Brodie Sharpe: Host of the Run Smarter Podcast on Injury-Free Running and Mastering Race Day Strategy

Unlock the secrets of peak athletic performance and injury prevention with Brodie Sharp, a physiotherapist from Down Under who's reshaping how runners train and recover.  You'll learn how to amplify your training, sidestep the dreaded 'terrible twos,' and embrace the power of pacing and mental grit for your next big race.

Feel the rush of race day and conquer pre-event jitters with our expert-backed strategies. We dissect the delicate balance between pushing your limits and listening to your body, sharing tales of runners who've gone out too fast and paid the price. Whether you're prepping for a multi-day challenge like the Dopey Challenge or simply looking to amplify your training, this episode offers a treasure trove of advice, including the undeniable benefits of strength training and the tranquil art of Yoga Nidra for a sound night's sleep.

As your pulse settles, we address your burning questions on everything from managing knee pain to the controversial debate on custom orthotics. Discover how different foot conditions influence your running and why sometimes, the best solutions come from simple adjustments to your routine. Brodie returns with stirring stories of visually impaired athletes, reminding us that the running track is not just about the finish line—it's about community, perseverance, and the shared beat of countless feet against the path. So tie up your laces for an episode that's more than just a run—it's a journey through the heart of the running community.

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:32

yes, and he gives some great information to all athletes who run, walk or roll and what he shares you can use to improve your performance, prevent injuries, and we answered a lot of your questions about specific injuries in this podcast. Now Brody also joined us in Healthier you when we talk about the performance benefits of cranberries and we answer a listener question about twitchy legs from Amy. Thank you, guys for listening, for sharing, for your support and for sharing your why. If you like us, please rate us, subscribe and check the show notes for how you can support the show to keep 3, 2, 1, go going. Thank you, amazing supporters. Let's do this. Three, two, one go well, first for our listeners. If this chat abruptly gets caught off, john, look at that line of thunderstorms coming. It sure is behind me, and we had a little bit of that down at Gulf Coast this weekend the first day. We got there like tornado warnings overnight. Elliot couldn't go to the beach. Race day, beautiful Next day. So that's weather aside though.

Speaker 2: 2:04

Ironman 70.3 Gulf Coast it is the family race. Weston and his cousins do the relay. This is the third year of the relay and they improved their time by about 14 minutes over last year. Still got second, which is good, but for some reason they always end up this one team that they can't touch. So his cousin swam 1.2 miles in about 29 minutes and we kept joking with him that like he's like I only did I didn't even do a 30 minutes of work, like I don't even think I deserve a medal, I didn't even like work out that. Uh, so he did that. He passed off to Weston who biked about a two 33, which is what he biked the year before, and then David came out and ran a 133 half. So it's fun to watch them, fun to kind of track them throughout the day. And yeah, it's a nice race. It's always Mother's Day weekend and I encourage people if you are a central Floridian and you want a race to do next year, let's do it. Let's bring a little run Disney love. We can form some relay teams. We could help you out, but it's a good one. Flat ocean swim. So we almost didn't have a swim. Actually, there's the first year that I announced the race Swim was canceled. Last year it was a toss of the coin. This year was a toss of the coin as well, because the storms bring in a lot of waves and a lot of rip current. So what we had to do was flip where the start and the finish were, which they did about 30 minutes before the race, to go with the current and not against it, to make sure that it was safer for everybody. So they did, that went off and it was great. So put that one on your calendar for next year. I, that's so soon, that's so soon. Yeah, that's so soon, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:18

So if I said Rolling Stone climbers, would you know what that meant? Okay, so we have our wonderful audio and visual team for all the Ironman races BCC I think I've mentioned them before. They do a great job. Massive lightning flash it's fine, I'm fine, they do such a great job.

Speaker 2: 4:35

Now, eddie is a little bit more of a senior member and there was a stone song on and he was like do you know that I worked like eight stones concerts at blah blah blah tour, which I do not remember what blah blah blah tour was, but I was like, oh, tell me more. Because my podcast co-host was to which he said you have a podcast and I said, just fine, just answer the question. Loves the Stones? So I think they were in Wisconsin and he just showed up there and they were just hiring people. You could just show up and did you want to work the Stone show? Sure, and they said, oh, we need climbers, can you do that? So what does he say? Yes, sure, he goes to find his friend that had told him to go there. It's like, what does that mean? So apparently in the show and I'm going to do the story not great good, there were these like dancing women on stage like really big. Okay, okay, steel wheels seems familiar. So they were on ropes and he had to jump and pull the ropes and also climb and set things up. So that was what he did for about eight shows. He made the ladies dance, yeah, yeah, no, he's jumping. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Why hasn't there been a reality show about roadies? Because they are a unique bunch, oh Well, well, reality show about roadies because they are a unique bunch. Oh well, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, I, I. And then he did. Eddie did say Keith Richards was wonderful, the nicest of all of them. That's about all I got. I know putting it out in the universe. Keith, john, john will run a. If you can meet Keith Richards, what's the longest distance you will agree to run so that you can meet Keith Richards, all right. So anybody knows Keith Richards? Johnny will do a half just to meet Keith Richards.

Speaker 2: 7:34

All right, I didn't say you had to finish it, I just said you had to. No, you have to start. I'm just kidding. No, you have to start, I'm just kidding. Yep, and it's a little, nope, not lighter outside. We have a detached garage, which, summer in Florida, just sucks, because it sucks. Man, I got to leave in about an hour and a half. My kid's probably at school being scared. We're moving on, though. We're going to talk about good weather, good things. Johnny, it is time for you to set sail. I don't know why. That was like a song, like there is a set sail, there's a set sail party, a set sail deck party. Yeah, a sail away party. That's it. Are you ready? Thank you, all right, I'm Diamond Medallion, so I can take like 800 bags. I just got diamond medallion, john, let me enjoy it. Yes, it is expensive, yep, yeah, so your passport's still valid, right? You checked right. Six months, you got six months. All right, good yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Yeah, it's still valid. Right, you checked right six months, you got six months all right, good, yeah, mm-hmm nice wow yeah, we gotta we're gonna have to really work on this podcast scheduling.

Speaker 2: 10:21

You're trying to be like me a little bit. Yes, I leave on Monday, so this is Tuesday. We leave on Sunday to fly to Vancouver to go on the Disney Alaska cruise with the kids and I have paid. I have paid for this, I paid for this. Uh, I paid for it, that's all. You were not paying for yours. You are being paid and I paid for mine. And you mentioned the packing. You're like oh, I can take extra bags.

Speaker 2: 10:46

Meanwhile, I am panicked, like I am the most stressed about panicking, because one seven nights on the cruise, one night in Vancouver. So I'm holding my hands up. That seems like a lot of hands, seems like a lot of days. But the winter clothes is stressing me for two reasons One, because it takes up a lot of space, and then you want to have the fun formal outfits and the cruise clothes, and I'm concerned about four of us with our luggage and just being a nightmare in the room. So I'm a little stressed about the packing because I'm not I'm not a person that's like I'm wearing this on this day and this on this day. I'm like well, I like these shirts, I like this. So we're going to vacuum seal the stuff, this. So we're going to vacuum seal the stuff, what I know, I'm going to.

Speaker 2: 11:36

I know, yeah, well, not us, we're cold people and then it's coldest when you get towards the glacier. Right, it's pretty cold on deck. I'm just saying they said it was really cold on deck when you were out looking at the glacier. Some people said that was so you're saying that Michael does dizz is wrong. Michael does dizz said that Matthew and Michael said it was the coldest of their whole cruise and you're disagreeing. Okay, they've been once. All right, all right.

Speaker 2: 12:32

Yeah, so I'm stressed about the packing. I'm stressed, I know, I know, I know, and that's what's hard, because my mom and guy are going. So we want to dress up for the frozen dinner. We want to have formal wear. We don't want to because that's a good, it's fun for the family, like that's part of the fun for us is dressing up for the dinner. So it's going to get a little cray. Folks like't want to because that's a good, it's fun for the family, like that's part of the fun for us is dressing up for the dinner. So it's going to get a little cray. Folks Like I want to wear heels for dinners, but then I can't. That's a whole lot. Anyway, that's another.

Speaker 2: 12:54

Did you get off the boat on the glacier day and take the smaller boat closer to the glacier. Yeah, we had it and we canceled it Cause it's like, honestly, $300 a person, so it would literally be $1,200 for us for three. But then somebody like, oh, it was the best part of the thing, but I just don't have it, cause I just feel like $1,200 for two hours on a boat to get close. Yeah, yep, yep, yes, the white pass, the gold rush yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, mm-hmm, yep, yep, that's why we picked it. So I know. So, yeah, so, guys, john and I will be. Uh, don't tag us next week, cause we probably won't see.

Speaker 2: 14:36

I'm going to try to not purchase the internet package. I don't even want emails coming in. I just want to be, you know, present and all that stuff. I'm sure my phone will work when I get to shore, but those internet packages, they're pricey, so I'm not going to get one. I'm not going to go on the boat, but I will be paying for the popcorn at the theater, even though I don't think you should have to pay for it. It's a cruise, it's just popcorn, but anyway, all the money and see where it goes.

