My journey to a sub-20 min 5k

Author: Dan O’Grady (Physio from Adelaide, Australia).

Follow on Strava

8:51am Sunday 4th August 2019

I’m sitting slumped on the steps of the Torrens Parade ground in the heart of Adelaide. I’ve just done something I didn’t think I was capable of - especially at the tender age of 40 - that was to crack 20 minutes for 5k.

That may not be all that impressive, but I’ve never been an overly competitive runner.

I grew up playing footy and discovered the love of running in my 30’s. After overcoming some serious injuries to my knee, hip and spine, the focus generally has been to use running as a means of staying healthy and maintaining a solid physical foundation.

---

Download Dan’s 12 week sub 20 5k plan HERE

Going back 12 months, I had set a sub 20 min 5k as my main goal for 2019.

I wasn’t all that keen on doing a marathon in 2019 - with 2 little kids around the place I didn’t want a race that was all consuming that takes too much time from family life.

My main motivation?

I was going to be turning 40 mid-June and thought a sub 20 min 5k had a good ring to it.

Perhaps it was my version of a ‘mid-life’ crisis - an opportunity to set some PB’s while there was still time.

The plan

In late 2018 I ran a 21:53 at the Glenelg Classic - so I clearly had a lot of work to do!

I certainly knew how NOT to improve my 5k, and that was to simply focus on running more 5k’s.

My ‘training’ for the 5k traditionally was to run a hard 5 km every month or so and see what would happen.

Almost every time without fail, I would go out at a decent pace, get to 1k feeling great, 2k feeling a little shaky and by the 3rd 5k completely spent.

I’d spend the last 2k limping home full of lactic acid wondering what went wrong.

To give myself the best chance for the sub 20, I realised I needed to change my approach from a goal focused ( Figure 1 - running more 5k’s) to a process focused (Figure 2 - getting the right mix of key workout sessions, race strategy and recovery).

This meant I saved my 5k efforts for when it really counted, trusting that by focusing on the process would end in a successful outcome.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Summer Trail Series

Over the 2018/19 summer I did my first Summer Trail Series, which provided a nice focus to keep some mileage in the legs.

No doubt, the additional hills helped build some leg strength which gave me a good foundation for the year ahead.

Early on in the year, most of my workouts were at a very ‘easy’ pace - which generally involved a walk/run combo. This enabled me to build a solid volume base, without stressing my body with fast paced workouts.

Getting a Running Coach

Being a big fan of the Inside Running Podcast, I was intrigued to hear the stories of the hosts and their guests week in and week out. It was great to hear their passion for running and much thought they put into their training and racing. I had never fully appreciated the intricacies of running, in the way they talked about it.

No doubt some of their knowledge and passion started to filter in and when Brady mentioned he was looking for runners to coach to a sub-20 5k PB I was keen to get on board.

After a good chat about my running history and plans, Brady got me on a well structured program.

It was fantastic being set up with a personalised training plan and it meant I could focus 100% on the running.

Brady introduced me to some really good training philosophies and I learnt about some key training sessions, that I hadn’t done much of before such as the progressive tempo runs, lactate threshold runs and fartlek work.

At school, I mainly played football, tennis and swimming. I never did little athletics where you learn about how to develop a structured training program and learn about the key sessions required to progress fitness.

So having Brady as a guide was incredibly beneficial - and helped me gain some confidence and momentum in my training - something that Matt Fitzgerald talks about in his excellent book RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel.

I think one of my main mistakes before getting a coach was to push myself a little too hard during my training - leading to overload and a boom-bust cycle of niggling injuries.

In terms of the sessions, the Mona Fartlek was a real game changer for me - with the intense interval work really showing up my weaknesses.

I was OK at doing some quick intervals - but I used to walk or stand for the recoveries.

Instead, the Mona Fartlek demands you jog / run the ‘off’ periods at a half decent pace.

My first Mona was a bit of a disaster - as I didn’t even know how to set up my Garmin GPS watch for workouts, so I was constantly looking down at my watch pressing start/stop.

I went out way to hard in the first few intervals - and paid for it in the second half.

The Mona really taught me about proper pacing and not going out too hard too early.

I had a solid two months of training with Brady’s program - and found my fitness improving dramatically. Towards the end of April, I had a trip to Melbourne over Easter and managed to pick up a nasty flu - that everyone seemed to also get at the time.

