# 309. 4 Most Googled Questions by Runners of 2026

An episode of [Marathon Running Podcast by Marathon Journal](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1568093441), 13 Apr 2026, 28 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO4658341522.mp3

Is every step you take a "withdrawal" from your joint bank account? In this high-stakes episode, Letty and Ryan tackle the 4 Most Googled Questions of 2026 and burn the old rulebook to the ground. We dive into the mind-blowing MRI research that proves running doesn't thin your cartilage—it can actually make it thicker and stronger. Ryan breaks down the "Thicker Cartilage Paradox" and the "Sponge Effect" that keeps your joints oiled, while Letty discusses the 120g carb-loading revolution and her final preparations for the Boston Marathon. If you’ve been running in fear of injury or hitting the wall, this episode is your biological wake-up call. Your body isn't a machine that wears out; it’s a system that levels up. In this episode: • The Hypertrophy Reveal: Why runners' knees often look healthier on an MRI than non-runners'. • The 120g Carb Ceiling: the new gold standard of fueling. • The 50mm Stack Height Trap: Is your "super-shoe" sabotaging your stability? • Heavy Lifting for Speed: Why the strongest runners are becoming the fastest runners. • Boston Updates Stop guessing. Start adapting. Get the full research links and the Boston Marathon event schedule at MarathonJournal.com.

## Transcript

[0:00] You're listening to episode 309 of the Marathon Running Podcast.
[0:03] In this episode, we're going to talk about the four most Googled
[0:06] questions forerunners by runners in 2026.
[0:10] Welcome to the Marathon Running Podcast by Marathon Journal.
[0:13] Join us every week for the insights and inspiration you
[0:16] need to get from the starting line to the finish line and
[0:18] beyond. Hey runners, and welcome to the
[0:32] Marathon Running Podcast. My name is Letty.
[0:35] My name is Ryan. And Ryan, it has been a while,
[0:37] hasn't it, that we've recorded a podcast together, a few.
[0:40] Weeks, I think. Yeah, I think more than a few
[0:42] weeks to record pre to. I've taken the liberty to record
[0:46] some of the intros myself just because everything has been so
[0:49] busy around here with spring break.
[0:51] ETC. It is springtime.
[0:53] Spring is in the air. Spring is sprung.
[0:55] We wouldn't know. We live in Florida.
[0:56] Yeah, I don't know for everyone, but here it's warm.
[0:59] Yes, and pretty soon next week I will find out how the weather is
[1:02] in Boston. So you'll be in Boston soon?
[1:04] Yeah, did you know that? I mean, you just told me.
[1:07] I talked to you about before it. This is how well my husband
[1:09] listens. To me, you might have mentioned
[1:11] it sometime. I guess we'll have a week of
[1:13] vacation, huh? Yeah, vacation from the big
[1:16] boss. So are you running this year?
[1:17] I am Ryan. Oh, good.
[1:19] What are you going to run? I'm going.
[1:20] To run a relay on Saturday before the actual marathon race.
[1:24] I'm not running this year. I've not been training.
[1:25] Why not? I don't know.
[1:26] I feel like I'm kind of an offseason right now.
[1:29] Obviously not work wise because I'm still all into marathoning,
[1:33] but I just kind of took a little, not even a break.
[1:36] I still run everyday but just, you know, kind of ease up a
[1:38] little bit for the time being so I can roll into training for the
[1:41] Sydney Marathon in the fall. You're going to wait all the way
[1:44] until Sydney? Yeah, Can you believe it?
[1:46] No, I don't believe it. No, it's really true.
[1:48] I'm just running a relay. I'm running a relay at one of
[1:51] the events during the Boston Marathon weekend, which is at
[1:55] the New Balance track. They do a relay every year, or I
[1:59] guess this is the second year, and it sounds like fun.
[2:01] So it's like a marathon distance relay with a team.
[2:06] So we have a ton of people on our team, so I think we just get
[2:09] to run maybe a mile each, but that just goes to show that our
[2:13] marathon's going to be a lot faster.
[2:15] It's only a mile each. Yeah.
[2:17] So I don't know how many teams there are.
[2:19] I think about 20 teams that are all running marathon relays.
