Get Stronger, Run Better: A Conversation with Jason Fitzgerald Strength Running Podcast

Ready to find out why your pain keeps coming back dispite trying everything?

Book a free Discovery Call here.

https://www.p2sportscare.com/webinars/ 

Guest Jason Fitzgerald - Strength Running Podcast https://strengthrunning.com/podcast/

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (00:02)
All right, welcome back listeners. This is Dr. Mandy Wayne Fan, now Dr. Mandy Real, for those who have heard my name before. thank you for joining the Movement Movement. Today we have a very special guest. This is Jason Fitzgerald, coach, strength training extraordinaire in the running field. So Jason, for those who don't know you, give us a little bit about yourself.

Jason Fitzgerald (00:22)
Well, thanks, Mandy. yeah, Jason Fitzgerald. I've been running for good lord, twenty seven years now, which which kind of ages me a little bit. I think I'm pushing twenty-eight years in in as a runner myself. I've been coaching since two thousand and ten and I also host the Strength Running podcast. yeah, I really just try to help runners achieve their potential and get their performances where they want them to be.

Jason Fitzgerald (00:50)
which is often not where they are, but hopefully through conversations like this we can help get runners over that hump and get them to where they want to be.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:00)
Totally. Yeah. For for those of you out there who found our podcast through kind of trying to run through an injury, fix an injury, this information today will be a really good bridge from, okay, I'm kind of sorting through the injury now what? How do I stay out of that? Of course, but what can strength training build for me apart from just, you know, fixing my foot pain, for example. so before we get started here,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:28)
We're gonna have a pretty general focus. So there's gonna be a lot of information in here. So I would recommend not skipping around too much because we may be referencing things that we talked about earlier in the podcast. So stick around through it all. We'll have a great little takeaways at the end of the show. but we're gonna go over a ton of fun stuff today.

Jason Fitzgerald (01:49)
Well, Mandy, I I also want to say not only am I excited, I'm a little bit jealous that you probably have a bigger Monstera behind you than I do.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (01:59)
It's it's taken some punishment over the years, but it's it's doing okay. It's about the size of covering up my maps, so I'm not gonna know what to do at that point.

Jason Fitzgerald (02:10)
Yeah, my mine is pushing seven or eight years old and it's also taking a little bit of abuse. It's not in the the best position right now, but you know, that that that's what you're gonna have to deal with when you're dealing with a jungle vine in your office.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (02:23)
Right,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (02:24)
right, yeah. It's my only couple plants in here that haven't died yet with my little window. So well

Jason Fitzgerald (02:30)
Yeah.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (02:30)
cool. So so Jason, you're in the strength training world. you are deep, deep in the strength training world for runners. as you mentioned earlier too, if you have not checked out the strength running program podcast, go ahead and check that out after the episode. It's fantastic. but Jason, how did you come to realizing that strength is important?

Jason Fitzgerald (02:53)
Well, I came to it through a lot of trial and error. it was because I was hurt all the time. You know, it really stemmed from

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (02:59)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (03:00)
my personal journey as a runner. You know, before I was a coach, you know, I I ran cross-country, indoor and outdoor track throughout high school and again at the collegiate level. And I I was a very injury prone runner, you know, with Achilles tendinopathy and plantar fasciitis and you know, all kinds of different strains and SI joint problems and

Jason Fitzgerald (03:22)
IT band syndrome. I mean, you name it, I've probably had the injury. And it wasn't until my first marathon, I ran the New York City marathon. And I realized afterward when I had started to, you know, try to return to running again after about a week off. And I I felt terrible. And pretty soon I developed a case of ITBS that laid me out for about six months. And I had to go to four physical therapists. And I was just seeing all these different people and and

Jason Fitzgerald (03:53)
Trying to leave no stone unturned on how to get past this injury. But then more importantly, not only just get healthy, but what do I do with my training after I get healthy so that I don't have to waste another six months sitting on my couch watching reruns of house because I

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (04:09)
Yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (04:10)
I'm just bored. I really just like to run and I want to get back out there and keep training. So it was a little bit of a process, you know, like I think at the very beginning of of that whole journey for me,

Jason Fitzgerald (04:22)
I started, you know, incorporating certain body weight, strength exercises, much more mobility work, doing some, you know, band work, medicine ball work, things like that, very running specific, so that I could, you know, get strong in a way that runners care about and that would actually help me stay healthy. and now that's evolved a little bit. You know, I still do a lot of that kind of work and I still prescribe it for my athletes as well that I coach and that I work with, but I'm also fully.

Jason Fitzgerald (04:52)
in recognition of how valuable weightlifting is in a gym. And yes, it's great for kind of building more durability, more resilience to injury, but in regards to your running economy and your performance and your body composition and all the other lovely things that we love about weightlifting, you know, there's a lot to love about it. And, you know, if you're any kind of performance oriented runner,

Jason Fitzgerald (05:17)
Which doesn't mean that you're a professional or anything. It just means that, you know, you have some goals. You want to run a certain distance. You want to break a certain time in, you know, a given distance. We have to start thinking much more strategically about your training. And I think strength training is so important. I don't even really call it cross-training. You know, it's just

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (05:35)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (05:36)
part of the training process that

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (05:38)
Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (05:38)
runners need to really achieve their best. So it it was a it was a very big journey for me, you know, at the beginning. I didn't even

Jason Fitzgerald (05:46)
lift at all. I didn't do any strength work. I didn't think it was necessary. You know, I I really was just 18 years old and could get away with a lot of, you know, poor exactly.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (05:53)
Right. You made a rubber.

Jason Fitzgerald (05:56)
You know, I could just go to sleep at night and then any problem I was dealing with would be gone by morning. You know, to be 18 again.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (06:00)
Right, right. Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (06:03)
So I think my youth masked a lot of the training errors I was making at the time. And now that I'm 42 years old, I really have to be thinking a lot more strategically about

Jason Fitzgerald (06:15)
How I'm structuring my training. And, you know, coming from that college cross-country and track background, it has been very eye-opening coaching adult recreational runners over the last 16 years because, you know, they don't have the same kind of movement fluency that a lot of college athletes have. And so we've got to build a lot of that into the training program so that number one, they just feel much better on a day-to-day

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (06:42)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (06:42)
basis, but also.

