When I was working for the National Park Service, I took a mandatory four-wheel drive safety course. I thought the class wouldn't pertain to me much, because I'd been driving since high school, without incident, on the country's interstate highway system. As it turned out, I learned that I knew very little of the nuances required for managing a vehicle on remote, mountainous roads. The course introduced me to numerous new and specific skills, like how to approach and surmount large boulders, change gears on steep slopes, navigate mud- and ice-covered terrain, and make turns on tight, precipitous corners.
Trail running, like off-road driving, presents similar challenges. Road running, no matter how long you've been doing it, won't prepare your body or mind for what awaits after you step off those smooth, flat surfaces. Read on for the top six challenges experienced road runners face when they venture away from the pavement. You'll also learn how to develop the skills needed to master these challenges, and how these skills will benefit you, not only on trails, but on any surface you choose to run.
(HOW TO WORK THE SKILLS: Core Strength and Stabilityof top athletes demonstrating all the techniques to improve your trail running skills.)
# 1 - TECHNICAL DESCENTS
Road, track, and even cross country runners rarely face the long, steep and technically challenging descents frequently found in trail races. Often these new-to-trail runners hit the brakes and gingerly make their way down, or they may surge and reach high speeds, but then find themselves stumbling out of control and suffering stride-altering soreness later in the race. Runners who struggle with this specific skill must learn to negotiate obstacles quickly while maintaining good balance with the least amount of effort.
Though downhill running may require less energy, the toll on the lower extremities is great. Downhill running is an eccentric exercise (force applied while lengthening the muscle) that severely stresses your hip and quadricep muscles due to the forces of deceleration, or braking, and impact absorption. Hip, thigh and quad strengthening will prepare your muscles for the pounding.
Proprioception, using sensors in your muscles to govern your balance, helps you descend by allowing you to react before you get out of position and have to use large muscle groups to stay upright.
How to Better Pace a Marathon Based on Effort
Joe Uhan, who has a master's degree in kinesiology, a doctorate in physical therapy and USA Track and Field Level I and II coaching certifications, recommends targeted exercises that simulate downhill running and strengthen the thigh and hip. These exercises reinforce a compact running stride, which will help minimize braking forces during long, hilly races.
"As a physical therapist and coach, I put heavy emphasis on proximal- [hip and trunk] based running mechanics," Uhan says. "I emphasize resisted hip flexion and extension exercises, with an emphasis on trunk stabilization. This is less taxing to the leg muscles and lends greater stability on uneven terrain."
Step-downs: Stand on a bench that is 18 to 24 inches high. Contract your abs to stabilize your trunk and spine. Keep your weight on your right foot, which should remain as flat as possible on the bench. Slowly step down with your left foot, maintaining control during the movement and keeping your back vertical. Lower yourself until your left foot is flat on the floor. Then forcefully push off with the left foot and return to your original position on the bench. Repeat eight to 12 times for one set; do two or three sets on each side. Once the exercise feels easy, you can increase the difficulty by holding a 5- to 10-pound dumbbell in each hand.
SKILLS NEEDED: Core Strength and Stability + Lateral Movement Training:
1. Tie a resistance band around your ankle and secure the opposite end to the bottom of a fixed object. Stand facing away from where the tubing is tied and make sure there is no slack in the band. Bring the leg forward slowly, keeping it straight. As the band stretches you'll feel the resistance in your leg and hip. Start with one set of 10 to 15 repeats for each leg and build up to two or three sets as you gain strength.
2. Remove the resistance band. Lie on the floor and bring one knee toward your chest. Using your hands, force your knee away while you resist with your hip flexor. Hold this tension for 15 to 30 seconds. Repeat two to three times on each leg.
3. The resisted hip extension exercise is similar to the flexion routine. Here, however, you face the fixed object you tied the band or tubing to and pull the straightened leg backward.
Proprioception: Hone your proprioceptive sense by balancing on one leg. Slightly bend the hip, knee and ankle of the weight-bearing leg. Keep your balance without having to catch yourself with your other leg. Build up to a minute or more. To make this exercise more difficult, try it with your eyes closed, followed by a one-legged squat. After you've mastered that, try the same movements on a wobble board or BOSU Balance Trainer.