[2:23] So it's quick turnover. Does it have to be a certain
[2:26] number of people? I don't think so.
[2:28] I think they're aiming for 10 to 20 people.
[2:30] We have 17. Oh, with 10 people you'd have to
[2:33] run. No, I think, I'm sorry.
[2:34] We have. We have, I think 25.
[2:37] OK, that would make so everyone just runs a mile.
[2:40] But I was wondering, so did they they have like a minimum and
[2:43] maximum or did they just kind of give you?
[2:45] I think they were aiming for 10 to 20 people, so this year they
[2:48] did not take any new teams. However, they had a team for
[2:53] people that wanted to participate in the relay that
[2:56] weren't teamless. So myself and my 9 friends
[2:59] signed up for the teamless team and we didn't know how many
[3:02] people we're going to have until today when we got the e-mail and
[3:05] it looks like there's 25 people in our team.
[3:08] Which it OK sucks. I mean, I understand that most
[3:10] people are there to run the marathon, I am not, so probably
[3:14] have liked to run a couple miles, but I guess I'll just get
[3:17] them in some other time. Yeah, that's what I was kind of
[3:19] confused about. It was just like what was the
[3:21] setup? Yes.
[3:23] It sounds interesting though. Yeah, it sounds fun, looks fun.
[3:25] They have, you know, food, music and all that stuff and it's a
[3:28] good event. It was a good event last year at
[3:30] least. We'll we'll let you know how how
[3:32] it goes this year for us. But yeah, so that is just one of
[3:36] the hundreds of events literally that are going on during the
[3:40] Boston Marathon weekend. We, as you know, have created a
[3:45] schedule on our website where we put all the different events
[3:49] that we could find for shakeouts and panels and food events, all
[3:54] sorts of thing, all sorts of things.
[3:57] And we have put them in there by date organized with location.
[4:01] You can click on it takes to Google map.
[4:03] It gives you the place to RSVP and everything.
[4:05] So just to make it easy for everybody.
[4:07] So yeah, if you're going to Boston and you want to find
[4:10] stuff to do, you can hop onto our website.
[4:12] It's the featured article until the Boston Marathon Marathon
[4:15] journal.com. So what are we getting into
[4:17] today? Yeah, so today we are going to
[4:19] go over the four most Googled questions by runners about
[4:25] running for 2026 this far. And there's some really cool
[4:30] ones there. Like I said, there's four and I
[4:32] guess should I name them first or should we just hop into them?
[4:36] Name them first all. Right, so the first one is that
[4:39] running is bad for your knees. Or I guess the question is, is
[4:42] running bad for your knees? The second question most googled
[4:46] was how many carbs can your body process per hour?
[4:51] The third one was does more foam in running shoes equal more
[4:55] protection? And the fourth one was whether
[4:57] lifting makes you bulky and slow while running eats your muscle
[5:03] mass. And I can't believe that 4th 1
[5:05] is still something that we Google.
[5:07] I thought, you know, that kind of sounds like a question of the
[5:10] early 2000, back when we didn't have Internet.
[5:12] I mean, that's a reasonable question.
[5:13] All right, so let's hop into our first one.
[5:15] Is running bad for my knees? Is it?
[5:18] I guess the reason that we think that is because you use
[5:23] something and it wears out. So then I think that's where the
[5:27] idea comes from, that running is bad for your knees because
[5:30] you're using your knees constantly for running.
[5:32] You're pounding on pavement, which wears out your knees.
[5:36] As humans, it's hard for us to understand that our body is
[5:40] dynamic, right? I think that's the most common
[5:43] thought of thing because osteoarthritis specifically,
[5:47] which is a specific type of arthritis is kind of a long term
[5:51] debilitating disease. And so it's not like an acute
[5:53] injury, but you don't want to end up that way if you can
[5:56] prevent it because that can lead to long term pain and disability
[6:00] essentially. And actually the original
[6:02] thought was cartilage, like other parts of your body,
[6:05] including neurons and sometimes even nerves were not very
[6:09] active. And once the cells developed
[6:11] into what they were finally were, they kind of just sat
[6:13] there. And if they died and there was
[6:15] no regeneration or coming back from that.
