Build a Better Running Body with FLRC’s Bodyweight Training Class

Announcements
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You know you should be incorporating strength work into your training to run faster and avoid injury. But gyms are closed and who wants to touch a weight machine anyway?

To help our local running community get stronger, run better, and stay healthier, FLRC is organizing a 4-week class of twice-weekly outdoor bodyweight training sessions. Sessions will be led by professional strength and conditioning instructors from Infinity Athletics. The 8-session class costs $96 ($12 per session).

The class size is limited to 15 people. If at least 9 people sign up in time, the first session will be Wednesday, August 5th at 6:00 PM at the Stewart Park flagpole, followed by Friday, August 7th at 6:00 PM, also at the Stewart Park flagpole. The remaining six sessions will be Mondays and Wednesdays at the Stewart Park flagpole, all at 6:00 PM. Register today! We’ll have a waiting list if necessary, and if there’s sufficient interest, we may start another class.

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Sessions will begin with active mobility exercises to help increase joint range of motion. Then the workouts will move into dynamic exercises to increase heart rate and stimulate the central nervous system. The second part of the workouts will always include strength and bodyweight circuits comprising slow eccentric and isometric exercises to help participants get the most out of bodyweight training. Typically, we’ll finish with some core exercises.

To ensure the safety of all participants and the instructors, FLRC has come up with the following requirements:

  • Online signup is required to manage group size and ensure data gathering in the event that contact tracing becomes necessary. Drop-ins are expressly not allowed.
  • During signup and at every session, participants must agree to the following statements:
    • I do not currently feel ill, and I will not attend any session if I do.
    • I am not currently running an above-normal temperature, and I will not attend any sessions if my temperature is above normal.
    • In the past 14 days, I have not traveled outside New York State.
    • In the past 14 days, to the best of my knowledge, I have not been exposed to a person who has tested positive for COVID-19.
    • In the past 14 days, I have not tested positive for COVID-19.
  • Everyone involved in the sessions, participants and instructors alike, must maintain at least 10–12 feet of distance from all other people at all times. More distance is better, within the bounds of being able to hear the instructor. There is to be no physical contact of any kind.
  • Everyone must have a mask with them at all times and must put it on if proximity to another person drops below 10–12 feet for any reason. Masks do not need to be worn during exercise, but it’s entirely acceptable to wear one if it doesn’t impair breathing.
  • Participants are encouraged to bring their own hand sanitizer and use it before and after sessions. But there shouldn’t be any touching of shared surfaces.
  • An FLRC rep will take attendance in case contact tracing is required.
  • The FLRC rep will verbally review the safety requirements before each session.

Any questions? Feel free to ask here!

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Or you could do this:

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Our first session is in the books, and I’m feeling it this morning. The exercises started off easy, but by the end, I was on the ground, panting. Definitely a heck of a workout. Maybe next time I’ll remember to take a photo.

We have a few more slots open, so you can still join the class, and we’ll prorate the fee. Contact me for details.

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I am plenty sore also! Some pretty unfamiliar exercises and an enthusiastic and interesting instructor, plus trying to emulate the two people on either side who I outrank by from 20+ to 40+ years, has left me sore but uninjured. Message to self: listen to your body! Looking forward to seeing how it goes tomorrow.

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The Friday workout was at a good level, and I could jog home feeling loose and strong. I think this must be working – on Sunday my long run on Hammond Hill I noticed I had a lot more power going up hills. And this after only two sessions!

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That actually makes sense to me at a neuromuscular level. You had Saturday to recover and then on Sunday, those muscles had been primed to be used. Overall, my understanding is that it takes about 3 weeks for training adaptions to be helpful, so by the end of the 4-week class, we should start feeling even more of the benefits.

For me, the main sore muscles were my adductors (inside thigh muscles). Some of that is going to be related to the particular exercises we’re doing, but I also suspect that some may indicate that those muscles were weaker than ideal. @JTuori, does that make sense from a physiological standpoint, or am I making it up? :slight_smile:

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Yes I would say largely you’ll get delayed onset muscle soreness at the start of any new workout (even in resistance-trained athletes, changing the variation of the exercise to one that hasn’t been practiced recently does this). Almost everything through about week 6 of a regular program is neuromuscular, in that the brain is learning how to recruit the muscles more efficiently. It’s thought that this is why strength training is effective for endurance athletes, but the actual mechanism is still relatively unknown.

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That mechanism is part of what Dave Diggin at Ithaca College is trying to figure out with his strength training research for runners. Quite a few of us have participated over the years, though his workouts are mostly weight-based and focus on pretty heavy weights (I think I was squatting something like 230 pounds by the end). I liked what it did for me, though it was hard to say that I got faster since I was having a pretty good cross country season that year anyway and the weather made the last few races pretty ugly. I don’t know if Dave has sufficient data to come to any conclusions yet, but I can’t imagine that he can continue the research right now.

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If you’ve been wondering what a fully distanced bodyweight workout looks like, check out this panorama from last night. Several more people joined, and we have room for a couple more if this picture helps set your mind at ease about our safety precautions.

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A number of people are getting short runs in beforehand too, which is a nice way to warm up to the bodyweight work.

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Great workout with Jordan last night! All three instructors have been good. I especially liked her mix of exercises and her explanations of how to do them correctly. “Tactical Frog”!

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Tactical Frog is indeed the best exercise name ever. It’s one of those word combinations that forces the language center of your brain to do somersaults (which is another great exercise word, though happily, we don’t have to do any of them).

mid 16th century (as a noun): from Old French sombresault, from Provençal sobresaut, from sobre ‘above’ + saut ‘leap’.