Speaker 2: 15:01

All right that, guys, though we are excited for the Disney cruise and, believe me, we will have maybe a whole cruise. Maybe we should have a whole cruise wrap up episode. I think we should. All right, it is Happy birthday. You know what she is going to be on the podcast. I was just about to text her today to get her on for June. So, happy birthday, tracy. That's what you're getting. Fingers crossed.

Speaker 2: 15:43

Wesson just ran out here, maybe out from the bathroom, didn't have a shirt on, and he wanted to know if you were going to sing on the cruise. Apparently, it was important to know. All right, no, weston. Well then you'll sing in the wrap-up show. You'll write a song about cruising. Didn't go to Monte Carlo, there were too many boats, okay, okay, oh Well, guys. So we'll see you at Bon Voyage for a little bit, but we will be back, and we've got a great interview with Brody today, but before we do, we want to shout out our sponsors.

Speaker 2: 16:25

We're going to talk about this a little bit later in the show, but Pillar Triple Magnesium. They're a sports micronutrition company who develop products that intersect between pharmaceutical intervention and sports supplements. John and I have been using Pillar's Triple Magnesium and John, it's great, thank you. Yeah, and it's not. You know, you can't just grab any magnesium. This is a high dose of magnesium glycinate, which is a specific powerhouse ingredient. It's used by John, by me, by professional triathletes like Jan Frodeno, ben Knute and Gwen Jorgensen.

Speaker 2: 17:20

So we thank Pillar for their support and in the US you're going to find it on the feed. So just go to the feed, look for Pillar, pillar and use the code 321GO to save. Yep, not only is Sarah a Swifty, but she offers complimentary travel planning services, personalized itineraries, everything. So wherever you're thinking about going, just go ahead now. Email her at runsonmagictravel at gmailcom. She can help you. She will help. She is helping people right now with packages for the Hong Kong run Disney races in November of 2024. Same weekend as wine and dime, but if you can go, sarah will help you. Her Instagram is runsonmagic and use the promo code 321GO.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Okay, civilians, it's time for the goods. Let's get on to the interview. All right, folks, we have a true running expert joining us today. No offense to anyone who's joined us in the past. We've had true running experts then as well. But this is physiotherapist, running coach, author and host of the Run Smarter Running Podcast, brody Sharp. Brody, we'll start as we always do how are you and let everybody know where are you.

Speaker 3: 20:17

Thank you, I'm doing very well and I am from Melbourne, australia, so quite far away.

Speaker 2: 20:23

And that's where you are currently. You were born and stayed in Melbourne, born and raised.

Speaker 3: 20:28

Most Melbournians do. They like to travel, but we don't go living in other places. It's just a lovely place to live, so we usually stay put.

Speaker 2: 20:37

All right. Well, you are a true running expert, but I think you are our guest from, I know, the farthest away that we have circumnavigated, so we are happy to have you here. I have been to Australia, to Brisbane and Sydney. I was on your version of Home Shopping Network selling treadmills circa 2008. But it was fantastic. I loved it. But I also love that you're here. You have, as we said, amazing credentials years of experience helping runners. But before we dive into that, tell us a little bit about your athletic background.

Speaker 3: 21:10

Yeah, sure. So I grew up actually playing basketball and I did that all through my childhood up until like my late 20s. So sort of kept doing it, did it semi-professionally, and then after that, sort of transitioned into running, like sort of after doing it, did it semi-professionally and then after that sort of transitioned into running, like sort of after my basketball career, I went traveling, actually in the States, for six months and came back feeling quite unhealthy, like you know, drinking beer and partying and not really exercising that much, and so needed to restart and reset and got into running. My sister was traveling, I was training for a half marathon at that stage and wanted me to do it with her and so reluctantly agreed but quickly fell in love with it and it's been. It's launched my career to date.

Speaker 1: 21:57

Yeah, you you had said that before, brody that you you really did pretty quickly fall in love with it. A lot of folks have a much longer love-hate relationship with their running. What was it about it? Because you said you got to that runner's high fairly, you know, a few weeks in you were really really feeling that this was something you wanted to continue with. Obviously, with your athletic background, probably just doing anything physical again was good, but what was it that brought you joy about running?

Speaker 3: 22:24

It was probably. Well, what really assisted was I was living with my parents at the time and they had a very nice wildlife kind of track behind their house and it was. You know, the mornings is when I'd usually run. The sun would be coming up, it'd be very clear and the weather itself would be nice and I'd just run and check out some wildlife. It was just really good. Really good to be by yourself, really good to get some fresh air. And there were some injuries along the way when I very first started running, as most people encounter, but just that feeling, yeah, caught up pretty quickly.

Speaker 2: 23:02

All right. Well, you did. You kind of led me to my next question, but I will, side note, join you on where you live. If you have a beautiful place to ride right outside where you live, it makes it almost like a pole a joy. We just moved about a year ago to a place a quarter mile from a great trail where we saw some bald eagle nesting today, Lots of alligators, peacocks, all things. So it's nice when it's a good destination as well as an activity that brings you joy. John is still working on finding joy in running. He hasn't found joy.

Speaker 1: 23:33

I have that hate thing down, but my love comes and goes, Though a little bit of a breakthrough in Atlanta a couple weeks ago. So let me just say that was a better experience than I expected for my second 5K.

Speaker 2: 23:45

He's getting there. We're almost at 10K day, but that's another podcast For you, brody. What was that turning point you mentioned you were injured but you've been seeing patients and treating injuries. When did you make that point to be like? You know what I need to share what I know with runners all over the world, and I know the Run Smarter podcast isn't your first podcast but what ignited the spark to start it?

Speaker 3: 24:08

Yeah, what people should also know about the story is I was a physiotherapist for about four or five years before I actually became a runner, and I saw and treated runners here and there. I was just working in a clinic just anyone who came in the door and saw a lot of lower backs, a lot of neck pains but as soon as I became a runner and then an injured runner would walk through the door, I would just be, I'd just have so much energy. I'd want to talk about their races and talk about their running or their running shoes and their cadence, like all these sorts of things, and I would try my best to help them out. And when they walked out of the clinic I'd be just be buzzing for the rest of the day and I thought that there's definitely something to that. I want to spend more time around a population or a clientele that's generate a lot of energy rather than deplete a lot of energy, because you see a lot of low back pain and probably is one that you know. You see, I saw a bit too often kind of drained my energy a little bit, but the runners was always something I'd come back to being like. Oh yes, you know, john's in the on my list for today and I'm ready to see him, just because I knew they were a runner and they were injured and that you know I want to try and get them back. And so it really helped guide my decision-making process around the podcast stuff and where my career sort of took shape.

Speaker 3: 25:34

And the podcast was a lot of to do with. A lot of the runners that I saw had the same sort of misconceptions about running and about running injuries and about what caused injuries and how they get better, and I was constantly educating my clients about no, it's actually like you know a lot to do with this and maybe you should think less about this and I thought why not just try to create a podcast that is evidence-based guidance for everyday runners so they can reduce their risk of injury and know exactly what to do to reduce their risk of injury, when you do have an injury, what you can do to overcome it, and just sort of guide them in the right direction with good principles and those sorts of things. I was already passionate about running at that stage because I had the Everyday Running Legends podcast which you mentioned. Can't find it anymore. I sort of removed it, scrubbed it from the internet.

Speaker 2: 26:29

Okay, good, I feel better about myself now. I was like trying to find it.

Speaker 3: 26:34

People were getting way too confused and I thought, no, it's a bit more of a business direction about helping runners with the Run Smarter podcast, and so I thought that I would move in that direction, really helped guide my business because I'm now an online therapist that helps runners, and so people listen to the podcast, they learn as much as they can, they see some good improvements, but if there's anything that they might need more tailored advice about or extra guidance, or they say, brody, I don't have the time to listen to 330 podcast episodes that you've got, how about you just help me straight away? Then people sort of filter down and I help them out one-on-one consultations and that sort of stuff. So it ties in really well.

Speaker 1: 27:17

And you said in watching some interviews with you earlier and this was a statistic I mentioned one that really struck me was that 80%, around 80%, of the injuries that you're seeing from runners are because of errors while training, that they're making a lot of training errors. If you could touch on that a little more and then maybe then fold in what are the most common injuries that you find that you kind of have to go over again and again and again.

Speaker 3: 27:42

Yeah, because a lot of people will develop an injury and, whether they're told or whether they do their own research or have their general instincts, they think it's. They blame their shoes, they blame their warmup strategies, they blame or, like the therapist might say, that they have a tilted pelvis, or one leg longer than the other, or they're more, their glutes aren't switching on, or like they'll come up with a whole bunch of these things. But what it really boils down to is, within your training, you're subjecting your body to training load, and your body your muscles, tendons, joints, ligaments, everything has a certain capacity to tolerate load and we want to make sure that, within our training, if you're wanting to become stronger or prepare for a marathon, we do want to challenge that particular load. We want to sort of reach the cusp of something that is challenging and enough to adapt and get stronger. But if you exceed that and you don't have the recovery on the back end to recover and adapt to that, then you get an overloaded injury.