[6:18] But it seems more and more that there is regeneration of those
[6:21] cells, it's just a lot slower than other cells and more
[6:25] limited than other cells. But that doesn't mean it doesn't
[6:27] happen. And despite the previous thought
[6:31] that running would be bad because you only have a finite
[6:35] amount of time on your knees, instead it actually does provide
[6:39] some regeneration of the cartilage and menisci and other
[6:43] stuff, and can sometimes even be healthier.
[6:45] I think even recent studies have shown that somebody that even
[6:49] has osteoarthritis already can have decreased pain if they stay
[6:53] active, not necessarily running. Obviously it's dependent on lots
[6:56] of factors, but can decrease the pain.
[6:58] So do pain meds. But anyway, so OK.
[7:01] So you found one study that is related to cartilage thickness
[7:05] in running, right? Yes, I found a study then.
[7:08] It's a study from 2023 published in April of 2024 that shows that
[7:16] recreational runners actually showed increased thickness and
[7:20] volume in specific regions of the knee cartilage.
[7:22] And so, I mean, I guess that's the ultimate myth Buster because
[7:26] instead of wearing down the cartilage and runners, it
[7:29] actually appears to hypertrophy. Hypertrophy.
[7:32] Hypertrophy to handle the regular mechanical stress of
[7:36] running so. That's a good example of
[7:37] adaptive changes in the body, like if if the cells were just
[7:42] fixed and they never changed, they would just slowly get
[7:45] thinner or the cartilage would slowly get thinner and thinner.
[7:48] But this is showing that with running, they can actually
[7:52] increase in size instead of get thinner can have a little bit of
[7:55] protective effect, which is really kind of cool.
[7:57] Other things that I've learned about too is that some of these
[8:01] areas, like the cartilage don't have a lot of blood supply to
[8:03] them and they get a lot of their nutrients from the joint,
[8:05] synovium or fluid itself. And the compression of the joint
[8:09] squeezes the cartilage like a little sponge and then it pushes
[8:12] in and out the nutrients that help it grow.
[8:15] So that might be 1 factor as to how it does it, but.
[8:18] That's actually funny because I found a study that says exactly
[8:22] that. Ryan, It's from 2019 and that
[8:26] study also says that running marathons increases or I mean
[8:29] running marathons training for marathons increase or running in
[8:32] general or increases synovia of fusion.
[8:34] So the fluid volume. And while this sounds like
[8:37] swelling, it's actually the joint increasing its own
[8:39] lubrication to reduce friction during high repetition
[8:43] movements. So normally we know that
[8:46] swelling is a sign of injury. It can be the body's way of
[8:49] oiling the hinges. But in healthy runners, that
[8:52] fluid actually drains without affecting your performance.
[8:55] I mean, you did also find some other studies that show adaptive
[8:59] changes in the knee related to running, like some of the
[9:02] structures in the knee including the infer patellar fat pad.
[9:05] That can change with marathon runners.
[9:08] And then there's also bone changes, bone marrow changes.
[9:12] People that run can get more stresses on the bones and
[9:16] sometimes they can lead to stress fractures, but as long as
[9:19] you stay below the injury threshold, it can probably
[9:22] increase bone density and help strengthen the bones.
[9:25] Yeah, and that's Wolf's law, right?
[9:27] It's actually a German surgeon who stated that healthy bones
[9:30] adapt to the mechanical loads under which they are placed.
[9:39] All right, so you want to move on to the next topic?
[9:41] What's the next most googled thing about running?
[9:44] The next most googled thing was how much carbs can your body
[9:49] take? And I guess the whole reason
[9:51] that we have that question is because we as runners want to be
[9:55] able to take in as many carbs as possible.
[9:59] So that way we can use glucose instead of using our bodies fat
[10:04] stores. Meaning that when you run a
[10:06] marathon, you're not going to hit the wall sooner.
[10:09] You can, you know, hang in there for longer.
[10:11] And the myth used to be that the human gut can only process 60 to
[10:16] 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour and anything more is just
[10:20] wasted because you're just not going to absorb it.