Jason Fitzgerald (06:44)
They're building that resilience into the program. They're they're getting the results that they're looking for. They're getting injured less. They're staying healthy for longer. So, you know, I I'm I'm now someone who is such a big proponent of strength training. Now, look, that doesn't mean I love it. I'd rather be out there running a couple more miles. I mean, you know,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (07:00)
Right. Right, right.

Jason Fitzgerald (07:02)
I'll raise my hand. I'm a pure runner through and through.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (07:04)
Totally. Same.

Jason Fitzgerald (07:06)
I don't like being in the weight room, but I understand that it allows me to do what I love to do. And so now I make it a priority.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (07:14)
Yeah, it's like going and, you know, buying shoes. It's not I don't have a passion for shopping, but I need shoes, so I will go get shoes. But I know what you mean about the literacy. So just on the side for fun, I I coach high school cross country and having them in the weight room once a week. You know, they're like fourteen year old kids, just the you know, the kids who've been returning and doing all the other maxing out their mileage and all that. but you know, getting them in a on a hex bar

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (07:42)
for the first time ever and they're they're growing, they barely know where their limbs are. It's it's a it's a very different coaching experience than say my patients who I'm transitioning out of care that have been lifting for twenty years already. It's a a different type of education and a different type of like coaching queuing situation.

Jason Fitzgerald (08:01)
Yeah, I think it's really it's always really interesting looking at different types of people in the weight room. And and I'll never forget a conversation I had with a USA weightlifting national coach who was talking about why runners should be lifting weights. And he said, Yes, look, the weight is important, but a lot of what we're doing is simply a movement practice. You

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (08:22)
Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (08:22)
know, we're we're we're working through bigger ranges of motion, different ranges of motion than we would typically get.

Jason Fitzgerald (08:30)
if we were only doing our run training. And, you know, for the adult who sits at a desk for eight hours a day, or, you know, who isn't going to the playground and doing all kinds of, you know, weird and wacky movements with their toddlers all the time, like you've got to build in some of this movement practice into your program. And so, you know, when you get your 40, 50, 60 year old client in in the weight room, you're probably going to notice that their limbs aren't all over the place. They,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (08:58)
Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (08:58)
they

Jason Fitzgerald (08:59)
really aren't going anywhere. You know, they they

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (09:00)
Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (09:01)
they're not moving quite well at all. And so that's that's a big glaring red flag in my mind that we just need to do more of this. We need

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (09:08)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (09:08)
to get good at it. It's like someone who, you know, can barely run a mile without stopping. It's like, well, maybe we just need to do more aerobic development.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (09:18)
Totally. Yeah, I I see it with my patients too. I don't know if you're familiar with attractor state models much, but for trying to change something biomechanically, part of the idea instead of just thinking this is perhaps controversial, so instead of just thinking, you know, run on your forefoot, increase cadence, that stuff can be useful. but if you're trying to change it for say a fifty mile race, you're gonna forget at some point those cues.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (09:48)
If you're throwing up at an aid station and then trying to trot out of it, you're not gonna be thinking about like, okay, swing my arms. so part of the way that you can hack that, so to speak, is through attractor state models, which essentially says pattern a movement, load it, and then it'll stick better because you're overloading it, you're demanding more of that movement than you will in your sport. That means that it'll kind of settle into your body.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (10:16)
more naturally than if you were to just think about a form change. But you have to have the load. You have to have strength training with it. So super on board with everything you just said.

Jason Fitzgerald (10:25)
I'm not sure if that was controversial. I've I've been saying some version of that

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (10:27)
Okay.

Jason Fitzgerald (10:29)
for years. I I think Dr. Mandy probably put that in just a smarter way than I would have said it. But yeah, I'm I'm such a firm believer in that. Like if you want to improve your running form, if you want to get more economical, sure, some cues can be generally helpful, but the best way to do that is to do the things in training that help you improve your form, you know, and and there's very varied things like.

Jason Fitzgerald (10:55)
You could do hill strides or hill sprints. That's really good for your running economy and your in your overall form. So is just running a lot, you know, just practice

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (11:02)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (11:03)
running it, you know, at easy efforts. And, you know, heavier weightlifting is also a really wonderful way of building that kind of intra and intra muscle coordination that's really important when you want to get good running economy, which is probably the number one benefit of lifting for runners, is that.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (11:21)
Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (11:22)
You know, you just become a lot more economical at going from point A to point B.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (11:27)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, for distance running, it's your body takes the path of least resistance. That is running economy, so to speak. It's how little energy can I spend in order to move forward in a running fashion. and there's, you know, you can get really in the weeds in the science of it, as you obviously know. But for most people it's hey, I want to run a longer race or I want to run faster with the same amount of energy, right? You're trying to not have any gas left in the tank by the finish line.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (11:56)
How can I get faster? Well, you get more efficient. And so yes, training more, but having your running economy improve is like a it's a total game changer, right? So for people who are just starting to get into running, obviously both Jason and I are proponents of strength training, but getting more training in in general helps as long as you're doing it wisely. And for those of you who have been in the game for a long time and you feel like you've plateaued and you know you have more there, but you can't access it.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (12:26)
That's really where strength training can come in and give you an extra edge if you haven't done it before.

Jason Fitzgerald (12:31)
Yeah, for sure. And and I I I especially think that it's probably more important for the longer distances. So if you're a trail runner and you're getting into fifty Ks or you're doing some of the longer ultra marathons, you know, the longer event is, the more important running economy becomes. You know, if if you want to become the next Josh Kerr and, you know, run a three forty-one mile, well, you

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (12:53)
Crazy.