Speaker 3: 28:42

And so the vast, vast majority of running-related injuries is due to training errors. So doing too much and that overall training load exceeding the capacity of whatever joint or ligament or tendon that is now injured and developing that overloaded injury and developing that overloaded state is what's contributing to that. So it's running too fast, it's running too far or just doing too much too quickly, and that can be transitioning from a heel strike to a forefoot strike. It could be transitioning from a really big bulky shoe that you're used to doing to a minimalist barefoot type of shoe, and that transition is too abrupt. And all these things are okay to do. It's okay to increase your mileage, it's okay to increase the hills and increase your speed. We just need to make sure that it fosters within that adaptation zone and that we have the patience and the necessary patience to adapt, which runners don't usually have. They don't like being patient, they don't like taking the slow, sensible approach, which is why a lot of runners are injured.

Speaker 2: 29:49

So that's the terrible twos right. Too fast, too soon, too often, too whatever. I've told people of those before and I try to prevent them from doing that, not with your great expertise, but that's kind of that principle, right.

Speaker 3: 30:03

Correct.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Okay. So when we're talking about types of risk for athletes, is under-training and then going to a race a bigger risk, or is overloading a bigger risk?

Speaker 3: 30:17

That's a good question. I guess it depends on what extreme you do, because there can be some subtleties. You can subtly overload or over-train or you could really severely under-condition yourself. You know underloading is a necessary part. That's why we have that sort of taper period before races. But I guess it depends on how extreme things are taken and how much risk you want to take on.

Speaker 3: 30:42

Because I have had people train for, or be in the process of training for a marathon. They say, oh, it's 10 weeks away. And we say, well, that's not enough time for you to slowly build up. And they say, well, what should I do? And you sort of have to have a sit down with them and let them think okay, how much risk are we wanting to take on board? Do we want to try to increase your overall weekly volume by 20% five weeks in a row? You could successfully do that I've seen people successfully do that but it does have risks associated with it and that those risks might not happen. You might not get injured, but most likely you will. So you sort of have to let the runner sort of guide what they want to do as well, once they know how risky of an approach it is, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 31:31

Yeah, no, it actually makes a lot of sense, All right. Well, let's get to what we deal with. A lot at Run Disney, because we have a lot of folks we have, I think, the largest number of people taking part in their first marathon, first half marathon. You know, it's going to be fun, brody. We're going to Disney, it's going to be magical, but you still have to go the distance and we have a lot of runners who get to race day.

Speaker 2: 31:54

Not just a lot, John, Like a lot Brody. We need you to understand. We'll be like how many people out there didn't train at all, and oh, and then what happens, John?

Speaker 1: 32:02

Just it erupts in applause. It's like please welcome to the stage Taylor Swift. It sounds like that when we ask that question, people going crazy. So you know, and life gets in the way. Look, it's difficult. You sign up for a race. You never know what can happen. Things can take you out of your training and all that sort of thing. If you find yourself in that position, someone finds themselves in that position can't train on race morning. Obviously. How can they make the most of their race? Maybe it's you know, I'm going to do a 10K soon, maybe. Let's just say, in theory, I've never run more than four and a half miles and now I have to go 6.2 miles, something like that. What's the best way to approach that? What's the best way to approach that so you don't overload yourself? And really, with all of the energy that people bring to it and they're all kind of really really worked up, they often overuse themselves. But what's the best advice you could give in that situation?

Speaker 3: 32:58

It's a good situation. Well, it's a unique situation because hopefully, if they've done the right things, they're prepared. Because, hopefully, if they've done the right things, they're prepared. But if they haven't prepared like we know that there are some, you know circumstances like you say, people on the starting line feeling well under-equipped or under-trained I would say definitely you'd slow down. We're not trying to push for any really really hard efforts because we want to try to keep your body in a state where it's sort of well, you know, avoids as much overload as possible.

Speaker 3: 33:29

I would say, definitely walk-run strategies would be in that wheelhouse. That would be a scenario where doing a walk-run, maybe we're walking, or maybe we're running for, say, two minutes and then we're walking for one minute and just having that on repeat throughout the race itself. But really slowing yourself down, don't get too eager or too carried away with the energy and then just run way too fast. That's what you had previously planned for. But I would say as well that if you do develop an injury or if you just choose to say run fast or run far or just go with the flow, just know that if there is some soreness and an injury developing the next day, just like this is what you've signed up for, like I don't think people really want to. People like what can I do to reduce my risk of injury? You know you can't get that risk down to zero. We're always going to be having fun and pushing out our capabilities and jumping into these challenges here and there and with that comes risks. Even if you have the most sensible training build up for a marathon, there's still risk associated with that and people still get injured. But it's kind of like rationalizing with yourself beforehand, being like, yes, I didn't prepare for this race, yes, I have increased my risk of developing an injury If I'm injured tomorrow.

Speaker 3: 34:54

Look, it's just what I've signed up for and I'll just do the right things and get back into it. You're a little bit more, I guess, at peace with yourself and I think having a better state of mind is a better position to be in. There's tons of times when I have a hard workout in my schedule and say, okay, if I'm injured tomorrow, theoretically, if I do this and I'm injured tomorrow, will I be really mad at myself? And most of the time it's no, because on paper it looks sensible. And if I were to do something and I say you know what it's challenging. I'm going to have a lot of fun. Though it's going to be an event, I'm going to enjoy the day and I'm going to see the sights and I'm going to have all this fun energy with my friends. If I'm injured tomorrow because I'm underprepared, look, I'll accept that, and then they're a little bit more at peace with themselves when or if injury does eventuate eventually?

Speaker 1: 35:45

All right, I think I know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask it anyway because it's something that happened to me when I ran my first 5k and we see it happen a lot with people is the thing you see with, I'm going to say, less experienced runners, the thing you see most often when they start a race, really just trying to start too quickly?

Speaker 1: 36:01

Because that seems to be when we talk to people about their struggles. And I did it. It I was doing a run walk that was supposed to be one minute run, one minute walk, one minute run, and I ran for like seven and a half straight minutes or seven straight minutes. Part of it is because you know we're in a big crowd. When you're running in a crowd of that size, sometimes you're just going with the flow. But again, I think that the answer to that is that what you see most often, that really the struggle for runners when they're starting out is they just try to push their pace too quickly at the beginning of any race really, I think it's probably one of the biggest mistakes people have when, say, running their first marathon.

Speaker 3: 36:40

I've actually done a YouTube video on asking my community what were their biggest mistakes with their marathon and then I sort of ranked them all together and by far the biggest mistake was I went out way too quickly and you just get caught up in the energy. There's adrenaline rush and all those sorts of things and a bit of ego as well. Like at the start, when you want to catch up to that person or someone passes you, it's like, oh, let me chase them down, and you know there's a bit of that involved and it comes back to bite you if your goal is to try to have the best performance possible, like if you want to do your 5k or 10k or half marathon marathon. You know pacing, sticking to a good pacing strategy is something that you need to do if you want to perform at your best, but it comes with experience. I guess when someone has their second race, if they've learned from that mistake, their second race will be a little bit more calm, a little bit more diligent, a little bit more sticking to their strategy and, again, if they get carried away a little bit more and they suffer at the back end and it costs them a personal best. Then their third race they're going to do it a little bit better.

Speaker 3: 37:51

I think, with experience does come with that and knowing that if someone does pass you, you'll be passing them in the second half of the race because you have better paced yourself. Just put your ego in the back pocket for the first half of the race and then reap the rewards at the end. You know, I think a lot of people depends depends what they want to do. Some people just like getting caught up in the energy and they're okay with suffering in the back end just because they're just running to feel. But, like I say, if your best performance on race day is the goal, then you do need to settle yourself down and stick to that pace strategy for success.

Speaker 2: 38:28

Those elusive negative splits happening right there it does. It takes a lot of discipline to trust in the first, say, five, six miles of a marathon. Well, I'm looking at my watch and I know it does take a lot of discipline and, like you said, we're going to definitely experience, and don't you think?

Speaker 1: 38:44

particularly on what we have, where we have a lot of people now they're moving up to the next race. They've had some success, they've run some 5Ks, maybe 10Ks. Now we're going to move up to a half marathon. Because I've had numerous people talk about that was when I made it was like, oh, I've done this half the distance, so I'm really. I think that's what, brody, when you're talking about, that's when the ego comes into play, because it's you are actually, you've trained well and you are in good shape. You've just not done this before.

Speaker 2: 39:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:12

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 39:13

I've made that mistake.

Speaker 2: 39:16

I've had like, when I've, when I'm very successful at running, I was doing. Runners and experts aren't immune to the mistakes, for sure.

