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How To Deal With A Lack Of Sunlight

By Dr. Tamara Kung, ND

The amount of time we are exposed to light has a profound influence over our physical and mental health. Light is a fundamental external cue and all living organisms have been exposed to it for eternity. It’s no wonder that every part of our biology is linked directly or indirectly with the light of the day and night. 

In flowers for example, light signals them to open their petals to soak up sun for photosynthesis and the occasional pollination from a bee. At night, they protectively close their petals. In experiments when they are put in a greenhouse and are exposed to erratic light schedules (while still receiving the same amount of total light exposure as with natural light exposure), they wither away and die. In humans, phototherapy, or light as medicine, is being used to enhance health and well-being.

Why is that? What is light exactly, and how does it impact our health? And what do I do when the sun is behind the clouds for so many days?

In the most basic sense, light is a wave. We all know light is a spectrum (think Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album) made up of various colours. Each colour, and those we cannot see like infrared and UV, have various lengths of waves. Infrared and red lights are long and drawn out. They can pass through our skin, penetrate into our organs, and even enter on a cellular level impacting our DNA or mitochondria!

Blue light, or UV light, are very short wavelengths and influence our health at the level of our skin and eyes. This has an indirect influence on our health. 

It is this full spectrum of light that has an ability to impact our health at every level. As we learn more about light’s affect on our health, we realize it’s like a sharp, precise scalpel. It’s no wonder the power of light continues to be such a highly investigated topic! Current research shows the following influences from light:

Lighting up your day: UVB / Blue light benefits (think daylight/ sunlight!)

  • Activates our immune system.
    • This helps explain why during the spring and summer months we get fewer colds and flus. It’s not that we’re exposed to less germs (germs are everywhere, always), it’s just that our immune system is better at deploying immune cells and combating bacteria and viruses.
  • Triggers regeneration in our skin, hair, and nails.
    • Ever wonder if it’s just a coincidence that hair thins during the winter months, or that hair and nails grow more quickly in the summer? This is linked to the mechanism that UVB light triggers, stimulating an increased turn over of stem cells that help produce more new and healthy cells. So, our skin, hair and nails often look more youthful and healthier during the sunnier seasons!
  • Improves mood!
    • One of the big struggles for us during the long winter months is that we can start to feel more down. Studies show that daylight exposure early in the day can effectively improve mood and help reduce symptoms of depression. 

But with winter weather, we have less overall sunlight to enjoy, and we tend to really restrict our time outdoors due to the temperature and conditions.

Fear not. There is something you can do. Here are three tips to incorporate some daylight therapy into your daily routine:

  1. Open your blinds right when you wake up!
  2. Enjoy your breakfast/ coffee beside a window, or even better, outside in the sunlight.
  3. Go outdoors soon after waking. Enjoy a walk to get your coffee/ or with your coffee, walk to work, or exercise outdoors for 30-60 minutes.

When the above options don’t work, there are alternate solutions such as indoor sunlight lamps. Studies show that 10,000 lux for 30 minutes first thing in the morning can improve mood. Examples of lamps are here and here.

Timing is key. Blue light delivers its benefits to us when used in the daytime coinciding with our body’s evolution with the sun cycle. On the flip side, blue light at night can impair us.

UVB/ Blue light at night impairments

  • Inversely affects mood, so being exposed to this kind of lighting, via artificial lights at night, can increase depression and mood disruption.
  • Increased heart rate, meaning that our stress state stays overly active and impairs our ability to relax.
  • It reduces our heart rate variability (lower HRV means we have lower resilience to stress and poorer cardiovascular fitness; we want to aim for a higher HRV!).
  • Impairs our metabolism.
  • Makes us wake up with insulin resistance meaning we start the day with impaired, less than ideal blood sugar levels, making weight loss goals more difficult to achieve.
  • Dissipates melatonin.

Melatonin is our hormone of darkness. Darkness is its cue to be released into our system. It is what orchestrates the components needed to initiate and sustain quality sleep. But when we are exposed to blue light, our melatonin levels can drop to near zero which is not ideal. 