Jason Fitzgerald (12:54)
know, you could you could almost

Jason Fitzgerald (12:57)
Focus on like your your VO2 max and some of the other metrics of performance and and kind of gut your way through a fast mile. But when those inefficiencies are magnified for, you know, a hundred times the distance in a hundred mile ultramarathon, you know, you're really going to kind of see those weak links really be exposed. So yeah, I mean, for especially for for injury prone runners, for those runners who you want to become more durable.

Jason Fitzgerald (13:26)
and and build some resilience for those long races. I think it's a no brainer.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (13:30)
Totally. Yeah, on that note too, so like I mentioned, a lot of people might be listening from a place of either currently having an injury or recovering from one. what's your philosophy on getting into strength training or continuing strength training when there is an injury going on concurrently?

Jason Fitzgerald (13:48)
I I think you have to let pain be your guide. You know, I'm I'm a big believer in just because you're injured doesn't mean that the training has to stop. You

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (13:56)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (13:56)
just have to train a little bit differently. So may even if you can't run at all, can you do some cycling? Can you get in the pool and do some aqua jogging or pool running? and that'll that'll do a lot at at maintaining your aerobic fitness, you know, and and one of the problems that runners often have when they're injured is that they do do a lot of that cross training.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (14:17)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (14:17)
And and they

Jason Fitzgerald (14:18)
keep their aerobic system very topped up. They're still, you know, very fit, but they're just not used to any of the pounding of running because you know they're on a bike or they're in the pool. And so what happens is they come back to running, say, one, two, three weeks later, and they go do a long run or they do a hard workout, or they do two hard workouts and a long run in a single week. And because they just haven't been running for the last like 16 days or whatever it might have been.

Jason Fitzgerald (14:46)
Their body is so unaccustomed to the impact forces of running that they end up with some new injury or some new little niggle that kind of pops up. So strength training can kind of help, you know, keep your muscles' ability to withstand some of those impact forces when you get back to your run training after, you know, you're healthy and your PT has cleared you to start running again. and it also is just as really good at kind of, you know, toughening up.

Jason Fitzgerald (15:14)
those those connective tissues and making your joints a little bit more durable as well. So if you're injured, I I almost think it's the best time to start strength training, you know, unless

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (15:24)
Definitely.

Jason Fitzgerald (15:24)
there's obviously, you know, clear pain that is preventing you from doing a particular movement or or lifting, you know, a lot of weight or whatever the exercise might be. You know, so of course let pain be your guide. But, you know, when you're injured, it is often the time to start a new

Jason Fitzgerald (15:43)
healthier habit, you know, to

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (15:44)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (15:44)
kind of revamp your training in a little bit so that the next injury isn't as severe as this current one, or or you can sidestep the next injury. And so if you're someone who hasn't been strength training at all, and then you get this this injury and you can't run for a little while, this to me is like the perfect time to start strength training. As long as you know it's not causing any additional problems, you now have the time in your schedule. You're not running

Jason Fitzgerald (16:10)
to to focus on that, to make it a habit so that when you do start running again, you know, you can kind of maintain that habit over time.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (16:17)
Totally. Yeah. And it's amazing what you can do modification wise. Instead of saying like I get a lot of nerve mediated pain injury folks who maybe they think they had planar fasciitis that's there for five years. It turns out it's nerve mediated, that sort of thing. So there's for me and my patient population, there's a lot of fear around deadlifting, for example. and it's like I'm not gonna deadlift, something's gonna explode. I've had problems in the past. It's like, well, okay. A deadlift is a hinge. They're usually talking

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (16:46)
traditional deadlift barbell or hex bar. deadlifting it's a hinge. What other hinges can we do that are not problematic? How can we load that up? How can we make that a stimulus without doing the exact thing that was causing your injury? And then when we're feeling better, obviously we work that back in. But there's so much variability and creativity and strength training. It really doesn't have to just be you must be on a barbell to do deadlifts. You must be doing back squats. There's

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (17:16)
There's lots of stuff out there that's kind of in my opinion, clickbaity. But there's a whole lot more that you can do to create stimulus rather than just those straight traditional lifts.

Jason Fitzgerald (17:30)
Yeah, this is why I I I kind of love lifting from like an academic perspective because it's so similar to running. You know, you you're it's a very pure endeavor. You're just trying to get stronger. It's like running,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (17:41)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (17:42)
you're just trying to get faster. And, you know, there's almost an infinite number of ways to modify any running workout or really any strength training workout, you know, by manipulating the exercise, the number of repetitions, the recovery.

Jason Fitzgerald (17:59)
you know, the load that that you're actually putting on yourself. You know, so I always like to say, like, look, if plan A doesn't work, have a plan B and a plan C D E F G so that, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, you can still do something because almost always something is better than nothing. And I also think it's a wonderful opportunity to, you know, go see a physical therapist or a strength coach or or hire a running coach. And it doesn't have to be like,

Jason Fitzgerald (18:27)
For the next six to twelve months or something

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (18:30)
Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (18:30)
very long term. You know, you you could hire a trainer at a gym just to show you a couple exercise variations. And so maybe

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (18:39)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (18:39)
you only get one or two training sessions with a trainer, or you only go to see a PT a couple of times, or you hire a running coach for like a month. Even these very small investments, it's just enough to learn so that you can then apply it to your own training and you can, you know, have that knowledge forever.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (18:57)
Totally. Yeah. I I I tell my patients I'm like, my goal is to not see you again unless I run into you at a race. And so Yeah, yeah,

Jason Fitzgerald (19:06)
I tell my clients I want you to fire me eventually.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (19:09)
exactly. Right. I'm like, well, maybe that's not a great business waddle, but it you know, the the ethos is the same. You should be creating autonomy. You should be go doing what you wanna do and it's probably not sitting in my office or on my telehealth call and talking to me, right?

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (19:26)
But I'm curious, Jason, I'm sure you've done a ton of internet research on stuff, just keeping up on research. have you seen anything without getting yourself in trouble? Have you seen anything that just feels ridiculous but has gotten really popular?

Jason Fitzgerald (19:41)
boy, you you're you are trying to get me in trouble, aren't you?