Speaker 3: 39:20

Exactly, yeah, there, yeah. There's been like half marathons that I've done and I've, you know, didn't need any water, just ran, just ran fast, ran for the whole time and then, entering my first marathon, I'm like you know what I'm unstoppable. I've done half marathons before that I've really I've been really pleased with, and I thought I'd take the same approach for the marathon and I just collapsed, I fell to pieces with, you know, an hour of running still to go, and I learned the lesson the hard way. But you know you learn from your lessons, hopefully, hopefully, most of us do and then you do something different next time.

Speaker 2: 39:55

Yes, hopefully, but we all have had, I mean those of us who have run multiple marathons. You have the one where it's like wait, but I have how far to go and I have nothing left and I've got to get there somehow. So at Disney we have unique events and the fact that a lot of them are challenges. So I don't know if you're familiar with the Dopey Challenge, which is 48.6 miles. They do a 5K Thursday, 10k Friday, half marathon Saturday, a full on Sunday. A lot of other races are going to be a 10K Saturday, a half on Sunday. So for training for those, that's a tricky beast. What would you recommend for people taking on sort of a multi-day challenge like that, where, oh, by the way, every race starts at 5 am and you probably have to get up at like 1.30, 2 am?

Speaker 3: 40:40

Wow yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:41

Do you want to? Sign up Does that sound exciting to you.

Speaker 3: 40:46

Well, it actually does sound exciting. I love those sort of challenges, probably not getting up so early, but I think that's a nice challenge. Like you say, it is unique. I would say that when it comes to your training, you do want to make sure you've put in the necessary mileage. It's kind of like doing you kind of do your standard marathon training but then just make sure that you've got a lot of good recovery strategies in between those segments to then feel as fresh as possible for the next day.

Speaker 3: 41:19

Yes, the marathon itself will be more brutal than if you would have had your traditional taper, but I think setting yourself up unfortunately, sleep is the best recovery tool we have.

Speaker 3: 41:31

Science definitely shows that and if I was to have these back-to-back days, I would say getting the right amount of sleep is essential, but, like you say, we have to get up early to get to the start line essential. But, like you say, we have to get up early to get to the start line. But naps are very good as a substitute, just calming strategies. So whatever gets you into a nice calm state so like meditation or listening to music or just relaxing and laying down and getting into that calm state that's good enough for us to recover. But there's also some good active recoveries that we can do, like hot, hot, cold therapies and those sorts of things that have been have its merits for when performing back-to-back days, a lot of Olympians and things that athletes that need to do, repeated sessions they do that and it works really well. So maybe just trying to do the right preparation strategy get into like a marathon training plan but then throughout that time maybe have some back-to-back days and seeing what recovery strategies in between those two sessions really works for you.

Speaker 1: 42:36

Now, bernie, I just want to disabuse you of something. The people we're talking about. After the race, they then go to the parks at Disney and they walk around for hours. So it becomes, it's even. It's even a much, much more challenging thing than when you just hear about the races, because they rock themselves at that recovery time.

Speaker 3: 42:57

Yeah, the conditions themselves are a bit tricky. You're really throwing in some curveballs for what they could be doing or should be doing throwing in some curveballs for what they could be doing or should be doing.

Speaker 2: 43:10

So you talked about sleep and I would like you to sort of if you can briefly which I know that you have very lengthy podcasts on sleep elaborate on that. And then I have heard from I work for Ironman, so some of the top triathletes will talk about sleep the night before a race and that you know that's super important. But a lot of times you're nervous, you're stressed out. So what some of them have said is I just tell myself if I'm laying in bed, if I'm relaxing, if I'm calm, and that's the best I can do, like I'm, that's okay. And that night before the race not that it's ideal, but kind of stop stressing about it Is that something that you agree with? Disagree with?

Speaker 3: 43:41

Oh, it's like the next best thing, like the best thing is to sleep. But if you can't, we know the thing about sleep is like the more you worry about sleep, the less likely you are to sleep, and then you're not sleeping, then you're worried about that and there's this kind of perpetuating worry and so sleep becomes less effective or less achievable. But the next best thing is trying to get you into a really calm state, what the idea is to try to. Why sleep is very good is because that's when the body processes your uh training load, it sort of absorbs it and recovers from it and it uh enhances that adaptation response. And we can still do that in a very calm state.

Speaker 3: 44:23

And so over my years of trying to enhance my sleep, sometimes I go through periods of like I struggle to get back to sleep, like I'll wake up at 3 am and it's hard to get back to sleep and I worry about getting back to sleep. But I just listen to some like guided meditations or yoga nidra is a track that I like listening to and just gets me really calm and I just remind myself like this is the next best thing. This is like what I can do actively right now. I can't force myself to sleep, but I can easily do this and often that just drifts me off to sleep anyway.

Speaker 3: 44:58

So definitely there's really good research to show that if you have a lack of sleep it increases your risk of injury in the future. Because while runners get running related injuries because they get overloaded, you can overload your body if you under recover and so you can have the same training mileage. You can be running 30 miles one week, 30 miles the next week, but if that next week you're not sleeping as well, then you aren't adapting to that training stimulus because you aren't getting that adequate recovery adapting to that training stimulus because you aren't getting that adequate recovery and so you can under-recover and get an overloaded injury. And so that's why sleep is so important. That's why the research shows that those who are lacking in sleep, with like a 14-day lag in their training cycle, they have an increased risk of developing an injury that following week. And there's also research on recovery and making sure that we're just enhancing the ways we can sleep. Sure, there is other recovery strategies, but sleep is the best, best recovery tool we have by far.

Speaker 2: 46:07

In terms of enhancing sleep, what do you recommend? Because that's always the magic number you can tell people to turn off their phones. No blue light, but beyond that, you know what do you do?

Speaker 3: 46:18

I guess everyone's different. I don't really have a problem falling asleep when I first get to bed, so I feel like my preparation beforehand isn't that necessary, like, yes, I should turn off my phones, I should stop the TV and that sort of stuff, but because I don't have an issue falling asleep, I don't really pay too much attention to that. Often it is waking up 3am struggling to fall back asleep, and usually that's when I have a lot of good ideas or like I'm excited about the next day, or I have these business ideas or podcast ideas or YouTube ideas and my mind's just going, my mind's racing a little bit too much. And so, personally, for me it is trying to find strategies to unwind, to like distract myself about the next day, to distract myself about what I have, the ideas that I have going on, and trying to focus on something else. And so that's why, like I say, the Yoga Nidra is very good to listen to, because there'll be this nice calming music, this guided meditation to be like focus on your breathing.

Speaker 3: 47:20

This is what you're going to do to relax, and I follow that. And then it will say focus on your right hand thumb, focus on your left knee, your right shoulder your left ear and it will constantly and calmingly guide you through different areas of your body that you need to focus on, and I cannot do that and focus on my ideas. I've got the next day at the same time and usually I just drift off to sleep that way, so I've found that to be a really good strategy for me, but I know everyone's different. I know people struggle with sleep for different reasons but, like I say, that's a good tip if someone finds themselves in a similar situation.

Speaker 2: 47:57

Save for all the terrible things about technology. But it is great now that if we can put on a meditation app on our phone, like we have access to these things, that 15 years ago what were you doing at 3 am? You weren't calling somebody to help you meditate over the phone. So it's good that we have those. Another aspect of training that I think you know with Disney we have such a beginner population that is overlooked is strength training, and I know that strength training is so important as we age is so important for balance. How do we balance the split of runs speed work, long runs, strength training how? Because even for me, I struggle with it and I think I'm getting better just understanding the difference of DOMS and an injury and things like that. But I need you to sell people on strength training because I see so often people not doing it and I know that it's important and you know that it's important, so tell us why it's important and how we balance that as a runner.

Speaker 3: 48:52

Well, most runners. They have two desires One, they want to reduce their risk of injury and two, they want to increase their running performance. That would be the bulk of what people's desires might be. When we're looking at a performance side of things, there is no doubt really really robust research that strength training will help improve your running, whether that's a 5K, 10k, marathon, half marathon. People think that if they want to run longer they need to be leaner, they need to focus on endurance stuff and not really focus on the strength side of things. But you're essentially just enhancing other qualities of your skeletal system, your musculoskeletal system, to gear you for performance. It helps increase your running economy, helps increase your strength to push up hills, to surge your pace in the middle of a race, those sorts of things, those qualities you build upon.

Speaker 3: 49:50

Getting someone to strength train is sometimes tricky, but even trickier as to once they are in the gym actually doing exercises. That the research shows helps increase performance, cause a lot of people keep to body weight exercises, really lighter weights, um, like a three sets of 15 type of rep range. They do body weight, single leg calf raises, they do like three sets of 20. They do those sorts of things. Always, you'll be able to find research paper after research paper that says if you want to increase your running performance, you need to eventually progress, progress sensibly, but progress to the point where you're going actually quite heavy and the rep ranges and those sorts of things can hover around three sets of six, three sets of eight, where the weight that you have on is really challenging to do six or to do eight, and it takes months to build up enough strength to tolerate that without getting back pain and whatever other injuries that you might succumb to. So we need to be sensible in the gym. But when it comes to the running, the injury prevention side of things, unfortunately there's not a lot of data to say that heavy strength training reduces your risk of injury, because we know that it's mainly linked to training errors. So you could get really strong, but then if you do a training error out in your running, the risk of injury is still quite high.

