PERFORMANCE
created such that just by standing on the ‘floating’ board, your core muscles are forced to perform a subconscious and reflexive balancing act to help you stay upright.
n Glutes Weak glutes can cause havoc for runners because these muscles hold the pelvis in a steady position and help to support our knees, shins and ankles. You can strengthen the glutes by performing deep squats (being sure to keep the back straight) or glute bridges: lie on your back and place your feet on the floor in line with your hips. Pressing your lower back into the ground, gently raise your lower body off the floor until your legs are in line with your torso. Push your heels into the ground and keep your neck flat on the floor. Hold for a few seconds, come down slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae and repeat ten times.
n Ankles
Including some good balance work in your routine will greatly enhance ankle strength and help support your calves, knees and hips. Try hopping on one leg in different directions, sticking to the spot for a few seconds when you land.
GET FUNCTIONAL When training in the gym or at home, some exercises and machines are more functionally-friendly than others. Performing movements that require the body not to just move in a straight line is a great way to train for general living. We don’t always do things in a straight line (even running), after all.
n Single leg exercise Lunges are always good for runners, who spend most of their time with the weight on just one leg. For a static lunge, step forward with one foot and raise the heel of the back foot. Slowly drop the back knee down until it almost touches the floor and then return to the original position, and repeat. For a more challenging option try a reverse lunge, starting with two feet together and step back into the lunge before returning to your starting point. To increase the workload, hold a dumbbell in each hand.
n Core Muscles Your core muscles include anything from the middle of your upper legs to
20 n
www.runningfreemag.co.uk
the middle of your torso. Using the cable machine to perform
a woodchop (from the ground up or vice versa) helps train the core while also stabilising all the little muscles around it. Much loved by snowboarders and
surfers, a great home workout tool for building core strength is the coolboard (
www.coolboard.co.uk). By placing this free motion board on either the Balance Disc (for beginners) or the ProBall (for more advanced), a natural instability is
Best machine for all-round
functional home training: Technogym’s Kinesis Personal (www.
technogym.com) is nothing other than a functional experience! Although not cheap, the Kinesis allows users to perform a huge range of exercises across all three planes of motion, increasing strength, flexibility and coordination. It’s seriously stylish too…
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64