Being pretty motivated - I probably didn’t rest as I much as I needed - and the flu / cough seemed to get worse and not better.

I was feeling a little burnt-out and needed to take a break from running in the short-term to get myself healthy again.

After about a month of little to running, the 5k was pretty much off the table, and I wasn’t too fussed about pushing my body for the immediate future.

In June we had a family trip up to North QLD - and with the warm humid weather, I started to get some more energy back and got back into some easy jogging.

I had also bought a book, Run Faster by Brad Hudson and Matt Fitzgerald.

This book really simplified the process of training for the 5k - and gave some key sessions such as:

• Building endurance with a fast 10k

• performing 5 x 1 k at goal pace (1 min jogging recoveries)

• weekly hill sprints to build leg strength

Queens Birthday Turkey Handicap

In June, I felt like my fitness had improved quite a lot - and I felt ready to give my body it’s first 5k test. This race was set up by the Harriers Running Club - and involved predicting your race time, and then the winner was the person who got the closest (without using a GPS watch).

I nominated a 19:59 time - and ended up running a 20:23.

My thoughts going in was that running by feel - and not stressing over my pace by looking at the watch every 5 seconds may play to my advantage.

I started out pretty strong - probably too strong as usual (approx 3:50 pace) and by 3km I was cooked.

The last 2 km I could feel the lactic acid taking over my body and even my arms started to cramp up (weird!), due to the hydrogen ions that build up in your body when you’re pushing beyond your limits.

After this experience, I had some more hope that the sub 20 min could happen this year (especially if I got my pacing right from the the start). But I wasn’t 100% and had almost resigned to leaving it be for this year and giving it another crack next year.

That’s when I heard about the Fitzy’s 5k coming up in a couple of months - a run that I had done with my brother in 2015 as I was building up to the NYC marathon.

I had also been getting some inspiration from running coach Greg McMillan who gave a really enlightening talk about how to tackle the 5km. He highlighted some key factors leading to a positive race, you can check it out below.

One of the keys from Greg’s talk was setting up the race with a proper warm-up prior to the race.

For the 5k, there is no ‘warm-up’ period as such - you’ve got to ready to hit your race pace as soon as the gun goes off. In my training, I found it did take me quite some time to get warmed-up - sometimes up to 45 minutes. I found that if I didn’t warm up properly, then when I started the 5k, my heart rate would really skyrocket and I’d feel really anxious because I could hardly breathe!

Greenbelt 10k

Two weeks out from my 5k attempt at the Fitzy’s 5k I decided to run the 10k at the Greenbelt running festival. I ended up running a 43:53 - a time I was happy with, but at the same time, didn’t fill me with a huge amount of confidence to go sub 20 5k.

There were quite a few rolling hills along the course, and I think I was having a slightly off day - it felt like a pretty hard 10k and I was really tired at the end of it. It probably set me up pretty well for the 5k two weeks later.

Final week before the Fitzy’s 5

The week before the Fitzy’s 5km I came across this podcast interview with Craig Mottram.

I had known about Craig Mottram, but never knew how incredible a runner he was until listening to his podcast with Brad Beer. And he is surprisingly tall - 6”2 (I have always felt slightly out of place being a taller runner, so knowing this was a bonus).

Talking about his mental toughness - he described himself as the ‘King of Pain’ and encouraged to work hard and don’t be afraid to test your boundaries.

Craig mentioned in the podcast that Ron Clarke said to him that you’ll the hardest kilometer you’ll ever run in your life is from 3 to 4 km in a 5km race. That’s when you start to doubt yourself about maintaining the pace and staying strong until the finish.

That was good to know that I wasn’t the only one who really struggled with this part of the race!

Watching Craig in his Commonwealth Games race (above) was pretty inspiring - his confidence and belief in himself to the extremes was amazing.

Mindset
A couple of days before Fitzy’s 5k - a new research study came out that I saw on social media (thanks Michael Nitschke) - talking about the way you talk to yourself.

By simply changing from ‘I’ to ‘You’ can influence your physical performance e.g.

• I —> YOU can tolerate this

• I — > YOU can keep going

• I —> YOU can deal with the pain

• I —> YOU can go flat out now

• I —> YOU are going to finish strong

I was keen to test out this small tweak in self-talk to see if the research was accurate.

