Strengthen your trail game strength and stability LIVE

Hi there, welcome to Off Trail Tuesday— Off Trail Training Tuesday, should I say. Welcome, I'm Jo Smith, health coach for trail runners with health issues and injuries, and please say hi in the chat if you're here, if you're watching live, and you're welcome to post messages at any point. I'll be surprised if anybody joins me live tonight because England are playing The football is literally just kicking off at 8 PM, so, um, I did not know that, but I go live every Tuesday at 8 PM and it doesn't make a difference whether England are playing or not. Um, so hopefully you'll watch back on replay if you're not able to be here live, and I hope for those football fans out there that England play really well and that they win. That would be a, a brilliant outcome. So yeah, I've got a bit of a fun session planned for today. Inspired by my recent fall that I had, not this weekend, the one before. I had a bit of a nasty fall while I was running out over Ilkley Moors, had a bit of a— fell down a bog, thought, whoo, that hurt, but then I realised I was okay. I thought it was funny. Shortly after, followed by a faceplant on the rock-hard solid ground. So this session is inspired by that because It is about the importance of strength and stability in trail running. Fortunately, I don't have many falls, and it was kind of a self-inflicted fall because what I did was, it was raining, I took my jacket off, I was putting my rain jacket on, rather than stopping to do it safely, I thought it'd be a good idea to keep running on dangerous terrain with wet-through foggy glasses, couldn't see a thing, I'm zipping myself up, it's not a surprise that I actually fell. But fortunately, I do focus on strength and stability, so it's not all about running for me. It's about keeping my body strong, my bones strong, for when things don't go to plan, because I think that you can prevent yourself some nasty injuries if you are in a strong position when you do take knocks. I've got a weird-looking flashing on my screen for today. I don't know what that is all about, but bit of a party going on on my computer screen. It won't hopefully affect this session too badly, it won't hopefully distract me, an easily distracted person I am. So yeah, let's just get straight into it because we've got 30 minutes to talk about all things strength and stability and trail running, and I'm gonna probably go through quite a few. In fact, I think I've got about 7, yeah, 7 important reasons why Why strength and stability are going to benefit trail running, and the first one is very relevant because it's injury prevention. I mean, it's going to prevent things from going wrong in the start, but if they do go wrong, I think it helps you get a quicker recovery. For me, I feel like I'm recovering quite quickly from that fall. My neck was really jolted, but again, it recovered quite fast. So yeah, we are, us trail runners, prone to certain injuries that are quite common, like for example the ankle sprains, the amount of times that I've rolled the ankle or I've twisted the knee, or a lot of people suffer with IT band syndrome, which can be really, really debilitating and painful. Plantar fasciitis is a real common issue for a lot of people. So all these things can be improved through doing the strength and the stability training. Also, a lot of people have got big-time imbalances, muscle imbalances, with a stronger side than the other side, and it can really help level you out. I suffered for years and years and years with an extremely weak right side because my car accident caused me a right-side neck injury. Hi, Emma, you've done well to get back so quickly, and well done with hula hooping tonight, super impressed. Emma's been to my hula hooping troop group, and I just want to give a big shout out because this is the first step back to recovery, and, and let's just say you're going to be running very soon, and even today you were running with a hula hoop spinning around your waist because I saw you, so well done. So yeah, let's talk. Oh brilliant, and you've eaten, so not going to be getting any hangryness going on, and I'd eaten before, so I'm fueling up this week. Every evening I want to have a really good nutritious meal. Hi Stephen, finally got you. Yeah, hi. Yes, because I'm doing the Endure 24 Ultra on Saturday, every evening this meal I want to make sure I Every evening this meal. I think what I meant were every— oh yeah, every meal I have this week, I want it to be a good meal. So tonight I've had spaghetti bolognese with grated my favourite cheese, Red Leicester. I think Thursday, I think my mum's making me chicken stroganoff. I just need to plan tomorrow and Friday, and my son has got his prom on Friday as well, so we've got lots going on. I'll be putting the tent up for the weekend Friday. I'm going off on a little tangent here, but it's all, it's all interesting and relevant. It's all about carb load, yeah, to go loopy, yeah, and I carb load by standard every day, I'm carb loading away, but even more this week, I'm just enjoying eating, yeah, and