Our bodies have adapted to the times of the year when there is less sunlight. We naturally have more melatonin during these months. Yes, our bodies have evolved to benefit from seasonal changes of light as well which is pretty cool! Our bodies are way smarter than we often give them credit for. With more melatonin we feel sleepy more often and spend more time in bed, which is not necessarily a bad thing! Sleep is the ultimate underlying foundation for good health and all health goals such as those described with light exposure, immune function, healthier organs, and proper function of all physical and mental elements improve with better quality and quantity of sleep. Melatonin is also a potent antioxidant and anti-cancer molecule, so those longer cozy, dimmer evenings can be a powerful way to protect our health as well.

Your big takeaway to using light therapy in your evenings is to avoid blue light at night. Specifically, studies show that ideally refraining from blue light between 10pm-4am is ideal. If you must have your laptop on to do work or use a screen consider these tools to minimize the damage:

  • Instal f.lux
  • Use your night shift mode on your phone
  • Put on blue light blocking glasses (never wear blue light blocking glasses during the day, as this prevents you from reaping the benefits of daytime light exposure described above)

By understanding and appreciating how light and darkness impact our health we can utilize this powerful cue from our environment to support us. Our biology is wired to work in sync with these light and dark cycles that are all around us. If you are feeling out of sync, that’s OK! Our modern environment is not conducive to this natural rhythm. Pick just one action to practice and integrate into either your morning or evening routine. Choose the path of least resistance, and one that seems enjoyable to you, and then build from there!

References:

Panda, S. (2018). The circadian code: lose weight, supercharge your energy, and transform your health from morning to midnight. Rodale Books.

 Winter, C. W. (2017). The sleep solution: why your sleep is broken and how to fix it. Penguin Random House LLC.

Huberman, A. (2022). Using light (sunlight, blue light & red light) to optimize health. Retreived from https://hubermanlab.com/using-light-sunlight-blue-light-and-red-light-to-opt

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The Best Goal Setting Approach For Youth Athletes

By. Coach Danny Carrillo

Setting ambitious goals should be encouraged and we should not be afraid of taking a step back to add elements that might seem small but will ultimately make a big impact on achieving what we set out to do!

The concept of using a process oriented approach is based on my own experience, as well as learning from one of my favorite resources, The Language of Coaching by Nick Winkleman.

Goal setting brings purpose to your daily learning environment and ultimately, helps to define what you pay attention to in your surroundings.

Think about the last time you set a goal. Was it a short-term or long-term one? Was it focused on a single aspect of your life (i.e. health, career, personal development, etc.)? Was it focused on the achievement itself?

Odds are your goal fell under one of the following categories, and more likely the latter:

  1. Process- Oriented Goal
  2. Outcome- Oriented Goal

In our daily lives, we tend to set outcome-oriented goals because they can oftentimes feel like they’re easier to measure. For example, losing a certain amount of weight, or lifting a particular amount at the gym. However, I challenge you to start breaking bigger goals down into smaller process goals, so that you feel like you’re making regular, consistent progress. You may be wondering– why would that make a difference? Let me give you an example:

If the goal is to lose or gain 5 lbs and we only focus on a loss or gain as the measurement, we can get disappointed in not seeing progress regularly. Instead, if our goal is to visit the gym for 4 days throughout the week we have more flexibility. Going to the gym is part of the process. That way, the progress towards your goal can be attributed to the consistency of going to the gym, rather than taking drastic, unsustainable measures to hit your desired outcome.

This doesn’t mean timelines aren’t important when pursuing an ambitious goal, but I believe that taking a process-oriented approach makes the journey a lot more enjoyable since it provides you more flexibility on the journey.

These types of goals are also present in the context of strength and conditioning. A process-oriented goal is one that relates to a specific feature of the motor skill being practiced (ex. squatting). Whereas an outcome-oriented goal, is one that focuses on the results of the motor skill practiced (ex. Squatting with the intention of transferring the skill to learning how to jump to catch a ball).

As a coach, it is my responsibility to ensure that the goal/desired outcome my athletes are working towards is appropriate for their current skill level. It is also important to remember that once I have taught the desired skill, I need to take a step back and let my athletes figure things out for themselves in a safe and encouraging environment.