August 4th - Fitzy’s 5k

Admittedly we had absolutely perfect conditions - it was cold and sunny (around 10 degrees), no wind and wide roads.

How The Race Unfolded

0-1k - First 150m was uphill and my pace was 3:50 so I had to be really disciplined not to push myself too fast. Turning from North terrace into a long downhill along King William Street and picked up some nice momentum. Had the Garmin set up to beep me if I went out of the 3:50 - 4:00 range. At 1 km, I had a beep that was telling me I was going too fast, so backed off a bit more.

1-2k - I was holding myself back at 3:55-4:00 pace, even though I felt like I could have gone way faster. Quite a few people over-taking me at this stage, and I was desperate to go with them, but knew I’d pay for it later in the race. As Greg McMillan says, as you maintain even pacing through the race, your perceived effort will ramp up significantly towards the finish. Started picking up some energy from over-taking a bunch of runners.

2-3k - Felt good, ran past the Women’s and Childrens hospital and was focusing on some deep diaphragm breathing and trying to avoid sub-consciously holding onto my breath, which I have a tendency to do when the going gets tough. Focused especially on the exhale and blowing off the excess CO2. Tried to keep the stride efficient and strong.

3-4k - Around the Uni ovals - felt solid like I was at my limit, but didn’t feel terrible, still something in the tank for the finish.

4-5k - Picked up the pace a bit - Garmin had me averaging 3:58, so I felt comfortable that I was on track.

Towards the last 100m, someone yelled out if you sprint you can get a sub 20.

I was a little surprised, but had no time to really think, but I could see the big clock ticking away above the finish line and absolutely sprinted my guts out to cruise through the finish line with a time of 19:59. The last 100m was at about 2:53 pace - something I don’t think I’ve done before!

I was pretty pumped to achieve the goal. It was over and done with so quickly - I didn’t even get a chance to really think about it - I guess that is a good thing - getting into the zone.

Looking back - it’s been a fun and challenging goal to get the sub 20 for 5km. It certainly makes life interesting having a goal and working towards something every time you go out for a run.

The 5k is a really interesting test of fitness. I would say that the training to get the sub 20 has been actually harder and more focused than running the two marathons I’ve done.

A few random things that I think helped me on the day:

• good tapering over preceding 2 weeks - reduced volume but maintained (or slightly increased) intensity

• in the few days before the run big focus on core e.g. plank endurance holds. As I wasn’t running as much, I found this a good simulation for dealing with ‘uncomfortable’ sensations and pushing yourself through

• had a long warm-up 45 mins - easy running + some run throughs at race pace and slightly quicker

• happened to have a foam roller and mat in the boot of car - so took a couple mins after warm-up to roll out and get maximum mobility out the body (hips especially)

• listened to some cheesy motivational music during the warm-up, but ditched the phone for the actual race

• ate easy to digest, low-fiber carbs the day before e.g. mash potato, ravioli, 2 min noodles, rice crackers, lolly snakes. Not that you really need to carb load before a 5km, more about avoiding hard to digest foods

• had a gel 15 mins before race

• mantras used during the race - King of Pain (borrowed from Craig Mottram), stride - smooth and efficient, talking to myself with in the second person…YOU’ve got this.

If you got this far - as always thanks for reading, I’d love to hear from you and learn about your experience also. What helped you most with setting a recent PB? Please leave your comments below.

If you are interested, you can view my specific training schedule on Strava.

Happy running!

Dan O’Grady

Dan O’Grady is a Physio based in Adelaide, Australia and has a special interest in helping runners move better, feel better and get back to doing what they love.

Download the Resilient Runner E-Book - now on special !!

Working with a Physio who understands your body, your passion and your goals and who can work with you is invaluable to your running success in the short term and keeping you healthy in the long run. 

Dan O'Grady ( 2 x NYC Marathoner) has helped hundreds of runners quickly overcome their injuries and re-build their foundation.  Dan works with all levels of runners - from weekend warriors to elite level ultra marathoners.

Please feel free to wander about the blog where you'll find tons of helpful information to help your running.

If you'd like some more personal attention, please use our simple online booking system to make an appointment.

---

Can We Do Better Than The 10% Rule?