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (19:42)
I'm gonna get emails. I'll I'll

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (19:46)
hedge the emails for ya.

Jason Fitzgerald (19:48)
Yeah, I mean like I I think I think there's a lot of ways that runners go about strength training that I think are sometimes counterproductive, sometimes just less productive than what an ideal kind of program might look like. I I think one of the I think two of the biggest misconceptions that I always cringe a little bit when I see runners doing this is they're in the gym and they're they're basically lifting for endurance.

Jason Fitzgerald (20:16)
Because we're endurance

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (20:17)
Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (20:17)
runners, right? So we go into the gym and we're like, well, I want more endurance. It's it's very logical. And so you're doing squats, you're doing maybe deadlifts or whatever the exercise might be, and you're doing like four or five sets of 20 repetitions. You're doing very high reps of fairly low weight. And the idea is, you know, muscular endurance. But the problem is we get so much endurance of stimulus from our running.

Jason Fitzgerald (20:45)
We don't really have to worry about that in the weight room. Those are not our goals in the weight room. You know, we need to be developing power. We need to actually be getting stronger. we need to be developing, you know, a little bit of that kind of, you know, fast twitch responsiveness that you

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (21:02)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (21:03)
get from, you know, something like a plyometric exercise or or even a more explosive Olympic lift or something like that.

Jason Fitzgerald (21:11)
So those are the the real main goals that runners have in the weight room. You know, it's power, it's strength, you know, obviously it's movement patterns and coordination, but it's not endurance. And so when I see runners do that, I go, you know, first of all, something's better than nothing. I'm glad you're in the gym. I'm glad you're

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (21:29)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (21:29)
doing something. You're building the habit. But also, man, we're we're we're we're wasting 80% of our time in here. You know, our time would be much better spent doing

Jason Fitzgerald (21:40)
heavier lifts for much less time. And you know, the good news is that, you know, you don't have to be in the gym for like 75, 90 minutes.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (21:49)
Yeah, yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (21:50)
The great thing about running is that, you know, most of your time is going to be spent running. You could do a lot of damage on two 30 to 45 minute sessions a week in the gym. So that's probably the the number one thing that I see that makes me, you know, kind of scratch my head a little bit.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (22:06)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (22:07)
the other thing that tends to be very common among runners is

Jason Fitzgerald (22:10)
They use strength training for social time. So they'll go to the gym and they'll take the shred class, or they love their body bump, body pump class over here. And you know, this is a similar but different problem. Not only do we not need to really work on endurance by doing very high reps of things, we also don't need to do things with very short rest and in like a circuit so that we're breathing really heavy, we're we're out of breath. There's literally like a

Jason Fitzgerald (22:39)
Cardiovascular component to the strength training. you know, it's a metabolic type of a workout. This is similar to endurance. We get enough of that when when we're we're running. so again, I kind of see it as like, you know, a very fun waste of time. But if you're

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (22:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (22:58)
gonna waste time, you might as well have a great time doing it. But if your goal is performance, if your goal is to build as much injury injury resilience as you want to,

Jason Fitzgerald (23:09)
To build as much power or strength into your strength training program, there's better ways of doing it than taking all these kind of random classes, you know, or lifting for endurance. the other major issue with all those classes is that it doesn't really leave enough opportunity for progressive overload. So you're you're frequently doing very different things in these classes. And it's sort of like if you had a different mileage level every week.

Jason Fitzgerald (23:37)
There's good in consistency in a little bit of repetition in doing a little bit more than what you've done previously. That could be more weight, more miles, a longer workout. There's a lot of different ways of manipulating these variables, but you do need some element of progressive overload if you want to become a better athlete. And classes just aren't really an efficient way of doing that.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (24:01)
Totally. Yeah, for for our total newbies on the podcast, can you explain in just simple terms what progressive overload means?

Jason Fitzgerald (24:10)
Yeah, progressive overload means that you progressively have to give yourself a little bit more of a harder training stimulus over time. So when you first start running, you might be running 15 or 20 miles a week, and that feels somewhat challenging. Well, fast forward a year and you're training for a 10K, you might be running 30 miles a week. Fast forward two years, you might be running 45 miles a week. And so over time,

Jason Fitzgerald (24:38)
you you've got to progressively overload your system with more stress so that you can adapt to that stress, get stronger, gain more endurance, and ult ultimately become a better runner. in the weight room, that usually means more weight, but it can also just mean a little bit more consistency over time. It can mean a slightly longer workout over time. It it's not always more, more, more. We can be more strategic about it, but

Jason Fitzgerald (25:06)
Generally speaking, overload does usually mean more of something.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (25:10)
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, on that note too, you don't adapt to anything unless you recover from it. Right. You don't get stronger on the day that you go lift. You get stronger in the weeks afterwards as your body does all these processes to create muscle hypertrophy and all the good things we we like. but with progressive overload, for those who have done some research on it and are like, All right, I'm super motivated, we're gonna do it right now, there does have to be a time scale.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (25:39)
So this is where a coach comes in really handy. They will either push you if you're, you know, still hanging out on the ten bound dumbbells for a for an RDL. and they can also help rein it in to make sure that you're not totally overloading yourself. Progressive overload is a it's an envelope where if you're within that and starting to push it a little bit, you're doing great. If you're totally like, all right, I went from a hundred pound deadlift to like two fifty in four weeks.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (26:08)
Maybe you'll get away with that for a little bit. but but not for long. I'm sure you saw that running wise in the N C double A.

Jason Fitzgerald (26:16)
Yeah, I mean it's it's really easy as a runner just to go, well, I ran 50 miles last week. I'm gonna run 55 miles next week, and then 60, and then 65, and then you're hurt. Yeah, this draw graph

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (26:26)
Yes. Yep. And the beautiful Stravagraph and yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (26:31)
looks beautiful. But I mean, look, overload has to happen progressively. I think a lot of people forget that really important modifier at the beginning there. It's not just overload, it's progressive overload. And that does mean.

