Hamstring Injuries in Distance Athletes and How Strength Helps

This is session number 70 of the Performance Place Sports Care Podcast. You know what really grinds my gears? Welcome to the Performance Place Sports Care Podcast, where you can learn about sports injury theory, rehab, diagnosis, and how to understand the doctor lingo you didn't understand at your appointment. And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey, everyone. Thanks for joining me again. This is Dr. Sebastian Gonzales, and we're going to have a podcast on hamstring injuries today in distance athletes. And I'm going to have on a great guest, which is Nate Helming from The Run Experience, and I'll tell you a little bit about him here in a second.

But first, very first, I need to tell you what grinds my gears, what really does. Oh, man. So, I was going to the grocery store recently, and I decided, actually, so, that was probably a terrible person. I was the person that ground other people's gears before because I didn't do this. You know, like, you take a shopping cart out of the store, and, like, you kind of, like, you can put it in the corral. You can take it all the way back to the, you know, to the actual store, or you can just kind of prop it up on the curb right there. And I used to be the dude who propped them up on the curb probably about half the time.

And then you see, like, there was one night I was actually out, and I saw, like, the, you know, local high school student, like, collecting all these carts out there and how far they were from the store. And, like, I was like, why don't they just walk them back, you know, at least get them closer? I'm like, oh, I'm that guy. I'm that guy. So I'm like, I'm not going to be that guy anymore because, you know, it's, I think it's, you think about back in the day, you know, like, probably back in the, you know, the era when my parents grew up, you know, where it was like a mom and pop shop and so on.

You wanted to return it, or at least I feel like I would have wanted to return it because, you know, a local butcher would have had to come out and come get it, you know, and that's just, just make his life easier. So I thought I would make life, someone's life easier and bring it back. So recently I went to the store, and there was this cart rack, and I park, what are they called, cart corrals? It was right next to, like, it was right where the door of the store was. And so I parked really close anyways, I mean, up onto the steps, basically, so I just got, it was an opportunistic parking spot.

I usually don't park that close. I really don't care that much. But, so what I saw was that there was a cart, and I was with a friend, and he lost his mind, too. So there was a cart about five feet away from the cart corral just left by a trash can. There was actually a couple of them. Actually, I take that back. There was one when we came in and one when we came out. It's like the people could not, could not put it back into the cart corral, you know. That really grinds my gears, you know. I think, I think we can at least think about, and I was, again, I was guilty of this before. I think we can think about making someone else's life easier, and I think that would be good overall if we had that mentality.

That's what grinds my gears. So let's talk about Nate, okay. So Nate Hellmay actually is, it's funny, when I reached out to him to do this podcast, because I saw his YouTube videos, they were amazing. He's got a great YouTube channel. If you check out the run experience, you're going to see all the stuff that he has. I actually, I emailed him, we were talking back and forth, we were setting up this podcast, and I was looking to see actually what time we had scheduled it. And so I just typed his name up into my Gmail, and boom, it pops up an email from about seven, eight years ago where we had actually met.

We had met at one of his triathlons he was doing, and I was actually treating people at it. So he actually was dealing with a hamstring injury, and it was, it was like, it was perfect. It was perfect to have, because I didn't know he actually had a hamstring injury. I just thought he'd be a great person to talk to about hamstring injuries and distance athletes. But he had it back then, and I remember, I remember him now, you know, like, because we only met once, but we corresponded once in the email. But it was really funny to see that it's such a small world out there. So Nate trains out of San Francisco.

He trains Olympic-level cyclists, professional triathletes, mountain bikers, elite mountain bikers, and ultra runners on strength and mobility. So he really tries to get things that are really actionable and doable to improve your run and your running experience. He is very, I think, well-spoken and a very nice dude. So if you have a chance to go to San Francisco, he's out of, actually, San Francisco CrossFit currently. But you can reach out to him at the Run Experience and learn about how you guys can help prevent some of your hamstring injuries by adding some strength and mobility to your program.

So without any further ado, let's welcome on Nate Helming. Okay, everyone. Say hi to Nate. Nate, can you say what's up? What's up, guys? Hey. So what did you drink for this morning? Drink some coffee? I know San Francisco's got good coffee. They do have good coffee and, you know, most mornings I do about a thermos. Unfortunately, for better or worse, my alarm goes off at 4.17 in the morning. That is the sweet spot in terms of the latest I can wake up without losing sleep but without feeling rushed. So why is it 17? Is there a bus schedule? You know, we figured out in terms of, you know, over days, my wife and I, between feeding the dog, getting out the door, packing our lunches, 4.15, I could be sleeping for two more minutes.

If it was 4.19, I'd feel rushed and would be two minutes late. So 4.17 is that sweet spot. Okay. So we can tell what kind of person you are based upon your alarm schedule right there. Yeah, right. You can totally get that dialed in. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, I thought I'd have you on to talk about hamstrings with distance athletes. And it's a really common thing. I'm sure that you've seen a lot of people like that. But can you tell everyone that – actually, let me back up a little bit. For all the people listening, I envision this podcast as being something that a running coach can share with some of their beginner and novice athletes who haven't really had this first experience with an injury yet.

So I thought Coach Nate could kind of walk us through that. So, Nate, tell us about yourself a little bit. Sure. So I am a running coach and strength coach based out of San Francisco. I am a co-founder of The Run Experience, which is our online running channel for strength training, injury prevention, running technique, run workouts for everything from beginner runners to 5K all the way on up. And we also have a coaching program called The Training Club where we have different programs that you can enroll in from our 30-day challenge to our half and full marathon programs. We just launched an eight-week, you know, in-the-gym running strength program this summer, which we're totally stoked about.

And in addition to that, do a whole lot of content on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and all the channels. Yeah. You got a ton of shit out there. And I don't mean shit in a bad way, but good stuff. Thank you. Yeah. So, I know – so talking about hamstrings, which we will circle back to all that stuff as well because that was a ton. What's your experience with hamstrings? You know, it was – I have to say this was – this topic was very relevant for me because it really was a hamstring injury that got me into the current career path I'm in. And it was actually a couple years before I met you. I had a nagging hamstring turn into something so irritating and so unresponsive to any type of therapy I threw at it that I'd qualified for the Kona Ironman World Championships that year.