By taking a step back, I allow my athletes to embrace their own process in learning the skill while making sure to provide them the opportunity of becoming more confident in themselves and their abilities!

Ultimately, I believe that it is important to keep yourself accountable, but life happens, and goals may take a bit longer to achieve sometimes and that’s okay! I believe a process-oriented approach can extend to other areas of our lives because it not only lets us achieve everything we set out to do, but it also allows us greater learning opportunities and makes the journey that much sweeter.

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Gaining Doesn’t Have to be Painful: Sustainable Habits From the Comfort of Your Green Zone

By Dr. Tamara Kung, ND

A couple of years ago I watched a Ted Talk given by Dr. Stephen Seiler, a professor in Sport Science at the University of Agder in Norway. He described a surprisingly contradicting phenomenon he noticed in top-performing endurance athletes that went against the frequently quoted and deeply embedded “No pain, no gain” mentality so prolific in our society. 

So many of us grow up learning that to improve, we have to push ourselves through pain and sacrifice. Cue all the brutal montages in the movies of super-intense training with scrunched-up faces gasping for air and bodies dripping with sweat, and the illusion they are training this way every single day. 

What piqued Dr. Seiler’s interest was when he was out for a run one day and saw one of the top athletes he had previously studied in his lab, approach a hill while on her run. He knew she was capable of high levels of performance, so was taken aback when she stopped running and began walking up the hill. To him, if there was a hill, he’d push himself to run up there as fast as he could, so why was this talented athlete not running when she could clearly do so?

What he discovered was that most of the elite athletes stay in their green zone most of the time. 

  • The green zone is defined as the level of activity where you can hold an easy conversation and feel only a mild level of exertion. 
  • Yellow zones are when you can respond in a few word phrases and feel a moderate level of exertion. 
  • Red zones are where you are gasping for air and feel extremely pushed to your exertional limits (what we see in the movies).

An example was taken from the all-time winter olympian Marit Bjørgen who let researchers gather data from all her training years. During her peak years of training, Marit’s year would be in the green zone for about 800 hours and less than 100 hours in her yellow and red zones. 

Furthermore, the best marathon runner in history, Eliud Kipchoge, takes the same approach. “I perform 80 percent on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and then at 50 percent Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday”. Lots of green zone in his training.

Spending most of their practice in the green zones allows the most successful athletes to build a strong foundation for those moments of yellow and red zone intensities. It’s a place where they can practice comfortably, enjoy it, and recover, day in and day out. And that’s where the success comes from.

Practice needs to be sustainable, that’s where our bodies and minds rewire and create new adaptations and improve our performance.

Daily moderately high intensity can lead to burnout and stagnation, and unfortunately, this is what happens to a lot of people when they get excited about hitting a new workout regime hard. They believe they will see more benefits if they go all out every day and get frustrated when they can’t sustain this. It’s because it’s not sustainable, and this idea of No pain, no gain is not realistic.

Now, let’s apply this theme to other skills as well.

Nutrition

  • Green zone examples:
  • Replacing one processed snack with berries / your favourite fruits and nuts instead. 
  • Having a hearty, colourful salad for lunch 1 day per week
  • Incorporating one new fruit, vegetable, bean, or any plant food per month
  • Yellow zone examples: 
  • Having a cup of berries on alternating days for your snacks
  • Having a colourful salad on alternate days for lunches
  • Avoiding eating after dinner on weekdays
  • Red zone examples:
  • Avoiding added sugars and processed foods 
  • Having colourful meals that contain all 7 colours daily
  • Enjoying at least 40 different foods a week

Sleep

  • Green zone examples:
  • Putting blue-light-blocking glasses on as dusk approaches to protect your melatonin
  • Turn on a salt lamp or light candles in the evenings
  • Silencing device notifications 2 hours before bedtime
  • Yellow zone examples:
  • Take your phone/ any device out of the bedroom when you sleep
  • Avoid sitting on the couch watching tv at night, and discovering alternate activities to do instead.
  • Red zone examples:
  • In bed at a time where you achieve 8 hours of sleep
  • There are no devices or screen use at least 2 hours before bed

As you can see, we can apply this green zone style of training to the lifestyle habits that we want to practice supporting sustainable health. Your green zone practices should be relaxing, and most importantly enjoyable. Configure a green zone practice that feels best for you, something you look forward to and will be able to sustain and build up your strength and success in!

