Do compression tights speed recovery? Probably. Over the past few years, compression tights and compression socks have become widely available to wear during training and recovery. Compression apparel applies external pressure to the muscle groups; the most effective products apply graduated pressure, which reduces from the foot or ankle up the leg to the hip. Manufacturers make many claims for the benefits of compression apparel, including improved venous return of blood to the heart, increased lactate flushing, faster muscle repair, and reduced fatigue.
Research on compression clothing is evolving rapidly, but anecdotal evidence suggests that compression tights and knee-high socks are useful for runners both during training and as an aid in recovery. Marathon world-record holder Paula Radcliffe certainly seems to think they work. Even if you don’t wear them running, compression socks can help a traveling marathoner during plane flights, as they are particularly useful for reducing stiffness and swollen ankles when flying.
The purpose of cooling down after a hard run is to help return your body to preexercise conditions. This is the critical first step in managing your recovery from high-intensity training or racing. A thorough cool-down improves your recovery by removing lactate from your muscles and blood more quickly, reducing adrenaline levels, and reducing muscle stiffness, which decreases your likelihood of future injury.
• Increased Lactate Removal. After hard intervals or tune-up races, an important role of the cool-down is to remove the lactate that has accumulated in your muscles and blood. Lactate levels decrease more quickly when you do a cool-down run because blood flow is maintained at a higher level, which increases movement of lactate out of your muscles and also increases the rate at which your muscles oxidize the lactate to produce energy.
• Reduced Adrenaline Levels. Adrenaline and noradrenaline are hormones that increase the rate and force at which your heart contracts, increase blood pressure, increase your rate and depth of breathing, and increase the rate at which your muscles break down glycogen. Adrenaline and noradrenaline levels in your blood increase rapidly when you run hard. Adrenaline levels typically decrease to resting levels in less than an hour, but noradrenaline levels can take several hours to return to resting levels. An active cool-down helps get these hormones out of your system, which helps your body recover more quickly.
Getting a good night’s sleep is important for recovery and positive adaptation to training. Running generally improves both the quantity and quality of sleep, but overtraining can interfere with sleep patterns. No one knows for sure how exercise leads to improved sleep, but the mechanism may be a change in the balance of sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system activity. Stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system increases heart rate, blood pressure, metabolic rate, and mental activity, all of which are counterproductive to falling asleep. Parasympathetic activity has the opposite effect. During running, sympathetic activity increases, but endurance training leads to a decrease in sympathetic activity relative to parasympathetic activity when you are not exercising. This alteration in the balance of sympathetic to parasympathetic activity may allow you to fall asleep more quickly and to sleep more deeply.
A change in sleeping habits is an early warning sign of overtraining. The physical and psychological stress of training beyond your individual threshold may stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, leading to irritability and reducing the quality and quantity of sleep. A reduction in sleep is a double-edged sword for a runner because much of the body’s recovery and rebuilding occurs during sleep. During preparation for your marathon, you should ensure that you get adequate sleep, or you may experience a decline in performance, have immune system depression, and be more prone to injury.
When you have uncharacteristic difficulty sleeping, you could be training hard too frequently. You may be able to improve your sleep fairly easily by backing off your training and not running too late in the day. The harder you run, the greater the stimulus to your nervous system, so cutting back your training intensity will likely benefit your ability to sleep more than cutting back your mileage.
To improve your sleep pattern, stick with a routine that works for you. Eating dinner and going to bed at approximately the same time each day will help set your body clock, so that your body and mind automatically shut down at the same time each night. In addition, avoid bright lights at night, and avoid caffeinated or alcoholic beverages for several hours before bedtime. Finally, avoid lying down until you are ready to go to sleep so that when you do lie down it provides another signal to ease your mind toward sleep.
• Reduced Muscle Stiffness. Cooling down also improves recovery by reducing muscle stiffness. A relaxing cool-down makes the muscles more resilient, which can reduce the risk of injury after a race or hard workout.
Your cool-down should start with easy running for 10 to 20 minutes. (If you’re too tired to run, then walk for an equivalent amount of time, or try some easy cross-training.) The optimal clearance of lactate, adrenaline, and so on occurs if you start your cool-down run at about 60 to 75 percent of your maximum heart rate and slow down to a slow jog or walk for the last 5 minutes. After running, your muscles are warm and have very good blood flow, which increases their ability to stretch without injury, so this is the perfect time to gently stretch your muscles.
Because muscles are warm and therefore less susceptible to injury, after a run is a great time to gently stretch.
In this chapter, we look at how ensuring adequate recovery allows you to © get the most from your long runs and hard workouts. Successful marathoning, however, often involves more than just running. Just as true recovery days can mean the difference between adequate and optimal progress in your training, supplemental training, such as flexibility work and strength training, can help you get the biggest bang for your marathon-training buck.
Chapter 4
Supplementary Training
This chapter focuses on several important aspects of training that can make the difference between mediocrity and marathoning excellence. The chapter discusses five types of supplementary training that often get lumped into the category of cross-training but that really deserve to be treated separately.
First we look at the importance of flexibility for marathon performance and how to improve it. Next we examine core stability training, which is a vitally important but often overlooked aspect of training, particularly for marathoners. Third, we look at whether strength training is beneficial for marathoners and how to incorporate it into your overall training program. Then we describe a few technique drills that can improve your running form. Finally we discuss various forms of aerobic cross-training that will enhance your cardiovascular fitness and reduce your likelihood of incurring injuries.
For the flexibility, core, resistance, and form exercises, we’ve given a brief explanation of how the exercise in question benefits marathoners. If you have an especially hard time with any of the exercises, you’re most likely weak or tight – or both! – in that area. Addressing your most troublesome areas will lead to faster, more enjoyable training and racing. Figure 4.1 provides a diagram of the muscles of the body to use a reference when performing the stretches and exercises in this chapter.