# 2 - SUDDEN TURNS
Road runners are good at running in one direction: straight ahead. Negotiating sharp turns and dodging rocks and vegetation off-road takes lateral movement. Alicia Shay, NCAA 2003 and 2004 10K champion and last year's TransRockies RUN3 winner and course record-holder, says, "This was the toughest thing for me when I first started spending a lot of time on the trails. My stabilizer muscles really took a toll from all the side-to-side movement." In order to counteract all the extra muscle-fatiguing movement, Shay hit the gym to challenge her core, hamstrings, glutes and quads to increase her overall stability.
LOWER LEG STRENGTHENING
Keeping the hips more stationary during the run allows your legs to drive harder through sharp turns and on irregular trail surfaces. Practicing lateral movements in a controlled environment will make you more agile when you venture out onto the trail. Core strength and stability training allow the body to better control and produce force in all planes of movement, not just the forward plane honed by smooth-surface runners.
Stability Planks with rotation
This series of exercises will strengthen the muscles that stabilize the pelvis, using dynamic movements that require balance and engage supporting muscles.
Swiss Ball Pull: Lie on your back with one leg stretched out on top of the exercise ball. Your rear should be off the ground and your nonexercise leg in the air perpendicular to the ground. Use your foot to slowly pull the ball back and forth (toward and away from your glute). Keep control of the ball as you perform the movement. Start with six to eight repeats on each leg and build up to three sets of 10 to 12.
One-Legged Squat: With the exercising foot forward, rest the nonexercising foot's toes on a step or box 6 to 8 inches in height. Bend the exercising leg to 90 degrees and then return to an upright position. Keep the body upright as you perform the exercise and focus most of the weight on the supporting leg's heel. Start with eight to 10 repeats on each leg and build to three sets of 10 to 12.
Stability Planks with rotation: Start in a push-up position, but on your elbows. Extend your left arm directly in front of you and parallel to the ground. While keeping your legs straight, engage your core, hips and torso to drive the right foot into the ground and the right hip toward the ground. Keeping these body parts as one, complete the rotational movement to a side plank position with both feet and the right forearm touching the ground and the left arm now held vertical. Hold that position for two to three seconds, then return to your starting position and repeat with the opposite side. Perform 10 to 12 repeats on each side.
Two-Point Bridge: Start in the push-up position. Lift your right arm and left leg off the floor at the same time. Keep your back straight, abs engaged and butt down. Hold for three to five seconds, then lower your arm and leg to the starting position. Lift your left arm and right leg. Hold for three to five seconds, then lower your arm and leg to the starting position. Start with eight to 10 repeats on each side. To increase the difficulty, increase the time you pause at the top of each repetition. It is essential to keep your back straight.
Dead Bug Bosu: Lie on your back on a BOSU Balance Trainer, so that it's in the small of your back. Begin with your arms and legs tucked into your chest. Slowly extend your right arm and left leg at the same time and pause for two to three seconds when the limbs are extended. Return to center, then repeat with the opposite leg and arm. Perform two sets of 10 to 12 repeats.
LATERAL MOVEMENT TRAINING:
Lateral Step-Ups: Stand beside a 2- to 3-foot-high step, bench or box. Place your inside foot on the bench. Engage your core and the glute muscles of the inside leg and step up. Bring your outside, nonweighted knee up so your thigh is at a 90-degree angle with your body. Hold for a few seconds, then lower yourself slowly. Repeat 10 to 15 times on each side. After you've mastered the movement, introduce the use of a 5- to 10-pound weight in each hand.
Lateral Lunges: Step 3 to 4 feet out to the side with your right foot while sending your hips back. Keep your core engaged and chest up. At the bottom of the lunge your right knee should remain over the ankle, not over the toes. Your left leg stays straight. Engage your right glute, push up, and return to an upright position. Repeat 10 to 15 times on each leg. Make the movement more difficult by holding a 5- to 10-pound weight in each hand.