Reference:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237096628_Does_Polarized_Training_Improve_Performance_in_Recreational_Runners

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The spectacular benefits of “Most Of The Time’

Tim Irvine

When it comes to overall health, one particular theme continues to present itself to me. Do the right things ‘most of the time’. We spend so much time trying to ‘get it right’ or be ‘perfect’ and it’s just not realistic. Too many of us end up feeling excess pressure that can lead to giving up or getting disappointed in ourselves because we have not achieved the ideal. I say screw the ideal and give yourself some flexibility to do some things that you know aren’t perfect. 

I first noticed this with physical capabilities. Anyone who is consistent with their training retains their base even when they take a break from it. Yes, they become somewhat deconditioned, but their capacity to ‘get back in shape’ is there and makes the process quite efficient. Taking years or decades away from activity converts their system to an inactive one, and they lose their ability to rebound efficiently. 

I’ve observed the same phenomenon with people and their diets. Those that have consistently poor dietary habits generally have poorer health. Surprise, surprise. Overweight, high blood pressure, joint pain, less happiness, etc. not surprising. Those that have good dietary habits most of the time usually have good, general health. 

In the past several years, I’ve also noticed those that spending an ample amount of time outdoors has more positive health outcomes. Particularly psychologically. The plus is most people tend to be doing something physical when outside so their physical health benefits as well. This also applies to people who work in an office environment. If they get some weekly outdoor enjoyment most of the time, it seems to work as an antidote to their desk time. 

I know I’m simplifying ‘good health’ with this concept, but that’s the point. Let’s make it easier for ourselves instead of harder. The point of ‘most of the time’ is that it’s not rigid. I like sweets, and some beer and wine, but most of the time I eat well and don’t drink to much alcohol. 

Pursuing perfection in any health habit can have its drawbacks psychologically and that is what I see as a roadblock to getting started or continuing with any positive habit. To reiterate my earlier point, allow yourself to be imperfect. You are not a robot, nor should you aspire to be one. Just be yourself and do the right thing most of the time. Better health and happiness are sure to follow.

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Easily Add Some Cross-Training To Your Outdoor Excursions

Tim Irvine

It won’t surprise you that our society is forward-focused. This is also true with how we move our bodies.

Typically, we move forward in a straight line for our activity. Walking, running, and cycling are good examples of this. While any movement is positive, as we get back to outdoor activity after a long winter there is an opportunity to move differently as well. Mixing up directions of movement to keep your body guessing and promote cross-training is a good example.

Let’s focus on walking/hiking and running. This article by Alex Hutchinson shows how rough trail running requires greater energy use than smooth trail running. This isn’t entirely surprising, but the reason this happens is related to the amount of side-to-side movement necessary to avoid some of the ground covers on a rough trail, including rocks and tree roots. The idea of making your run harder may not be particularly appealing but the benefits for your body are substantial. Sideways steps, small jumps, the landing of those small jumps, long steps, etc. All this extra motion takes more energy, but it also requires your body to move in different ways. This ‘cross training’ helps you be a better mover overall.

Here are some ways you can accomplish these bonus movements in your regular routine:

  1. Walking/running
    1. Typical – paved or cement trail
    2. Cross Training – dirt, grass, or gravel trails; incorporate sideways or backwards steps (safely)
  2. Hiking
    1. Typical – smooth, low incline trails
    2. Cross Training – higher incline trails; rough trails; a combination of these two
  3. Biking
    1. Typical – road riding on paved trails
    2. Cross Training – dirt, grass, or gravel trails; mountain biking

As a bonus, you can also stop on your outdoor adventure and do some step-ups onto a tree stump, push-ups against a low branch or rock, and more.

As with anything that has higher levels of difficulty, proper safety approaches are important. Some considerations include proper footwear, avoiding wet or slippery surfaces, making sure there is adequate light, bringing along a friend, etc.

This spring and summer, get outside and enjoy the world around you a bit differently. Your body and brain will thank you.