Speaker 3: 51:18

But the theory is there. If we want to try to have a bigger buffer, if we wanted to try to minimize our risk of overload, surely we need to increase the capacity of your bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments in order to withstand more training load, and we can do that with running, we can do that with slowly progressing the running mileage, but we can also do that in the gym with slow, heavy, progressive strength training mixed in with a little bit of plyometrics if someone chooses. But yes, we do need time to do these things. We do have a long run that we need to do some hard runs, our recovery runs and everything that goes along with it. I like to have a really minimalist approach to strength training.

Speaker 3: 52:03

I say if you want to increase your running performance, the data will say squats, deadlifts, lunges and bent knee calf raises or like some sort of really heavy calf raises. I like to do bent knee calf raises because it will work the soleus muscle, that deepest muscle of the calf complex, which works a lot harder than the other gastrocnemius muscle when you do straight leg calf raises. So we're biasing that a little bit and I just like to go heavy. Don't like to do anything fancy with single leg or body weight or challenging the balance, like when we're in the gym. Our focus is on lifting heavier, improving those qualities. So it's just a standard double leg back squat, standard deadlift, standard lunges and just bent knee calf raises, double leg standard deadlift, standard lunges and just bent knee, cuff raises, double leg, holding onto a really, really heavy barbell and just progressing from there. So doing that twice a week is reasonable and will help get success, and so that's what we see in the research.

Speaker 2: 53:06

That's fascinating to me because I was always thinking that the research was not the research, but that the logic was okay, we don't want to get injuries, so we have to have nice, strong muscles and all this kind of stuff. So it's really interesting to me. The question I have that I can hear listeners having is but I work out at home, I don't have a gym membership. I have weights at home, and especially women, like you're saying, heavy, and of course women are all like, ah, can this be achieved at home with, say, dumbbells, or is this something that needs you know especially?

Speaker 3: 53:34

for squats like the rack and you're saying the bit knee calf raises, things like that, Like you'd want to go as heavy as you can, and depends what you have access to.

Speaker 3: 53:47

And I've seen some people get quite heavy with getting dumbbells and then also putting some weights in a backpack and doing a squat or doing their calf raises or lunges like that. It does get trickier the heavier you need to go. But, like I say, we're only giving ourselves, we're only providing the exercises that we have available. And some people go traveling, like you don't have a gym membership, like sometimes we have to make allowances for those types of things. But what I do say is if you only have 20 pounds dumbbells at home and we don't have access to any other weights, that's fine, Like progress to those 20 pounds. That will still carry over to performance, but not as much as if you did have a gym membership and you were to go heavier and have the freedom without a ceiling. If we do have limited stuff at home, sure we'll work on those, but we're giving ourselves a ceiling in terms of performance through strength training but can still be done. So we just want to make sure that we're getting the best out of the resources we have available.

Speaker 1: 54:47

Let's switch to the mental aspect of it again, because you know we're talking about at the start line that people you know people have a. It's a lot of enthusiasm and people you know really fired up and that, but also it can be a lot of anxiety and again we have a lot of people doing their first second race, whatever. Do you have any coping techniques for anxiety at the starting line? We've talked to people who you know I like to visualize things, other people you know just going through you know their last workout and where they were. What do you recommend to somebody who might find themselves standing there going wow, this was a good idea when I signed up, but I'm not so sure right now.

Speaker 3: 55:22

Yeah, and some people may or may not have like a race strategy. Like some people say, I'm just going to keep to this pace throughout the race and then they've got. If they've got a plan to fall back on, then they're sort of, I guess, less anxious because like, hey, I have this plan, let's stick to this plan, let's keep calm, we've got this in place. But I don't think a lot of people, especially if it's their first race and they're just doing it without much training or preparation, they don't really have much going on. I would say everyone's different.

Speaker 3: 55:54

I like to sort of embrace the day. I like to like use the energy. Yes, like I am anxious and yes, there is a lot going on, but I get to do this, I get to be at these big races and sort of flick the switch as well. Yes, I'm anxious, but like this is exciting, I'd rather be in like an excited, anxious state rather than a dull, boring state that you know the fact that I get to do these things is a good opportunity and you know, I think sort of reframing it in that way can be nice. But other people that doesn't work. So a lot of times it might be like trying to calm themselves. So like even just like lengthening your exhale when you breathe, even if it's just by an extra second or two, really helps like dampen down that sympathetic nervous system and sort of getting a little bit more calm.

Speaker 3: 56:44

But also, whatever works for you, you might have a mantra that's in your mind that's like I'm ready for race day, I'm excited for race day, or something that really resonates with you that you can just keep repeating and keep repeating and then can help switch that state of mind. But everyone needs to sort of self-reflect on what really works for them or what doesn't, because some strategies really help some people and others it sort of makes worse. So realize, if you are one to get quite anxious, why are you getting anxious? Is it because you're unsure of what's going to happen? Therefore, you probably need a bit more of a race strategy. Is it the big crowds? Is it the whole spectacle of it all? Once you analyze why you're getting those anxious states, you can come up with strategies to sort of address, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 57:33

Yeah, I think a lot of times the anxiety comes from, I think from runners we've talked to is fear of failure. I don't, I don't what happens if I can't midway through the run. I think that's a lot of what comes into it. Is that something that you're best addressing, you think, through training or again through just sort of like race day mantras and visualizations?

Speaker 3: 57:55

Yeah Well, with training builds confidence when we're in our training, we want to sort of have this ladder where you progress to sort of meet the conditions of race day. So we hopefully, as we approach the event itself, we've done the distances, we've done the necessary distance, we've done the necessary like fueling strategy. I know that I need to drink this much at this stage. I need done the necessary like fueling strategy. I know that I need to drink this much at this stage. I need to take my gels at this stage. I need to have my pace at this stage and so, hopefully, performance wise, there's not a lot of anxiety or worry.

Speaker 3: 58:27

But if you have, if you come in underprepared and you're anxious about what's going to happen, you know you can just reframe things to say, look, I'm just going to take, this is my test, this is my training run, because I'm going to have more races after this. Let me just take this as a learning experience. Let me just see if I do, if I don't make the distance, hey, I can walk, I can walk the rest. But I'll learn from this experience and use it as data for my next race that I have. That's an inevitability because I know most runners don't stop with just one race, and so hopefully we can reframe it a little bit and say you know what? Let's just have fun, take it as experience, gather some data and use it to better myself next time.

Speaker 2: 59:06

Well, John tried to stop at one race. He did try. He tried to stop at zero, but you know the we got him.

Speaker 1: 59:15

You know I'm, I'm also an old guy, so I got a lot of those old guy issues as well. In fact, when you mentioned lower back problems, brody, I was like, oh good, when we get off, can I talk to you about my lower back problems, because I'm like every other 59 year old man on earth earth who has a lower back issue. All right, we've had listener questions actually submitted, brody, so we'd like to throw a few of those at you, since we have your expertise. The first one is asking about bursitis of the toe. The athlete who asked it had a shot to break that up. I'm assuming that's a cortisone-type shot. Perhaps you can fill us in on that.

Speaker 2: 59:49

It was not a cortisone-type shot. It was not a cortisone type shot. I didn't elaborate on the question. They said it was not a cortisone type shot?

Speaker 1: 59:54

Oh, it was not.

Speaker 2: 59:55

Maybe Brody knows what this means. It was a shot that was supposed to break up. Whatever causes bursitis, I don't know. I'm sorry, I should have elaborated more on the question.

Speaker 1: 1:00:02

No, I just assumed it's always a cortisone shot. It was a listener question. I just was trying to parap week away from the shot. So what they're asking is if you could explain bursitis to the toe a little bit and then how, what would you recommend as far as a recovery for that Cause at a week out? They probably haven't done anything at this point.

Speaker 3: 1:00:23

Yeah, I guess like this is where it gets a bit tricky, because it'd be nice to know a bit more information about these questions and like on on my podcast I have a lot of Q and A sessions and people do submit their questions. I'm like, oh, I'd love if I had more information.

Speaker 2: 1:00:37

Um, I actually I can give you more information. I can go. It was a lengthy message. It might be in there.

Speaker 3: 1:00:43

Okay, I don't know if, like I'm actually still a bit unsure of the injection to sort of break up, like whether that was communicated to him in a different way for him to more understand, like whether that was communicated to him in a different way for him to more understand. We don't want to break up a bursa. We maybe want to reduce the inflammation of the bursa fluid itself. But essentially what it is like, the bursa itself is like a fluid filled sack that helps with lubrication of moving ligaments and tendons and those sorts of things. And so in the foot there are a lot of ligaments that don't like friction, and so the bursa help offer those types of things. And so in the foot there are a lot of ligaments that don't like friction, and so the bursa help offer those types of things. And sometimes with direct trauma or with some sort of friction that's going on, that bursa can get quite irritated and then inflamed and so it increases that amount of fluid. So what I would want to make sure is we address what caused the bursa in the first place or that bursitis. So maybe there is a scenario where maybe the shoes or the shoe toe box was a little bit too small, which led to a bit more of the toes themselves frictioning and rubbing back and forth. Or sometimes people have a narrow or crossover step width, so like if they're running on a treadmill and there's a white line painted down the middle of the treadmill belt. Sometimes people's right foot can contact on the left side of that line and have this sort of crossover pattern. And when that jutting in sort of action happens, what happens is when the foot impacts the ground it kind of creates a little bit of compression in between the toes and that can irritate things.

