FITNESS
Could the Fultzy 400s workout predict your half marathon time?
Strength over muscle mass
Good news, puny endurance athletes: even if your strength and conditioning training isn’t making you incredibly muscled, increased strength can provide other benefits. For warding off cognitive decline, strength is 10 times more important than muscle mass, a new study found*. The larger point here is that strength training is about more than making your muscles bigger. It’s totally possible to get stronger without getting bigger muscles. That happens through improving how well the signals are carried from your brain to your muscles, or how well your existing muscle fibres are recruited. Both of these things have positive implications for your running. So even if your muscles aren’t bursting out of your clothes, the mental and physical advantages you gain from getting stronger more than justify your gym membership.
270 After 270 miles of use, a pair of super foam (PEBA) shoes delivered a 2.28% lower boost than a new pair*.
YOU MIGHT WELL BE familiar with the Yasso 800s workout. Devised by former Runner’s World journalist Bart Yasso, it aims to offer an accurate prediction of your marathon time based on a relatively straightforward track workout. You run 10 x 800m (evenly paced) and your time in minutes per rep is meant to correspond with your time in hours for the marathon. For instance, if you ran your 800m reps in three minutes and 30 seconds, you may be able to run a marathon in 3:30.
It’s by no means a perfect formula. But the Yasso 800s remains a classic workout – and now it looks as though there may be an equivalent for the half marathon.
This one ha
