When you wake up and see your scheduled training for the day, how do you know if your body is truly ready for it? Are you primed to get the most from those training sessions, or would you benefit from dialing it back — or even taking the day off?…
Research Says Two recent studies examine aspects of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S). A systematic review by Alberto Valiño-Marques and colleagues (2024) analyzed RED-S effects across 308 male athletes in 10 studies, finding that low energy availability was associated with reduced metabolic rate in some athletes and elevated stress…
Research Says A study titled “Live High–Train Low Guided By Daily Heart Rate Variability In Elite Nordic-Skiers” by Laurent Schmitt and colleagues (2018), published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, examined whether monitoring daily heart rate variability (HRV) could improve the effectiveness of altitude training in elite athletes. Twenty-four…
Research Says A study titled “Advanced Footwear Technology in Non-Elite Runners: A Survey of Training Practices and Reported Outcomes” by Matteo Bonato and colleagues (2024), published in Sports, examined how recreational runners use advanced footwear technology (AFT) shoes in their training. The researchers surveyed 61 non-elite runners who used AFT…
Research Says A new study, “The Impact of Advanced Footwear Technology on the Performance and Running Biomechanics of Mountain Runners” by Pedro Corbí-Santamaría and colleagues (2025), examined whether advanced footwear technology (AFT) improves mountain running performance. Testing 12 experienced male mountain runners on a 5.19 km course, researchers compared conventional…
Learn how to apply key ideas from sports psychology to optimize your endurance performance! Mental skills training isn’t just for elite athletes. It’s for anyone interested in optimizing performance. If you’re an endurance athlete looking to perform at your best — regardless of experience or competitive level — mental skills…
Let’s see if this sounds familiar. You decide to jump into a race during the winter as part of your training program. You prepare the same way you would for a summer race. But after you arrive at the race site in the morning and begin your warmup, you find…
What is the point of training with data? This question may not even seem worthy of discussion given the fact that training with data is something we simply do in the modern world. Of course we train with data. Why wouldn’t we? Data provides us with insight, knowledge, and neat…
The glute max, along with the hamstrings, act as primary hip extensors. And each step you take while running involves extension of the hips. In today’s world dominated by sitting, it is easy for the glutes to become neglected and underused. As a result, it is not uncommon for runners…
A common piece of advice given to runners is to “run tall.” To grasp what this looks like, imagine a straight line draw from your ankles through your ears. While running, you want to maintain a “tall” body position so that at full leg extension, a line runs more or…