And I basically had to sit out on the sidelines, you know, very, very frustrated at the age of 24. And it was a hamstring injury. So, what actually came of it? Like, what happened to – what did you need to get over that? So, let me kind of walk you through the things that I tried to do and I think this is helpful for, you know, new runners and beginner runners. Anyone who's in the middle and they feel like they're in the middle of that tunnel and they can't see the light from where they started or where it ends and it just feels like it's just not getting better because I was definitely there.

And I also went to the normal sources that I tried to get help than most people do, you know, articles online, magazines, local physical therapists and everything else. And when I first started to deal with some hamstring pain, it was lower, more below, just above my knee. And it bothered me only when I started to do some tempo and track work and it's like, okay, I haven't gotten a massage in a little while. I'll get a massage. And, you know, my therapist says, hey, it's a little ropey in there. We'll just work on that and improve it. Shook it out. Didn't really get better. It was getting now into like late July, early August.

Kona Ironman is in October. And you really want to be hitting your training hard in October and September or sorry, August and September. And I was getting a little nervous about not being able to ramp my training up. So I was like, well, let me go get to see some physical therapists. I go to local physical therapists, great office in the Bay Area, deals with runners and triathletes all the time. You know, they look at me and they say, hey, your glute medius is not very strong. So let's get your glute medius strong. And your glute medius, if you don't know, is a hip stabilizing muscle that keeps your hips nice and square, prevents your knees and your ankles from collapsing inwards.

And it's something very, very important as we go from one leg to another in running. And it's common for this to not be engaged very well. So they would give me exercises to pinpoint this muscle and engage it. And we would do some side steps and we would do some, you know, little Jane Fonda lateral leg lifts and, you know, some of those other movements. That's sexy stuff. All the sexy stuff. But, dude, I was so motivated. I said, if you want me to hop on my left foot 50 times, I'll do it 51, right? I do anything to get there for Kona. But it wasn't responding. It get the muscle firing. As soon as I go out and train again, the hamstring was back.

And finally they said, well, maybe there's something bigger going on. They send me to an orthopedic surgeon to assess me. And he says, well, I don't really know if there's anything torn. Let's get an MRI just in case. I go get an MRI, no major results. And they said, well, I go back to the orthopedic surgeon. Meanwhile, the weeks are ticking by. I'm not any closer to training and my hamstring is getting worse. And he says, well, maybe we can just, you know, jam a needle in there and give you a cortisone shot and maybe that will help you. So I do the cortisone shot. God, how'd that feel? Oh, man.

Those do not feel good, guys. Just forewarned, right? It's three days of misery before you feel anything remotely good. And for me, because it wasn't that type of injury, you know, it just felt irritated and nothing. And so I keep going to physical therapy and then pretty much I get to the race and I have to make the decision to first I say, you know what? I can't run, but I'll do the swim and the bike. And then it got so bad that I couldn't bike. So I was like, well, maybe I'll just do the swim. And then it got so bad. I was like, well, I'm just going to sit on the sidelines of this whole thing.

I come back at the end and I like to share this story because I think a lot of you guys can relate to some of these, you know, personal fun details. I go back to see Julie, who's my physical therapist. We've been seeing her for like six weeks now. She's like, Nate, I'm really sorry we couldn't get you to Kona, but let's do some more sidesteps. You're almost there. But she's like, funny thing, you are out of insurance. So if you want to keep coming, you have to pay out of pocket. And that's where I was like, all right, we have to try something different. Yeah, that is a thing. I mean, do you even know, like I'm guessing it was like most people get like 30 times sometimes throughout the years.

It was around something like that. Yeah. In terms of PT appointments. Yeah. Like how many they allowed through your policy. I don't remember, but it was is pretty consistent, you know, through, you know, the months of July, August and September. And, you know, when they when they said that I needed to start paying, I just I would have paid if I thought it was going to work. But it but it really didn't work. Yeah. You know, so this is where I met, you know, my kind of new and future coach who was a guy who is a longtime strength coach. He was a little bit of a body worker, but he was starting to play with a barbell.

And bigger picture movements like squatting and like deadlifting and some other big movements. And, you know, we kind of joke at the time because he was newer as a coach. And I was so unsure of myself as an athlete and so uncoordinated and just kind of mentally broken down from this process. It took me like three weeks to learn how to do a deadlift, which is normally something you could learn in like 30 minutes. And but as soon as I learned it, like this light switch went on in the house, it's almost like I'd been running around the house, flicking all these switches. And I'm like, the power won't go on.

The power won't go on in my hamstring. And he just went to the back, you know, went to the circuit breaker and just reset everything. And all of a sudden I was like, there is my hamstring. And this happened so immediate and it was so impressive that my first reaction was anger. I was like, why of all the physical therapists and trainers and coaches and things I've read has no one showed this to me? Yeah. And how many that was in you said 2007, eight? This was this was back in October of 2008. OK. So, you know, I'm not I'm not here to evangelize the deadlift specifically or or any other movement.

So, you know, so don't worry about that. But this whole process, what it what it really opened me up to was this thing that it's like, you know what? It's we all don't know everything. Right. And there are still some areas where people fall through the cracks. And ultimately, it's up to us, you know, to sort of be in charge of our own body and start to figure things out. And, you know, it's our job, you know, you and I to just to give runners the tools to have that conversation, which are things that I like to do now. And I don't make a claim to know how to fix every single injury. I certainly don't.

But what I like to do is give people a process to walk through and figure things out. And one of the things that I sort of realized was I was doing in physical therapy all these micro movement style exercises, getting these muscles to fire, which I got good at. But it was not translating to how I stood, how I ran, how I rode my bike, because I was not able to connect it with my big picture movements. Well, I thought that the glute medius was really good at improving breakdancing skills. So, you know, after that whole thing, it kind of led me down an exploration to to really what it means to be an athlete.

And when I go back to, you know, my my early days of triathlon and running, I realized that I really fell in love with specialization and the idea that if I want to be a better runner, I need to run more. If I want to be a triathlete, I just need to do more triathlon. And when I look back at my earlier days, you know, I was a multi sport kid out of New England and I would mountain bike. I would ski in the winter and race downhill. I would, you know, play different sports. And I was pretty well rounded there. But as soon as I, quote unquote, got serious with my endurance career, I said, OK, all this other crap has to go.

