Need to take about a 1 or 2 weeks off from running. What’s the best of these 2 to maintain somewhat of my run fitness?
It depends on why you have to take time off. Pool running is the safest bet if it is due to injuries.
I used an elliptical for several months when dealing with a strained mcl in my knee. Didn’t like it as much as running, but could get my hr up to 140’s and at least maintained some aerobic fitness. PT friend of mine told me one of his clients did about 80% of his run training on an elliptical and pr’d his ironman race last year.
Elliptically at the gym have nice TV’s. pool running is pretty boring.
I’d say a combination of both. You can get better metabolic work from the elliptical but water running will benefit your stride length and the ‘zero impact’ has so many benefits; depending on the injury.
Enjoy the change of pace!
I used an elliptical for several months when dealing with a strained mcl in my knee. Didn’t like it as much as running, but could get my hr up to 140’s and at least maintained some aerobic fitness. PT friend of mine told me one of his clients did about 80% of his run training on an elliptical and pr’d his ironman race last year.
Elliptically at the gym have nice TV’s. pool running is pretty boring.
I’d be highly, highly skeptical that you should be PR’ing an IM run with 80% elliptical training in substitute for running. You might PR if that PR is so soft that you can walk your way to the PR, but otherwise a run-trained IM athlete will crush the pants off of a similarly abilities athlete on the run split who subbed out 80% of the running for elliptical.
It depends on why you have to take time off. Pool running is the safest bet if it is due to injuries.
Early signs of achilles tendonitis. Nothing that would stop me from running at this point, but don’t want to get to that point…so taking a couple of weeks to “rest” it.
I became a huge fan of deep water running last year (as opposed to shallow water running). True, it is very boring. The most beneficial part for me was getting a good workout while being able to focus on neuromuscular retraining. If you focus on keeping a good core and properly using your hips, it can be a good workout and help you work the muscles you should be using when running. Also, since it’s boring, running is exponentially more fun when you are able to do it again.
I had a foot injury a few years ago and I couldn’t push off so I did the eliptical for 3 weeks. I didn’t lose any speed when I got back to running. Hated every minute of it though!
I did the elliptical going into IMFL last year. I had a IT band issue training so my running got cut short.
My longest training run was 10.5 miles.
My longest race before IMFL was a 5k.
I went 4:14 on the marathon at IMFL
here is my race report:
I did the elliptical going into IMFL last year. I had a IT band issue training so my running got cut short.
My longest training run was 10.5 miles.
My longest race before IMFL was a 5k.
I went 4:14 on the marathon at IMFL
here is my race report:
Sorry! here is the link:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=4270126;search_string=4%3A14%205k%20imfl;
If you can stepper without holding on.
I do remember seeing a study on this somewhere. They compared Elliptical to Deep Water running to Bike for maintaining running performance. Elliptical came out best, followed by water running and cycling was a distant 3rd. Running performance was maintained at 2 weeks but then started to taper off for the Elliptical. I agree that if you can do it without holding the handles it’s a pretty good low impact approximation. There is some variation keeping the foot flat to lifting the heel a bit also, so if its an achillies issue this can be a factor. I’ve had a number of patients do well with Ellipticals for maintaining running.
Early signs of** achilles tendonitis**. Nothing that would stop me from running at this point, but don’t want to get to that point…so taking a couple of weeks to “rest” it.
you are doing your eccentric heal drops… right? (you don’t need to reply to this post)
FWIW I prefer the elliptical. Specifically the Precore AMT which isn’t exactly an elliptical but close. Water running is brutally awful. Every time I try to do it, I quit after 10 minutes and just start doing laps. I figure if I’m here in the pool, I might as well get a good workout in. Hard to get my heart rate up water running.
I had a FNSF earlier in the year. I chose a nordicfitnesstrack.com ski machine. Very good for aerobic fitness - can’t recommend it highly enough.
For mimicking a running motion though, I found the Precor AMT machine to be good, and better than an elliptical or the nordictrack. The Precor is a slightly easier workout that the nordictrack though.
Water running was suggested to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I think one of the Brownlees used it a lot whilst recovering from injury in the run up to the Olys though.