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HOW MOVEMENT STRENGTHENS IMMUNITY 

Tamara Kung, ND

With all this talk about protecting ourselves from viral infections, many of us are seeking the best ways to support our immune system.


Our immune system is a potent world of strong, frontline defenses, and highly specialized backup troops. 

While we have many drugs that are effective at stopping bacterial infections (antibiotics), drugs for the more prevalent viral infections, are lacking. Why? Because bacteria are easier to target. They look very different from our own cells. Viruses, however, are sneaky, and they infect our cells and effectively turn our own cells against us. So having medicine that targets viruses, means they target us too, making antiviral drugs riskier, and something we deploy only after careful consideration once we factor in the serious side effects that result. This is where your medical professional comes in.

So how do we effectively fight against viral infections without the elevated risk? A strong immune system. One of the best ways we can enhance our own immune system’s effectiveness is through movement. Why is this seemingly boring, and redundant answer an untapped and often unrecognized immune enhancer?

The answer relates to a parallel system that runs throughout our body that is like our circulatory system. Instead of blood, this track is used by immune cells, and it is critical for full force activation of your immune defenses! It is called the lymphatic system. While the circulatory system has the heart to pump fluid, movement is what helps those immune cells get to where they need to be.

The lymphatic system is like a superhighway where your immune cells communicate with each other to keep updated on what’s happening. If it’s flowing well, and there are no traffic jams, information can be relayed quickly, which is what we need. Especially if our body gets breached with a harmful virus. We don’t want any delays here as this will give the virus lots of time to replicate and cause more serious damage. This is why regular movement is so important, and any kind of movement matters. Typical gym workouts, running, sports, but also stretching, rolling your head from side to side, getting up for a glass of water, taking stairs, brushing your teeth, and doing air squats. Any activity that stretches and squishes your muscles and organs acts as a pump and is an effective way to improve the movement of lymphatic fluid

As an example, here is what happens when an immune cell notices a viral infection in your lungs. Initially, the immune cell swallows up the virus, destroys it into small pieces, and carries the remnants of the virus as proof. It travels along the lymphatic system superhighway where it will be able to alert your immune system’s big guns (B & T cells) and tells them to wake up and get over to the lungs. These highly effective immune cells then travel to the battlefield. If we can pump this fluid at a greater rate, then we get faster communication, activation, and response.

The second key to the lymphatic system are lymph nodes. We often notice these as annoying lumps swelling up under our jawline or neck when we’re sick. Your lymph nodes are like megacities, where immune cells congregate after their highway journey. It’s where they meet each other and sit down to communicate what’s happening and alert your B & T cells to gather up their troops and move to battle.

Much of our lymph nodes are situated in our neck, shoulders, elbows, abdomen, hips, and knees. Your body’s clever way of maximizing the impact of movement (like doing squats, or something that feels as good a head roll, or shoulder stretch) as it keeps the immune cities flowing and prevents congestion. 

So keep those highways open and flowing by pumping your body. You will be helping to activate and “boost” your immune system’s efficiency and effectiveness on a daily basis!


Reference:
Immune: A journey into the mysterious system that keeps you alive. Philipp Dettmer.

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Something You Probably Didn’t Know About Grip Strength

By Tim Irvine

Grip strength is not usually part of the conversation when it comes to cardiovascular health or mortality for that matter. We only notice it when we encounter someone with a very firm handshake, or when we have a stubborn jar to open. It turns out, grip strength is a fantastic predictor of both mortality and cardiovascular disease. The following research summaries show us why.

Study #1

The results, published in the Lancet, show that grip strength is an even stronger predictor of death than systolic blood pressure. After adjustment for other factors, every 5-kg decrease in grip strength was linked to a 16% increase in death overall, a 17% increase in both cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular mortality, a 7% increase in the risk of myocardial infarction, and a 9% increase in the risk of stroke. The findings were broadly consistent across different countries and economic levels.

An unexpected finding was that grip strength was a more powerful predictor of cardiovascular mortality than cardiovascular disease. This, the authors write, “suggests that low grip strength is associated with increased susceptibility to cardiovascular death in people who do develop cardiovascular disease.”

