Train the brain to tolerate pain

Today, we provide a mini-review of the other book we've been reading: Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald. We've taken an extensive look at the role our brain plays in our activities in the past few months (see here, here, here and here) but this book really puts the pedal to the metal in both theory and application. Fitzgerald realizes that he's out on the proverbial limb with the ideas in his book inasmuch as they appear - at least on the surface - to dispute well-established notions of how to build training plans from running physiology science. However, it's hard to argue with the insights that he shares here, as they resonate with most runners' personal experience of both training and racing. Let's take a little closer look at what Matt has to say and what - if anything - we'll do with it during the next five months.


We haven't actually finished reading the entire book, but nearly so. Still, the timelapserunner has at least a vague idea of what Matt Fitzgerald has put forth here in this book. We'll walk through a few of the notions to give you a taste for the content.

Myths

Matt dispels some common myths that most runners have bought into, like fatigue is caused by energy depletion. The studies show this to be false as there is still fuel available even after fatigue sets in. Instead, it's muscle activation that is reduced bringing on fatigue. Yes, reduced energy stores influence this but it's primarily the brain shutting down muscle fiber recruitment as part of its survival protocol. This is but one example. Fitzgerald gives others, all of which serve to build a picture of the brain's involvement in working out our running performance.

Feedback

In fact, as Fitzgerald claims, everything we do to enhance our running actually involves the brain. This is how a feedback system works, he explains. Fitzgerald outlines three forms of feedback - subjective, objective, and collective - that are at play in his model of brain involvement. Subjective, of course, relates to how we feel during and after workouts. Objective feedback involves hard facts and numbers such as the pace, distance and duration of our workouts. Collective feedback is the collected wisdom of others and represents all the knowledge and experience that they've gleaned from their running over the years. Together these serve to provide feedback to the brain, enabling it to learn and be retrained.

Breaking through the wall

The key concept in Fitzgerald's theory asserts itself here: fatigue is not involuntary loss in response simply due to failure of the subsystems of the human running machine; it is an effort by the brain to induce discomfort so as to stop the body from reaching the point of catastrophic failure. By progressively pushing the human running machine harder again and again, we can convince the brain that we can go a little farther, or run a bit faster, or both, than it used to think we could. We break through the wall by progressively pushing it farther in front of us, so-to-speak. This is done by a devious arrangement of workouts designed specifically to create this effect on our brain, to train our brain to let us go just a bit faster or farther before it throws the breaker.

Comparing Jack Daniels and Matt Fitzgerald programs

Daniels' Running Formula
and the racing medal
resulting from its use

Jack Daniels has been called the world's best running coach and the athletes he's coached and their success is a testament to that. The timelapserunner has his book - Daniels' Running Formula - and actually used the Daniels training methods last fall preceding a fine 5K performance (winning his age class) in the Rabalais Run for Life last October. They consist of a fairly detailed set of differently paced workouts designed to improved each bio-mechanical and physiological aspect of the human running machine - from lactic acid tolerance to oxygen utilization.

Turns out that Matt's programs use a vaguely similar set of workout paces but instead of arranging these to simply drive sub-component change, they are arranged to change the brain as well. It's all quite complicated though it seems to make good sense.

Other stuff

Fitzgerald includes a number of other chapters to complete his array of science-informed tactics. He covers items such as stride, cross-training, stress and recovery, increase tolerance for pain and suffering from fatigue, outsmarting injuries, and fueling (e.g., carbohydrate mouth rinse for the brain).

What - if anything - will we do with this?

Within a day or so of first starting to read this book, I could feel the grip of sanity loosening on me - I was actually considering swapping over to a plan in Fitzgerald's book. Reading interesting and novel ideas sometimes has that effect on me. Sleeping on that notion for a few nights, I've decided to stick with the current program. I really like what's in Matt's book but I think I will save it for next spring when I may consider training again for an assault on my personal mile record (age adjusted, of course). There are a few ideas in the book that might be compatible with my Galloway program (using proprioceptive cues, for example). Still, what with school starting back up, I sense that this juggler has enough balls in the air at one time.

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YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT: Three mile brisk walk through the neighborhood at a 16:00 pace. Trying to find a calm place before the first day of the fall semester starts with a vengeance. No lingering effects from the long run on Saturday.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: Four miler around the Lakes. Planned pace: 11:11; actual, 11:13; using 2:15 / 1:00 intervals with nominal running pace of 9:52. Both yesterday and today, the temperature at workout time was noticeably lower than anytime since start of summer. Thus, this was the first running workout with a nominal running pace below 10:00 per mile. The increase in pace was very noticeable and some new little aches appeared during the run (left instep and shin), but these disappeared at about 3.4 miles. Tried to swat a mosquito bite while on the run. Note to self: don't try to do this again, you'll get hurt.