#3 - How to Better Pace a Marathon Based on Effort
"It's an energy allowance game," says Trent Briney, a 2:12 marathoner who was an alternate for the 2004 Olympic marathon team and recently placed third on the jumbled slick-rock at Moab's Red Hot 33K. "You need to know how to judge your output so you still have the power to jump up and over foot-and-a-half-tall steps or rocks when you encounter them. That's exhausting if you're not used to it."
Road and track runners need experience negotiating uneven terrain at hard efforts. Long, steep ascents require physical and mental strength -- the runner must have the leg strength to climb near-vertical slopes, be accustomed to accumulating oxygen debt, and have the reserves to negotiate trail variability.
HOW TO WORK THE SKILLS:
Integrate long uphill repeats and runs, and stamina-based lactate threshold workouts into your training plan to prepare for lengthy off-road climbs.
Long Hill Repeats: Find a medium-sloped (6 to 10 percent) hill on a trail or dirt road that takes 90 seconds to 3 minutes to ascend. Run up at an effort equivalent to your 10K to half marathon race pace. Focus on good form with powerful push-off and strong arm swing. Slowly jog down the hill to recover. Start with three or four repeats and build up to 10 to 12.
PREHAB IN DISGUISE: During a long (1 to 2 hours), hilly trail run, approach each incline like a track repeat. Depending on each hill's length and slope, surge at 5K to marathon race effort to the top. Recover on the subsequent downhill and flat terrain.
Mountain Climbs: Find a trail or dirt road that ascends for several miles and ideally gains between 300 and 1,000 feet per mile. Complete a total of 30 minutes to 2 hours of uphill running, steadily increasing your intensity as you approach the top of the climb.
Don't have hills? Skip the treadmill (it's too smooth), find a tall building and run up and down several flights of stairs, ideally accumulating 15 to 30 minutes of continuous climbing and descending.
HOW TO WORK THE SKILLS: Core Strength and Stabilityof top athletes demonstrating all the techniques to improve your trail running skills.
#4 - WIDELY VARIED EFFORT AND THE LACK OF RHYTHM
The best road racers are able to dial in pace, or rhythm, for long periods of time so they feel comfortable and controlled on race day. Rhythm, however, is virtually impossible to come by while running on the trails. "Running the trails taxes multiple systems -- mover and stabilizer muscles, motor nerves and the brain -- and this fatigue may play a greater role in one's ability to maintain or re-establish pace," says Uhan.
Footing and topography make it nearly impossible to maintain road workout paces while on the trails, which is why Shay found the transition to trails defeating at first. "The splits on my Garmin were discouraging. During [TransRockies] RUN3 I had an 18-minute mile going up Hope Pass. I almost started freaking out. I had to put my ego aside and remember that this is a different sport with different parameters."
HOW TO WORK THE SKILLS:
Familiar workouts like fartlek runs and fast-finish progression runs can increase your skill at adapting to varied effort, but little prepares you for the trail like getting on one. Devise a route that never lets you settle in to a comfortable stride or pace. Run it easy to begin, increasing your pace as you get more comfortable with the terrain. Allow yourself to get exhausted midrun, and learn to accept that and recover on the run during easier sections.
In Flagstaff, trail runners search out the gnarliest training ground they can find. One result is a 15-mile route at 3,000 feet elevation that features six of the steepest downhill mountain bike trails in the area and works all the running gears, combining steep, hand-on-quad climbs, back-jarring descents, moderate grades that force them to run fast while exhausted, and some flat terrain for turnover. But you don't need to live near the mountains to learn these skills. Be creative: Charge up and down riverbanks. Take a shortcut over a steep, muddy hill. When you return to the smooth path, work on recovering while maintaining a fast turnover. Before you fully settle into your road rhythm, step off the pavement into the muddy/rocky/rough ditch beside the road for a half mile. You get the idea.