Jason Fitzgerald (26:45)
Gradually, methodically. It it's it happens progressively. It doesn't happen all at once. It's not sudden overload. You know, I kind of cringe at a lot of these YouTuber influencers who like run marathons with no preparation. Like, my goodness. Yeah, that's that's just that's just dumb overload.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (26:58)
God, yes. You're gonna end up in the ER first off. If you like your kidneys, don't do that. Yeah, yeah, that's you

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (27:07)
know no progressive about that. That's just overload.

Jason Fitzgerald (27:11)
Yeah. And I I I think it's such a strong stimulus that like like you were saying about recovery, it's hard to recover from something that you never should be recovering from in the first place. So

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (27:22)
Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (27:22)
that's a really good kind of idea about recovery and overload, is that you should never be giving yourself so much training that, you know, you've got to go into this like recovery, you know, black box and

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (27:37)
Cave.

Jason Fitzgerald (27:38)
Get on the foam roller and use your compression boots and sleep for 10 hours for a week and use every electrolyte product that exists. And you know, like recovery kind of happens by itself. You know, get your sleep, stay hydrated. It's a natural process. Just make sure that, you know, if your coach told you to run 10 miles, you run about 10. You don't run 12 or 14 or 15, because, you know, that's where.

Jason Fitzgerald (28:03)
you're trying to recover from something that you were never really prepared to do in the first place.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (28:08)
Totally. Yeah, there's there's a trap in that, ooh, I felt really good through ten miles. I know I can do more. Like that's great. I want you to do more on the days that we're targeting. So there will be days if you're racing or you want to do an all out effort that yeah, you can feel really good through ten miles. And if your goal is to run a half marathon, awesome. You got three point one miles to go, go empty the tank. Now the the trap is on your say weekly long run.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (28:38)
If you're doing 10 miles, you feel great. It's really tempting to be like, okay, I'm gonna go further. Every now and again, totally. It's the joy of the sport. Absolutely do it within reason. Listen to your coach. If you can wiggle room a little, awesome. If you are really, really, really focusing on performance that may not be as warranted depends on your goal in the sport. But, you know, doing the trap of like the endorphins are flowing, I got my runners high, all of that, and then just

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (29:08)
doing an all out effort on a day that you're not prepared for it and tapered for it and all that. It that's how you end up in my office. We don't we don't want that. Okay.

Jason Fitzgerald (29:17)
You know where I actually like to be a little bit more aggressive with overload is with cross-training because the injury

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (29:20)
Hm. Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (29:23)
risk is is so much lower. And so I'll do something like where I'll have my runners do a long run on a Saturday. And then on Sunday, you know, they might wake up, they'll do a short, easy run, and then they might do a a weight training session. And the magic comes later on in the day. Now, this is for your runners who really care about performance. They they want to improve.

Jason Fitzgerald (29:46)
They want to be aggressive with their performance. They're looking for aggressive overload. I like,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (29:50)
Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (29:51)
I like a cycling or pool running session in the afternoon for 90 minutes or two hours. And it's almost like you're simulating back-to-back long runs. So you're getting this an enormous aerobic stimulus on the weekend, but in a way that doesn't have the same injury risk, you know, I I would I'd be very confident in saying that.

Jason Fitzgerald (30:13)
Most runners are not going to get hurt if they do a 90 minute bike ride every Sunday after a long run, you know, as long as they're not trying to keep up with, you know, the Tour de France riders or anything. Like just keep it

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (30:23)
Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (30:24)
a zone two, you know, type of effort. But that's where you can be really aggressive. You know, you don't have to go 40 minutes and then 45 minutes. I mean, you can kind of start with an hour bike ride and within a week or two, you're up to 90 minutes and then you're up to two hours. And then you can just ride for two hours, keeping your heart rate in that zone two effort.

Jason Fitzgerald (30:43)
And it's a wonderful way of giving yourself, you know, hours and hours of more aerobic development without the injury risk. And the the volume of it is somewhat aggressive compared to what you can do with running.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (30:55)
Yeah.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (30:56)
Yeah. I'm I'm sure a lot of us have friends doing triathlons or getting into cycling. I have a good friend who does duathlon, which is essentially it's a triathlon without the swimming. So he came as a runner. Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (31:07)
That's my kind of triathlon.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (31:08)
He's like, This is great. It came up in cross country, right? High school, college, same kind of thing as you and I. he's like, I just don't want to swim. I'll do duathlon. But he can put in just stupid hours on the bike every week.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (31:23)
And then go for a trail run with us. And like right, he's running some. He's getting enough stimulus for tissue tolerance to build. But his fitness is fantastic. And it's not like he's doing that much running, but he can go, you know, put down a respectable 1500 on the track. He does for funsies. and you know, it makes such a big difference when you're getting lower impact. Now, I will say I want to put an astrick on the cross training thing. The one injury realm.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (31:52)
where this can get a little iffy is bone stress injuries. not because you're going to create impact on, say, the stress fracture. rather because, you know, you're not doing much impact on a bike and you're not doing any impact if you're aqua jogging, but rather the metabolic component for it. So bone stress injuries come often from an imbalance in energy in, energy out. There's a whole

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (32:18)
For those of you on the podcast right now, there is a whole lot of episodes on this. I harp on it probably too much. but if you are in an energy deficiency all the time, that equation isn't balancing out, then that's often where bone stress injuries are coming from. So if you're like me and had a bone stress injury in the past and then just went super ham on the bike trying to have some aerobic fitness for when you get back to running, it can delay recovery.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (32:47)
So you do have to work with one, someone who knows about energy deficiency in sport, relative energy deficiency in sport or reds is the the formal term. and you need to be working with somebody who can understand why that injury came and then how to build back without you just ending up like on your six week checkup and being like, the fracture's still there. Actually, you need six more weeks on the bike. Right. So you you need to scale it some, but for almost all other injuries, yeah, go to town.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (33:16)
You can go suffer. It is not your preferred method of suffering, maybe, on the pike or in the pool, but go for it.

Jason Fitzgerald (33:24)
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because yeah, bone stress injuries are pretty unique in that,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (33:29)
Mm.