so, so yeah, so. Thinking about back to the strength and stability, it genuinely does enhance your performance, and for a lot of years I did not do any extra other things. I could only have time to do running, so I'd just run, run, run and didn't really work on the other areas, but since I started to work on the other areas, I would say that I found it easier, I was more efficient. I didn't hurt as bad, I could get up and down hills easily without getting too many issues with the knee, with knee pain and things like that. So I have genuinely, I feel the difference. I don't worry about not doing loads of miles, I see it as an investment in being able to achieve more miles by By focusing on doing, whether it's the, I mean, as you all know already, I do everything with hula hoops, so everything that I'll do will involve spinning hoops as well as, so I'll be in a squat position holding it, but I'll be spinning the hoop on my waist at the same time. But you can juggle too, there's all other ways of making things fun, or using weights. Some people just love the feeling of the weights flowing around. So yeah, definitely going to make you more efficient. And just, I think you can get into the flow more easily, more relaxed, more stable. It feels more natural, less clunky, if that makes sense to any of you guys, because sometimes you can feel a bit clunky when, when I've not been doing my stability, strength, flexibility. I should have put flexibility in here as well, but it does come into this. Because I do feel a lot different. It helps with handling the dodginess of the terrain, the wonkiness, the rubble, the rocks, the path, the roots, the tree roots, the uneven surfaces that I don't see when I'm wearing the big glasses. But guess what? I've been to Specsavers this week and I'm really excited because I've ordered myself a new pair and they do a special lens coating where the rain just drips straight off of it. They showed maybe on their little screen where you can see the difference, and I think it's going to be— if it's what they say is true, it's going to be as good as when having no glasses on and the rain's going in front of your face. And obviously you can still— it's still hitting your face, so you can't always see as well anyway, and it runs off. So I'm hoping it's going to be just like normal wearing no glasses. And it's going to have the transition, so it's going to go dark and light as I need it. So I'm looking forward to trying them, but unfortunately I've not got a chance to order them in time for this weekend. Um, so lesson learned there for me, big lesson learned— don't run with wet foggy glasses. I got away with it for too long. So it's a bit like speeding when you're driving. The more you get away with it, the more relaxed you get about it, the more you do it, even though you know you shouldn't be doing it. Well, that was me, big lesson learned, I shouldn't have been doing that. So yeah, so yeah, you're gonna get really, really good at, confident at handling the terrain, no fear, you can just quickly just jump from here, there, and everywhere and If you do stumble, you'll, you'll, it'll be impressive, a bit like some of the stumbles that I've done where I've gone sideways and just landed it on my feet and just kept going, and I've even shocked myself at times. Don't know how or why or whether it is linked with the stability and strength. I think it is, you know, because it all links with balance and everything else, confidence. And also another biggie, if I've not sold it to you already, when you're doing endurance, you've got a better fatigue resistance, i.e., you're not going to get tired as quickly, it's going to take you a lot longer to get tired. Muscle endurance, strong muscles are a lot more resistant to fatigue, so you're gonna, you're gonna be able to maintain it keeping good form and posture for a long, long distance. So that's another big benefit. And you're going to reduce your likelihood of injury. So prevention better than treatment, and consistency is going to be the key. You've got to be in it for the long game. It isn't just about one-off. Today I'm going to do a few token gestures. kettlebell lifts or whatever it might be. I don't know why I thought of kettlebells, it's because I was leaving somebody a voice note and we were talking about resistance training and they'd asked me, do I do resistance training, do I do bodyweight training, and I said for me apart from hula hoops it's all bodyweight training. I said I'm more like the fun things, like the circusy type stuff where you'll do handstands and headstands and froggy balances, and I just prefer to have fun with it. And I'll sometimes do a handstand against the wall, and I'll lift one arm up and go on one and then the other. And if sometimes, every now and then, I just get the urge to do a headstand just for fun. But all of these things are strengthening up the body. And I definitely do a lot of one-legged— I do a lot of strength in the Maybe like the squatting position, and those that are in the hula hoop troupe got a bit of a surprise tonight, and I said, I'm not sure I can share this video on social media, because that was the def— that was what I would class as a definite strength building exercise in your glutes, and it was literally a bit of a thruster. The thruster motion with a hula hoop spinning up towards the sky is a really good stability strength exercise. Highly recommended. Not sure I can share that one on social media, but you know what, I probably will do anyway because I think I've got to a point where I'm beyond caring. I just want to share what I do and help other people. So watch this space, you never know, you might get to see that. And, but yeah, so you're gonna improve your recovery time, faster recovery. 