Strength Training for Endurance Athletes, Part 2: Movement Patterns and Muscular Balance

In the first installment of this series I talked about the most important thing you can do to increase performance and longevity if you are an endurance athlete or any athlete for that matter.  And that is to address your issues concerning tissue quality, mobility, and stability.  These form the base that all other athletic qualities are built on.  This is not to say that the most time should be spent on them, but if you have issues with them get a handle on them and then move on to fun stuff.  It’s like eating your vegetables before you can have your dessert.

This installment is going to address the middle of our pyramid; Movement Patterns and Muscular Imbalances.  As we saw the first installment these two qualities are very much intertwined with each other.  Due to this it is difficult and unnecessary to train each in isolation even though that is how I am going to present them.  Oftentimes you’ll pick an exercise that addresses one in earnest but still contributes to improving the other.

Movement Patterns

If I could impart one piece of advice to newcomers to endurance athletics it would be this; seek out someone who is very good at what you want to do and have them teach you the finer points of what it is you are doing.  Things like running, swimming and biking seem like innate skills that everyone should know how to do.  On one side of the coin this is true.  Most of us have been running since before we could remember, learned to ride a bike when we were 4 or 5, and can swim a few meters without drowning.  But on the other side of the coin there is a huge skill gap between “learning” these activities as kids and being smooth, efficient, and good at them as athletes/adults.  And it’s this skill gap that can lead to problems.

Running, biking, swimming, and all other endurance sports are movement skills that must be trained to be proficient at.  It is not my area of expertise to assess running, biking, or swimming mechanics.  What I can do is assess the movements that all humans should be able to perform with proficiency and inform you where you have opportunities for improvement.  It is then up to the individual to take the improved human movements and apply them to their sport of choice.  Improving the movement of a 4:00 marathoner won’t turn them into a 3:00 marathoner, but they do have one more piece of the puzzle in place to get there.

I recently assessed an Ironman competitor and Kona qualifier (big league of Ironman), and marathon runner.  When you look at the list of his finishing times it looks great.  But when you look at his assessment sheet it tells a different story.  He also has a recent history of bulging discs in his low back from a recent injury while attempting to pick up a guitar.

I will not say that what I saw in the assessment caused his injury, but it is something to definitely keep in mind.  This is that whole longevity thing I’m talking about.  Injuries eat up valuable training time and decrease enjoyment of activity.  Fewer injuries equals more years and more enjoyment.    

Now, beyond running, swimming, and biking there are a few basic human movements that all athletes need to not only be able to do, but need to be strong in as well.  Numero Uno is and always will be the squat.  And one of the best diagnostic tools is to watch and unloaded (using a PVC pipe or wooden dowel) overhead squat.

You can tell a lot about an athlete’s current state just by watching them overhead squat.  Each fault is like a clue into not only how they perform when in motion and under load but also how you can improve that performance.  The reason that the overhead squat is great for this is that its performance requires mobility, joint stability, and coordination throughout the entire body.

The other basic movements beyond the squat that should be trained and done well are the hip hinge or dead lift, the push up and the chin up.  This article would turn into a book going through the finer points of each so I've attached a few quick videos below.  But the importance of being competent in these movements cannot be understated.  Get good at them, get strong at them, be a better athlete.

Movement and Pain

As I discussed in the previous installment chronic (not from an impact injury like a broken bone or sprained ankle) musculoskeletal pain is the end result of dysfunction somewhere down the line, not necessarily at the source of the pain.  But now that you have an injury/pain there are a few things that need to be done.

1. Find the source of your dysfunction.  This may take some trial and error.  One thing that I will caution against is trying every possible solution at once.  If you do this you won’t know what got you better. 

2. Keep doing what got you better.  That last sentence is in bold for a reason.  I've seen dozens of cases where an athlete has an issue, gets prescribed a remedy, pain dissipates, remedy is ceased, pain comes roaring back.  You might want to put your sunglasses on and pull out your voice recorders because another bold statement is coming at you. The cessation of pain is not the end of your rehab.  I’ll say it a little louder.  THE CESSATION OF PAIN IS NOT THE END OF YOUR REHAB! This brings me to point #3.

3. Pain causes compensations in movement that do not disappear when the pain disappears.  Have you ever seen someone hurt some aspect of their lower body and walk with a limp?  Have you ever seen them limp long after the injury has healed?  There is an evolutionary reason for this.  Back in the old days if we got hurt our bodies didn't say, “Alrighty, that sprained ankle sure does hurt something fierce.  Why don’t we take the next few days off, ice it, and we’ll see what it looks like after some rest.”  Uh, no.  If that happened we wouldn't have made it long as a species.  When we got injured our bodies did some quick rewiring so that we could keep moving to prevent A) starvation or B) getting eaten by saber-toothed tigers.

But being the scumbag frat bro that the human body is, it doesn't go back to the previous movement pattern once our pain disappears.  It got comfortable in its new movement pattern and damned if it’s going to change now.  I can usually tell when someone has had a previous lower body injury.  A history of sprained ankles is usually the easiest to see.

And as we discussed in the first installment, faulty movement patterns, whether they are in the form of running, walking, biking, lifting, or living are going to lead to their own new problems down the road.  As in the example above we all know the person who limps long after their injury is healed.  And it’s always that same person that then starts to complain about something else, usually on the opposite side of the injury.

If you’re injured or have pain you have to look at it with the big picture in mind.  Focusing solely on the pain is too myopic to be effective.  This is why I tell all of my athletes braces, especially for the ankle and knee, should be last on their list of remedies.  Treat the cause, not the symptom.