Jason Fitzgerald (33:30)
you know, the hypothetical schedule that I just talked about with your long run on a Saturday and then an easy run on Sat a Sunday morning with a weightlifting session, and then a two hour ride in the afternoon, that's a very dense training schedule. It's clearly for someone who has performance goals and is ready for that. But what I didn't mention is that.

Jason Fitzgerald (33:51)
You gotta be eating a lot of food to sustain this level of work. I mean, you're basically yeah,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (33:53)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a part time job at that point.

Jason Fitzgerald (33:58)
so you're running a lot, you're lifting weights, you're cross-training. I mean, the energy demands for this kind of a schedule are really high. So you you might as well not do it if you're gonna underfuel. So

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (34:09)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (34:10)
the the caveat to to all any training discussion is it's gotta be well fueled, or you're gonna dig yourself into that hole and it's gonna take a lot to get out of it.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (34:20)
Yeah, and the more research that comes out on it, you know, it's not they used to call it the female athlete triad. It's certainly not exclusive to females, and this is a problem in the lag in research getting too mainstream is a lot of male athletes get into relative energy deficiency and they're like, Well, that's not a that doesn't happen to men, right? I'm not losing my period. So it it doesn't happen. I pretend I don't see it and I'm good. Yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (34:45)
Yeah, we we don't have that easy like warning signal that

Jason Fitzgerald (34:49)
that that will clearly tell us if something's amiss.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (34:52)
Totally. No, I've had some of my like high schoolers who were doing sneaky mileage and not telling us get into trouble this way and like okay, go ask I don't treat them, right? I'd keep that separate, but go ask your doctor to run some tests, like go get a ferritin check, all that fun stuff. and then they come back and they're like, my doctor doesn't believe in that. All right. I don't know how to go from there, but Yeah, yeah,

Jason Fitzgerald (35:16)
They don't they don't believe in medicine.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:18)
like no boys don't need iron checks, they you're fine.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:21)
All the time. It's okay. So

Jason Fitzgerald (35:23)
Well, as someone who who used to get in a couple sneaky miles every here and there when I was a high school and college runner, I I love these kids.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:29)
Yep,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:31)
yeah. I mean how can you how can you not, right? I they they can only cheat so much when we make post on Strava and and track their training though. It's not like you know, when I was running in high school and for most of college for me, it was all Timex watches or or nothing and you just go out and it's like, seems like forty five minutes, I think. so you can get away with a lot. man, I

Jason Fitzgerald (35:52)
How the good old days. Yeah.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:55)
could go for

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (35:55)
Yeah. Before carbon plated shoes, we've got our little waffles. That's it. C

Jason Fitzgerald (36:01)
Yeah, we we we call that B C before carbon.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (36:04)
I love that. the kids will get a kick out of that. Yeah. No, it's different now, but but yeah, going back, just the the metabolic demand is not to be ignored. And for training in general, as you're doing progressive overload, you need to progressively be eating more. And that needs to be the case for men, that needs to be the case for

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (36:24)
If you are not in an eating disorder category that you can still underfuel. I think people get in the trap of thinking like, well I I don't have body image you struggles, I don't have eating disorder struggles, like I can't be in this picture. I eat plenty. But if what you're eating is not calorie rich, it doesn't matter. Like it's just it's a straight equation, energy in or energy out. So whoever you however you are medically, however you are training, you need to be putting the energy in in order

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (36:54)
to actually adapt to it, but applies to all of this cross training, running and strength.

Jason Fitzgerald (36:59)
Hundred percent, yeah.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (37:01)
I'm curious too. So I know I know there's the protein craze going on. I see I see my clear protein water stuff at the at the store. What's your take on all that? Where's your mind at with protein intake?

Jason Fitzgerald (37:14)
Well, I I had a protein shake earlier today.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (37:17)
Love it.

Jason Fitzgerald (37:17)
I mean, I am a a master's male, so I'm I'm trying to get ahead of my declining ability to synthesize muscle protein. look, I I I I think it's important. I think distance runners are coming to the idea that it's more important than we previously thought, although it it's still kind of a secondary macronutrient to carbohydrate for for our training needs. You know, we obviously

Jason Fitzgerald (37:43)
Want to be fueling our training with carbs because that's what's going to give us the energy we need to actually execute the training. protein is more for not for fuel, but for recovery. It's for rebuilding muscle tissue when when it's been damaged. And, you know, that's historically kind of been the the purview of bodybuilders, you know, because they're in the gym and they're doing a lot of lifting, and that lifting damages their muscle fibers. They drink protein shakes.

Jason Fitzgerald (38:10)
They eat steak, they do all those things, and their muscles repair and they get a little bit bigger. And you repeat that process, and next thing you know, you're you're Arnold. But distance runners are a little bit different in that we're not doing training that makes our muscles bigger. we're doing training that that really just breaks down our muscle. I think anyone who has run the Boston Marathon or a downhill running race.

Jason Fitzgerald (38:39)
will understand that your muscles can get really, really sore after certain types of running. you know, I I I still have PTSD from track workouts in college when I would be wearing those little spikes that

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (38:54)
Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (38:55)
are very different than the spikes we have today. And

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (38:57)
Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (38:58)
the first workout of the season, you know, your lower legs would all be torn up just because you're you're not

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:02)
Crashed. Yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (39:03)
used to wearing such such, you know, a small shoe that has zero support to it.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:09)
Totally.

Jason Fitzgerald (39:09)
And

Jason Fitzgerald (39:10)
I I do wish I was a little bit more intentional with protein back when I was, you know, running 85, 90 miles a week and doing really hard workouts and and training at that high of a level. because I think I think we just were were thinking about food. Get in more food. You know, we're just

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:26)
Right, right.

Jason Fitzgerald (39:27)
I mean my friends were a bunch of dumb bros when we were 20 years old. And like we would think to ourselves, the human body can only get full after about 15 minutes of eating. So

Jason Fitzgerald (39:38)
Have a 15-minute window where you can eat as much as you possibly can. Yeah, like

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:41)
Shove it in your mouth. Yes.