100%. The stronger you are, the stronger your muscles, the quicker you are able to do active recovery, or there's another word for it that's slipped my mind. But, you know, you can get doing something quickly after injury. It might not be the same type of exercise, but you'll be able to do something rather than nothing. Or you'll be able to just do it at a little bit more of an easy level. Just to keep going through the recovery. So yeah, injury rehabilitation is going to be faster if you are already in a strong, strong position. So yeah, your posture, just how you hold yourself, the core strength that's supporting everything inside you, is going to be good, your back, your spine, your limbs, just everything is all good. And another really key part of it is I think if you are strong and feeling stable, naturally comes confidence and mental confidence and less fear, less holding back. Less, how would I describe it, riding a bike, hanging on for life, being scared of falling, it's just going to be a more relaxed ride. I'm just going to read the comment here from Carl. I add minutes, 5 to 10 minutes, mountain legs on YouTube. Oh wow, what's this mountain legs on YouTube? After every run, literally reverse, oh right, reverse lunges, and step up and single leg drops off of high boxes. I know exactly what you mean. I used to do all of those same moves. I really enjoyed doing them as well, and I used to do the ones where you jump as well, you know, up onto the box and down, and I really used to get into that. This is before my hula hooping days. I've never needed to do these ever again since because I do exactly the same motions in the reverse lunges. But I also, whilst I'm doing that, I have— well, I'm not going to be anywhere without one, but I have a hula hoop going around the top of my arm at the same time, just because I get— I need something else to take my mind off what I'm doing. A bit like when I'm running, if I don't have any friends, I'm singing out loud, I'm singing to myself. Because I just like to be talking, because I feel when there's sound coming out of me, I feel in control. I feel like I'm not pushing myself, or I know where I'm at. That's just my technique. My technique is, if I know that I'm talking and I know that I'm, I'm with it, then I know that I can keep going. It's just what works for me. But hey, well done, Kyle, committing to that. I love it. If everybody could commit to that, after every run or before every run, then you're going to do really well. You're definitely going to do well with this. Other areas which are really important and not, you know, I think a lot, you know, when you think a lot of this is kind of like, sometimes I feel like I'm sharing common sense. I just think sometimes, am I just sharing things that are obvious? And And to me, these things are obvious, but years and years ago they weren't, so I just share them anyway. And even the obvious, and even if it's common sense, you know what they say, common sense is not very common. So I've got massive benefit from doing the warm-ups as well, the post-run, not post, the pre-run warming up. That helps me to be more stable when I get going if I've done a little bit of a warm-up where I've got my legs swinging, you know, like side swing, forward, limbering up. I used to think that was only for the elites, you know, when you kind of get there and you see everybody looking like they know what they're doing and they're all limbering up, and I used to think, oh, I never did that for years and years. But wow, now I get why they do it, because, because it's— you're cheating yourself if you don't do it, because it's just so helpful and it just makes you feel so much better and stronger and stable. So yeah, so definitely going to boost your confidence 100% because you're also gonna realise that you don't need to, you can still achieve the same end goal without forcing yourself to do run, run, run, run, run, run, run, and it's overwhelming, exhausting, the amount of miles and the expectations you might put upon yourself. For me, it was not necessary, it wasn't necessary. to still be able to achieve what I wanted to get out there and do. And that was such a great feeling when I could do that without that huge commitment, what I'd seen other people committing. And this is what put me off for years and years and years. I'm just going to get my little— I have a little spiky lumber. I love this. I stand on this as well sometimes