Can We Do Better Than The 10% Rule?

The short answer is yes.

The 10% rule would be familiar to most endurance athletes (limiting increases in training load by no more than 10% per week) and while it’s a good general guide to help us build our mileage, it has some serious flaws.

The 10% rule:

• doesn’t allow for recovery adaptation weeks

• isn’t actually supported by evidence

• doesn’t give much helpful guidance when returning from a period of inactivity from injury or illness

• may not be an appropriate target at certain times in your training phase

That’s where a broader view can help us plan our training, avoiding large spikes in load that are known to increased the risk of injury.

The acute-to-chronic training ratio compares your mileage for the last week to your average weekly mileage for the last four weeks.

In recent studies with athletes from various sports, injury risk climbs when this ratio exceeds 1.3, and increases significantly when it exceeds 1.5 (see graph below with thanks to Tim Gabbett).

Keeping a regular eye on this ratio (easy if you have the Garmin connect app - see below) can help us find the sweet spot where the right amount of training is improving our performance and importantly staying injury free.

To quote Tim Gabbett, “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the load you’re not prepared for”.

If you’re a numbers sort of person, read more about effective load management strategies at our ‘Creating An Unbreakable Athlete’ series.

Creating An Unbreakable Athlete - Part 3 - Recovery

Creating An Unbreakable Athlete

This is part three of a three part series about building an ‘unbreakable athlete’.

The first two parts can be found here:

• Part 1: Identifying the Peak Demands of Your Sport and Building Capacity

• Part 2: Monitoring and Adapting your Training

As always, this blog contains very general information and should be used in conjunction with a coach or health care professional.

This is not a comprehensive summary of all recovery methods, rather a more eclectic collection of strategies I’ve found very useful over the years.

---

How To Recover Like A Pro

In Part 2 we focused on building capacity through effective training habits.

While it’s important to get your training right, comparatively little importance is placed on how to best recover from those training sessions.

How well you recover quite often will make the difference between absorbing a training load the versus the beginnings of an over-use injury.

The longer I work with runners and athletes as a Physio, the more I can see how inadequate recovery techniques can lead to niggles and eventually injury.

When an injury does arise, we can sometimes become so fixated on the specific structure where we feel the pain (e.g. ITB, knee or achilles), but fail to zoom out and see the bigger picture of over-training / under-recovery that can be the root cause.

Haile Gebrselassie on recovery,

“That’s why I keep winning. One of my advantages now is longtime experience. I know what I have to do to win the race, before the race, after the race, with recovery. That’s one of the advantages for old runners. That’s why I keep running well. The young runners have enough power just to do whatever they want. But if you think with strategy, you have a kind of advantage.”

---

Our bodies are designed to adapt to exercise by re-building after small and regular increases in stress / workload, that cause a minor break-down of tissue.

Keeping the balance between workout stress and rest / recovery ensures you will progress to be able to handle a higher level of performance and your physical capacity gets bigger (including muscle tissue, cardio-respiratory efficiency, tendon strength e.t.c).

Rest vs Active Recovery

There is a big difference between rest and active recovery, with rest being passive (doing nothing), whereas active recovery is a more targeted and mindful approach to re-building your tissues and creating the ideal environment for adaptations to take place.

Active recovery is where you have the opportunity to ‘press save’ on all the training you’ve done and help you progress to the next level.

As a young athlete, your recovery powers are at their peak, so you normally can back up pretty well with your training, without thinking about it.

But as you get older and your athletic goals possibly become greater (e.g. run a marathon), your recovery strategies become more important, requiring a deeper foundation to handle the loads of training (see picture below).

What inadequate recovery looks like

Inadequate recovery (see graph below), means you may not be properly recovered for your next session, increasing the risk for an injury.

Occasionally being under-prepared and over-trained is not an issue.

But if this pattern continues on for weeks / months then an injury will be almost guaranteed.

“The most important day in any running program is rest. Rest days give your muscles time to recover so you can run again. Your muscles build in strength as you rest” - Hal Higdon

Recovery is 24/7

You might train for an one hour per day, but there are 23 hours in the rest of the day that will make or break your next training session.

From what you eat, to how much sleep your getting to your general stress levels, your lifestyle plays a huge role in how well you can recover and adapt from your training loads.