Jason Fitzgerald (39:44)
we didn't have a maybe our disordered eating was on the other side of the equation. We were just eating as much crappy food as as we could get into our bodies.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (39:49)
Arguably better. I don't know. Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (39:55)
but yeah, we we didn't think about protein specifically as strategically as I would have liked to. so yeah, I think it's important, you know. I think it's it's more important for certain types of people.

Jason Fitzgerald (40:07)
you know, the I think the older you are, the more important protein is. but ultimately I'm I'm probably more of a carb stand than anything, just because that's what's gonna be more important for our performances. It it's

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (40:20)
Mm.

Jason Fitzgerald (40:20)
it's probably more important for avoiding red S than protein, just because it it is actually the fuel. Protein isn't

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (40:25)
Yes. Yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (40:28)
a good fuel source. So yeah, look, it's important, but it's not everything.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (40:32)
Totally. Yeah, fully agree. people who are replacing carbs with protein, I don't love that. adding in, great. I I struggle with protein farts, so I'm still figuring that out. But I'm curious your take. I I've heard a lot of say like female runners between the ages of like twenty five to forty five usually that are scared of getting bulky. and

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (41:00)
protein being part of that, strength training especially, that seems to be a fairly big barrier mentally for them to get get started in it. What do you how do you encounter that? What do you say to that?

Jason Fitzgerald (41:12)
I would I I would sit down and be very honest about what it takes to build muscle as a woman, because

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (41:19)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (41:19)
it is a little harder for a woman to build muscle than it is for a man to build muscle. And if if you're doing a couple things in your training, number one, you're running. It's gonna be really hard to put on muscle if you're if you're doing any kind of of real run training. And number two, you have to lift in a very specific way to build muscle.

Jason Fitzgerald (41:40)
You have to be really focused on hypertrophy, on muscle growth. Whereas if you're lifting the way a runner should, you're not going to be in the gym four or five days a week. You're not going to be doing a lot of isolation exercises where you know you might do four or five, six exercises exclusively on your biceps. That's what bodybuilders do. That's what

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (42:01)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (42:03)
you do when you're looking for growth. Runners aren't gonna really do any of that kind of lifting. And so

Jason Fitzgerald (42:09)
If you're not lifting with the goal of hypertrophy and you're doing all this run training, you know, it's going to be virtually impossible to gain a lot of weight. I think your body composition can change a little bit. You might lose a couple pounds of fat, gain a couple pounds of muscle. You might end up being one, two, three pounds heavier just because muscle weighs more than fat. I I just think that's a healthier body composition in that scenario. And and honestly, I would.

Jason Fitzgerald (42:39)
I I have to elevate health over performance, and that's probably a better thing overall for that individual. But,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (42:44)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (42:45)
you know, I like to joke around a little bit and say, you know, this is sort of like the bodybuilder who thinks that if he goes for a 20-minute run a couple times a week, he's gonna like become a five-minute miler. It's much

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (42:55)
Right, right.

Jason Fitzgerald (42:56)
more difficult than that. You have to be very strategic and methodical and patient over a long period of time. Now, you know, I I spent about a year trying to

Jason Fitzgerald (43:07)
lift weights in a way that would make me gain weight. And and granted,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:10)
really?

Jason Fitzgerald (43:11)
I'm in I'm in my 40s. It's a little bit harder, but I am a guy. I'm taking creatine. I'm I'm not running nearly as much as I used to. It's almost

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:19)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (43:19)
impossible. I don't know if like my body has just been like, hey man, you've been running for decades. We're not gaining any weight. You know, you're gonna

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:24)
That's all we know. Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (43:26)
you're staying skinny your entire life. But

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:28)
Totally.

Jason Fitzgerald (43:30)
it it it's so much harder than I think we give it credit.

Jason Fitzgerald (43:35)
it it's really hard to gain a lot of weight with with weightlifting. And so it it's just one of those things where, you know, give me a year, be consistent. And then you know, if you turned into a bodybuilder, then fine. You can stop weightlifting. But if not, then let's let's keep on keeping on.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (43:51)
Totally. Yeah, and those changes happen so slowly. Leave let's even say maybe you have some genetic predisposition to just put on crazy muscle mass. I don't even know if that's really a a thing, so to speak. but even then it happens so slowly that it's not like you're gonna do some deadlifts and the next week you're gonna be huge, right? You you can track it if you're worried about it, but you have to start. Like there's a reason that you're asking about strength training, there's a reason that you're

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (44:20)
Maybe talking to a coach about it. There's a ton of other benefits and if you're really scared about that, you can keep an eye on it. It's not gonna happen overnight. It's not gonna happen over the course of a few weeks, certainly. So, you know, it there's some there's a compromise there of even if you're scared about it, it it's it's not like a no it will never happen. It's a well we can keep an eye on it, but it's probably not gonna happen.

Jason Fitzgerald (44:44)
Yeah, you can always dial it back. I mean, just talking

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (44:45)
Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (44:46)
about how, you know, there's always a plan B, C, D, and E with any kind of training approach, you can always just lift a little bit less. You can always make your workouts shorter. You know, you can always dial it back so that you're not giving your body such a strong stimulus and you're not gaining weight as quickly. But you know, I

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:03)
Totally.

Jason Fitzgerald (45:03)
do think there's there are some people who just gain weight easier than others in the in the weight room.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:08)
You think just muscle mass wise?

Jason Fitzgerald (45:10)
Yeah. I mean, I remember reading an article about Alan Webb.

Jason Fitzgerald (45:13)
Who who is about my age. And his

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:13)
Sure.

Jason Fitzgerald (45:16)
coach was talking about how they needed to be careful with him in the weight room. Cause

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:19)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (45:19)
he like picked up a 10-pound dumbbell and just gained a whole bunch of muscles. You

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:24)
Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (45:24)
know, like I just think there are just really hyper responders to weight training. And then

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:29)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (45:30)
there's people who are not hyper responders. I'm probably that kind of person where I can lift, you know, pretty consistently, pretty regularly, try to.

