Tips For Runners w/ Lunden Souza (Runtastic Fitness) | Natalie Jill

Hi guys. Natalie, Jill here. Welcome back to Happy, Healthy and Fit. I'm here with my friend London from the Runtastic channel. She's a fitness coach over there and I wanted to pick her brain about running because I get a lot of questions about running and I am not really a runner. I gotta admit it, I'm not a runner.

Oh my gosh, that's okay. We'll have tips for everybody, non runners and distance runners alike.

So thanks for being here because my thing is I like to do short term sports. I sprint, get it out there, fat burning mode. And sometimes I like to just do a jog just for the fun of it. But I've never truly understood the run, of loving the run, of loving the love of running. I've never truly understood the love of running because to me, I go for a long distance run and things start hurting and I get a lot of people that ask me about that. So I'm interested from you in what the proper way to warm up is, what people do wrong and how others could be equipped to enjoy their runs.

Definitely. So like you said before, and I would love to address this at the beginning because you said you're more of a fan of shorter distance, shorter duration, high intensity, and that is great for fat burning and things like that. But like you said, the love of running I feel like is what really gets people to run those long distances, wanting to push their limits. So I think a little bit of both is definitely great. Shorter duration is definitely better for fat burning, which is probably why you're so avid about it, which is great. But I think that when you have that love of running and you really want to go the distance, you can, you know, take yourself on a really long run and feel, feel it the next day and your aches and pains and your hips and knees and stuff like that. So I think that yeah, making sure you take care of yourself is probably one of the best things you should do if you even want to call yourself a runner.

I'm probably not going to ever call myself a runner, but I want to be able to enjoy it. When I want to do it, I want to be able to help others enjoy it. So I guess tell me the things first. Maybe people do wrong because that's a big one. I see the wrong shoes, I hear about the wrong shoes, the wrong warm ups, the wrong eating. What do people do wrong and what can they change with that?

Well, warming up, I guess that would be the first thing we could talk about that's so important, you know, I have a good friend of mine, his name is Blake Leeper. He's a Paralympic runner. So he has no legs.

Wow.

But he is a runner. And one of the things he told me once, he was just like, seriously, Because I was having knee problems. You want to spend the time warming up and taking care of everything that needs to be done before you go out and run, because that, that two to three minutes can make a difference of three to four months. So you always want to make sure that you're doing a dynamic warm up, which is things like skipping, lateral shuffle, swinging your arms forward and backwards, things that are going to get your body moving and stretching at the same time. So doing a dynamic warm up, as opposed to stretching in the beginning, is always one of those big things. You want to make sure you're getting your muscles warmed up and ready to go, rather than stretching them for a long period of time and putting kind of.

So you're activating everything, getting them ready to go versus, which is what I always say too, is stretching is good for after, because then that's when you're.

Shutting everything down, quieting it down, making sure everything's in recovery mode. And before you're going running, you're obviously not wanting to be in that recovery mode. You want to be in the ready to.

Sure. Now, talk to me about shoes, because I see people wearing all kinds of shoes and then I always hear different opinions about, you want cushion, you want flat shoes. What is the right thing to do for running?

It's so difficult because like you said, it's like short, flat shoes, thick shoes, support five fingers. There's so many different kinds. I think the I. One of my biggest pieces of advice would be just to be an expert in yourself. You know, if you're a trail runner, know what your trail running shoes options are. Try them out, see how you feel. Make sure that you are paying attention to your feet. I mean, you start from the ground up. This is your foundation. If something's wrong here, something could be wrong with your hip, it could hurt your back. And as a personal trainer, which is what I did before I became their ontastic fitness coach, oftentimes people would complain of aches and pains. And I'd always be like, first thing, check your shoes. How long has it been since you've gotten a new pair of shoes? What are you standing on? What's happening? So for me, I have flat feet and that's caused knee pain. So I need a shoe that's really high in support. I need the. You Know the molded arches for my feet because that's what works for me. So I think it's important to know what you're doing, where you are running. If you're trail running and need something a little bit more minimal, it's kind of up to you to figure out what works best for you. But don't be afraid of trial and error and making, you know, a really informed decision on what makes you feel good.

So what do you advise somebody looking for running shoes? Do you advise them going to a running shoe store specifically to have somebody help them with that? What's your.

I think an orthopedic doctor or a store that does some sort of measurement of your feet is always the best option. But of course, a lot of people oftentimes go for color or what's newest out. So they're kind of, you know, going towards and gravitating towards.

Yeah, I can't do that.

The brighter the better. Yeah, I know. The colors are so awesome and they are such a variety now. But I think it's really important for people, you know, if you're paying, you know, good chunk of money for those colorful options and good shoes, you can always go to a place that that's part of what they're experiencing. This has to offer. And they test your walking mechanics. They put your feet on like a sensor that can tell where you're putting pressure and not so much pressure and can give you some really good feedback. So that's actually how I found the running shoes I'm wearing today. And these will be the ones I wear for my half marathon in a couple months because I've done the trial and error and I just think with anything, but especially with running shoes, it's up to you to really figure out what makes you feel the best.

So when you're starting out running or if you think you're a runner but you were feeling pain, do you find that people need to slow it down, speed it up? Do you have an opinion on that? Because I, in my opinion, see people going way too fast and they start losing their form where they could slow down their time. But I'm not a running expert, so.