Creating the right conditions for recovery

To be beneficial, recovery strategies need to accelerate recovery, as well as promote adaptations from training.

The three main areas of recovery we’ll focus on in the blog post will be:

• Sleep

• Nutrition

• Tissue quality

Sleep:

There is a linear relationship between how much sleep you’re getting and your relative injury risk.

Neuroscientist Matthew Walker states, “sleep is the greatest legal performing enhancing drug that athletes aren’t using enough”.

Training causes micro-trauma to the body, which stimulates positive adaptations to occur.

During sleep, your body release human growth hormone (HGH), a key protein that travels in the bloodstream to stimulate growth.

If you don’t get adequate sleep, you’re not getting your full allotment of HGH and your body will struggle to repair and adapt.

Cortisol tends to build up that can keep your body in a fight / flight state where healing and recovery is delayed.

Not sleeping enough has been reported to negatively effect performance, with higher rates of perceived exertion at the same level of effort.

What happens when you don’t get enough sleep ( < 6 hours per night):

• time to physical exhausation drops by 30%

• peak forces decrease

• oxygen transport decreases

• increases injury risk (80% chance of injury if sleeping < 5 hours per night)

Don’t stress if you’re not getting enough sleep

Don’t stress though about not getting enough sleep the night before a race, as the effect of poor sleep is normally worse two days after a bad night’s sleep.

While we all know getting more sleep would be ideal, in reality this can be much more challenging with work, family and social commitments putting pressure on our ability to get the ideal amount of sleep.

There’s no easy answer here and sometimes we can get so behind on sleep, that we’ve forgotten what is actually feels like to get a good nights rest.

Getting creative with your training schedule can help.

Here’s a few tips that may be of use:

• rather than waking up extra early, do a training session as you commute to work or use your lunch break to train

• break your training day into 2 smaller segments rather than one (very early) morning session

• get to bed earlier - if you can get to bed by 10pm you will stimulate much greater training adaptations

• avoid binge watching TV shows before bed

• invest in a high quality mattress and pillow so you really look forward to getting into bed, and your sleep will be much better quality

If you have sleep issues that are more longer lasting, you may need to temporarily lower your expectations for your body, until you get things sorted.

Nutrition:

If you’re serious about your training, I’d suggest you consult a sports nutritionist to get some individual guidance on developing a plan that will help get the most out of your body.

Certainly one of the best investments I’ve made.

---

One of the most common mistakes you can make as an athlete is to not optimise your nutrition during an intense training cycle.

When your body doesn’t get enough nutritents to meet all of its tissue maintenance and energy needs, it will enter a catabolic state—which means your muscles begin breaking themselves down.

When you’re not eating enough, the first indication is likely to be a a niggle or injury and a significant decline in your workout performance.

The technical name for this is Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) (see figure below)

Potential Performance Effects of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport. Credit: IOC Consensus Statement 2018

Once again, as everyone has different needs, I highly recommend you consult with a Accredited Sports Dietician for a personalised plan.

But here’s a few key points about nutrition to get you started:

Hydration

Re-hydrating after workouts is critical to allow the body to start healing itself.

Water is good, but if you can also think about replacing electrolytes with something like nuun (we have in the clinic - ask us for a free sample).

Carbohydrates

Numerous studies conducted over the past 40 to 50 years have consistently pointed to carbohydrate as the primary macronutrient for sustaining and improving physical performance.

Research suggests endurance athletes are able to perform better and train harder when they eat plenty of carbs.

Endurance athletes need a higher intake of carbohydrates (approximately 6 to 10 g/kg body weight daily), than the average person, not just to fuel their workouts, but to re-build glycogen stores which overall increases their physical capacity.

This equates to 1 - 1.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight as a recovery fuel, ideally within the first 30 minutes of completing a training session. The actual number depends on length and intensity of the workout.

Surprisingly, many athletes don’t eat enough carbohydrates to support their training optimally, thinking they will gain too much weight.

But if you’re not getting enough fuel in training, your body will be more likely to break down and injury will follow.

The importance of carbohydrates comes down to the fact we can’t store carbs effectively (the liver and muscles store glycogen), but that is not enough to fuel a marathon, or any event more than about 90 minutes.