I'm only going to focus on swim, bike, run in this case or just running. And that works until it doesn't work anymore. And I realized that there's a that we need to specifically train a lot to be good specifically at certain events. But we also need to support a general foundation of strength and coordination and range of motion to be able to sustain those high levels of specific training. And as soon as you erode your general foundation because you're not paying attention to it, you become incredibly vulnerable like I was to any injury under the roof. OK, so with beginners that you see, I'm sure there's probably a lot of people listening and thinking, well, I've fared OK so far.

Why do I need to get into a barbell? Why do I need to do deadlifting or glute med work? So how long can anyone really know like when their foundation is going to erode before these injuries start popping up? Sure. You know, that's a great question. And I always get this from runners. I'm sure you do, too. It says, hey, I did this year. I did exactly what I did last year and I didn't get injured last year. And I am this year. What's the deal, right? Yeah. You know, one of the one of the better analogies that I've heard and I like to share is, you know, just the analogy of driving your car. When we sort of erode that foundation in our running, we start to lose our mechanics in a way where our major joints are no longer aligned and you're adding instability in a way that you're starting to see some lateral movement and some wobbling in places that shouldn't be wobbling at all.

And the best way to think about it is, you know, you're driving your car and all of a sudden your wheels are out of alignment or a little bit. And, you know, you're still going to wear your tires down with your wheels out of alignment or with your wheels perfectly aligned, you're still going to get a little tire wear. But if your wheels are significantly out of alignment, you're going to start chewing through that rubber super quick. So new runners, the danger can be because you're brand new, you're sort of wearing through the rubber without realizing it. But because you're not getting that immediate feedback of pain or injury, it reinforces that what you're doing is okay.

And then it catches up with you later. And then you're very confused because this event that caused this serious amount of frustration, it didn't start today or yesterday. It started two years ago or one year ago. Yeah. Yeah, I totally see that. I thought for a second you're going to give the analogy I usually give. And that's of the housing crash back in... Oh, okay. So because I have a friend that came in, he had a shoulder condition actually. And he said, why does this happen? I did an overhead press yesterday. How come it happened? Why did it happen this one time and not another? And I was like, well, that housing market thing, did that happen overnight?

He's like, no, there was a lot of factors in that. I'm like, exactly. That's what I'm talking about. Like you just don't see them yet until you look, right? Oh, that's pretty good. I like that one. I like the housing crash. Good. You can use that housing crash. I'm going to lend you that one. It's bringing like economics in it and social behavior. I totally love that. Yeah. Most people are affected by that. So they'll resonate. Totally. You know, another way that I like to share this is, you know, like unless you get hit by a taxi cab, like injuries really do not come out of nowhere, you know.

And we have a surface level of awareness where when things pop up above the surface, it is your knee that is aching. But as soon as you run for 10 minutes and that aching knee tends to quote unquote go away in your brain, it just goes below the level of your awareness. And you're like, oh, I'm fine. And I just sort of shook it off. But that accumulates. And if you go back through your memory and you think about all those factors that could have potentially contributed, then you start to see and connect the dots. Just as you're saying with the housing crash, the hard part when you're a new runner is how do you preempt that conversation, right?

Because when you get injuries, injuries are the best teachers for better or worse. I learned a lot about my body just by, you know, breaking bones and hurting different things and figuring out how to get them unhurt. But the challenge is getting runners into the headspace of trying to work on their body and get in touch in their body in a way that they know what's going on. And the best way I've found to do that is to develop some sort of weekly athletic practice, which is beyond their sport. Their sport's helpful, say running, but working on a foam roller, for example, for doing some basic injury prevention stuff and some strength training.

And if you have a good baseline, let's say that your knees are fine, but you foam roll your quads once a week or twice a week because you know that as an active runner, you're beating your body up pretty good and that's just good preemptive work. You start to get a good foundation of what is normal for you. And all of a sudden you run one day and that knee's a little achy and you get on the foam roller and you're like, oh man, this is a little tighter than normal. That's going to allow you to make better decisions of your training the next day. And it's going to empower you to realize, hey, I can actually do something to make this pain go away with minimal interruption to my training.

But if I sort of close my eyes, put the earbuds in and just hope this goes away, that is a strategy that is not going to work for very long. Yeah. And I heard you say before on a different podcast that you said you have to earn the longer mileage, right? You do. You can't just blow into it. Yeah. I think the notion of earning your miles is important. It's similar. I know you said you've had Dan John in the past who does a lot of lifting. You know, he kind of says something similar about squatting, you know, for athletes who want to improve their squat. He's like, it's not going to happen overnight.

You got to keep showing up every day and do all the work needed to earn the right to get underneath that heavy barbell. You know, with social media these days and with things like Strava, you know, everyone's posting all their good runs and all their mileage. And it's easy to get caught up into the, you know, Susie is running 50 miles a week for this race. I should too. And it's easy to get pulled along further than what your body's willing to do. But if you have that conversation with your body each and every week, you can chug along at a pace that's appropriate for you and be just good. Yeah.

So how, what are some strategies then with like, I'm sure people that are beginning to start running or they're novice, they're hooked into these groups and the groups are going, you know, say the run today is 12 miles. That's just what they're doing. So if their ability to do 12 miles is not there yet, then what are some options that they possibly have to still go and socialize and so on to just don't go that far? So in certain respects, that might mean a little bit of planning, figuring out and being preemptive in terms of like, is that the right group for me? Are there ways that I can start with everyone and cut a little bit shorter?

There's a group that I run with in Marin County a fair amount at the San Francisco Running Company. And they're a bunch of mountain goats and mountain runners. And, you know, they do runs on a whim between 12 to 14, 15 to 17 miles. Right now I'm getting ready for a 50k trail race. So I'm in shape to hang, to swing with them. But other times of the year, I don't, you know, so I either run on my own another time or I'll start with them, maybe run with some other friends to catch up and just work on doing a shorter loop. So I think what's important is that we have to take ownership there just because the group is doing something does not necessarily mean that it's perfectly 100% okay for yourself.

Okay. And how about with, I'm sure beginner or novice, they're concerned about their pace or I know a lot of people want to run with someone who's a little faster than them so they can get a bit, so they can get, so they can get faster. How, I mean, do you have any feelings on that in regards to injuries or hamstrings or anything like that? I do. I think that running, especially with new runners who especially get in a little bit, who get stuck a little bit of a rut sometimes, they run the same route with the same people or they start to get those easy improvements in the first, you know, six to eight weeks of training. But then after a while, all the low hanging fruit has been plucked and they have to start to, you know, work a little harder. You know, introducing a day of some sort of speed work is great.