No, of course. And you know, that's a common question and you see a lot of these couch to 5Ks and things like that, which for some people are awesome. But in my opinion, you really can't force such a long distance for some people in such a short amount of time. So. So one thing that I've learned the hard way, especially with aches and Pains and with people that are trying to increase their distance or their speed is just to concentrate on one at a time. I think if you're trying to go too fast and too far too quickly, that's bad news. So I think if you set an intention, okay, I want to increase my distance. Well, your time's not going to be something that you focus on right away. You're going to want to stay at that slow pace and go the distance. If you're looking to improve your sprint time, then of course you're going to look at time, you're going to take measurements and things like that. But I think, you know, the place to start is what you know to decide what your goal is and to start with that, you know that particular point in your training. But training plans are always useful. Those always help a lot. But sometimes they can get an unexperienced person feeling as if they're too experienced too soon. And that's when you can experience those aches and pain.

And I did two more questions for you. Yeah, definitely proper form when running. There's different trains of thought on should you be more on your toe, on the ball of your foot? Should your whole foot hit down? Do you have an opinion about that?

Well, definitely. So I think that depending on the shape of your foot, whether you're flat footed, high arch, whether you ride your toes or your heels more is gonna affect your stride. So that's why I think that getting those analysis is really important because something that I learned when I got that analysis done was that my foot was hitting really hard because I didn't have enough support. So it was causing me to be more of like an internal striker and that's what was causing the knee pain. So it took me a little bit to change my stride a little bit to go from a longer stride to a shorter stride or which is definitely not so much more energy efficient, but it's a little bit more low impact. So that's kind of what works for me. But I think with everybody, it's going to be a little bit different. And if you feel fine while you're running, you're not experiencing those aches and pains, you're doing your warm ups, you're doing your cool down, you're making sure to listen to your body, then your results can be a lot different than maybe somebody else's. But I think it's important to at least know what you're doing and have the options to change. So I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of Doctors and they just told me, maybe you can shorten your stride a little bit. So at first I felt funny and I was doing it a little bit different, but based on the way my feet hit the ground, that's what I had to do.

Makes sense.

Yeah. Great.

And then my last question is about pre and post nutrition for running. Because for the type of fitness that I talk about, the short burst of energy, intense, really activating a lot of muscles. I'm a huge fan of a fast digesting protein and some fruit, no fat to slow things down. And I know from a lot of runners and from my studies in nutrition that it's always suggested the more slow digesting carbs. It's very different. So I wanted to get your thoughts on what you typically recommend for pre and post the run.

Yeah, so definitely with pre, I think it always depends on the person of what their duration is before they can go on a run based on what their stomach can handle, but usually between two and three hours at the most. You can eat before most races and feed pretty digested. Usually a carb. I do like oatmeal with a Greek yogurt or some sort of protein, sometimes a few nuts. It depends on how long the distance of the run is during the race. It just depends. So I've eaten the gel things before, which I'm not a big fan of. I hate them. They're so. I know I shouldn't give my opinion, but I am not a big fan of them. They're just disgusting. I don't like the way that they taste. So the first one, first half marathon I've ever done, I did the gels. Those weren't for me. So I was like, I need to find something that is different. So I did. No, I've done the cliff gummies and the gels and I'm like, these are not for me. So then I did nothing. And I didn't really like that feeling either. So I just made a banana, chia seed and oatmeal cookie that I just blended all together and you put in the oven. And it's like perfect for what when I was running that second time. So during, if you need something, if you're used to running with something, go for it. But some people can go through a half marathon especially, or even a marathon without fully eating anything. So it's completely up to you. But staying within, like you said, those slow carbs, food that's gonna keep you satisfied and, you know, be in your system for a while to give you the energy because Those runs take a lot out of you, so definitely want to make sure that you're getting enough to eat. One tip would be especially for breakfast, because, you know, a lot of races are in the morning. Don't eat something the day of the race that you haven't eaten before run before. Because sometimes people are like, okay, I'm gonna run a 10k today. I'm gonna eat like a supercharged smoothie breakfast with everything superfood in sight. And then their stomach's like, okay, I shouldn't have done that halfway through, you know, so.

And they're looking for an outhouse on the.

Yeah. Or just whatever. Yeah. And I'm like, if you are a superpower breakfast person and that's what you eat and go for a run, go for it. But if you're just doing a race and you wanna keep kind of everything the way that you've always done it, now, that doesn't mean what you're doing is perfectly right. But switching things up the day of the race is not good. Awesome. I love it.

These are helpful tips. I love them. Where can people find you if they want to learn more and follow more.

Of what you teach? Thank you. My channel is YouTube.comruntastic fitness. I provide weekly fitness, nutrition, healthy living tips on that channel. Runtastic is a leader in mobile health and fitness. So we're there to provide you with lots of really good information and working with people to collab and get the good information going to all of you guys. So thank you.

Thanks for having us. And I'll put all of her information down below if want to you. Thanks you guys for stopping by. Make sure to check out the other videos on my channel. Lots of great tips for you, some good workouts, nutrition help and more. See you guys next time. Bye.

See ya.