Lack of carbs stresses and fatigues the muscles

Not getting enough carbs has been shown to affect the muscles and tendons - in particular the ITB, hamstrings and achilles tendons.

When you are depleted of carbohydrates, there is a proportional increase in muscle fatigue, and also an increase in muscle protein breakdown.

If you’ve suffered from injuries in the past - be sure to adequately fuel yourself before, during and after your workouts to prevent your body from breaking itself down.

A low-carb diet may well be popular and useful for an inactive office worker, but a competitive endurance athlete may well need 2-3 times carbohydrate as the average person.

If you can focus on healthy, nutrient dense carbohydrates, and generally avoid processed carbohydrates you will enjoy getting fitter faster, with minimal time off due to injury.

Protein

Re-building soft tissues after a hard workout requires additional protein, compared with a sedentary person.

Protein plays a critical role in repairing this damage and is comprised of building-blocks known as amino acids.

There are 22 amino acids and our bodies require a balance of all of them, yet there are nine that we cannot produce ourselves (essential amino acids) which must acquire from food.

Complete proteins are sources which contain all 22 amino acids. Some readily available sources of complete proteins that will be helpful in building your way out of fatigue are animal products such as fish, eggs, red meat and chicken. Plant based athletes may need to supplement their diet to ensure optimal protein synthesis.

The timing of the protein is also critical, with research showing that evenly spreading your protein over 3 or 4 meals during the day creates the best environment for recovery and re-building.

It can be difficult to optimally consume good protein sources (especially if you’re on the go), here’s a few examples you could take to work:

Vegetarian / Plant Based Athletes

A vegetarian or plant based approach can raise several potential risks to both your health and your performance, but it can be done. Here are some excellent tips for you to help you stay healthy.

Fueling your body before training / racing

A good general rule is to avoid eating a main meal within the 2-4 hours before exercise (although everyone is different).

High fibre, fat and protein meals consumed pre-exercise have been shown to cause an increase in GIT symptoms as fibre, fat and protein are slow to empty from the stomach.

During your training try out different fueling options to find out what works best for you.

Try not to drink too much right before you train as you don’t want to have to run to the toilet just as you’re getting into a session.

Chocolate Milk

A study led by Joel Stager showed that drinking chocolate milk after running or any intense exercise speeds up recovery process and delays exhaustion time during training better than any sports drink.  

Maintaining tissue quality:

The major benefit of soft tissue work is that it relaxes tense muscles and removes adhesions or minor scar tissue between muscles and fascia, a fancy word for the sheath or casing that surrounds your muscles.

Training causes increased tension in the tissues and adhesions can restrict movement and impair your range of motion, potentially leading to abnormal movement patterns that can cause overuse injuries.

Types of soft tissue work:

• foam rolling

• stretching

• massage

• dry needling

• joint mobility work

How often do you need soft-tissue work done?

As you build your physical capacity and get your training intensity ratios right, you will probably find your tissues are less likely to get over-loaded and tight.

Nervous system:

Too much high intensity or threshold training can have a detrimental effect on your nervous system.

Exposing yourself daily to high physical loads and stress keeps your body in the sympathetic state - high adrenaline and cortisol that keep the body in a state of tension.

Incorporate breath work, yoga, pilates and other calming practices to keep your stress levels at bay and promote effective recovery.

Ice baths

Coaches and athletes have been using ice baths successfully for years.

Use ice baths when you’re really going through a tough phase in training with lots of hot spots and you need to recover quickly for another session.

If you experience more general muscle soreness, I would advise warm baths as your typical way to un-wind at the end of a hard day’s training. They improve blood flow, stimulate the body’s healing response (para-sympathetic response) and a great before bed to encourage a good night’s sleep.

Key Messages:

• Active Recovery helps protect against injury as it stimulates the body to repair and recover by optimising the right environment

• Make active recovery a priority to balance the stress of training

• Consider sleep, good nutrition and maintaining tissue quality the foundation for your success

Part 1 - Building A Resilient Athlete

Part 2 - Load Management - click here

Get To Know Your Muscles: Latissimus Dorsi

What are the lats?

If you’ve ever experienced ongoing upper back or neck pain / stiffness there’s a fairly chance you’ve had some issues with your lats.