to help with my feet. But I used to be put off doing any kind of half marathons or marathons because I used to, when I first started running, I'd kind of like see what other people were doing and I'd be like, wow, you have to do that, that's the training that you've got to do, and that put me right off because I had little kids at the time and I was like, I genuinely am not able to go and do that kind of thing. So I found my own way of still achieving the same outcome, but without having to do as much of the mileage, without having to do all those big, big runs. And I think that this was the key, key factor in this, was that I did other types of exercise, strength and stability specifically, whether that was originally a boot camp with, with little free weights, Before I knew anything about hula hooping, or whether that was a body balance class at the gym, I got quite strong. At one point I could lift a lot, I was doing deadlifts, I was doing above the head, I did the classes, I got strong, I got good, I got into it, but I do not feel any better than now. I feel better now than I did then, if that makes sense, but I think the difference is I enjoy It's about the enjoyment of— find something that you can do. Junk miles. Oh, what, what do you mean by junk miles, Carl? I'm interested in that. Is it, is that junk food miles, or— oh, I get it! I think I've just— the penny dropped. You mean just miles for the sake of miles. I think that's what you mean. I like that expression. I've never heard it before, and it normally takes me a few seconds to get, even if you tell me a joke, I laugh about a few minutes later and I'm like, ah, that was a good one. So yeah, the warming up. Yeah, oh good, I'm not, I'm with it, I'm recovered from last week then officially. So yeah, we talked about the warm-up, I love dynamic stretching, I don't do a lot of static stretching, I do hyperbolic, I like to mix everything up, never do the same. things. Like, I literally just do different— I don't have a set structure. I don't think today it's going to be the arms day, tomorrow's legs. I don't, I don't do it like that. I just think, what do I feel like in this moment? So I'm really flexible. I don't have any particular structure, but because I don't think you need it. I just think if you can just mix it up and get everything in there as you feel it, that's I mean, I would, I mean, I know they say like minimum 2 to 3 sessions per week. I stick to a 15-minute Monday to Friday thing where they're the days that I do the bodyweight, the bodyweight HIIT stuff, and I only do a maximum of 15 minutes, a bit like what you would say, Cal, with the 5 to 10 minutes after the runs. Yeah. The right— but yeah, just regular, just something that you can stick to. It doesn't matter when or what time of day or what it is, but vary it. I mean, I've got so many different apps. I've got 2 main ones that I flip between: the HIIT Workout app, which I love, which is free. You get quite a lot of free on it, never needed to pay for the membership on that. And then I've got the Hyperbolic Stretching app as well that I'll do, and that's got a pre— that's got like the pre-run warm-up, it's got before bed, it's got all kinds of different things on there, and I really enjoy that. So I've stuck to that for quite a long time now. The hyperbolic thing I only discovered— when I say a long time, it was in September. But if I know, I know if I stick to something for more than 3 to 6 months, I'll still be doing it 3 to 4 years later on. So that HIIT workout app I started at the beginning of lockdown and I'm still doing that like 4 years later. And Carl says, I do 1.5 to 2 hour strength training a week on top and no running that day. That sounds brilliant. Yeah, you binge on it then and do a decent long session. I've, yeah, I've never done a long session like that. You'll have to let us know how you feel afterwards. Does it cause you the DOMS, like delayed onset muscle soreness? Do you do weights or do you use body weight? Just out of curiosity. But yeah, just keep it fun, keep it as regular as you can. And definitely, definitely, if you're not doing anything like this, just think about A really good way of figuring this out, if you're thinking, I'm not doing this, but because a lot of people that I coach, meet with, chat to when I'm out running, they say, oh, I need to get started, I need to get started on some strength, I need to get started on some balance, stability. Martial arts is brilliant as well for this. Some of the workout I do, it involves like some of the karate kick kind of moves. I do can-can with my hula hoops while spinning them. But yeah, I've just got myself off track a little bit there. But thinking about this— what was I thinking about? The strength and the stability and how important it is. But yeah, I've lost it, but I've forgotten what I meant to say. But yeah, in general, I— oh, this is what it was. It's come back to me. It always does. I would say if you've— if you're— if it's something on your mind that you've not started yet but you know you'll benefit from. So if you've been getting a recurrent