Note that you can capitalize on your road talents in many trail races, which are rarely 100 percent technical. Expect some smooth sections, where you can make up time and let your legs spin if you haven't wasted yourself on the rough terrain. Because of his deep road background, Briney has considerable rhythm-running strength, and he's learned to use it during a rugged trail event. "The less gnarly the terrain, the better my speed and turnover. I need to make good decisions early on, stay close to the leaders, and use the skills I do have on the terrain I can handle."
#5 - MUDDY, ICE/SNOW-COVERED AND SANDY/SOFT TRAILS
We've all seen the post-race photos of the mud-encrusted trail runner. Though it's considered a badge of honor in the off-road world, it's often a game-changer on race day. Unpleasant trail conditions, like mud, snow, ice and sand, slow runners down and force muscles and limbs to withstand unnatural angles and loads.
SKILLS NEEDED: Efficient form + Strong Hips
Efficient running form and strong hips (see Challenge No. 1) will help you remain upright on soft, sloppy or slippery terrain.
Swiss Ball Pull
You can reduce loss of control on loose or slippery surfaces by taking quick, short strides, thus spending less time on any surface and reducing braking that can cause sliding. The foot should land under the body's center of gravity. In order to reinforce these skills, integrate form drills after your easy runs one to three times a week. You many have seen these before -- these drills are also performed by sprinters and marathoners wanting more speed and efficiency -- but while you may have ignored them in the past and gotten away with it, the trail is less forgiving, and every improvement in your form will yield significant changes in how you perform off-road.
Warm up properly before beginning this routine. Complete one set (20 to 30 meters, down and back) of each drill per session. Recover for 30 seconds between each one.
- Karaoke Drill: Moving sideways, alternately position your feet in front of and behind you. Start by walking through the drill to perfect your rhythm. Begin to move faster and keep your feet low. Add a dynamic component to the drill by driving your knee across and in front of your body, as if trying to get it over a hurdle.
- Resisted hip flexion and extension: Moving forward, lift your right knee and pop off your left foot. Remember this cue: knee up, heel up, toe up. Your arm movements should mimic the running motion, so your left arm moves forward with your right leg. The key element of the drill is the paw-back, or the drawing of your foot back to the ground. Contract your glute and hamstring to drive the foot back to the ground. Add a skipping motion to make the drill more dynamic.
- Skip Drill B: This is like Resisted hip flexion and extension, but exaggerate the paw-back motion by casting out your drive leg and pulling it back forcefully, as if you're trying to rip up the surface you're running on. Think "distance" on each skip rather than "height."
- Health & Injuries: Moving forward, pull your heel directly up to your glutes. Make sure to keep your heels directly under you as you raise them during the motion. As in Resisted hip flexion and extension, remember: knee up, heel up, toe up. Your arm movements should mimic the running motion.
- Straight-Leg Run: This exercise forces you to contract the glutes and hamstrings. Run forward with straight legs, as if your legs were scissors. The goal is to propel yourself forward by using the straightened leg out, down and back. Maintain upright posture and don't lean back. As you get used to the drill, increase your speed. Again, use proper running arm motion.
- Short Sprints: Make sure to do these only after easy runs and not before workouts or races. These are short, fast accelerations at full effort, not the 100m "strides" distance runners often do. Start from a three-point stance with one hand on the ground. This will force you to drive with the legs. Run as fast as you can for 30 meters with proper form. Do three of these.
LOWER LEG STRENGTHENING:
Strengthen the ankle by tying one end of a resistance band to a fixed object and the loose end around the top of your foot. Curl your toes to integrate all foot muscles as you move side to side (inversion and eversion) and up and down (dorsiflexion and plantar flexion). Slow heel raises, as well as short bouts of barefoot running, can also strengthen the lower extremities, Uhan says.
#6 - How to Increase Mileage Running
How to Better Pace a Marathon Based on Effort.
"Road runners can be arrogant," says Shay. "They think that if they slow down to an 8-minute mile pace that they can run forever. It takes significant training time for your body to adapt and use fuel differently."
Briney agrees, admitting that the extra demands of the terrain on the body mean additional fueling considerations.
"Uphill running and all of the other dancing you do on the trails require more calories," he says. "New-to-trail road runners don't understand that you use way more energy on shorter runs due to the terrain and changing of gears."