Muscular Balance

There main two components to muscular balance are size and strength.  As endurance athletes size is not what you are going for, but strength is.  Having either a front/back or left/right discrepancy, or a little of both, is a killer to performance for a variety of reasons.  From a decrease in efficiency to low power output to injury, addressing muscular imbalances is a must.

Now, when addressing muscular imbalances the main areas of concern are the hips and the shoulders.  Everything runs through these two complexes, especially the hips.  If something is off in the hips you will usually find something off somewhere else.

The Hips: Follow the Pelvis

Side View

The pelvis is the big, wing-like bone that connects the legs to the spinal column via the hips.  Any time we move our bodies forward force goes through the pelvis and up into our upper bodies.  When assessing the hips you are looking at where the ilia and their components are in relation to each other. 

The most common tilt is one to the anterior (front).  This is when the pelvis is pulled forward and down creating a hyper-lordotic curve.  It’s kind of like always being a little bent back.  Not good for the spine.  This is caused by the hip flexors shortening and the glutes and hamstrings not having the strength to pull the pelvis back into place.  Having short, tight hip flexors and weak glutes and hamstrings are symptoms of front side dominance during activity and excessive sitting during inactivity.  The hip flexors get used a lot and the hip extensors not so much.  Over time the imbalance develops.

Left: Proper pelvic alignment.  Right: Anterior pelvic tilt.

There is also a left/right imbalance that can occur.  This is when one side of the pelvis rides higher than the other.  The cause of this is usually more complex than one side is tight and the other is weak.

One thing to remember when looking at the hips is that, due to the interconnectedness of the human body, imbalances in the hips will affect and influence the position of the shoulders.  With the anterior tilt of the pelvis comes a shortening of the rectus abdominus (six pack muscle) which pulls the rib cage forward and down.  Big picture is if you find something wonky (medical term) in the hips you’ll more than likely find something wonky somewhere else.

The Shoulders

The same thing is seen through the shoulders.  Excessive slouching and internal rotation of the humerus- as seen in people who sit and reach a lot- and not enough strengthening of the upper back create kyphosis.  Extreme examples are seen in people who appear to hunchbacked.

In the upper back there is a lot going on what with having the whole floating bone/socket joint thing.  I’m talking about your scapula AKA the shoulder blades.  The scap’s main jobs are to connect the arm to the torso via the shoulder socket and to buffer and protect the shoulder from dislocation.  We have a very high degree of freedom in our shoulders which leaves it vulnerable to dislocation.  Where the hip has a deep socket and the strongest muscles of the body to keep it in place the shoulder has a shallow socket and relatively weak muscles keeping it on lock down.  When we throw an object, perform a pressing movement, or pull our arm through space the shoulder blade moves to prevent the humeral head from slipping out the back side.

People who have kyphosis and shoulder pain often have dysfunctional scaps.  Most often they are stuck in place and have a hard time sliding with the movement of the upper arm.  This problem is a common one is swimmers and dentists.  Swimmers because they are constantly using the front side musculature (pecs and anterior deltoids) and dentists because they are constantly hunched over with their arms extended in front of them.

The Fixes

Luckily, these issues have relatively simple fixes.  Enter the glute extension, the face pull and their numerous variations.  The exercises are not a panacea for their respective imbalances.  You still need to learn to squat and do pull ups and chin ups and all the rest, but they go a long way to help sort the issues out.  They are best used for activation and maintenance of strength, although they can be used to build strength if you are starting from a very low level to begin with.

These can also be done lying flat.  However you do them your goal to squeeze your butt cheeks like you are trying to crack a walnut.

Don't just pull your hands back with these.  Pinch your shoulder blades together, then pull with your elbows.

Along with the exercises there is usually mobility work that needs to be done on the front side.  In the hips it is usually the quads, hip flexors, and adductors that are tight.  In the shoulders you’re going to want to show some love to your pecs and lats and ensure they have proper mobility through stretching and myofascial release.

Doing one or the other is never as effective as doing both.  If you only stretch you've got no strength on the other side to hold your new mobility in place.  Your tight muscles will just get tight again.  If you only try to strengthen what’s weak you’ll be fighting a losing battle to get the full range of motion and the full benefit.  Do both and you’ll be so much better for it.

The Wrap Up

As an endurance athlete the topics in this article should be the bread and butter of your strength training program, especially the muscular balance aspect.  You should strive to perfect the basic human movement movement patterns so that they become automatic but because of the highly repetitive nature of endurance athletics training them under load is extremely important.  Training these movements and being strong at them keeps your body in a healthy balance.  And being in balance is a recipe for success.

If it has been a few years since you've attempted a squat or any of the other basic movements, chances are your brain has rewired a new and incorrect movement sequence.  If you've ever seen a toddler squat down to play with something you realize that the ability to squat is something that we lose over time. 

This is why any time I work with new athletes, especially young athletes, my first mission is to get them to squat, push up, and perform chin ups properly.  I want these patterns to be so ingrained in how they move that they literally cannot perform them wrong.  And if they do I want them to look around and silently think to themselves, “Oh crap that squat was bad.  I hope Troy didn't see that.”

Like all things in the human body proper movement and muscular balance are so intertwined that you can't train one without effecting the other.  Strengthening your hips and hamstrings is going to have effects on your gait.  Training and improving your gait or swim stroke or pedal stroke while getting stronger is going to give you the most bang for your buck and help keep overuse injuries far far away.