injury, because this is the issue that a lot of people that I chat with is overuse, repetitive, repetitive, not doing things differently. or just running, running, running, and this is where you can end up with overuse injury, and then they panic thinking, but I can't not do it because I'm going to lose the fitness, so the injury can just drag on and on and on for so long that it doesn't always need to drag on for that long. But then it's a case of, because they're so committed to the the current training schedule of getting out and doing so many runs in a week, there's no spare time because, you know, a lot of people are working full-time or they've got children, they've got parents, animals, all kinds of other commitments, or if they're like me, they just like to go on holidays, so they just haven't got— they're struggling, struggling. So a really good technique, I think I might have sent this one out on my emailing list because I do a weekly emailing list, which sends out a bit of a different, different things every week, different ideas. I'm just going to quickly read this comment. It says, birth in a HIIT-style round working the body and mainly the hamstrings exercises kill me off, especially the one you anchor your feet and slowly lower the body. I think that might be something like Downward dog, maybe. I don't know. I like that one. I do that all the time, pretty much every day. I do the inchworms and then I end up turning it into a downward dog. Strengthens up everything. And the set routine in your head. Yeah, so you can just get on and do it, Carl, where you just— and it's mostly what the physio suggested to you. Oh, brilliant. I love it when, when you— when somebody listens to what the physio might recommend and puts it into practice and does it. And gets benefit. So that— oh, thanks for sharing that, that's really good, really helpful. So yeah, for those of you that know you need to get started, you really know that that's something you need to add into your routine, struggling for time, you're going to think, oh my God, why? I really don't want to do this. But you know what, it's worth doing. Keep a diary, keep a time diary. So, you know, do it for, do it for 7 days, Write down what you're doing between every hour of the day. You can, you can do it in big chunks, you can put, you know, 9 till 5 working if you can, or if you do have a 1-hour lunch break and you're sitting scrolling on social media, write it in your time diary. So yeah, it's a bit like people would suggest with a food diary. If you saw like a nutritionalist, they might say keep a food diary, log it. Well, actually keep a time diary so that you can look at what you're doing on what day, and you might notice a pattern of opportunity there. And if you notice a pattern of opportunity and you're actually prioritising watching Netflix, or you're prioritising something that is not an essential, so it's not like looking after your child or cooking a meal for your family, or it's It's not something that's an essential job that you can't get out of, it's worth actually doing that because you can actually see where your gaps are and that you have got time. And then, you know, if you truly prioritised or you truly valued being able to reduce your likelihood of injury or to be able to help yourself recover quicker, or even really eliminate the risk of a return, a repeat injury, then yeah, I would say do that. Just go through your week. What am I actually doing? Do I need to be doing this? And just factor it in. Another good way is a bit like what Carl's doing. You might not know you're doing this, but it's called habit stacking. So you're in the habit of doing those runs, But you also, whenever you're going to do something that you know you're going to do regardless, if you know that you're going to do a run on a Tuesday night regardless, then you spend the next 5 to 10 minutes doing the mountain legs on YouTube after that run. So that's an example of habit stacking. So for me, I have a habit stacking. I know I'm going to go to bed every night, so I, when I'm ready, when I do the getting ready for bed, I do that every night. the routine, the skincare, the flossing, the shower, whatever it is, and then I know that after that is when I'm going to do the stretch. I do the splits stretches and that just keeps me flexible. So that's just a little small example. I've got loads of things that I do that are part of my normal habit stacking. So the habit is that I'll When I get out of bed as well, I take the dog for the walk, for the jog, jog the dog. And you'll take a full day off running. This is what Carl says, I'll take a full day off running after the long strength training. Yeah, you need a rest day, everyone needs a rest day. I'm loving this week because I've not run. I ran on Sunday because I needed to test my knee because it's, oh, it's got a really big bruise, it's still really badly bruised. And I thought I need to test it, so I did a 5K run and I decided that's it now, me till Saturday, I'm not running at all this week. I'm just gonna— we did hula hoop today, hula hoop yesterday, a bit of