Matt Pendola - Strength & Mobility Coach for Runners

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"The Greg Bennett Show"

 

In this episode of The Greg Bennett Show, Greg has an insightful conversation with one of the world's greatest

Strength & conditioning coaches for endurance athletes.

 

Matt Pendola has decades of experience helping runners get ahead of their injury cycles by building strength.

Matt has been in this field for over 20 years. He’s worked with beginners, to the worlds greatest elite athletes including Olympic and World Champion medalists Kevin McDowell and Ben Kanute, to name a few.

 

He has a list of credentials in the areas of Run coaching, strength training, wellness, massage and everything else in between. He is truly one of the worlds leading bodywork and movement experts.

Matt Pendola has several professional qualifications including a running coach, S&C coach, licensed manual therapist & wellness coach and works with several Olympic athletes. He has also personally achieved a tonne of impressive running achievements including winning the Elite Spartan World Championships Masters Division (2015) & Qualified for Duathlon World Championships 3x.

 

Today Greg and Matt talk about the 3 C's of running. Connected, Cadence, and Compact. Bobby McGee and Matt Pendola have put together 4 pillars so you can optimize your running potential. Dynamic Mobility Drills restore and optimize your running movement and propulsion potential. Banded Dynamics maximize your running strength, power, balance, and stability. Form Drills maximize your mechanical running efficiency. Loaded Mobility Drills restore and optimize tissue and joints and continuing gains.

 

Ben has kindly offered 10% off his Run Form program for all Greg Bennett Show listeners.

enter: GregBennett10 at the checkout.

Start your 12 week course for a lifetime of better running! You'll get a set of movements to do before and after all of your runs to improve your mechanics. Find out more at https://www.pendolaproject.com/

 

Timestamps

1:21 - Interview starts

5:39 - Matt discusses his view on coaching towards the longevity of an athlete. from a young athlete to a more senior.

8:34 - Matt started strength training originally as a hotshot in Flagstaff. That was just kind of what you did, you had to be in shape for the job. One day, a tree fell on him fracturing his back. After that he was forced to slow down and learn how to train smart so he could get back to running again.

This injury led to Matt's guiding principle: FIT, which stands for Focused Intentional Training. It really is about helping people gain function through training. Matt started Pendola Training in 2001.

I was able to gain strength without doing a bunch of heavy lifting.

– Gwen Jorgensen, 2016 Olympic Gold Medalist

 

14:27 - Around 2011, Matt was coaching high school cross country, and saw that he could use what he had learned about strength training to prevent injuries in endurance athletes. Matt met Bobby McGee in 2015 and his approach to training has evolved incredibly since then.

"When I started working closer with elite athletes I was forced to take my learning to the next level. At a certain point I realized with a brick and mortar business I could at most affect 40 people at a time. I built R3 so that I could make everything I’ve learned over the last 20 years available to any runner at any level."

Each and every movement you'll do is designed specifically to help you run stronger.

23:34 - So what is RunFORM - and how can it help you to run faster with less injury?

Based on four pillars developed by the #1 running coach in the world, Bobby McGee, and Matt Pendola - Form Drills, Dynamic Mobility Drills, Loaded Mobility, and Banded Dynamics. This easy to follow progression builds week by week adding the perfect mix of adding new movements to your schedule combined with movements you mastered the week before. The time commitment is low, the benefits are high, and the better running you'll achieve will last a lifetime.

33:47 - Matt describes some his biggest highs over his career working with all kinds of athletes.

38:32 - We all have tough times. Matt explains one of his lowest career moments.

Keep showing up ... and doing it with intent

42:09 - Strength training can be a bit of an after-thought. Matt explains why strength training is important for the elite/endurance athlete, and how they can best fit it into their busy schedule.

49:38 - Matt lays it all out ... Do your quality run first, recover within about 8 hours, then strength train later that same day.

52:54 - Matt has his LMT licence and explains why and how he utilises massage within his coaching of athletes. In the United States, massage therapists who hold a state license to practice are typically known as LMTs, whereas Canadian counterparts are known as registered massage therapists or RMTs.

59:02 - The future for Matt Pendola. What and who are the professional athletes he is working with? What’s next for Matt?

1:07:25 - Conclusion