Why am I not getting faster?

I was motivated to write this piece after a conversation with a few guys at the gym this week. The topic was how to go about improving your run time for a variety of distance races. After some thought, and fact checking with the NSCA textbook, I have identified five areas that play a huge role in your run performance:

1. VO2max- this is the volume of oxygen you can consume while exercising at your maximum capacity. Your VO2max correlates well with the degree of physical conditioning that you have been doing. If you want to improve this, improve your conditioning. Unfortunately your VO2max has a peak and once you reach that number, you are maxed out and need to focus on other areas to improve.
2. Muscle fiber type. This is determined by your genetics and greatly influences your oxidative or aerobic capacity. Type I muscle fibers are aerobic in nature and have a large oxidative capacity. When you think of type I fibers, you should think of marathon runners. This muscle type is fatigue resistant but they also lack the ability to contract powerfully. Type IIx fibers are anaerobic in nature. They fatigue easily but are muscles that contract forcibly. Think of football players and shot putters when you discuss this muscle type. Type IIa fibers have characteristics of Type I and Type II fibers. When you think of how this muscle type works, think of a sport like soccer that is both aerobic and anaerobic in nature.
3. Lactate threshold. This is that feeling you get when you aren't too sure how much life you have left in those legs of yours. It is that point where you feel that your body might fail you as you storm up that hill or sprint to the finish. This usually occurs when you are working out anywhere between 60-80% of your VO2max.
4. Stride length and stride frequency. Stride length is related to body height and leg length. For those of you with a frame similar to mine (I stand 5'8" on a good day), you are out of luck. Our birthright put us at a disadvantage. Stride frequency is how often your feet turnover. Stride frequency is more trainable than stride length. Focus on brief ground contact time and get those feet turning over! Running speed is the interaction of stride frequency and stride length.
5. Specificity of training. This is putting it all together as you make a plan towards achieving your goals. This is how often you decide to use resistance training and how frequent you plan on running.

To clarify the purpose of this piece, it is to improve performance and not for any other reasons. When you decide your training plan, make sure to include resistance training as it will help you recover from injury sooner, improve strength and prevent muscular imbalances. 2 or 3 days of resistance training is plenty if you perform total-body exercise routines. The next step is to address your aerobic capacity. You can do this by performance long, slow distance runs. These runs are at an easy pace and is often referred to as "conversation exercise". You should be able to carry on a conversation during these runs and should be the longest run of your training schedule. Once you establish a firm base of aerobic endurance training, you then begin to add in tempo runs and interval training. It is vital to have a solid aerobic base before increasing intensity. Tempo runs are at a pace slightly faster than race pace but over a shorter distance. So if you are running a 5K, your tempo run will be 1.5-2.5 miles at a pace faster than race pace. If it gets easy, increase the distance you run, not the intensity of your run. Interval training is much more intense and should be added to the program after tempo runs. These are high intensity runs with specific rest periods. Examples of this are performing hill runs or 400-meter sprints. Always take adequate rest time to ensure a full recovery. This type of training will greatly improve your lactic acid tolerance which will greatly help you accomplish your performance-based goals. Vary your training and watch your times improve!

Chris Fluck