Promoting a healthy and positive experience for endurance athletes.
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The Coach Amy and Coach Liz Show

Created with endurance athletes in mind


Created with endurance athletes in mind. Coaches Amy and Liz have a combined thirty years of coaching and seven decades of competing in endurance sports. They cover topics relevant to athletes at various levels of participation: those training for a personal challenge to those competing for an age group placement or race qualification.


 

How to Get More Power Out of your Run before Your Foot Strikes the Ground.

What’s this episode about?

Cookies, running drills, and sharks? It’s all covered in this week’s episode of The Coach Amy and Coach Liz Show. Coaches Amy and Liz discuss activating your landing muscles before your foot touches the ground. Amy shares mind tricks and run drills to help you learn how to preact your landing muscles to generate more power, harness energy, increase stability, and prevent injury with your run.

Intro

Liz starts training for cookie decorating!

What is preacting v.s. Reacting with the run?

A herding dog, dancer, and boxer anticipate the next move. We want to do that when we are running.

Preacting is anticipating your landing when you run and having your muscles prepared and activated before your foot strikes the ground.

Reacting is responding to the load of your landing after your foot strikes the ground.

Why is it a problem to delay reacting to your foot strike until after you land?

If the muscles up the chain are not ready to respond; if if they are NOT prepared to absorb the force of the ground:

  • You lose energy.

  • You decrease the ability to harness power for the push-off phase.

  • There is a higher risk of injury.

Preparing mind and body to Preact.

Use mind and physical drills to learn to pre-act.

  • Chair Drill

  • Shifting Ground Drill

  • Hot Lava Drill

  • Trail running

  • Plyometric drills

Fatigue makes it hard to preact.

Take a reset/break when you get tired, your form falls apart, and stop pre-acting.

Take Aways

  1. Pay attention to your run.

  2. Do you engage before you land?

  3. Anticipate your landing. Pre-activate.

  4. Get help if needed, like Run Form and Development with Coach Amy.

  5. It takes practice and time. Be patient with yourself.

Funny and Stranger Things Segment

This week’s Funny and Stranger Things segment turns into Coach Liz talking Amy off the edge of her fear of swimming in the ocean. And it becomes a lesson in dealing with anxiety with the swim.

A Jerry Seinfeld bit about the ocean.

The Ocean Doesn't Want Us In It!

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