[10:22] That myth came from older studies that focused on single
[10:25] source carbohydrates like just glucose and not fructose too,
[10:28] which we know now because we just had a study that we talked
[10:32] about in a full podcast just a couple weeks ago that that is
[10:34] not true. What is the limit?
[10:36] Or is there a known limit? That's the big question, Ryan.
[10:39] What is the new number? Well, you brought a study here
[10:42] that tested at 60 grams an hour, 90 grams an hour and 120 grams
[10:47] an hour of carbohydrates while they were running.
[10:50] They also did a pre workout thing too.
[10:53] But it shows that even at 120 grams an hour, which is the
[10:56] highest that they tested, your body still becomes
[10:58] metabolically, actually becomes metabolically more efficient and
[11:01] burns those carbohydrates into energy.
[11:04] But at that level, GI distresses were more common and so they
[11:10] recommended a balance at the 90 grams per hour level.
[11:14] But in how it relates to the myth is that you can, I mean,
[11:17] they didn't see the limit in this study.
[11:19] I mean, maybe the limits higher. So there isn't necessarily a a
[11:23] myth as to how much carbs you can absorb while you're running,
[11:27] but it's more whether or not how much you can tolerate.
[11:30] Yes. And then you were mentioning
[11:32] that you became or those people became more metabolically
[11:36] efficient. What does that mean?
[11:38] In a study that they have, it seems to show a greater amount
[11:42] of energy production from the higher intake, 120 grams per
[11:46] hour proportionally more even than the 90 or 60.
[11:50] Meaning that the opposite of what the myth was is actually
[11:53] true in that the more carbohydrates take in the the
[11:57] better your body will be at converting those all to energy
[12:01] as opposed to the lesser amount. I mean, it's a small difference
[12:04] it looks like based on their numbers, but it certainly does
[12:07] not prove that 120 is too much. Right.
[12:11] And it probably also has to do with the fact that instead of
[12:14] just taking glucose, we now also know better and we know to take,
[12:17] you know, the other types of sugars too, right?
[12:19] Glucose, fructose, maltodextrin. But yeah, So what that means for
[12:23] you listeners, if you want to get fast and you want to take
[12:27] more carbs, you can do. So the way of probably best
[12:30] doing is is to train your gut like a muscle.
[12:33] And you know, just when you doing your practice runs, your
[12:36] long runs, just consume a lot of carbs and see if your gut can
[12:41] handle it. Because if you're not doing it
[12:44] and you're training and then you do it on marathon day, then GI
[12:47] distress is probably more likely to happen once you hit that Max
[12:52] number of carbs that your body can take.
[12:54] I wouldn't worry about taking too many carbs, your body will
[12:58] change it into energy. It's just if it starts causing
[13:01] GI upset, maybe you settle down a little bit.
[13:04] Yeah, and that's the thing, right?
[13:05] You don't want to be pooping your pants or throwing up while
[13:07] you're running. So you have to find that fine
[13:09] fine line of that you don't want to cross.
[13:12] Yeah. And if you want to get into
[13:13] technicalities, I guess that last study showed 90 grams per
[13:16] hour is about what they thought might be optional.
[13:19] But you can you can check and try yourself too.
[13:23] And that probably also depends on whether you're male, female,
[13:26] your body weight and all that. I'm sure.
[13:28] I mean, yeah, the bigger you are, the more energy you're
[13:30] going to need. So very cool.
[13:33] All right, moving on to the next most Google question.
[13:36] Basically, is a shoe with a stack height of 50mm safer for
[13:40] your body than a 30mm shoe? I beg to differ because your
[13:45] chances of getting injured when you roll your ankle probably the
[13:49] increase too when your stack height is higher.
[13:51] I think so. I mean, I think it depends on a
[13:54] lot of different factors. Like if if the base of your shoe
[13:58] is wider, you're going to have less likely of a chance to maybe
[14:03] twist your ankle in a normal scenario.
[14:05] But the higher your stack height gets, and sometimes the wider
[14:09] the base gets, when you do roll your ankle, it can be worse.
[14:12] Yes, and I think that's exactly, you know, where this myth or
[14:15] where this thought comes from because we've had this
[14:18] maximalist marketing boom of running shoes in the early 2000
[14:22] twenties. So at first it was just Hoka
[14:24] that had this crazy huge platform in your shoes.