Meredith Terranova, an Austin, Texas, sports nutritionist, trail runner, and owner of the website eatingandlivinghealthy.com, stresses the importance of carrying your food and fluid during off-road training runs and races. "There is truly no way to emphasize the importance of drinking and fueling regularly on the trails versus just waiting until the aid stations," she says. "We have a local 30K trail race series, and every year some of the area's faster runners come out to this first race without fuel or a bottle. It is always hot and humid. The runners without a bottle or fuel crumble, spend a ton of time at the aid stations, and then melt in the end. By the second race, they all have bottles in hand. It only takes one awful trail experience to seek and appreciate the change."
Health & Injuries
Runners unaccustomed to taking in calories while racing must learn in training to drink and eat on the run and develop the discipline to carry a water bottle or waist pack.
HOW TO WORK THE SKILL:
Terranova suggests a small, 8-ounce bottle for a road runner trying out the trails. "If they carry it, they will quickly see that they are saving tons of time by passing through aid stations," she says. "Once they realize this and see that the bottle is not weighing them down, it becomes a nonissue." Many races now require runners to carry their own water bottles.
Shay says it just takes practice. "A huge mental shift has to happen. Once they learn that it's OK to slow down in order to eat, they'll be better off and stay clear of the danger zone," she says.
Fueling options abound (as do systems for carrying them). Finding the best energy source for you may take some experimentation. Gels are the most popular for runners because they're easy to carry and digest. Liquid energy sources, like high-calorie maltodextrin mixed with an electrolyte powder, are another option if you struggle with ingesting gels or solid food.
HOW TO WORK THE SKILLS: Core Strength and Stabilityof top athletes demonstrating all the techniques to improve your trail running skills.
PREHAB IN DISGUISE
Why trail running makes you better on the road and track
Don't want to convert? Afraid trails will sabotage your road or track prowess? Have no fear, the two disciplines are complementary.
Elite runner Alicia Shay sees trail running as beneficial to all of her running. "I actually used the trails to my advantage while I was recovering from an injury," Shay says, citing just one of the benefits. "The slower paces didn't aggravate it, but I was able to maintain my fitness because of the effort level backcountry running requires."
San Francisco Marathon winner Devon Yanko has had great success in both the road and trail worlds. She's run a 2:38 road marathon, raced in the Olympic marathon trials, and placed well at several trail ultramarathons, including a second-place finish at the Miwok 100K Trail Race.
"I've learned through trial and error that the way to get the most out of my training was to do my focused workouts on the road or track and my recovery on the trails," Yanko says. This combination allowed her to stay healthy and focused. Doing road and track workouts allowed her to get the maximum benefit from each quality session, while the trail excursions let her body and mind recover as she enjoyed the beauty of local forests.
The drills and exercises recommended to improve your skills on the trails mirror those you'd do as part of a rehabilitation program for some of the most common running injuries and are advised for those who want to avoid such injuries. Facing the challenges of the trail provides a more immediate and tangible motivation than preventing a potential injury and is a whole lot more fun than doing drills and exercises after an injury has occurred. Regardless of the motivation, developing these skills will make you stronger, faster and healthier wherever you run.
ALICIA SHAY'S ADVANCED CORE WORK
Elite athlete Alicia Shay uses full-body gym exercises to develop core strength, balance and explosiveness. These movements are complex and demanding. Proper form is key. Master each movement with little to no weight before adding more.
LATERAL MOVEMENT TRAINING to see video demonstrating these exercises.
- Swiss Ball Pull. "I don't just use my body weight. I put a lot of plates on the bar and max out," Shay says.
- Plyometric progression (single-leg hops, squat jumps, depth jumps, double and alternate leg bounds, and advanced box jumps). "I started small, but have steadily increased the distance, height and number of exercises," Shay says. "This kind of work generates power and speed. It's very specific for what we encounter on the trails."
- Olympic lifts (cleans, deadlifts, jerks and presses). "These are very tough," Shay warns, but finds that they improve strength and neuromuscular coordination.