A lot of fast running, especially on the hamstrings can be really, really hard. As soon as you start going faster, the impact on the body's greater, your stride length is greater, and that puts a lot more work on the hamstrings themselves. So one of my favorite, you know, lower impact introductory speed sessions is to do short focused hill repeats. And they don't have to be the longest in the world. They could be one minute or less. And you work on running up the ground meets your feet. So you're not seeing the same impact there. And it's so great for getting the rear wheel drive activated and engaged, which is, you know, your hamstrings and your glutes. It also promotes a bigger arm swing because we have to use those arms to get up the hill and a little bit of a quicker cadence and turnover. So there are a lot of things I like about uphill running that not only promotes better technique, better cadence and turnover, lower impact, and great engagement for hamstrings and glutes and to do it all safely.

Oh, good tip. This might seem like a silly question. So then do you want them to run down or walk down? That's a great question. So downhill running is its own, you know, kettle of fish, so to speak. I would say for the uphill running intervals, if you're new, you know, jog lightly downhill. Don't really push it. There are times when you can, you know, actually work specifically on your downhill running. And that's actually something I'm doing right now for, for my trail running this fall, where I'm actually really pushing the pace on downhill runs, working on the technical aspects of it and dealing with the speed and the impact. And man, that's a, that's a workout in and of itself.

But again, that's something you can work into. But for this, if you're new, I'd focus more on working your way up and just being kind of light and easy and safe on the way down. Do you, I know you've got a bunch of videos. Do you have a video on uphill running? I know I saw a downhill one. We do. Yeah, we have a few uphill running workouts. I think we probably have two or three. One that explains the mechanics, one that has some good uphill, like workouts. Another one where, and this is great actually for beginner runners who, let's say you're going back to that 12 mile run and you really want to extend and try it. You know, this is where I would consider bringing a run walk strategy into the equation. Um, and I listened to Jeff Galway at a, at a talk a couple of years ago.

And one of the things that I thought was really cool that Jeff was doing was, and I don't know if you realize this, but he basically just discovered that runners would not feel as beat up doing the same distance doing a run walk than if they just ran the whole time. Yeah, I believe that. And of course, and, but what's interesting to me, the way my brain works is, well, why, what is it about the run walk? If the distance and the impact was the same that led to less soreness and you could say, okay, less physiological fatigue, right? My heart rate's not quite as high. I'm not jacking myself that way. But the other thing I realized was like, you know, these walk breaks are acting as resets for my run mechanics so that I could string together smaller doses of really good running and not be as beat up. Cause when I run consistently the whole time, my, uh, my dog may bark at the mailman in a second. So just if you hear a little barking in the background, that's just Nora. German shepherd. I'm going to go with German shepherd. She's got a little German shepherd in her for sure. Oh, you, you picked her up with a pound. She's a, you got a mutt? Yeah. She's a little rescue dog, Nora. She went running with us this morning. We had a good seven miles in. So normally she's, she's napping, but the mailman woke her up. Um, so, uh, anyway, back to, uh, mini breaks, mini resets of, yeah. Yeah. Mini resets of form. There we go. So what I thought was so cool about this was like, wait a minute, these walking breaks, if you do them right, actually allow you to kind of reset your running, reset your shoulders, your arm swing, your breathing, everything so that what you're effectively doing is stringing together higher quality doses of good running mechanics.

And I think that is what's really helpful for, for minimizing that impact on the body. And when we start running further, I kind of relate it to like how we start in an airplane seat. If we're flying cross country, you know, we, we might be all upright, our posture might be great, but you know, after 30 minutes or an hour, we're a little slumped and hunched over. And then a couple of hours, we're like leaning our head on the guy next to us and we're like drooling. And then we get off the plane. And because our body has been pretzeled into this weird, awkward shape, we feel terrible. Well, in a micro way, I feel like that happens to us on our runs.

So you're saying we should go for more pee breaks maybe while on the plane? Or not a bad thing. You know, some of the things that I like to add rather than just walk, if I'm, you know, into, uh, like I have to run, you know, 20 to 22 miles with a whole lot of vert this weekend is, you know, at the top of those climbs, I will stop and I'll work on some leg swings and, you know, maybe just one or two squats just to open up my hips and ankles again and then, and then keep running. You know, I heard you say that earlier on podcast is because I haven't actually heard anyone say it before, but I've heard him say it during like workouts or lifting is like, you get, you're taking your mini breaks, but you're, most people seem very, uh, dependent upon what their Garmin or Strava says like, cause they're telling their friends at their pace, but they, I mean, that's going to affect their pace. Is this a mental thing for people? Are they willing to do this thing? You know, dude, there's a beautiful thing called auto pause on the Garmin. No one has to know. Um, you know, it's, it's one of those things we do get caught up. Um, but, uh, I think that if it bothers you, you know, pause it and, and do your stuff and then, and then keep going for sure.

But the, the mechanics thing, and this goes back to the earn your miles part, you know, I've been rebuilding my running cause I've just been building my business the last couple of years. So there's a couple of years in there where I really wasn't running that much at all. And now I'm just getting to the point where I'm running like, you know, between 40 to 50 miles a week or more. And so it took a while to get back there. And I really noticed my difference. It's like, you know, when I, when you met me seven years ago, you know, I was running like a one 24 half off the bike in an Ironman or, or in a half Ironman. And I'd run when I qualified for Kona, you know, like a three 19 marathon off the bike in, in a full Ironman.

And so I, I'd done a lot of fitness and now, uh, you know, but I, I had built that for like seven or eight years, you know, long time. And now I'm just rebuilding my run foundation where, you know, just today I ran the seven mile loop. I ran it with some friends, lots of Hills. We've used this as like a baseline run. We do every Wednesday. I remember I'd run with these guys in the summer and it crushed me. And today it was like nothing, totally fine. Good posture, good technique. But I was fighting so hard earlier. And during those earlier things, like I needed more breaks, I needed to pay attention that much more to my mechanics. Now it's a lot more internalized so that I can just enjoy the run and, and be with my buds.

Yeah. So it sounds like then, and I know when seven years ago, your mentality was probably a little bit different, but I know that, um, I feel this way. I still, I play baseball now. I play baseball on Sundays. It's my thing. Oh, cool. And I see like some of the guys I'm playing with, like some of them have like double knee replacements. Some are, uh, so they all bandages and not on. I mean, it sounds like I'm just playing with like a crippled league, but some of them are pretty good. Yeah. But they're all kind of like, some of them have come to terms that this is their physical state and they're just happy being out there and being with friends.