Speaker 3: 1:02:20

So we want to maybe address that, because if there's been some sort of training error or some sort of running shoe fit or mechanic issue that's caused the bursitis, when you do return to these sort of things we want to make sure that's kind of addressed and we've learned from what caused in the first place. So my advice if this person's back to symptom-free would be to start with just a generic sort of walk-run program and sort of just build your way up. You can accelerate it quite quickly depending how long you've had off. But even if it's just as simple as like a three minute run, one minute walk, do that five times and just see how it is. Is it still sore? If it's not, then we can ramp up quite considerably. But if it's still there, maybe we need to look at addressing the shoes, maybe we need to look at addressing the terrain that they're running on or the running mechanics that they have, and just making sure that we're getting those all fitting into place before we then start building up the mileage.

Speaker 2: 1:03:21

Okay. So getting to the root cause, that's a good question. And you've mentioned run-walk. We're a big run-walk-run advocate here my father-in-law, that's kind of his thing. So we are big run-walk advocates here. So glad that was one of my questions, but you already mentioned it, so I didn't need to prod you on that one. All right, we had Shannon and she said she has osteoarthritis of the knee and wanted to know what she could do. And then we had like seven people complaining about runner's knee, wanting to know what to do. So is the knee a place that you get a lot of running injuries?

Speaker 3: 1:03:55

know what to do. So is the knee a place that you get a lot of running injuries? Knee is the most common location for running related injuries and it is mainly runner's knee, or patellofemoral pain is the other term for it. Thanks for your question, shannon. When it comes to, we'll start with the knee osteoarthritis first. Really good research and really interesting stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:04:14

Around the running space there's a big misconception that running is bad for your knees and that running, the mileage and all those sorts of things contribute to wear and tear and contribute to decreases in cartilage volume and therefore leads to increases in osteoarthritis and those traits. But we actually see in the research that recreational runners actually have a less prevalence of osteoarthritis than sedentary populations. And we know I've done podcast episodes where I talk to osteoarthritic researchers and they say that you need to stimulate the cartilage to promote growth, rather than the opposite, which is not strengthening it. That deconditions the cartilage, kind of wastes away in that stage and what we now know is, while the cartilage itself doesn't have a lot of rich blood supply to get nutrients to that structure, it kind of acts like a sponge where when you load that structure ie running you squash the cartilage and when you squash it, there's fluid that kind of rings out like a sponge would and that carries away some wasting products that need to be circulated. But after the run, over the next hour or two, it reabsorbs. The cartilage actually becomes thicker. It thins during and after the run, but then it thickens afterwards and with that thickening draws in the nutrients that it needs to be replenished and have a nice, healthy cartilage, which is why we see recreational runners have less cases of osteoarthritis than your sedentary population. And so really good, interesting stuff there. We need to be really promoting strength, promoting activity, promoting whatever we can to preserve and build upon the cartilage volume.

Speaker 3: 1:06:17

But with someone who already has knee osteoarthritis, the idea is to then try to find out where is your load? How can we load, manage this situation in the best way possible? So how can we still keep this person active, how can we still keep this person strong? How much running volume can we do? How much walk-run strategies, how much cross-training or elliptical or swimming can we do to promote as much exercise as possible that doesn't irritate symptoms? And so the idea is to do a bout of training, see how symptoms are, see how symptoms are the next day. If it's no worse, then that means we've tolerated that bout of exercise. As we continue to do that process, we're learning more about how much can be tolerated and make sure that we're as strong and healthy as possible. That's going to be the main message when it comes to managing osteoarthritis.

Speaker 1: 1:07:12

I think it jumps back to what you were talking about. The 80% of the problems people run into is because they don't train properly and no matter what the situation they find themselves in physically, you have to find the training that works for you and don't overload yourself. People. Load management is incredibly important. Don't overtrain. All right. Dylan has a question about custom orthotics. If you think they work, what your feelings are in? Custom orthotics work for some people, don't work for others. What have you seen in your work?

Speaker 2: 1:07:47

Well, what Dylan said is or are they bogus, john? That's what Dylan really-.

Speaker 1: 1:07:51

I know, but I have some custom orthotics and I didn't want to say bogus.

Speaker 2: 1:07:55

Just honoring Dylan's question.

Speaker 3: 1:07:58

I'll touch base on the runner's knee a little bit first. Then we'll get to the custom orthotics. So if someone does have runner's knee, that's different to the osteoarthritis. It's essentially overload of the patellofemoral joint. So the kneecap that's floating around, that is a joint that has a certain load capacity and when people do have runner's knees they've overloaded that particular joint. Most people. It just goes back to training volumes. So it goes back to seeing what they can tolerate and then slowly building.

Speaker 3: 1:08:29

There is good research to show that increasing your cadence so if you increase your cadence by five or 10% it reduces the overall load of the knee by 10%, which can be significant enough to tolerate that bout of exercise compared to not tolerating that bout of exercise. And some really nice research to show that if you spread the same mileage over multiple days of the week so if you run 30 minutes three times a week, you can spread that out to 20 minutes and do that four or five days per week. So the mileage stays the same but we're spreading it over more days. That can help tolerate the load a bit more. And then levels we know.

Speaker 3: 1:09:15

We want to know if you have runner's knee what sort of load you can tolerate, where the pain during the run doesn't have to be symptom free but is less than a four out of ten pain. So a zero, one, two or three is acceptable and then returns back to baseline. So their most settled symptoms. Within a few hours hopefully, but definitely within by the next morning you need to be back to baseline. If you've passed those things, then you have successfully tolerated that bout of exercise and then you continue progressing. But there's other little things. We want to limit the amount of hills that people do, because that can strain the knee joint a bit too much. Uh, just making a few adjustments there could be really successful. Um, happy to dive into the custom orthotics, unless you have any follow-ups no, but I did want to say for our listeners.

Speaker 2: 1:10:04

So he talked about cadence. Uh, jeff galloway always talks about a cadence drill that he does and on the jeff galloway app he coaches you through it. Um, so he'll do like a pickup for like 30 seconds where you're counting, you know the one foot and then the next. He'll talk you through a walk break and then he'll have you do it again, counting, trying to get that next foot a little bit harder. And I find when I'm having a run and maybe I'm struggling, I'll do. Let me just pick up my cadence for like 20 steps. Then I kind of keep that cadence. So it's interesting. I think a lot of beginner runners we don't think about cadence a lot, we just this is how I run. So I hadn't heard that for knees. I think that's a really interesting and easy to try strategy for people.

Speaker 3: 1:10:43

For sure, yeah, okay, let's dive into the question of custom orthotics. So it's an interesting realm that we need to be careful of. There's when it comes to someone who's been told they don't have any pain but someone's been told that they have flat feet and they need custom orthotics to realign them. We know through research that it doesn't really work that way. Some people can really thrive with orthotics. Some people can really thrive with custom orthotics, but it's not really realigning people. It might change their tissue mechanics or the forces that go through, but we do know that some people with flat feet you give them orthotics and they do worse. So it really does boil down to if you wanted to try custom orthotics, see if it works for you. But knowing that there's no predetermined data that we have to know that you will be successful with orthotics, see if it works for you. But knowing that there's no predetermined data that we have to know that you will be successful with orthotics, it is purely just a trial and error approach. But we know that it won't really reduce people's risks of injury. Again, it goes back to training load. It doesn't matter about if you have a flat foot or not. There's been research done where they've taken a group of I think it was a couple of hundred people and they put them into different categories. These people are pronators, neutral, supinators over pronators over supinators, and they all put them in neutral shoes and they get injured the same. They get injured at the same rate. It doesn't matter about the foot shape to foot, their shoe type to foot shape. There's no real correlation there with injury, with some specific injuries. If you are injured, that's a slightly different story, because then we can put you in orthotic and we can test and retest to see if that reduces your amount of symptoms. And if it does, then maybe orthotics is appropriate for you. But sometimes custom orthotics can be quite expensive and it might not be worth a trial and error. So what I would say is probably trial off the shelf orthotics that are a lot cheaper. Try that first and see if that helps reduce your symptoms. And if it does, then maybe escalate that one step further and maybe invest in a little bit more money to do the custom stuff. But you know, very commonly people try the shelf orthotics and they feel no different and I say it's probably not worth pursuing.