[14:28] And now there's so many other shoes that are also very tall,
[14:33] but now also very wide for your recovery shoes.
[14:36] A lot of them are very tall to give you that cushioning, but
[14:39] also they have some kind of plate in it or they have a
[14:41] certain width that is there to prevent you from rolling your
[14:45] ankle when you're running in these shoes.
[14:46] And so then with that, it begged the question of whether running
[14:53] in a shoe of a certain stack height, whether the midsole
[14:56] thickness has no negative impact on your bio mechanics or
[14:59] stability. And there was a study done, of
[15:03] course. I think a lot of that also
[15:04] depends on the material. It's made out of density.
[15:07] You know, lots of things other than just the height.
[15:10] So I guess the question is whether or not running shoe
[15:12] stack heights has an effect or effects running style and
[15:17] stability. And there was a study conducted
[15:21] by Frontiers in Bioengineering and that was, I think it was in
[15:26] 2025. I'm going to link that study
[15:29] where they had 17 runners that were tested through capturing 3D
[15:34] motion and a stability analysis across three different heights,
[15:39] one being 50mm, one being 35mm, and one being low 27mm at
[15:45] different speeds. And the conclusion was that high
[15:49] stack heights, for example the 50mm stack height resulted in
[15:53] decreased local dynamic stability of the hip and longer
[15:57] foot aversion, so more rolling inward during the stands.
[16:01] Essentially, the taller shoe made the body work harder to
[16:04] stay stable it. Makes sense?
[16:07] Yeah, it makes sense, right? Because if you're picturing
[16:08] yourself running on a trampoline or anything that is unstable,
[16:12] then that's what happens. At the same time, your body
[16:17] might benefit from it too, right?
[16:19] Because it's learning to fight instability.
[16:22] Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it's
[16:23] always a, it's always a balance between, you know, enough
[16:26] stability from the shoe and preventing your body from
[16:30] strengthening the muscles it needs for its own stability.
[16:33] So I guess that begs the question whether or not if you
[16:35] have a pre-existing like hip or ankle issue, will running in the
[16:40] shoe with a higher stack height meet you're running make your
[16:43] your ankle your make your body's ability to become more stable.
[16:48] Does it make it better or does it make it worse?
[16:51] I think it depends on a lot of factors.
[16:53] I don't think it's it's hard to just choose one.
[16:56] It's hard to say like this is better, that's better.
[16:59] So I don't know what that conclusion is.
[17:00] I think that they were showing that there are differences
[17:02] between these higher stack height shoes compared to regular
[17:05] shoes. I feel like over time the stack
[17:08] height has gotten higher and this foam has gotten squishier.
[17:11] So in a way it's gotten a little bit less stable, at least with
[17:14] some of the running shoes, the maybe the marathon day shoes
[17:18] that I've tried out. I don't necessarily think that's
[17:22] a bad thing because some of that instability can help you
[17:28] strengthen the muscles of your ankle and keep your whole foot
[17:32] more stable to begin with. But I think that changing to
[17:36] drastically from a shoe that maybe you're used to to a shoe
[17:39] that's less stable can be or higher stack height and
[17:42] therefore less stable can be a bad thing if you do it too
[17:46] quickly. Also, I think that with a higher
[17:49] stack height and less stability you can potentially open up the
[17:54] possibility of getting bad injuries or worse injuries the
[17:58] higher you are off the ground and the higher your foot is off
[18:00] the ground. If you do roll it, say on a curb
[18:03] or something like that, it's more leverage for for your
[18:07] weight to just twist your ankle. That's true.
[18:10] So I guess all we can say with that one is more isn't always
[18:13] better. And also have more than one shoe
[18:17] in your shoe rotation, right? Because if you're running on a
[18:19] daily basis, it's probably better to have a variety of
[18:22] different shoes, different stack heights and all that stuff there
[18:24] so your body doesn't get abused by any of the shoes with
[18:30] whatever bad stuff they bring with them.
[18:32] You need to analyze your goals and what you want, and if the
[18:36] benefit of the added performance and the higher stack height is
[18:40] what you want and you don't really have ankle injuries,
[18:42] you're not prone to rolling your ankle or having injuries in that
[18:46] sense, then maybe lean towards the thing that makes you faster.
