Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Turnover benefits from downhill running?

Headed to a closed portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway this morning for a little 1:00 hard / 1:00 easy for 30 minutes up a 5%-6% grade. My 1h/1e is actually 200 strides hard and 1 minute very easy for 30 minutes. I manage to do the 15 reps of 200 strides in :59-:61. I prefer this so that I'm sure to get in the turnover that I need in this type of work. I try for the 200 no matter what grade I'm doing the workout on. A favorite thing of mine is when a session like this is finished I feel like I can just float back down the hill at a very moderate effort, it's a great, relaxing cooldown. Today though I noticed that my turnover on the way down was very consistant at about 188 strides per minute. Although my HR was down in the 120's I realised that I was probably benefitting from the more rapid turnover on an actual cooldown. I'm not sure, but I think even though there's not a typical 188 stride turnover EFFORT going on, there must be a benefit to the muscle memory???? So I spent 15 minutes at a rate of 200 strides per minute, then another 22 minutes at about 188 on the way down. A perfect morning for the arm sleeves I won a few weeks ago, loads of sun, no wind and temps in the 40's.

4 comments:

  1. Back in the "days of MAF" Lucho and Chuckie V were definitely giving big ups to downs. Keeps the HR in check and like you said upload that muscle memory.

    Lots of benefits to running down hill, which is why I was like Whaaaaaa? when you mentioned no downhills.

    Wait for it . . .it's all downhill from here.

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  2. Cool! It's good to hear that theory validated. I will definately be doing some more on moderate grade roads to reduce the risk of injury and keep thinking to a minimum.

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  3. That's both feet. I know you hit that no problem on your 1h/1e.

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