Jason Fitzgerald (45:39)
get the protein I need and I'm just really not moving the needle on, you know, the circumference of my biceps and and that

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:45)
Totally.

Jason Fitzgerald (45:46)
that's that's my personal prison I have to live in.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:48)
Right. It makes me think of

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (45:50)
my my great great friend. He is a he was actually a decathlete in college and his buddies used to make fun of him for having chicken legs. Like his calves are real small and so he drained the hell out of them. He still was training the hell out of him when I met him, you know, years after college and and became friends with him. And they just didn't move an inch. He got stronger,

Jason Fitzgerald (46:10)
Yeah.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:11)
but they were the same size visually. So he yeah, that's his personal prison for sure.

Jason Fitzgerald (46:16)
Yeah. I mean yeah, come on, he's a dick athlete. He's he's the ultimate

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:18)
Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (46:19)
athlete.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:19)
Yeah. I'm like, well dude, your shoulders and lats and your fitness in general's great. Why do you care about your calves? It's no big deal. But

Jason Fitzgerald (46:26)
Mm.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:28)
but yeah. Well cool. I like that perspective on on you know, it being really difficult to actually bulk out for most people. Allen webs are not that common throughout the world. So if you're listening and scared of it, it's probably you're probably not in that picture of being a hyper responder. And if you are, you'll know.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:48)
medium quickly, but it it you should try strength training before you come to the conclusion that, I'm gonna bulk up.

Jason Fitzgerald (46:56)
Yeah, 100%. And and I think being a hyper responder is a good thing. It means that you're

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (46:59)
Yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (47:00)
physiologically primed to adapt to hard training. So

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:05)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (47:06)
if it's easy for you to put on weight in a weight room, it's probably easy for you to get faster as a runner just by kind of putting yourself through that same training process. So, you know, if you discover you're a hyper responder to weightlifting and

Jason Fitzgerald (47:20)
You haven't really explored hard training as a runner. There there's probably some parallels there. And and I would personally be excited just to explore what that might mean for my progress as a runner.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:31)
Right. Yeah, it's like congratulations, you don't have to spend forty five minutes in the gym, you can spend twenty five and go run more

Jason Fitzgerald (47:37)
Yeah, there you go.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:38)
if you want, right? That's a that's a big leg up, I think.

Jason Fitzgerald (47:42)
Yeah, I would I would love it. I I wouldn't I wouldn't

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:43)
Yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (47:44)
do sixty minute workouts like I have been doing. I'd probably be in and out of there

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:46)
Right.

Jason Fitzgerald (47:47)
in thirty. 'Cause like I said, I don't even like weightlifting.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:50)
Right,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (47:50)
right, yeah. I I I really don't mind weightlifting, but I'm a runner through and through, so it's like, yeah, if I had that ability to just snap my fingers and be stronger like some of these people, I'd take that any day. But well cool. so you mentioned a while back about isolation exercises. One of the things I often see is say runners coming into my office are like, Okay, I have a high hamstring strain, but I do so many

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (48:18)
hamstring exercises, like why did this happen? I'm curious your philosophy on, you know, compound lifts versus isolation versus, you know, time under tension. Can you give just a broad overview of what that looks like?

Jason Fitzgerald (48:32)
Yeah, I'm a little bit agnostic. I think there's probably a place for all these different kinds of exercises. there's a time and a place for them as well. you know, my philosophy is when you're in the gym and you're lifting heavier weights, let's be a little bit more focused on the compound lifts. the isolation work is a little bit more for the bodybuilders. Now, of course, there might be a physical therapy reason you might be doing a very specific

Jason Fitzgerald (49:01)
set of exercises because you're predisposed to a certain injury or you have a certain imbalance or weakness that needs to be addressed. And so yes,

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (49:09)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (49:10)
let's let's do a little bit of isolation work there. But generally speaking, most of our work in a gym, I think, should be compound lifts, multi-joint lifts. You know, we're really focused on more of a full body type of stimulus, with a little bit probably more of a focus on the lower body as runners.

Jason Fitzgerald (49:30)
But then of course, the flip side to that is you're only in the gym, I think, twice a week as a as a runner when you're training. Three times a

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (49:37)
Okay. Yeah.

Jason Fitzgerald (49:37)
week makes me a little nervous that you just might be carrying a little bit too much extra fatigue into your workouts and long runs.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (49:44)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (49:44)
But if you're lifting in the gym twice a week, that doesn't mean the other five days a week you don't you don't really do anything. I think there's a lot of value in doing, you know, 10 or 15 minutes of body weight work after your run on the other days.

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (49:59)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Fitzgerald (50:00)
So

Jason Fitzgerald (50:00)
you might be using you might be using an exercise band or a medicine ball or a very light implement like a kettlebell, for example. But for the most part, it's mostly body weight. And that's where you can do a little bit more of the isolation work. You can pull from a physical therapy office and do a lot of the exercises that you might do there when you're being treated for an injury. So, you

Dr. Mandy Riehl (Wainfan) DC (50:21)
Totally.

Jason Fitzgerald (50:21)
know, I I do, you know, different types of bridges, different types of side leg raises and things like that that

Jason Fitzgerald (50:30)
You know, are frankly fairly easy, but I think teach you a certain amount of control, coordination, n understanding your body, kind of feeling how your muscles fire and engage and activate. I think that contributes to your, you know, kind of physical intelligence and and that can help you stay healthy, just better know your body. but I I have this very kind of simple philosophy of.

Jason Fitzgerald (51:00)
Let's sandwich our runs in between a dynamic warm-up and then some kind of strength or core workout afterwards. Now, twice a week, that's going to be your weightlifting workout in a gym, but the other days of the week, it might be as short as 10 minutes, maybe it's as long as 20-ish minutes or so. And you might be doing a lot of things taken from a physical therapy office or kind of working on some of the basic fundamentals. You might be doing side planks and

Jason Fitzgerald (51:26)
Side leg raises. I know a lot of PTs make fun of