Speaker 3: 1:13:06

Maybe you're just one of those types that doesn't really respond well to orthotics. Good, some research with small group sizes to say that if you have plantar fasciitis, sometimes orthotics do well. If you have an Achilles tendinopathy, sometimes that helps as well. Those types of things can be good for unique situations. But it always falls down back to trial and error. If someone doesn't see a noticeable improvement, I would get rid of them. If someone's been told you need to wear orthotics for the rest of your life because you have flat feet but they're not injured, I would get rid of them. If someone's been told you need to wear orthotics for the rest of your life because you have flat feet but they're not injured, I would definitely question that particular philosophy or question that rationale. But that's why we need to be aware of these things.

Speaker 2: 1:13:52

Okay, that's great. I love that answer. Courtney wants to know possible to keep running with hip impingement. And yes, I did not make up these people, these are actual people. I promise there's more of them, I just I don't know. We have time to get to all of them. But there's Courtney, where is she? She's right there. She asked about hip impingement. She's actually blocked Courtney 12, if we're going to be specific. But is it still possible to be a runner with it?

Speaker 3: 1:14:17

Definitely If we're talking the anterior hip femoral acetabular impingement or FAI is the term for it people can be very successful running with that.

Speaker 3: 1:14:30

It's usually squats and lunges and swiveling with deep levels of hip flexion that really irritate sort of swiveling with deep levels of hip flexion that really irritate.

Speaker 3: 1:14:46

But once you settle down the daily modification so maybe sitting in a low chair or maybe picking something up off the floor playing with the kids or rolling around on the floor, those sorts of things if that irritates, removing or modifying the daily things that irritate can definitely benefit the running itself and carry over into a successful run. Because usually when we run we don't go through large ranges of hip flexion to irritate the impingement. I have impingement that's sort of asymptomatic on my right side for a decade but if I do a lot of squatting and a lot of pivoting then that gets really irritated but it's never irritated my running. So if you find that there is a correlation in symptoms, if you find that the more running you do, the more impingement and symptoms that you have, maybe there's another structure going on. But it will always come back to training load, finding out what volume you can tolerate and then fostering within that for a couple of weeks, settle it down, before then slowly building up and hopefully meeting your adaptation zone the whole time All right.

Speaker 1: 1:15:48

We have actually one here from Rhonda and she has a question about Morton's neuroma. For people who don't know, of course, with my extensive medical knowledge I do know that it is a benign neuroma of the intermenotarsal plantar nerve, most commonly the second or third, but that's not really for now it's going to cause yeah, I had to look it up.

Speaker 2: 1:16:08

I picked that question because I didn't know what it was.

Speaker 1: 1:16:10

Yeah, you're going to have. They're going to have pain essentially towards the ball, the plantar nerve area of their foot, and actually reading about it it's kind of interesting because there are a school of thought that it's not actually a tumor, it's just a fibrous growth around there. But with the knowledge you have of it, what would you recommend for somebody who might be dealing with that if it is indeed what they're dealing with, because it seems like there are a lot of things that might matter. The symptoms might be the same for a number of different conditions.

Speaker 2: 1:16:39

Dr. There are a lot of things that might matter. The symptoms might be the same for a number of different conditions.

Speaker 3: 1:16:42

Dr Pelkey, well presented the advice. Would be very similar to the bursitis that I had before. It's like usually if we're looking at some sort of irritation in between the metatarsals, so those long bones in the foot, sometimes there's more like of a compression or crushing or friction or something that's going on in between those two bones that leads to that lesion being created. And so that's when we need to have the conversation of let's look at your foot strike, let's see if there's a crossover step pattern. Let's look at your shoes, let's see what the the toe box is like, because I've seen people have real success Once everything's settled down, like return to running with a wider toe box. Sometimes you've got some like more trail shoes, that sort of gear for a bit more of a wider toe box, just more space in and around the toes. That can be really successful because it avoids that compression and crushing type of mechanics.

Speaker 3: 1:17:42

So I would say calm things down with load modification. It might be backing off running a bit and doing some cross-training or elliptical or swimming or bike cycling or something like that. Once symptoms are settled, doing that return to run with, if they have a crossover step width, trying to widen their step width so we don't have that cutting in type of action where the toe bones themselves are sort of, you know, crushing one together and having a wider toe box. So there's a bit more space in between there and if walking is irritating like throughout the day, again better footwear. Some people get these like toe spaces, that spaces that have these sort of foam pads that go in between their toes. It kind of creates a little bit more separation. You wouldn't wear that all the time, but if it's really irritated that might be a way to alleviate symptoms and help things calm down. So a few little tricks there.

Speaker 2: 1:18:36

Am I allowed to have a question? I think it's a quick one.

Speaker 1: 1:18:39

Sure, go for it. No, it's about me.

Speaker 2: 1:18:42

I'm asking the physio here. I shattered my big toe last year so it broke in basically in a figure four. It's fine running, but when I try to do split lunges and I'm flexing it it hurts. So should I just and I just don't do them anymore. I'd have to put my foot all the way down and not push off the toe. Should I do that or should I just work through it?

Speaker 3: 1:19:02

No, I'd say you'd probably do some modifications, like, if you wanted to like point your toes down with the back foot or just put like a rolled up towel underneath that foot, so there's a little bit more support there, that's totally fine. Like it's going to be like you say that really extended position that's going to like it's going to be like you say that really extended position. That's going to get really irritated it's like the next day.

Speaker 3: 1:19:22

I'm like, oh, yep, that was the split lunges then I just stopped doing them, but I know they're important because you said they were important yeah, but when we're focusing on the split lunge or the split squat, like it's the front leg that we really want to focus on, like that's what's doing all the work, we can modify anything we want to the back foot, because that's just going along for the ride. So it's not like we're modifying the exercise to not. It's not like we're not enhancing the benefits. We're still getting all the benefits of the split squat. It's just some modifications to help it become a little bit more tolerable.

Speaker 1: 1:19:53

So I'd say it's totally fine, all right thanks all right, we're gonna get to the questions that we ask everyone Now. This is something that you kind of touched on but maybe elaborate anymore. You've talked a lot about really reframing your frame of mind, but you get yourself to a hard place in a race three quarters of the way through and things have been going well, even a workout and your brain is telling you this is not going well. Shut it down. How do you work past that place? What do you do to get past that, that hump that I think most people run into at some point in a workout or a race?

Speaker 3: 1:20:28

a few things I would say like um, make sure you're in your training, like well before that race, make sure you do hard things in in your race and in your running and in your preparation, because there's always going to be times when your body says stop and you want to try to know that. There's another side of that. If you work your way through it or sort of build resiliency and build that sort of strong mental will to get through it, If you don't build up that confidence, if in a hard workout, if it says this is getting hard, we need to stop, and you continue to push through and you're successful with it, then it sort of builds up that resilience so that when you get to that mid-race moment where that same thing occurs, you'd be like I've done this before, let's tackle through. I know I'm stronger than this. I know it's just my brain trying to psych me out. So there's that side of things I would also.

Speaker 3: 1:21:21

What works for me is smiling, enjoying the day. Cheering people on high, fiving crowds, doing those sorts of things really gets me in a better state of mind. If you're at a running event, there's always going to be a cheering crowd. There's always going to be a runner next to you that sort of runs past you and you say good job, keep up that pace, You're looking really good. Or someone who's really struggling that you pass and you say keep going. You sort of encourage them and cheer people on and just sort of engage with other people. All of a sudden my fatigue goes away. All of a sudden I'm like I've got more energy back in me. People always asking for high fives or like having these like really funny posters that they create and cheering on their family members and all that sort of stuff. If you well with me in particular, if I sort of embrace those moments, those tough moments for me just totally dissipate. So I would say, try to seek out those type of things, go, look actively, look for those things and then embrace them.

Speaker 2: 1:22:13

John, I promise that I didn't tell Brody beforehand. Here's all the things I say at a start line to people, to people. You've touched on everything. I always tell people they get to do this. It's not impossible, it's just hard.

Speaker 1: 1:22:25

And then I say to smile Well and can I just say from my limited experience, my first 5K, when I ran it again I wasn't sure I didn't want to do it. They shamed me into it, which is pretty much what happens in my entire life but I really kind of kept to myself. I had my music on, I had my head down. I didn't see any of the entertainment. Our entertainment director was like, hey, did you see this character? I didn't. I was just, you know, focused on that.

Speaker 1: 1:22:48

And I recently ran a 5K and Carissa ran with me for a good portion of the time, but the whole time I was conversing with people and talking to people and engaging and I really really did find that mentally that put me in a much better space than when I was just, you know, head down. And, as you know, we go back to when you're a kid and you play sports in high school and everything. It's a focus Do your job, stay with your head down. But I really do think that's great advice is engage with the things around you, and at a Disney race we got a lot of things around you for you to engage yourself with.

Speaker 2: 1:23:21

And John, you checked off that box Experience. I know it's only two races, but you have learned from experience and that's a really great thing, All right. The other question, Brody, we ask everybody is and this can be a hard question or it can be a really easy question what is the most inspiring thing that you have seen at a race or on a run?