Um, I'm not quite there yet, but as I have more injuries, these little things here and there, I'm like, crap. Like, I almost wonder that is your, like part of like your identity and who you are, like if it encompasses being a good athlete, when that goes away or you have the, these injuries like this, does that affect your mental attitude? You know, like when you had it seven years ago? Oh, I was depressed like nothing else. And the, the worst feeling about the attitude is potentially a sense of, uh, of helplessness in, in the mix. Um, you know, we, we like things that are risky in general, right? Because anything that has high risk has an equally high reward on the other side.

Got it. The low risk things aren't as exciting because there's usually low reward on the other side. Um, what happens though, is that if we don't adjust and recognize that the risk exists and account for it, when we start losing the reward, you know, we really get, we really get bummed out. And, you know, that's with, you know, like adults playing soccer and cutting and jumping and moving around a lot, trying to play with your kids and, you know, you're a desk jockey all day. And all of a sudden you're like running around in the backyard trying to throw a Frisbee and lunge for soccer ball. It's like, yeah, you gotta, you might want to warm up those hammies a little bit before you start going crazy.

Well, um, so, so when, when you see beginning runners, then how often do they get an injury and how often do they mentally get defeated by that? So I think that beginner, beginner runners, it depends on when they're starting their running career. Um, a lot of people are using running to, to get back into training after like into their, like from in their thirties or the forties or fifties, they haven't done anything for a while and they're getting back in. If you're someone who has been doing a lot of other sports and you're pretty active and fit, that transition is going to go a little better. If you haven't really done anything and you're using running as your fitness vehicle to get back in, um, it can be a little bit more discouraging. But what I found is rather than tell them, say, Hey, you have to sit inside a recess while everyone else plays, um, outside. It's like, Hey, let's have you outside of recess with everyone else, but let's just give you a slightly different activity to do. So you can still be social exercising in your body and you can be addressing the potential injury and get back to running faster. Yeah. So, you know, with, with runners, when they don't have those tools, it's pretty rough, but when they do have those tools, once again, they have a way of, of learning something about themselves and getting stronger. And actually I just got this email this morning from one of our newer training club members. Um, you know, she said she just started running in, uh, April when she started, she couldn't do anything, no pushups, uh, no burpees, burpees. She couldn't hold herself up in a side plank. And when we go back to that running technique conversation and the injury conversation and the strength, we're saying, Hey, my run mechanics have to look the same at the end of the run as they do at the beginning. It doesn't matter how long the run is. And that's the strength that I need to maintain that technique. If you're someone who can't do one pushup that does not bode well for your ability to maintain your run mechanics for any distance run, you're going to start to erode and hips and knees and ankles are going to collapse. And then all the bad stuff starts to come in.

So when she came in, she's like, I couldn't do anything. I was super, super weak. Um, she went through one of our programs. This one happened to be the 30 day challenge where we integrate a lot of body weight strength training, you know, into a run program to where they would kind of alternate days of some strength training, some other days of running. So the run volume is a little lower than you see in a lot of other programs out there, but it also has a lot more strength and cross training built in. And so she finishes and she says, my goodness, I could barely run two miles in the beginning. I just ran my first 10 K I'm about trained for half marathon. I can do seven pushups.

I can do burpees and all this stuff. And she's like, Oh, and by the way, I'm 73 years old. Oh wow. God. And I was like, Whoa, I was thinking this is going to sound like ageism, but I'm surprised she, she found your program. Incredible. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was super stoked about that. Um, and that, you know, she went and tried it. Um, so what the reason why I liked that little story is that, you know, as a beginner runner doesn't matter where you are, you have the opportunity to build that athletic foundation. And it, it honestly doesn't take nearly as long as you think. And it doesn't even require any equipment. If you don't want to go to a gym, I don't like commercial gyms either. I would rather train outside. You can easily do that or in your living room. And, um, you know, the, the four movements that I like to start people with, and I feel like this is a good foundation. If the next question is like, okay, you're talking about strength, what movements should I cover? You know, my four basic ones that I like to start with are the squat and the pushup and the lunge and the burpee.

And, uh, I like them because they're all body weight. Uh, they're no equipment and it's a good mixture of upper body and lower body challenging your range of motion, your hips, knees, and ankles, getting you more onto one leg, uh, and learning how to be a little bit more coordinated with that burpee. And if you can start to put those things together, that's, you know, like the basic ingredients you want to keep in your kitchen for, for cooking anything. Yeah, it's just good. So it's, so included in that, so that 30 day challenges is mainly these four plus a handful of mileage. I'm guessing you split them up every couple of days or something like that, right? Or exactly. And, you know, we, we start to mix it up with, with a bunch of other things in there and, and, uh, put videos so that people actually get, you know, video coaching on, on, uh, and breakdowns on how to do these movements and also why they're important. You know, I don't want pushups I think for a long time and, and said, maybe you've seen this too. And this goes back to my, you know, early movements with the, uh, glute medius exercises. I was doing these exercises, but didn't really connect it to the outside stuff because it didn't, no one connected it for me. It says, just do this because it activates your glutes and you need your glutes for your running. But it's like, well, does that just magically happen? You know, are my hips, hips turned on now? Like, what do I do with my running form to make sure that happens? Does it fall away? Um, you can tell what type of athlete I was just by the type of questions I asked, but, um, you're one good injury away from being an elite athlete.

Exactly, man. And so, you know, I just, I always had these questions and I found that a lot of other people did too. And, you know, when I started to kind of put these explanations in my videos, it seemed to resonate with a lot of people just from a simple way of like, Hey, this is why we should hold our arms this way in a pushup because in a simple way, this is how it connects, say with our arms swing when we run. Yeah. Something like that. I, I think it's really important that, um, at least in my clinic here, I've, I really make an attempt to explain to people like why we're doing the exercise we are, because I, I, I mean, like you said, you end up doing some deadlifting. So we have a little bit of deadlift in here, squatting, lunging, pushing, pulling, things like that, you know, and then they're thinking, why are we doing this? I want to go run, you know, like what does this have to do with running? So I think you're right. Explaining it to them makes them feel like there's a purpose on it. So in your first 30 day right there, then how do you explain that a pushup is correlated to running? Cause they're probably thinking, well, this is, this is arm stuff. Why am I doing arm stuff? Why am I doing arm and upper body stuff?

