (41:19) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (41:19) it is a little harder for a woman to build muscle than it is for a man to build muscle. And if if you're doing a couple things in your training, number one, you're running. It's gonna be really hard to put on muscle if you're if you're doing any kind of of real run training. And number two, you have to lift in a very specific way to build muscle. Jason Fitzgerald (41:40) You have to be really focused on hypertrophy, on muscle growth. Whereas if you're lifting the way a runner should, you're not going to be in the gym four or five days a week. You're not going to be doing a lot of isolation exercises where you know you might do four or five, six exercises exclusively on your biceps. That's what bodybuilders do. That's what Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (42:01) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (42:03) you do when you're looking for growth. Runners aren't gonna really do any of that kind of lifting. And so Jason Fitzgerald (42:09) If you're not lifting with the goal of hypertrophy and you're doing all this run training, you know, it's going to be virtually impossible to gain a lot of weight. I think your body composition can change a little bit. You might lose a couple pounds of fat, gain a couple pounds of muscle. You might end up being one, two, three pounds heavier just because muscle weighs more than fat. I I just think that's a healthier body composition in that scenario. And and honestly, I would. Jason Fitzgerald (42:39) I I have to elevate health over performance, and that's probably a better thing overall for that individual. But, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (42:44) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (42:45) you know, I like to joke around a little bit and say, you know, this is sort of like the bodybuilder who thinks that if he goes for a 20-minute run a couple times a week, he's gonna like become a five-minute miler. It's much Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (42:55) Right, right. Jason Fitzgerald (42:56) more difficult than that. You have to be very strategic and methodical and patient over a long period of time. Now, you know, I I spent about a year trying to Jason Fitzgerald (43:07) lift weights in a way that would make me gain weight. And and granted, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:10) really? Jason Fitzgerald (43:11) I'm in I'm in my 40s. It's a little bit harder, but I am a guy. I'm taking creatine. I'm I'm not running nearly as much as I used to. It's almost Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:19) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (43:19) impossible. I don't know if like my body has just been like, hey man, you've been running for decades. We're not gaining any weight. You know, you're gonna Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:24) That's all we know. Right. Jason Fitzgerald (43:26) you're staying skinny your entire life. But Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:28) Totally. Jason Fitzgerald (43:30) it it it's so much harder than I think we give it credit. Jason Fitzgerald (43:35) it it's really hard to gain a lot of weight with with weightlifting. And so it it's just one of those things where, you know, give me a year, be consistent. And then you know, if you turned into a bodybuilder, then fine. You can stop weightlifting. But if not, then let's let's keep on keeping on. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:51) Totally. Yeah, and those changes happen so slowly. Leave let's even say maybe you have some genetic predisposition to just put on crazy muscle mass. I don't even know if that's really a a thing, so to speak. but even then it happens so slowly that it's not like you're gonna do some deadlifts and the next week you're gonna be huge, right? You you can track it if you're worried about it, but you have to start. Like there's a reason that you're asking about strength training, there's a reason that you're Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (44:20) Maybe talking to a coach about it. There's a ton of other benefits and if you're really scared about that, you can keep an eye on it. It's not gonna happen overnight. It's not gonna happen over the course of a few weeks, certainly. So, you know, it there's some there's a compromise there of even if you're scared about it, it it's it's not like a no it will never happen. It's a well we can keep an eye on it, but it's probably not gonna happen. Jason Fitzgerald (44:44) Yeah, you can always dial it back. I mean, just talking Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (44:45) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (44:46) about how, you know, there's always a plan B, C, D, and E with any kind of training approach, you can always just lift a little bit less. You can always make your workouts shorter. You know, you can always dial it back so that you're not giving your body such a strong stimulus and you're not gaining weight as quickly. But you know, I Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:03) Totally. Jason Fitzgerald (45:03) do think there's there are some people who just gain weight easier than others in the in the weight room. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:08) You think just muscle mass wise? Jason Fitzgerald (45:10) Yeah. I mean, I remember reading an article about Alan Webb. Jason Fitzgerald (45:13) Who who is about my age. And his Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:13) Sure. Jason Fitzgerald (45:16) coach was talking about how they needed to be careful with him in the weight room. Cause Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:19) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (45:19) he like picked up a 10-pound dumbbell and just gained a whole bunch of muscles. You Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:24) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (45:24) know, like I just think there are just really hyper responders to weight training. And then Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:29) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (45:30) there's people who are not hyper responders. I'm probably that kind of person where I can lift, you know, pretty consistently, pretty regularly, try to. Jason Fitzgerald (45:39) get the protein I need and I'm just really not moving the needle on, you know, the circumference of my biceps and and that Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:45) Totally. Jason Fitzgerald (45:46) that's that's my personal prison I have to live in. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:48) Right. It makes me think of Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:50) my my great great friend. He is a he was actually a decathlete in college and his buddies used to make fun of him for having chicken legs. Like his calves are real small and so he drained the hell out of them. He still was training the hell out of him when I met him, you know, years after college and and became friends with him. And they just didn't move an inch. He got stronger, Jason Fitzgerald (46:10) Yeah. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:11) but they were the same size visually. So he yeah, that's his personal prison for sure. Jason Fitzgerald (46:16) Yeah. I mean yeah, come on, he's a dick athlete. He's he's the ultimate Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:18) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (46:19) athlete. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:19) Yeah. I'm like, well dude, your shoulders and lats and your fitness in general's great. Why do you care about your calves? It's no big deal. But Jason Fitzgerald (46:26) Mm. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:28) but yeah. Well cool. I like that perspective on on you know, it being really difficult to actually bulk out for most people. Allen webs are not that common throughout the world. So if you're listening and scared of it, it's probably you're probably not in that picture of being a hyper responder. And if you are, you'll know. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:48) medium quickly, but it it you should try strength training before you come to the conclusion that, I'm gonna bulk up. Jason Fitzgerald (46:56) Yeah, 100%. And and I think being a hyper responder is a good thing. It means that you're Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:59) Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (47:00) physiologically primed to adapt to hard training. So Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:05) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (47:06) if it's easy for you to put on weight in a weight room, it's probably easy for you to get faster as a runner just by kind of putting yourself through that same training process. So, you know, if you discover you're a hyper responder to weightlifting and Jason Fitzgerald (47:20) You haven't really explored hard training as a runner. There there's probably some parallels there. And and I would personally be excited just to explore what that might mean for my progress as a runner. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:31) Right. Yeah, it's like congratulations, you don't have to spend forty five minutes in the gym, you can spend twenty five and go run more Jason Fitzgerald (47:37) Yeah, there you go. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:38) if you want, right? That's a that's a big leg up, I think. Jason Fitzgerald (47:42) Yeah, I would I would love it. I I wouldn't I wouldn't Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:43) Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (47:44) do sixty minute workouts like I have been doing. I'd probably be in and out of there Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:46) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (47:47) in thirty. 'Cause like I said, I don't even like weightlifting. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:50) Right, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:50) right, yeah. I I I really don't mind weightlifting, but I'm a runner through and through, so it's like, yeah, if I had that ability to just snap my fingers and be stronger like some of these people, I'd take that any day. But well cool. so you mentioned a while back about isolation exercises. One of the things I often see is say runners coming into my office are like, Okay, I have a high hamstring strain, but I do so many Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (48:18) hamstring exercises, like why did this happen? I'm curious your philosophy on, you know, compound lifts versus isolation versus, you know, time under tension. Can you give just a broad overview of what that looks like? Jason Fitzgerald (48:32) Yeah, I'm a little bit agnostic. I think there's probably a place for all these different kinds of exercises. there's a time and a place for them as well. you know, my philosophy is when you're in the gym and you're lifting heavier weights, let's be a little bit more focused on the compound lifts. the isolation work is a little bit more for the bodybuilders. Now, of course, there might be a physical therapy reason you might be doing a very specific Jason Fitzgerald (49:01) set of exercises because you're predisposed to a certain injury or you have a certain imbalance or weakness that needs to be addressed. And so yes, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (49:09) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (49:10) let's let's do a little bit of isolation work there. But generally speaking, most of our work in a gym, I think, should be compound lifts, multi-joint lifts. You know, we're really focused on more of a full body type of stimulus, with a little bit probably more of a focus on the lower body as runners. Jason Fitzgerald (49:30) But then of course, the flip side to that is you're only in the gym, I think, twice a week as a as a runner when you're training. Three times a Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (49:37) Okay. Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (49:37) week makes me a little nervous that you just might be carrying a little bit too much extra fatigue into your workouts and long runs. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (49:44) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (49:44) But if you're lifting in the gym twice a week, that doesn't mean the other five days a week you don't you don't really do anything. I think there's a lot of value in doing, you know, 10 or 15 minutes of body weight work after your run on the other days. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (49:59) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (50:00) So Jason Fitzgerald (50:00) you might be using you might be using an exercise band or a medicine ball or a very light implement like a kettlebell, for example. But for the most part, it's mostly body weight. And that's where you can do a little bit more of the isolation work. You can pull from a physical therapy office and do a lot of the exercises that you might do there when you're being treated for an injury. So, you Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (50:21) Totally. Jason Fitzgerald (50:21) know, I I do, you know, different types of bridges, different types of side leg raises and things like that that Jason Fitzgerald (50:30) You know, are frankly fairly easy, but I think teach you a certain amount of control, coordination, n understanding your body, kind of feeling how your muscles fire and engage and activate. I think that contributes to your, you know, kind of physical intelligence and and that can help you stay healthy, just better know your body. but I I have this very kind of simple philosophy of. Jason Fitzgerald (51:00) Let's sandwich our runs in between a dynamic warm-up and then some kind of strength or core workout afterwards. Now, twice a week, that's going to be your weightlifting workout in a gym, but the other days of the week, it might be as short as 10 minutes, maybe it's as long as 20-ish minutes or so. And you might be doing a lot of things taken from a physical therapy office or kind of working on some of the basic fundamentals. You might be doing side planks and Jason Fitzgerald (51:26) Side leg raises. I know a lot of PTs make fun of clamshells because they don't really do too much. I like clamshells. They, they, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (51:33) Tchau. Jason Fitzgerald (51:33) they, they like I they make me feel good. Now, of course, I'm doing some more advanced stuff too in the gym. That's the difference. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (51:39) Sure, that's the difference. Yep. Jason Fitzgerald (51:43) But, you know, on the low intensity days, yes, I like to do some of the low intensity work because it just makes me feel good the rest of the day. Where Jason Fitzgerald (51:51) You know, if if you don't do any of that kind of work after a run, I think every runner's had that experience where they've run a workout or a long run, they've come inside and they sit down and get distracted by their phone. And then when they get up 30, 45, 60 minutes later, it feels like they've aged 10 years. Right. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (52:09) Yeah, yeah. I mean my husband Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (52:11) did this yesterday. He went and did it was kinda dumb, but he went and ran up Mount Baldy down here in the in the San Gabriel Mountains and he was not prepared for it. But he's one of those people who's just like, I don't know, he could just do whatever and be fine. but he ran up, ran down, they barely you know, beat the sunset and immediately got in the car and drove like ninety minutes. And he Jason Fitzgerald (52:36) Ouch. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (52:37) got in the door and was just like it just needed WD forty and all his joints. He was suffering. And even today, right, on our little a little run, he was like, I feel great for about ten minutes and then just BAM. Just horrible. It makes such a difference if you can move even just a little bit after your runs. Jason Fitzgerald (52:55) Yeah, and a hundred percent. I mean, I that that is an extreme example, running up a mountain and then 90 minutes in the car, that's Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (53:00) Yeah, I don't do that. Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (53:03) tough. But it happens to a lot of trail runners because they will often drive somewhere to go do their big long run on the trails, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (53:08) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (53:11) and then they get back in their car. And so this is where if you can spend 10 minutes doing a whole bunch of drills, mobility work, some of those silly strength exercises that, you know, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (53:22) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (53:23) maybe aren't Jason Fitzgerald (53:24) really getting you too much stronger, but they're helping you activate your gluten mead, for example, if you're doing those clamshells, which Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (53:31) Yeah. Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (53:32) is a muscle many runners have trouble activating. And you do kind of that kind of stuff before you get in the car for that 90-minute drive home. You're that is the WD40. And then when Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (53:44) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (53:44) you walk in the door, you don't feel quite as as aged because of because of it. So I think there's a time and a place for it, but Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (53:48) Yes. Yeah. You're not stuck in the seated position. Right. Jason Fitzgerald (53:52) you just can't ignore Jason Fitzgerald (53:54) The high value work, right? It's sort of like saying, you know, does a twenty minute high zone one run do anything? Yeah, it does. But you also have to do the threshold work and the VO two max work in proper doses to really see your potential. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (54:07) Mm-hmm. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (54:09) Yeah. Okay. I like that. just on that note too, so for somebody who's focused on performance, who has been say they've been strength training for a while, they've been running for a while, they got years under their belt, and they're doing all of these things. And they're let's let's say they're past true base phase of running, and now they're getting towards peak. I was guilty of this in my last hundred K build up, but Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (54:37) trying to get most mileage I can, my strength training dropped off. Those little move motions out of runs really dropped off more than I care to admit. but how do you balance that? Where do you need to make sacrifices? is it doing less weight on strength training? Is it doing it less frequently? Is it cutting some mileage out? What what do you find is the sweet spot? Jason Fitzgerald (55:00) Well, I think you could do a couple of things. I I think number one, it's probably a good idea to periodize your weightlifting, just like your running is periodized. So when you're four months out from a goal race, your weight training might look a little basic. it also might be taking a little bit longer. It's almost like base training itself for running. You're running higher mileage, you're focusing on the long run, you know, maybe you're doing a lot of cross training, you're building that big aerobic foundation. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (55:27) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (55:27) The Jason Fitzgerald (55:27) same thing is true in the gym. We're building a foundation of strength and competency with different exercises so that later in the season, when we're focusing on maybe more explosivity, maybe we're focused on heavier weights, we've built the foundation to then handle that. Now, the good news is that when you're lifting heavy, you're not going to be doing three sets of 10. You might be doing like four sets of three, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (55:53) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (55:54) which Jason Fitzgerald (55:55) You know, it is not going to take as much time. You know, of course, there's the recovery interval in between lifts, which often takes more time than the lift itself. So Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (56:04) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (56:05) these training sessions can take a little bit of time, but that's gonna reduce the time that you're in the gym anyway, is just because you're not lifting as much volume. It's sort of like a taper. You're gonna maintain the intensity, but drop the volume of your running, and your weightlifting is gonna be similar too. So the volume is gonna go down. Jason Fitzgerald (56:23) But you're going to maintain the intensity. Maybe the weight increases slightly. So that's like strategy number one is making sure that your strength program is good enough so that you're focusing on what you need to focus at the right time. And Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (56:36) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (56:37) when you are in that competitive phase of training, maybe you're running tune-up races, you're doing your longest long runs, your biggest workouts. Your weightlifting is structured in a way to help you express that at your potential. You know, so Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (56:52) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (56:52) it's not just. Jason Fitzgerald (56:53) You're in the gym for two hours a week and it's just making you tired. It's really there Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (56:57) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (56:57) to kind of make your running better. It's to you know, really prioritize your running and and and make it even more effective. I I think also we can take some miles out from your schedule to to maintain the weightlifting. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (57:16) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (57:16) you know, even though, you know, I'm a running coach, even though I don't even really like weightlifting that much. Jason Fitzgerald (57:23) It's still really going to help your running so much so that if your if your strength program is great, I'd rather you maintain that and just run five miles a week less overall, because Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (57:34) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (57:36) you're getting so many benefits that an extra couple miles a week probably isn't going to cover. you know, there was a really interesting study that one of my podcast guests brought up recently, which was if you were going to run another couple miles a week or jump rope, Jason Fitzgerald (57:52) For another like five minutes per week, what is going to have a bigger impact on your race performances? Most runners would say the extra running, but in fact, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (58:01) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (58:02) studies show it's the jump rope because it's Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (58:04) Interesting. Jason Fitzgerald (58:05) sort of like plyometrics. You're getting a lot of stiffness in the Achilles and soleus muscles, which really helps with running economy. And you end up having better performances if you ran less and did jump rope for five minutes a week. Jason Fitzgerald (58:20) Which kind of crazy to think about. It's jump Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (58:22) Interesting. Jason Fitzgerald (58:23) rope. How is that making us into better runners? But Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (58:26) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (58:26) it's very similar to lifting weights, to doing plyometrics, to doing that kind of work that's going to improve your running economy. So yeah, Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (58:34) Very cool. Jason Fitzgerald (58:34) I would sacrifice a little bit of running for the weightlifting, provided the weightlifting is not just working hard for the sake of working hard. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (58:42) Right, right, not brow or any of that stuff. Jason Fitzgerald (58:46) No, we don't need any of that. We don't we we need to be very Jason Fitzgerald (58:48) strategic. We can you know, later in the season our weightlifting workouts maybe are only thirty, forty minutes. You know, we're in, we're out. That obviously also includes the warm-up. So it's not like forty minutes of really hard work. There's a warm-up, there's some warm up sets involved. And so, you know, it it's very strategic hard work. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (59:06) Totally. Yeah, love it. I I I see the people you know, that get really into it and really passionate about the sport go really hard in both ways. They go really hard on the mileage, they're talking to their buddies about like, yeah, I put in fifty miles this week, I'm gonna go for fifty-five next week. And at the exact same time they're talking about like I got to one and a half times body weight on deadlifts and like I'm going for more. It's like well at the same time, I don't know, you know, for performance. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (59:35) Clearly, like you just said, it has a has an effect of if you're doing too much, your performance goes down. you might have to make some sacrifices there on mileage or on on lifting intensity. From my perspective, the people who are really passionate about it and then do more on both aspects are either going to perform really well because they're just before they're gonna get injured and they happen to get in the race. this is the vast, vast minority of people, or Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:00:04) they're gonna end up having to see somebody like me and 'cause they've they've totally tanked some system in their body that keeps them healthy. You can't again if you you won't adapt unless you recover. So I like the idea of sacrificing a little bit of mileage, even though it feels counterintuitive, just to keep all the strength systems topped up. Jason Fitzgerald (01:00:25) Yeah, and I'm I'm usually the coach who's promoting high mileage as a training approach because it Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:00:29) Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (01:00:31) it it's really going to help your performances. Again, caveatted Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:00:33) It works. Jason Fitzgerald (01:00:34) by doing it correctly, methodically, safely, well fueled and all that. But you do have to be have to be careful when there's all this other stress in your life that could be weightlifting, you know? Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:00:44) Yeah. Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (01:00:45) And if you want to bro out on your weightlifting and your mileage, like there there might be a time and a place where that's okay. Like, are you 25 years old? Jason Fitzgerald (01:00:55) Are you not running any races right now and Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:00:55) Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (01:00:59) you don't have a family and you can sleep nine hours a night? Maybe Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:01:02) Right. Jason Fitzgerald (01:01:03) you're a great candidate for jacking up your mileage and your weight training efforts at the same time. But but you Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:01:09) Mm. Jason Fitzgerald (01:01:10) know, for 95% of us, we've got to be a little bit more strategic than that. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:01:14) Yeah, can't can't throw shit at the wall and see what sticks as much. Jason Fitzgerald (01:01:18) Yeah. I I miss being young enough where I could do that though. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:01:21) Right. Yeah. I'm I'm thankfully still in kind of the age where I can get away with that, but more and more it's it's proving otherwise. So right, yeah, yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (01:01:28) En enjoy it while you got it. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:01:30) I'm I'm glad I can do stupid shit now, but I know it's not gonna last long and I'm trying not to be too stupid about it. Jason Fitzgerald (01:01:38) I love it. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:01:39) But awesome. Well, this has been fantastic, but Jason wanna ask just last last question here. If you could give beginners some key takeaways, some advice Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:01:51) They're listening to this podcast, they're like, All right, I'm finally gonna do it. I'm gonna start strength training. What are a couple of points that you would want them to start with? Jason Fitzgerald (01:02:00) I think at the beginning it's all about habit formation as a coach. Like I really just want to see runners get into the habit of doing the right thing. And then once you're like kind of doing the right thing, then we can make that thing better over time, more strategic, more optimized over time. So maybe, you know, most of our conversation today was on strength training and kind of how to start this process. There's a lot of noise out there. I would love to see runners. Jason Fitzgerald (01:02:30) sandwich their runs. So think of every run as kind of the the the the inner part of a sandwich. And before you go running, you've got to do some kind of dynamic warm-up. This is going to help you get in a little bit of strength work. It's going to help you get in a little bit of mobility training. And it's just going to help you feel better when you start your run. And I think if you can give yourself let's say three to four weeks of being consistent with that, you're not going to go back because you're going to feel better. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:02:58) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (01:02:58) You're going Jason Fitzgerald (01:02:59) to start feeling a little bit more economical, a little more pop in your step because you're working through those ranges of motion, you're building some, you know, explosivity into your stride because you're doing some drills, you're doing some, you know, some snappy work, and that's gonna be really helpful. And then after you finish a run, you've got to do 10 to 15 or 20 minutes of strength training, mobility work, or core training. And Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:03:25) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (01:03:26) this kind of sets the stage for then. Jason Fitzgerald (01:03:28) All right, I'm consistent with this. What's the next step? Well, the next step is getting into the gym, lifting some heavier weights, start really trying to build some strength. Then Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:03:39) Mm. Jason Fitzgerald (01:03:39) you could start trying to build some power. And so it's, you know, you're kind of working up the ladder of advanced training strategies here. But I think if you're a beginner, just try to get it into your head that you are going to sandwich every run in between a dynamic warm-up and some strength training. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:03:58) Mm-hmm. Jason Fitzgerald (01:03:58) And Jason Fitzgerald (01:03:58) you don't have to reinvent the wheel either. Like there's you go on YouTube and just search dynamic warmup for running and you'll get Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:04:04) Yep. Yep. Jason Fitzgerald (01:04:05) a 10 minute routine that's probably good enough. You know, I I've created a whole bunch of routines like this that exist on the internet somewhere. The standard warm up, the Matic warm-up as well are really good warm-up routines for runners. and then after your run, you know, try to do some kind of strength work. Jason Fitzgerald (01:04:25) even just getting like a medicine ball and a couple exercise bands that you can have at home are really easy, simple implements that can really make your strength training efforts a lot more productive. So that would probably be like the number one strategy that I I could offer to your listeners is if you can get consistent with that habit, you're gonna feel better, your injury rate's probably gonna go down, you're gonna improve your running economy, and probably gonna improve your performances too. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:04:54) Yeah, yeah. For those of you out there that are injured right now, you know that it helps injury, but there are reasons to keep going with strength training. And if you're feeling pretty good after your injury and you're like, I'm good, bye. There are still reasons to continue your strength training. Just what Jason talked about, it it helps so many things. But yeah, get an adjustable kettlebell. Get a med ball. You don't even need to go get a gold gym membership. Get a bucket full of sand from Home Depot. But you know Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:05:23) There's so many ways to slice it. I think starting with those tips that that Jason just went over can be totally life changing. Jason Fitzgerald (01:05:30) Yeah, a hundred percent. And when you're ready to get in the gym and start doing some fancy stuff, you'll have the foundation of doing a whole lot of body weight stuff, of using that kettlebell, of using those bands. And you'll have sort of like your base training for running, you'll have this foundation of strength, which will then allow you to do kind of the fancier stuff, the real performance oriented stuff, you know, the things that you see pro runners do in the weight room. You can do versions of that too. And it's gonna help. Jason Fitzgerald (01:06:00) improve your performances as well. But just know that they didn't start doing that. You know, they started with some of the easier stuff first. You know, just like we've got to start running one mile before we run twenty. You know, we can start with some of the easier versions of strength training as well. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:06:14) Awesome. Yeah, love it. So Jason, your podcast is out there. If you're listening to our podcast, you probably have listened to Jason's as well. We're in the same kind of circle here. but the Strength Running podcast, you can look it up on Spotify, pretty much any podcast platform, right? Jason Fitzgerald (01:06:31) Yeah, it's everywhere. Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:06:35) Awesome. And then where else can our listeners find you and your coaching and your your resources? Jason Fitzgerald (01:06:40) Yeah, well, strengthrunning.com is is my home base. That's where you'll find more info about the podcast. we have a whole content library. we also have different email courses. If so, if you want to sign up for like kind of a daily lesson on different topics, that'll be dripped out to you slowly over time. And I know since we were talking about strength training, you can go to strengthrunning.com slash strength and get our strength training course, which we'll give you an email a day on here's what to avoid. Jason Fitzgerald (01:07:10) You know, some of those things that we talked about, like lifting for endurance or taking a bunch of classes constantly at the gym and things like that so that you actually don't waste all your time in the gym. Cause I think that's the hardest part, right? The hardest part is thinking you need to do some strength training and being a busy adult and then Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:07:28) Yes. Jason Fitzgerald (01:07:29) wasting three hours a week on something that's not actually going to make you into a better runner. Like, I don't know. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:07:33) Yeah. Jason Fitzgerald (01:07:34) For me, like, my goodness, like my heart's beating faster. I might be in zone one right now, just thinking about it. Jason Fitzgerald (01:07:39) And so I I wanna stop runners from those kinds of of ineffective training approaches. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:07:45) Totally. Love it. Yeah. Invaluable information over there on his website. And two, if you're struggling with injury and you want to get into strength training but you don't know how, I'm here to help bridge the gap. Our kind of process is help you get out of pain, put the systems in place for you to keep yourself topped up long term and then hand you off to someone like Jason for that long term strength training. So that again, you don't see me again until we're at a start line together. So Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:08:12) I think this can be a really good system here, but absolutely check out Jason's work. It is fantastic. There's a reason there's a reason his name is known. Okay. So it's it's based in research and all good. So Jason, thank you again for coming on the podcast. This was a fantastic talk and really appreciate you coming on the show. Jason Fitzgerald (01:08:30) My pleasure, Mandy. Thanks for a good chat. Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:08:32) All right, take care. All right, let's see.