Study #2

Grip strength was an independent predictor of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular diseases in community-dwelling populations. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28549705

  1. In line with previous studies, weaker grip strength was associated with increased rates of all-cause mortality and mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and respiratory diseases.
  2. One study has reported weaker grip strength in adolescence to be associated with increased rates of death from suicide among men, but this study is the first to report an association of grip strength with mortality due to a broader range of external causes in both sexes across different age groups.
  3. A much weaker association was observed for cancer-related deaths than for all-cause and CVD mortality.
  4. These associations were similar in both genders and across age groups, which supports the hypothesis that grip strength might be a biomarker of ageing over the lifespan.

That is some compelling proof. Why would this be the case? Movement! Think about a farmer. They are moving, lifting, twisting, multiple times daily. This movement is a huge benefit to their overall health. The office worker has a computer at their fingertips, but they don’t do much for grip strength. However, if that office worker enjoys gardening, woodworking, or working out with heavier weights, they will also have better health overall, including higher grip strength.

The message is clear. Developing grip strength improves your overall health and will prolong life.

Association of Grip Strength With Risk of All-Cause Mortality, Cardiovascular Diseases, and Cancer in Community-Dwelling Populations: A Meta-analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies. – National Center for Biotechnology Information
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Do you move young… or old?

At Totum, we often talk about ‘moving young’ for as long as possible. This obviously has an impact on those 60 and above, but it actually starts in your 20’s. Tennis, running, swimming, biking, golf, you name it. Your ability to perform any of these activities is lessened if your muscular power decreases, and that starts a lot younger than most people think.

Muscular power is pretty straightforward. It’s how quickly you can apply the greatest force. Any kind of jump is a classic example of human power in action.

In a recent article by Alex Hutchinson for Outside magazine, he examines research that focuses on why older athletes, and people in general, lose muscular power as they age. Here are the key findings:

  1. Loss of power as we age is almost entirely related to a reduction in strength.
  2. Muscular power has very little impact on activities of daily living, unless it drops below a critical threshold, after which getting out of a chair, or off the toilet, becomes difficult quickly.
  3. Plyometric exercise helps to improve the messaging from brain to muscle, thereby allowing us to ‘move younger’.

Based on this information, we have the following tips:

  1. Never stop challenging your muscles to be stronger. Lift weights, jump, climb stairs or hills, carry heavy stuff, etc.
  2. If you, or someone you know, are in their 60’s or beyond, quality of life will largely be dependent on staying strong. No matter what your age is, strength can be built.
  3. ‘Bouncy’, jumping activities help to keep your brain-muscle connection strong. Note: If you haven’t done this type of activity for a while, take it slow to avoid injury.

Our experience over the last 25 years has shown us that no matter your age when you maintain or increase your muscular strength, you perform all physical activities at a higher level. Whether that’s winning the club championship or just being able to travel is up to you. Strength is critical in allowing you to do it all.

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Get The Most Out Of Your Running With Some Resistance Training

By: Brandon D’Orazio

During lockdown, popular apps such as Nike free run, Couch to 5k, as well as many others, have been coming up with running workouts to help people start a new fitness journey. Getting people moving is great, but once the program reaches it’s natural end point, what do we do? How do we add more to these programs besides additional running? That’s where resistance training comes in.

We don’t run to get in shape; we need to get in shape in order to run. As we know, running trains our aerobic system and is great for our cardiovascular/ respiratory health. There is also repetitive impact on the body’s joints as we continue to run faster or increase our mileage. We suggest incorporating two days/week of strength training to your program. This will help you to get more out of the running you are working on, and, more importantly, help you minimize your risk of injury.

Each runner will have differences in capability of movement due to their training background, injury history, and experience. Understanding how your body works for the impacts of running will make it a much more enjoyable experience. A little planning goes a long way which it’s wise to assess your body’s functional abilities and your personal running style. This will help to guide the plan of action.

Progressive training has us prepare our bodies for the new work to come. Warm-ups are still important as are mobility and functional movement patterns. A proper plan of progress has a block of training that emphasizes these important areas in order to restore proper function before getting into strength training. Once again, being patient with this process helps to keep the injury bug away and also helps performance.