hula hoop tomorrow. I'm just loving this. So finally, I, well, I should have tapered properly. There's a reason for that taper period. But yeah, so let me think on what to leave it on. What conclusion can we leave this on for tonight? Okay, so incorporating these dedicated exercises into your training routines. If you don't have time, keep a time diary and identify where the opportunity is. And then go for it. But you know what, if you do this, you will see the benefits. But if you don't do this, still don't beat yourself up. It's just that at the minute you've got other things that you value more, which is still absolutely fine. It's not designed to put any pressure on anyone. I just want everyone to enjoy what they're doing, because if you're going to do it with a good feeling— Emma's saying that she's terrible with time. You did well tonight, you were the first one there, loved it, you were really good. Remember what you say to yourselves, so when you're saying things to yourself like, I'm terrible at this, I'm no good with time, your subconscious mind takes everything so personally that it becomes your reality, so yeah, watch out for those little messages that we say to ourselves where we Maybe saying to ourselves that we're terrible at something, and maybe just think about how you might be able to reword it, and you'll get benefit from it. So trail runners, you guys can enjoy the trails more safely and more effectively. So yeah, good luck with incorporating some of this stuff. I hope that you've had some motivation from this session. Thank you as always for coming along. I was absolutely surprised to see you all here. when England are playing. So wow, thank you so much for that. That's made me feel so good. I planned on talking to myself tonight, and so that's such a bonus. One more comment coming in from Carl. Either early or late for me. Early, a lack of sleep. A late run, lack of sleep and forcing myself to eat protein. Oh no. So are those— do you mean they're the times when you are potentially able to factor in more of the strength and stability, is that what you mean? Or, oh no, you mean when I was saying about doing things out of passion and enjoyment rather than forcing it, and you're forcing the protein? Yeah, I stopped doing that a long time ago as well. I've been there where I was told by other people that you need this High protein. But do you know what I've started doing? I'll just quickly share it. I've started on the magnesium citrate. I think it were about 3, about a month ago. But for both running and strength. Oh yeah, don't force anything. It's like you're pushing on a closed door. It's not, it's not a good outcome. But, but yeah, we all do it. And you've got to do it sometimes to then realise that it's not a good tactic. It's not a good feel-good tactic. But yeah, yeah, what was I gonna say? I can't remember now. My brain's gone dead. But yeah, so yeah, I was thanking you for the football. And then actually, Carl, I thought to myself, I'm shocked that you're here because I know you're a football fan. So I hope that you've got that on in the background, and I've not heard any shouts or cheers coming from my living room, so I'm assuming that there haven't been any goals yet. So I don't think we've missed much by the sounds of it. So, but please, if I can help you with anything at any time, message me, directly message me. If you'd like to join my emailing list, drop me your email, I'll add you to it because I do send out weekly— I've been doing this for quite a long time, I forget to publicise it. But I do send out a weekly email and it does have nice little things that I write up and I share, and some of it is really helpful for the mind and helping you feel good. You're not watching football? Oh wow, right, I'm going to finish on this note then because I don't want to hold anyone back from watching football. I know how big football is in this country, but well done everyone. Get in touch if there's anything I can help you with. And you can always book sessions on the complimentary link. You just, if you don't know where it is, you can get it on my website or you can message me. And, and yeah, have a brilliant week and I'll be back next week. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna get clever and I'm gonna do a poll for voting for the sessions. So I'm gonna share that poll later in the week when I've decided on what the options are for the next sessions. And I want to put the choice over to you guys, but I didn't get any uptake on the voting, but I think it was because I did it as a comment, like comment in the chat, and I should have just done a quick tick this or tick that, and it would have been easy and quick. Because I want to do sessions on what's going to be helpful, and I'm just going with things that crop up in my life that inspire me that week, and then take it from there. So next week, hopefully I'll have some golden nuggets of learning to share with you from this next 100-mile effort. And, and I'll see you all next week. So have a brilliant week, and thank you for being here. See you next time. Bye! Bye!