Strength and Specificity

 I ran up to Round Hill lookout today. The last time I did any running was in January, an age ago if you are talking about maintaining endurance. If the endurance junkies who tell us to run and run and run to maintain endurance, and not do any strength or power training are right, I would struggle, get tired, have a slower time, or all of the above. In fact, both my average and my maximum speed was faster than in the past, and I felt good; good enough to train on my climbing wall later in the day.

Perhaps Dan John, Pavel, Mark Rippetoe, and all the other great strength coaches that assert that building strength and power also improves endurance are right. The more capacity you have, the less you have to expend on low level sub maximal efforts (aka endurance).

Specificity counts, of course, but Strong First as the slogan goes is always a good notion when thinking about training. I was thinking about specificity today as I jogged along the single track. People get knotted up about specificity in simple endurance sports like jogging or cycling, and specificity is important but you can "hack" specificity as well. I can train for a flat water kayak trip on the ocean, but I cannot appropriately train for an ocean kayak trip on flat water. Similarly, if I can run hilly, technical trails, my local Park Run, on a flat course with ample pavement will be much easier.