Muscle Tensions' Impact on Performance

‍

Endurance sport is often looked at through the lens of metabolism. Energy in → energy out → velocity. While this is certainly true, and the most important thing, we overlook the impact of mechanics and the nervous system and it’s impact on performance. Plenty of runners put in the necessary work to train their bodies to burn fuel faster, more efficiently, and for longer through hours, weeks, months, and years of training. But still, runners arrive on start lines feeling flat, dead legged, and without “snap” they may have felt during their training block. Trying to crack the code on how to help your legs actually feel good on race day is a dance that relies heavily on the nervous system (our brains’ connection with our muscles). The amount of tension in our muscles is heavily controlled by our nervous system, and this is usually what leaves runners feeling flat, or on the flipside, primed and ready to rip. 

‍

As long as we aren’t overtrained, we’re adequately fueled, and we’re rested coming into a race, our metabolic systems (how we burn fuels) aren’t usually why we might feel flat. Our metabolic systems are usually ready to turn the correct amount of carbohydrate and fat into ATP so that we can move our legs faster (if we’ve done adequate training). Regardless, it’s far too common to not have the necessary balance of muscle tension to feel good and perform on the day. The classic analogy is to think of your legs like a spring. You don’t want the spring to be too loose, otherwise you’ll be missing out on some free elastic energy from your tendons. You also don’t want your legs (the spring) to be too coiled up. You’ll be left tight and stiff, or feeling too bouncy, resulting in too much upwards motion, and not enough forward motion. Depending on the race distance (speed requirement), your muscle fiber balance (fast twitch/slow twitch orientation), and recent training inputs, you’ll need to adjust your training leading into a race to ideally prime your legs for performance. Generally speaking, for longer races, you’ll need to be a little less primed (lower muscle tension) because the speed isn’t as demanding for your nervous system. For shorter races, priming, and a higher level of muscle tension is required.

‍

So how do you go about telling if you have the “correct” level of muscle tension leading into a race? It’s important to develop the skill of feel and to take notice of how your legs feel on a regular basis. This is another reason why it is so important to consider feel when training. My athletes will tell you I don’t shut up about subjective feel and effort (more on that here), and I will die on this hill. Anyways…

‍

As we develop as runners, this skill inherently improves, but if you are more measured in this approach, you can draw meaningful conclusions. Questions like, “does my stride feel fluid,” “do I feel bouncy,” “how do my mechanics look/feel?” are all important to consider, and I recommend you make notes in your training log to track these. Since our nervous system is so plastic (malleable, changes quickly), changes to muscle tension can take place within very short time periods, a day or less even. This is why it’s so commonplace to do strides, or sprints, the day before a big session, or a race. This priming effect is raising your muscle tension from the monotony of slow mileage, to prepare your nervous system for the following days’ demand. Oftentimes you will see sprinters and throwers lifting fairly heavy the day before competition. This too, is priming your nervous system, and dialing in the correct amount of muscle tension. As an aside, since sprinting and throwing are much more explosive and nervous system reliant, this is where so much art of coaching comes from sprints/throws coaches. The changes in tension are so miniscule and so exact, but will lead to large percentage changes in performance. As distance running coaches, we have a little more wiggle room since the events our athletes are racing are less nervous system reliant, but considering muscle tension is still an important aspect of performance.

‍

After determining how your legs are feeling leading into a race or key workout, you can then use training tools as interventions to dial in your muscle tension. More often than not, you’ll need to increase your muscle tension to some degree. But sometimes for longer races, this isn’t useful. 

‍

Some easy ways to increase muscle tension:

• Strides after a run
  
  • 100-ish meters where you build speed for 30m, hold a fast, but relaxed rhythm for 40m, and decelerate slowly for 30m
• Hill strides
  
  • The same thing as strides, but slightly shorter, and up a hill. More potent than strides.
  • Ex: 5x10” hill @ 95% speed with 90”+ rest
• Light lift
• Plyometrics
• Drills
  
  • Skips, 

Ways to decrease muscle tension

• Slow easy miles
• Steady/threshold running
• Rest days 
  
  • I don’t recommend this the day before a race

‍

Utilizing some of these tools to prime your nervous system and increase tension the week of a race, and even throughout training to get the most out of your weekly sessions, is a small thing that can go a long way. Not only will your subjective feel of running improve, but you’ll be able to achieve more quality sessions/races, and also get a training stimulus for your fast twitch muscles.

‍

To finish, I will provide some specific general examples for how I typically apply these tools to influence athletes muscle tension. For most races 10km and under, I will have athletes do an easy jog the day before a race, or session, followed by a set of drills, and 4-6 x strides. This can change if athletes have specific sorenesses, are feeling unusual, or have had a large training stimulus in the last few days. For races however, we will always do something in the two days leading into a race to prime the system. For longer distance races, 10km+, I oftentimes will give the athlete a flush and priming session two days before the race. We’ll do 10-20’ at a steady rhythm (LT1 at fastest), followed by a few good strides to prime. The steady running will flush out and prepare the metabolic system, while the strides will influence the nervous system. The day before the race will then be just easy jogging, perhaps some light drills. 

‍

The important thing is to play around with these tools in training. Figure out what works for the individual, and apply these learnings to races. An athletes’ propensity for speed vs endurance (dominant fiber type) will also have a huge influence on priming. A faster twitch athlete will likely need slightly less priming, and a slow twitch athlete will likely need a bit more. But one also must consider each of these athletes strengths too. A slow twitch athlete has a higher chance to be left “dead legged” by speed work, and vice versa. Ah, the nuance of training. To summarize, subjective feel can give us insights into how, when, and what tools to use to then optimize our preparation for performance. The important thing is to equip yourself with the tools, and to systematically implement these tools. Be a scientist! But don’t forget about the artist.

‍