Yeah. So the way I like to use the pushup is a way of developing, um, posture and arm swing and to a certain degree, breathing mechanics. We were talking before I started recording how everyone's interested in breathing now. You know, if I can start at the top of the pushup, that in essence is my plank. Can I show basic stability there? Can I keep my pelvis, uh, level with my butt squeezed so that that's strong and engaged? Do I know how to stabilize my shoulders so that I'm not collapsing through them? And when I do my pushup, I'm making sure that my elbows don't necessarily flare out to the side in that tradition, in that pushup that sometimes you see a lot of people do. I'll try to talk through this because when those elbows start to flare, my shoulders tend to internally rotate forward and collapse. And if you're not sure what that means, that was that thing we talked about earlier, huh? Totally. Exactly. That's what we're, it all comes back. Yeah. We need to do, I'll, I'll, you have a video on this, right? We do. Yeah. We have a great, uh, some great pushup videos explaining this. And what happens when those elbows start to flare out is that the upper back rounds. And this is this, like we're hardwired to understand movement. Like you can tell when someone is tired, right? You know, just like a friend of yours or anything, like you could see a runner who looks like they're struggling. Um, their head starts to swivel back and forth. They've got that pain look on their face. Like there's all these things we're intuitively hardwired to understand. And, you know, posture and body language is, is huge, right? So we know a lot of those things what they, what they mean. And, and they correlate with how we move when we do simple strength exercises, say like a pushup. Conversely, standing up tall, shoulders back and down, um, chin nice and aligned with the body and everything else. I'm nice and upright and erect that communicates something different altogether. That's a position we want when we run in essence.

So basically if I can learn how to do a pushup where I keep my elbows in by my side all the way through, not only is that promoting, uh, a better forward backward arm swing, it's promoting better, uh, posture and general position there. And then the other beautiful thing going back to breathing is that when I'm upright, my rib cage is a little bit more open. I can breathe better into my belly and my diaphragm. When I start to collapse, if you're listening to this right now in your car or at your desk and you find yourself a little hunched over your seat, you're probably not breathing into your belly at all because you can't because your diaphragm is a little bit shut off. Um, so all of a sudden I'm not able to breathe well in my body. Um, my hips aren't in a very good position. My arm swing is starting to go east, west and not north, south. My cadence starts to drop. I tend to over stride and all this bad stuff happens all because of this one darn upper body exercise. So in that respect, the pushups are huge, right? My ability to be upright when I run, my ability to relax my shoulders when I run, my ability to breathe well when I run, my ability to, to drive those elbows straight back behind me in a relaxed and fluid way. When I run that translates to better hip position, better hip stability, better cadence, better foot placement on the ground. Okay. So, um, I'm going to reiterate just this just to make sure cause I think it's important point there. So can you explain how to get good posture throughout the pushup throughout the rest of the day and how it correlates again to the, to running with good form and, and then correlate in the micro breaks that you spoke about the, uh, walk run? A hundred percent. So, so with, so with, uh, our pushup and anytime we're strength training, I have a coaching friend of mine who always likes to say that, you know, strength, what we're trying to do is exaggerate our athletic reality. We're trying to go through greater ranges of motion than we normally do. We're trying to handle a little greater load than we normally able to do. And if we do that, we build ourselves some sort of athletic buffer so that we can reach to the finish line without ultimately collapsing. Or we only collapse once we hit the finish line, not five miles before.

So that's where a lot of that strength comes in. When I stand up tall, gravity's pulling me down. I can work and support myself mostly just on structural alignment. When I get myself in that pushup, position, all of a sudden I've got that gravity working in a way that I have to muscularly stabilize everything. So there's that exaggeration right there. And that's why things like a basic plank are important. Okay. Teaches me how to stabilize my shoulders better. Um, I have to engage my, my abs, my abdominals a little bit better, my back, my glutes, my quads, my hamstrings, everything has to fire to create stability in the system. So then I'm this long, like rigid plank position.

Okay. So it sounds like you're saying that running is not just a leg based activity. No, exactly. Okay. So I want to make sure to clear yes and no on that one. There we go. Yeah, yeah, of course. Um, you know, and then, you know, with, with the pushup itself, I'm just adding a little bit of strength and skill there by adding a little movement, your ability to lower yourself to the ground and press back up while keeping your ears, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles aligned. And you better believe how hard this is. Um, I worked with a, um, Olympic level cyclist, uh, for a couple of years. She, uh, had gone to the London Olympics. Uh, she wrote in Rio this last round. And, uh, a couple of years ago, she was fourth in the world championships for a time trial and she was just off the podium by, you know, a couple of tenths of a second, not by a lot of time. And her coach and her came to me cause she was struggling with stabilizing her hips and her shoulders in this time trial position, which is a very bent over position, which almost looks like you're, you're on a plank on your elbows. When we bring her to the gym and do very, very basic assessments on strength and stability, this cyclist, one of the best in the world could not do two pushups. Wow.

And partly because she did the cycling specific things. She was traveling through Europe all the time. She was on her bike a lot. Yeah, she was very strong on the bike, but she was very weak elsewhere. And her general athletic foundation eroded to the point that she could no longer support herself well in a time trial position. She couldn't produce the power up to her potential and she was off the podium. So what was your goal for her at that point? So the goal for her was just to get back in touch with her body in a more general athletic way without getting, uh, without doing stuff so aggressively that would get in the way of her cycling training. And the, the sessions were not super, uh, aggressive, but they were a lot of basic movements, you know, squats, pull-ups, uh, pushups, a lot of tempo work where things were very slowed.

So she could show me control all the way through and just get her brain connecting to her body. Uh, she is a good athlete. So she does respond well and fortunately did not take that long to get her back on her bike and, and responding well. Um, but I bring that up because cyclists and runners aren't that different. And in a pushup, it's the simplest movement, but it is the ugliest ugliest thing. When you bring a bunch of people onto the ground, you'll start to see everything come out. Chins start to go out, the low back arches, elbows start to flare. You know, I can learn a lot about a runner or anyone just by watching them do a pushup, um, without them saying a word. And I think that's, what's so cool about some, you know, basic assessment movements. So conversely, this assessment is a, is also a really powerful training tool.