As we continue to improve our running, we can measure our performance by our economy. This refers to how efficient we are during each of our strides (how far we propel our body forward during each stride length). We leak energy and lose efficiency during our running if we do not have enough stability through joints such as our ankles, knees, and hips. Essentially this means we are more prone to injury during running, as well as missing out on opportunity to move further/ stride and run faster times or for longer distances.

Strength training routines do not need to be the traditional body building workouts or mean throwing around big weights. Strength training for runners should aim to increase functional stability and joint control. Through resistance training, increases in power and strength occur, as well as muscular endurance. That’s how your running economy is improved. An added benefit is this all happens without impact on the body.

Here is a sample program that any runner could benefit from!

Day 1:

3 sets of each combination

  1. A) Turkish get up 15 reps/ side
  2. B) plank marching 30 seconds
  1. A) Forward lunge 15 reps/ side
  2. B) Glute bridge 30 seconds
  1. A) lateral lunge 15 reps/ side
  2. B) reverse crunches 30 seconds

Day 2:

3 sets of each combination

  1. A) Weighted step up 15 reps each leg
  2. B) bird dog 30 seconds alternating
  1. A) Romanian deadlift staggered 15 reps each leg
  2. B) side plank 30 seconds with hip flexion/ side
  1. A) Split squat 15 reps/ leg
  2. B) Banded clamshell 10 reps/ leg

Reference:

https://www.nsca.com/contentassets/ebac89dcf2eb4ce8a3d0702cff0e498c/coach5.3.8-year-round-strength-training-for-collegiate-female-cross-country-runnerssample-program.pdf

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How To Add Fitness Into Your Daily Routine

We as humans, to a lesser or greater extent, crave routine. If you are like most people, your regular routine has probably been completely disrupted as you have been required to work from home. For most people, a change or absence of routine creates more stress. The majority of the population are still struggling with this and, unwittingly, creating more stress for themselves in an already stressful time.

In order to help you with this important and fairly straight forward stress reliever, here are some top tips.

  1. Have a weekday schedule and a weekend schedule.
    1. Monday – Friday, wake up at the same time, eat your meals at the same time and start and stop work at the same times.
    2. Evenings and Weekends – this is your free time and you should treat it as you normally would.
  2. Each morning (or previous evening) plan to accomplish a minimum of two tasks in the day. Ideally, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. The satisfaction of accomplishing these will provide you with a mental boost. If one of your tasks has a physical element, you have the added benefit of a physical boost as well.
  3. Plan some sort of mental break into your day. Exercise, meditate, read or watch a funny clip on TV or Youtube. These mini ‘escapes’ will help to provide you with mental breaks and some variety in how you use your brain and/or body.
  4. Go to sleep at the same time each night. Being consistent with your bed time (within 30min) will help you to get the next day started the way you like, thereby increasing the success level of your routine.
  5. Try to limit your intake of Alcohol and junk food. Both of these things will deplete your energy and make you feel more lethargic the following day.
  6. Take movement breaks as much as you possibly can. Remember that working from home will decrease your overall steps during the day. Eventually this has a negative impact on your health.  Movement breaks can be as simple as going for a walk outside, or even standing up to do a few stretches.

Let’s make things more interesting…

’30 Minute Daily Movement Challenge!’

You are challenged to find a minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity a day, over and above what you have been getting. This can be a walk, a run, stairs in your house, biking, or one or both of the virtual classes Totum is providing each day. It can be a 15 min stretch twice a day. Anything!!

So, if this interests you even a little bit, take action right now with these three simple success producing steps!

  1. In the next five minutes, plan out how you will get that 30 minutes of extra movement each day next week. Build it in right now. It should take no more than five minutes.
  2. Put a sticky on your bathroom mirror with what you have decided on so it’s front and center when you look there.
  3. Just as importantly, let someone else know that you are doing it. As you know, the buddy system builds support and accountability.

It’s as simple as that. So, are you up for it? Great! Let’s get moving more this week.

The most important step is the first one. Take five minutes to decide on your Monday-Friday routine and start implementing it right away. You can adjust accordingly as you go forward, but it is important to give your routine a few days to settle in. If you have children, your family as a whole can benefit from the same sort of routine.

By: Tim Irvine, President & Co-founder