The lats are the biggest (and most interesting) muscle in the upper body, as they have attachments to the upper and lower back, the front of the shoulder and have nerve supply from the neck, so they have a huge influence on your overall posture and spinal movement.

The anatomy of the Lats - they are like the ‘wings’ of our body

What are the symptoms of tight lats?

Surprisingly, tight lats can contribute to poor posture, as they connect your upper back to the front of your shoulder, causing you to adopt a rounded shoulders position.

Often we think of needing to strengthen the lats for good posture, but they can actually pull the shoulders too far down and rotate them forward when imbalanced.

When overly tight, the lats produce pain in the mid-upper back between the shoulder blades.

The pain can be felt as an constant, annoying ongoing upper back ache, that in generally unresponsive to stretching or change of position.

The pain doesn’t normally kick in until the there is significant tightness in the lat muscle, that generally has built up over many months or years, due to repetitive movement patterns or poor posture.

The person with ongoing upper back or neck pain often has tried various unsuccessful treatment methods applied directly to the area of referred pain rather than to its source (in the muscle itself).

Referred pain may also extend down the back of the shoulder and down the inside of the arm (see picture above).

How the lats get tight:

• poor posture (sitting or driving a lot)

• going too hard at the gym e.g. lat pull down machine, chin ups

• over many years of swimming , pulling through the water in freestyle

• rock-climbing

• gardening - pressing down to twist out weeds

• cycling - gripping on too tightly on the handlebars

• driving a car with no power steering

• wearing tight bras that compress over the muscle

• repetitively pulling down with the hands from overhead position

Tight lats - quick assessment:

An assessment from an experienced Physiotherapist would be the most reliable to determine if you have over-active lat muscles.

A quick test you can do yourself is a squat with your arms overhead. Try and squat as deep as you can, keeping your heels on the ground. If you can keep your arms upright your lats are probably ok (pic a), but if they drop forward or your feel stiffness in your back (pic b), you most likely have a lat issue.

Pic a = Good squat - arms stay upright and parallel with shins

Pic b = Tight lats and upper back - unable to keep arms upright in line with shins

How Physiotherapy Can Help:

• perform a movement screening to identify the contributing factors

• perform dry needling to the lat muscles to provide a fast, effective release

• provided a personalised exercise program to maintain mobility and balance in the muscles

Stretches to help keep your lats mobile:

Lats stretch

Sit your hips back towards your ankles with your arms on the roller. Breathe in through the nose and expand the lower ribs. As you breathe out, gently sit the hips back further and lengthen the arms away. You should feel a nice stretch though the back of the shoulders and lower back.

Try 30 seconds straight ahead and then 30 seconds on each side. To stretch the left side. push the hips back to the left with the arms on the right side of the foam roller.

Lats Trigger Point Release

Lie on your side and roll up and down along the outer part of your shoulder blade. If you feel a sensitive spot, breathe and hold the pressure for around 30-60 seconds until the trigger point releases.

Tips to keep your lats working well:

• gradually increase your weights at the gym, don’t try and do too much too soon

• if you are a swimmer, incorporate regular stretching to maintain the flexibility

• if you are an office worker, try a standing stretch by reaching up to the ceiling and bending to the side (the Merv Hughes Stretch)

If you still experience pain in your lats, shoulder, neck, arms or thoracic spine then come in for an assessment and treatment with your Kinfolk Adelaide Physiotherapist.

The Perfect Post-Workout Drink

To be beneficial, your recovery beverage of choice needs to accelerate recovery, as well as promote adaptations from training.

There are many options out there from water, gatorade, coconut water, endura, nuun, coke, coffee, cherry juice, beer - the list goes on!

All of the above have their time and place, but one recovery drink stands out in improving performance for endurance athletes such as runners and cyclists…that is chocolate milk.

Chocolate milk is perfect re-fueling drink as it:

• re-hydrates the body

• has carbohydrates to replace glycogen stores (double the carbs of plain milk)

• has protein to help kick start the re-building process

• contains essential vitamins and electrolytes, such as potassium, calcium, and magnesium

• tastes good, is readily available and very easy to consume

Researchers claim that chocolate milk has a carbohydrate to protein ratio (3:1 to 4:1) that is ideal for boosting recovery time after an intense workout session.

If you haven’t already done so, experiment with a chocolate milk after your workouts and see how well you recover for your next training session.