Yeah. I actually, um, I think it was Dan John that said there were people like to do a hungry cow pushups where their head just kind of like drops to the ground. Exactly. Exactly. That's a great hungry cow pushups. Exactly. They're just like, I can't lower myself, but if I drop my chin, I feel lower than I actually am. Um, you know, so, so to tie that back to the, the, the, the run breaks, you know, we can't hold a plank for forever. I haven't met the person yet who can do that. And what that means is that we all have a point of failure. Our goal in terms of getting stronger is to one recognize where our current point of failure is work on training to push it out and then have a strategy in the moment when you reach that point of failure to recognize it and figure out how to give yourself a little break or a reset so that you can start over again. And that's where that little walking break, or we actually have a video where you run and you stop and you do some air squats or something else and you keep going as a, as a, that mini break.

So instead of doing one five minute long plank, that might be impossible. You might have a better luck stringing 10, 30 second planks together. Yeah. You know, I, I, I think that you probably passed every AP exam you took that was an essay version, right? Just like ad lib an essay, put these four concepts together. I did. Okay. I did. Okay. Um, that was a great answer by the way. Um, I didn't know if you knew where I was going to go with that, but that's great. The, so I, I, I want to make sure that everyone realizes since we've been talking about a lot of strength stuff, a lot of form things, micro breaks, things like that. So when you say you keep, you're talking about athleticism and versus just being a runner or just being a distance athlete, um, are there things that you would expect, uh, every runner to do regardless of if they, their friends do it, if the rest of their group does it in regards to just kind of the normal running culture. I know they don't do a lot of things, which you probably want them to do, but can you address some of those things? Sure. Um, in terms of, you know, what runners should do when they show up for run and, and you know, what our, our culture and community says, you know, I've given a, I've given a lot of thought to this, especially when you see certain coaches, uh, sometimes get frustrated.

It's like, I just wish my runners like strength train more. And I wish they understood. And it's like, why don't these guys do this? And, and physical therapists and physical, Oh, this is so obvious. Why aren't these guys doing this? And it's just not connecting. And one of the reasons why I think that's potentially the case, um, is that, you know, as much as we like to think we are the, the leaders, um, it's really the culture and the community that is the number one teacher for all runners out there. And it's a very, very powerful, um, very powerful teacher, you know, so much so that when you're that new runner and you show up to a run, you might look around and be like, Hey, uh, people have visors on, I'm wearing this like weird hat. Okay. That's, that's maybe something I should try next time in this weather. Oh, they're wearing these, you know, like lighter, thinner shirts.

I'm wearing this like heavy cotton thing. Okay. Maybe I should wear different apparel. Oh, we're doing a longer run. And these guys have brought a water bottle with them. Oh, that's a cool water bottle that has a little hand strap. Like you learn all of these things and just absorb just by being around your community. The, the problem with that is that you also don't learn the things that they don't bring in front of you. So most of the time when runners go out the door and I ask them what type of warmup they do, for example, they, they just sort of shrug their shoulders and they just start to run. And they say, yeah, that's what I do. And then what do you do after the run? It's like, well, I just stop and I go out through my day or maybe I'll stop and try to stretch my calf.

Cause it feels a little funny. But the reason why they do that is because, Hey, I go to this run and there's all these great runners. They're all more experienced than me. And everyone's just talking and, uh, their arms are crossed and they're just kind of, you know, shooting the breeze. So maybe this is the world-class runner warmup. We stand around to talk with our arms crossed. Great. I'm a new runner. I'm going to do that too. And the way the power of community works is that you've shown up for a couple of years now, all of a sudden new runners go to you and you're like, Hey, new runner, I was like you one day and I learned how to warm up. Let me show you how to warm up too. I'm going to cross my hands, cross your right arm over your left arm, shift over to your left foot. And, uh, we're, we're good to go. Um, lateral lunges, warm up the glute med, sexy stuff, sexy stuff. So what's interesting there. And the reason why I like to bring that up is, is, uh, you know, trying to make bigger changes in the running community. I would love to show up where, you know, new runner comes in and you see this whole group of runners, you know, adding some sort of leg swing in there, some sort of squat, some sort of pushup. It almost doesn't matter what it is, but they're doing something dynamically to open up their hips and shoulders. And it's not just the weird guy in the corner. And when you're new runner, you're like, Oh, what did runners do for warmups? Oh, they do all this stuff. Okay. I'm just going to fall in line and do this too.

And then all of a sudden I'm learning this and absorbing it and, and we're gravy. Okay. So with your, with your community, I know you've got a big Facebook community, um, and you, all your YouTube videos, you're kind of taking a nick at this thing. I think a little bit. Yeah, we're definitely taking a crack at it. Um, you know, what's fun is I, we did this at the Boston marathon this year and, and, uh, we're going to be at the New York city marathon in a couple of weeks, uh, from when we recorded this thing. Um, and we're actually going to meet in central park and we're going to try to get a group of 30 to 50 runners together and lead them through an actual warmup for their run and then go for run and have a good time. And any runner who stops and wants to join and check out, they can jump right in and, and, and do it. And we're, we're online and dispersed and we're all over the country and we've got runners in countries all across the world and we've got some great connections there, but it's really fun and really powerful to get runners together and doing stuff together.

Yeah. Do you, do you ever think the stuff that you wear during your videos could be interpreted as the new running attire, like flat bill hats and like stunning shades and stuff? Who knows, you know, like flannel shirts and, and khaki shorts, you know, that's just, that's how you do it when you do these long things. Yeah. Right. All you got to do is start wearing, um, have in your mustache, put that little wax and like twirl, twirl the ends. You're going to bring that stuff back too. Oh man, so you're giving me all these ideas. Hipster, hipster running. We can do it. You know, you know, I bet if you took like a panel to see what people wanted you to do with your facial hair, I bet that'd be a really popular, uh, survey and a video.

Oh my goodness. I'm, I'm, I'm semi-afraid to open up that Pandora's box to see what we get. Well, I think you're lucky that my viewership isn't as, uh, isn't as high nor probably active at giving comments as your YouTube community. So you probably won't get any suggestions yet on it. And fortunately with the podcast, you can't see the beard. So we'll, we'll keep that for there for now. I know. Well, so, um, I guess as we start to finish up here, can you give me a couple of hacks, a couple of life hacks that runners should know? Maybe two, and then we'll figure out how to contact you and where you're running at in San Francisco.