Speaker 3: 1:23:42

Oh, good question. I would say the most inspiring. You said a race, so it can be something else. It doesn't have to necessarily be a running race. I think the most inspiring. Like I've done a few triathlons in my time and there are vision impaired athletes that do triathlons with guided, you know, professionals that help see them through a whole entire triathlon. I think that is incredibly fascinating and incredibly inspiring and you know I've only seen it a couple of times, like, say, every triathlon I go to I maybe see one of those people attempting that. And how can you not be inspired watching those types of things? Inspired for the vision impaired person doing this event, but also the support that they have and the encouragement that they get, and the facilitator that sort of trains with them and works through the race with them, everyone involved. Heck, you're not being inspired.

Speaker 1: 1:24:47

Yeah, and you know we're very lucky in our job with Run Disney because we get to see a lot of. We have numerous visually impaired athletes and athletes with guides, and it really really is. I do think it inspires the other athletes around them as well. So it's another one of those things. Keep your eyes open when you're out there, because you will see things to inspire you. All right, this will be in the show notes and everything, brody, but please let everybody know, if they want to keep up with you, the name of the podcast where they can keep up with you on all the other social media sites.

Speaker 3: 1:25:13

Yeah, step one, the Run Smarter podcast, is the home base, I guess you could call it. The first 10 episodes of the podcast are 10 universal principles to reduce your risk of injury, which most people just gravitate towards. Their first. I understand there's a lot of podcast episodes to binge through, but start there. It's going to really help enhance your running. If you're currently injured, those will help as well, help mitigate you out of that, so you can go to there. I am on YouTube as well, so Run Smarter with Brodie Sharp is the YouTube channel. I'm spending a lot of energy on that at the moment. Yeah, the Run Smarter series is on Instagram. I'm fairly active on there, you know, doing research papers and releasing my podcast episodes on there and those sorts of things. So I don't want to give people too many directions to go to, but there's three there and you can find what, how you like to consume your content. You can go to one of those handles.

Speaker 2: 1:26:09

And you've got a great book Run Smarter by Brody Sharp. I got it right here. I've been really enjoying checking that out, helping me be a little bit of a smarter runner. Thank you so much, brody, for aligning the global times and joining us. I think our listeners are going to get a lot of benefit out of this and they're going to want to know more. So we thank you for being here, but you can't leave because you are helping us with Healthier you right now. All right, brody.

Speaker 2: 1:26:33

I don't often get help on Healthier you. But you are here and you love research. You dive into the papers, you make it simple for everybody and sometimes you learn best when it's not the person you always hear telling you about good nutrition. So, brody, you just talked about cranberry supplementation in a recent paper. You covered it, I think, on your March 24th podcast. So, for all of our listeners, can you summarize that for them and give them the pros and the cons of the cranberry supplementation?

Speaker 3: 1:27:02

Of course I will start by saying I'm not a dietician but I can definitely share the research that I've looked at in relation to this, because there was a recent article looking at cranberry extracts and does it increase running performance, and they did a few studies where they wanted to look at if there are short-term benefits or if there are long-term benefits, compare that to a placebo. And they had runners go through a trying to go through memory now, a 400 meter run and a 1500 meter run, and they tried to do their best. They had the baseline group where they just had the controls. Everyone do measure their 400, 1500 personal best. Then they came back a week later for a second attempt.

Speaker 3: 1:27:45

This time they had a cranberry extract like an hour or two beforehand and it was a high volume, it was like 0.7 grams per kilogram of body weight and then had them do that same test. Then the test number three was 28 days later but they had people consume this cranberry extract at a lower dosage. It was about, you know, 15 cranberries per day, but do that daily before the tests and they found that the short-term effects they didn't really see much. But for the long-term effects, so consuming sort of cranberries on a low sort of volume but on a daily basis for 28 days, people showed an increase in performance and an increase in their ability to buffer lactate and a few other performance metrics, and so shows the importance that, the theory being that cranberries are very high in antioxidants, in particular a certain type of antioxidant called polyphenols, which help sort of clean up the body, help reduce with inflammation, help, you know, like I say, buffer that lactate and help enhance the performance.

Speaker 3: 1:28:59

And so that was a really interesting study. A smaller sample size I can't remember off the top of my head how large the size was but then got me down a rabbit hole of looking at other bigger, more substantial papers about polyphenols and does it help increase performance? And definitely found a lot of more robust research to show not necessarily with runners but with people like cyclists improvements in running performance when taking high concentrations of polyphenols. So definitely the theory is there, definitely there is more evidence to back it up. That's a little bit more substantial in size that's interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:29:38

so when they were taking the extract, obviously that's very different that I'm going to go to the store and I've bought cranberry juice cocktail and now I'm drinking it, because I've worked with the cranberry board in the past and I think a lot of what they were trying to do is kind of educate on there's benefits. How much do you need for the benefits? Do you know what exactly they were taking? Was it a supplement or was it like a specific type of juice, like was it a powder, a pill?

Speaker 3: 1:29:59

uh, I think they just called in the paper a cranberry extract. I don't know how to delineate more from that, but, um, you know you could take it in its purest form. You could take cranberries. I think is probably the the safest bet, rather than doing anything that's been processed or any other thing that's been added to it, and there are other fruits and vegetables that are very high in polyphenols as well.

Speaker 2: 1:30:23

Because I've also worked with the pomegranate.

Speaker 2: 1:30:25

I know that they have, on average, more polyphenols than grape juice and green tea and wine, which I had to say in my scripts. But they did not mention cranberries. So we'll have to do a little digging on our 3-2-1-go-in to see where cranberries link up there. But that's really fascinating, interesting, I was hope. When you said they took it a few hours before. I was like, well, I don't think that's going to do anything. So I'm glad they extrapolated that out a little bit and I think for everybody listening, the important thing is that when you stopped taking it you would stop seeing those benefits. So it has to be something that you, you know, can continually use in your diet to get those benefits Correct.

Speaker 3: 1:30:59

Correct.

Speaker 2: 1:31:04

Yeah, good. Well, thank you for joining us on the podcast. Thank you for helping us with this Healthier you moment and, for those of you listening, check out Healthier you. It's our 12-week web-based nutrition education course. Go to gallowaycoursecom and I'll see you there. All right, thank you so much, brody, that was great.

Speaker 3: 1:31:21

Awesome. Thanks for having me. That was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 1:31:30

All right, thank you so much, brody. That was great, awesome. Thanks. Really appreciate it, man. All right, thank you, sarge. Today we're doubling down on nutrition. Today's listener question is for well, carissa, that would make sense. Amy emailed at 321gopodcast at gmailcom and she asked why do I get twitchy legs after long runs? Any suggestions on how to avoid this or how to alleviate it? It really messes with my ability to fall or stay asleep. I would imagine it would. You think the body would be tired enough, but the legs are just too much. Could you include food suggestions high in magnesium? Running a Chicago marathon as a goal to recover strong from a double mastectomy reconstruction next month? Wow, that is incredibly impressive. Help help her out with the twitchy leg syndrome.

Speaker 2: 1:32:15

For sure. So, amy, I had this for years. You can ask Weston I would. If I do a long run, I'd literally at least once that night in bed would be sitting up and stretching because I thought that was going to help the twitchy legs. It's really magnesium. Magnesium is an electrolyte. We're sweating all that out. We need that.

Speaker 2: 1:32:31

So we talked earlier in the show about our sponsor, pillar, that is specifically designed to help alleviate this. Uh, because there's several factors why this happens, including muscle fatigue, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance or mineral deficiencies. Magnesium is key in all that. Magnesium plays a crucial role in muscle function and relaxation, so the deficiency of course leads to the twitchiness you're feeling. So supplementation, I think, is the easiest, most consistent way to do it. You could take something like Pillar the nights after your long runs, but we tend to take it all the time because of the benefit for sleep and recovery, but that'll help replenish the magnesium levels in your body. Hydration is important, so make sure you had enough hydration before, during and after your runs. Any dehydration is going to exacerbate this.

Speaker 2: 1:33:23

Foods that are good sources of magnesium Spinach. Put it in a salad, put it in a smoothie, put it in a cooked dish Almonds. So the interesting thing about nuts is they're all good for us. We want all those healthy fats, but they all have different little micronutrients that we need. So if you're looking for magnesium, go to almonds. Avocado is great as well. It's a versatile fruit. Yes, I said fruit that contains magnesium, along with other essential nutrients like potassium and fiber, so adding these in hopefully that helps your twitchy legs. But again, you are amazing, amy. We salute you for what you have gone through and for wanting to put that goal out there to get back moving, and so we cannot wait to know how amazing you do.

Speaker 2: 1:34:03

Chicago marathon I thought about doing it this year. It just didn't line up with my schedule. As you might've seen on Instagram, I am running a marathon, but we haven't even talked about this because we like talking about John and the Rolling Stones more, uh. But if this helped you uh, hopefully it does, and you can email us your questions about anything. It's the listener question. It's the mailbag 3-2-1-go podcast at gmailcom. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. More people can see us when you share and when you subscribe. That helps up. That helps the algorithm. Write a review If it's nice, keep listening and we'll see you real soon.