Health / Sport
Running Man instalment six
Balance hedgehogs and butt electrocution: Mike White’s marathon training takes an unexpected turn
Suddenly, something is being stuck to my butt cheek. This something turns out to be a torture device called a Compex Muscle Stimulator. I can’t see what it looks like, but I can tell you what it feels like: very weird. A buzzing, tingling, low-level pain like super-intense pins and needles. And this is supposed to be good for me?
I’m back at The Running School Bristol with Head Coach Chris Kay, as he continues to share the secrets of successful marathon training. As we’ve discovered, being able to balance is key to running well. Any runner who wants to cover proper distances without injury will have to include strength work into their training sooner or later. I’ve definitely left it a bit late, but Chris is confident we’ll make it.
is needed now More than ever
As I warm up and show off my improving technique on the treadmill, he describes the four stages of learning to run properly:
- Unconscious incompetence, when you’re doing it wrong and don’t even know it
- Conscious incompetence, when you’re aware of the mistakes you’re making
- Conscious competence, when you’re doing it right, but you have to concentrate to keep it up
- Unconscious competence, when you can run with good technique without even thinking about it
The last of these, obviously, is the goal. “Practise makes permanent,” Chris says, as he shows me a fresh set of strength exercises to add to my daily ritual: doing ‘the plank’; endless single-leg dips with a medicine ball; balancing on one leg on a spiky rubber hemisphere known as a ‘balance hedgehog’. But the hardest of all is individual butt clenches. Clenching just one butt cheek at a time. I try and try but I can’t do it. I go away and practice every day, but it never gets easier.
Which is why I’m now being subjected to electro-shock therapy.
The Compex Muscle Stimulator is forcing one glute to work independently of the other. As the machine does its unpleasant work, I have to dip and rise on one leg. Eventually Chris says I’ve suffered enough. My right butt muscle feels weird for 48hrs afterwards. But at least now I can clench my glutes independently.
I ain’t no Beyonce, but hopefully I’m a better runner than I was.
The Running School Bristol offer a range of courses for everyone from recreational runners to elite triathletes. They also offer a specialist Marathon School course.