Perfect. So I would say, um, the number one hack, uh, let's say you're running, you have a 30 minute run planned or 40 minute run planned. Um, you will be better off running for 27 minutes and stopping in the beginning for three minutes, you know, to work on 10 squats, 10 pushups, 10 leg swings on either side. And if you start to layer that in, those 10 pushups build up and you're maintaining this athletic foundation and sneaking a little strength in, especially if you're someone who feels time limited and you don't really have time to go to the gym. Of course, you could also stop for that three minute break or even shorter break, do that stuff and still get your full three, uh, 30 minute run in. So you're, you're going for 33 minutes as opposed to, as opposed to 30, but push come to shove that little mini strength mobility break is going to do you a huge service in the long run, way more than that three minutes of extra running.

So that, well, actually before we do the second hack then, so is that extra two minutes you get three minutes of sleep? Is that kind of like, actually I take it back. Would you sleep another two minutes if you weren't doing two minutes of planks in the morning? You know what, Seb, I don't think anyone has ever juxtaposed those two things in front of me. Well, you have to depend on my mood. Oh, it might depend, you know, if I want to do that sleep that day, that extra two minutes or those two minutes of strength stuff. You know, I, I challenge you to, to record GoPro of your, of your morning ritual to see if you can get out sooner.

I think it could. I think I could. We'd like to have a little, you know, it's, it's a little relaxed. It's not super rushed. You kind of find that right gear to start off the day where it's not too hectic. I definitely, as I, I'm not, I'm not old by any stretch, but I get a little older. I find I like a little bit more time in the morning to wake up and become a human being before I talk to people. I used to wake up like five or 10 minutes before I had to do anything. Uh, and now it's like a little closer to like an hour. Yeah, I'm the same way. I got to have that morning ritual, got to stare at the wall for a little bit, you know?

Totally. Um, and, um, life hack number two. Uh, that would be a Netflix and mobilize. So yeah, you know, the end of the day, sometimes we don't have, uh, sometimes when we, you hear tips like this, it can feel stressful because you're like, I know that this is important and I should get this in. I just don't know where to do it. I don't have extra time in the day to stop and do this mobility session. And it's like, you're right. You don't. So try to ease this in and, and, um, you know, get this to be combined with something that is, you know, kind of happy and relaxing and good vibes for you. You know, so I kind of joke, you know, you got a beer in hand, a glass of wine in hand, your favorite Netflix show at the end of the day. Um, you're just chilling on the couch. You might as well be rolling out that cap a little bit or working on that quad a little bit. And if you, you do it enough, it becomes a habit where it's not this exhausting mental decision you have to make. You just do it. And then if you just do it all the time, you don't have to think about it that much. And all of those sessions add up.

I like that. Um, actually, so then before we learn how to contact you, I'm going to guess and then you can correct me. I think the last thing you Netflix and stretch to was Boone the bounty hunter. Boone the bounty hunter. I don't know what that is. You need to watch that. It is amazing. Okay. I found it on accident because I was looking up Kevin, uh, uh, sorry, uh, Kevin Spacey. Okay. And I didn't land on Kevin Spacey. I landed on Kevin Sorbo. Okay. So I went into Kevin Sorbo and I was like, that looks like Kevin Sorbo in younger years because he's just jacked out of his mind. And it wasn't, it was Boone the bounty hunter.

Amazing. Okay. Well, I've got a new Netflix show to watch then. I'll have to go check that out. It's a movie. It's a one-time deal. So don't burn it all at one time. Okay. I'll, I will, I will save it for a good night. Yeah. Uh, how can everyone reach you and can they run with you if you're in San Francisco? Oh my goodness. Please do. I actually, um, am on, I'm running in different places in the Bay area. I'm running a trail program right now. Uh, it's really for this fall, but we meet on, uh, Saturday mornings at different areas, uh, in the city. The best way would be to reach out to me personally. You can always email me Nate at the run experience.com. Um, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel, the run experience, which you can find there.

We've got, you know, three to four plus videos coming at each and every week on, on every running topic you would find helpful. Plus we got a live show in there, which is a lot of fun, uh, at the run experience on, uh, Instagram, uh, as well. And, uh, we'd love to see you there. I'll tag all these in the show notes. Um, and there is a program people can get from you. There is. So we have, if you want a free program, uh, you can go to our website, the run experience.com. And there is a place to get a two week quick start program that includes those four strength movements I talked about, as well as one of my favorite things on the planet, the nose breathing mile challenge. And, uh, all you need to do is enter your name and email and I'll be able to send that to you. And we have, uh, some bigger, heavier hitting programs that have a coaching from us. Uh, you get plugged into our community. So you get to talk and work with other runners all over the world and train for anything from, you know, a 30 day beginner running program training for say a 5k all the way up to half and, and full marathon programs. And that is called our training club. Good. Okay, cool. Okay, everyone. That was Nate Helming again.

Thank him. Go onto his, go onto his site, check out the stuff that he has. That's the run experience.com. Now, if you're looking for the show notes of any of the, uh, studies or the articles or the videos that we spoke about, um, all you have to do is go to p2 sports care.com slash podcast slash then add a pound or hashtag, whatever age group you are. I have no idea. And then put the session number that you're listening to. Just look at your phone. You'll see a session number. All right, go on there. You'll get all the stuff right there. Next, if you really could, if you listened this far, you heard, you probably heard something good from this podcast. So please go on iTunes, just scroll all the way down if you're on your phone. And there's an area where it has reviews. You'll see how these stars crossing there. Pick how many stars you want. Just drop me. It doesn't have to be long. Just tell me what you liked, what you didn't like. What could I, what can I improve on? Who you want to hear next?

How it impacted your life. That's really, really, really what I want to know. Lastly, if you are a doctor, a PT, um, a chiro, an MD, a trainer, so on, if you want that patient education stuff that I spoke about, um, on all the other podcasts and you want the graphics, you want these podcasts organized for you so you can share with people, just go into p2sportscare.com slash shop and you'll be prompted, put it, prompted to put it in your email and you will get the stuff as it comes out. All right. Lastly, be good to each other. Okay. The golden rule is, it's the golden rule for a reason. It's a golden rule. Treat others how you want to be treated. And remember, it's not what you take, it's what you leave. Let's leave, uh, everyone better than how you found them. Peace out. Talk to you soon.