[18:50] But likewise, if the stability is a more of an issue and other
[18:55] things and go for a shoe that's more stable, I think that maybe
[18:59] over time, since it seems like some of the higher stack type
[19:03] things are relatively new, maybe there'll be a better study that
[19:06] discusses like the injury rate and other things over a long
[19:11] period and then greater number of runners so we can get some
[19:14] more stronger evidence as to whether or not it's causing more
[19:16] injuries or not. Yeah, that's good.
[19:19] Some ways maybe it's causing less injuries because of the
[19:21] impact forces, but who knows. Yeah, I think you can just
[19:24] tolerate more mileage. You know, when you have these
[19:27] shoes that are plated and cushioned, I'm sure it feels
[19:32] much better to run in those shoes than in the 1980s running
[19:36] flats that were like Converse basically where your feet
[19:39] muscles just had to work really hard.
[19:41] Now you work hard, but then you also probably get much better
[19:45] recovery. So I guess it's a balance.
[19:47] At the moment, I think maybe they'll get better.
[19:49] I think the ideal shoe personally for me would be the
[19:53] one that gives you 100% rebound of energy, doesn't absorb any of
[19:58] the energy in terms of, you know, making it faster and also
[20:02] the lowest it can be to the ground also, but still giving
[20:05] you the return of energy. Because then your chances of if
[20:08] you were to roll your ankle, it's not going to be as much
[20:10] leverage or force on your ankle, but.
[20:13] You still get the benefits of having all the spring back, but
[20:16] who knows, maybe they'll come up with better shoes in the future.
[20:18] But those shoes that I'm picturing right now that you're
[20:20] describing, I'm picturing you running on just a pure sheet of
[20:24] a carbon plate. I've thought about that.
[20:26] Yeah. But then that's probably not
[20:28] comfortable. So it's sustainable.
[20:31] It depends. Comfort, comfortable depends,
[20:34] you know, if like I said, if it gives you the same amount of
[20:38] rebound or reactive force, then potentially it could be just as
[20:42] comfortable. Like foam thickness is used a
[20:45] lot of times. And a lot of the newer foams, I
[20:48] think the ones that specifically that make the marathon runners
[20:52] faster probably have a really good rebound in terms of all the
[20:56] energy put into them is giving back.
[20:58] You know, there is a whole question of how fast it's giving
[21:00] back and other things. But ideally, from an engineering
[21:04] standpoint, whatever force you put into the shoe should be 100%
[21:09] given back. That way you're not losing
[21:11] energy as you run. So anything that does not give
[21:15] you 100% energy back is lost energy or lost movement.
[21:19] Now there's probably like a determining factor of how fast
[21:22] that energy. Like obviously if you were to
[21:24] run barefoot, you're getting nothing absorbed, so there's no
[21:29] waste of energy there. But the impact fast forces back
[21:33] are so fast and so firm that you're not really benefiting
[21:38] from it. So you need some of the spring
[21:41] to give you the benefit. And I don't know how where the
[21:44] right balance is in terms of height.
[21:47] Maybe it's like a super tall shoe, like the people that like
[21:49] blade runners or things like that, I don't know.
[21:51] They give you like a whole bunch of spring back.
[21:53] I mean, they are fast. So maybe that's the fastest.
[21:56] So you'd have to wear these gigantic shoes with big blades
[21:59] on them would be the fastest. But then you have the weight
[22:01] problem too. I'm just picturing you in the
[22:03] carbon plated flip flops. Ryan is notoriously wearing flip
[22:06] flops for every occasion in his life, including our wedding,
[22:09] childbirth, everything. Ryan shows up in flip flops.
[22:12] So carbon plated flip flops. That's what I'm picturing you
[22:14] in. It's.
[22:14] Good for the compete. Is it?
[22:16] Anyway, let's move on to our last Google topic.
[22:24] And this was the one where I said, I can't believe this is
[22:26] still being Googled in 2026, whether lifting heavy is good or
[22:30] bad for runners. And then I realized it is
[22:33] because, you know, back in days, we used to say if you lift heavy
[22:37] weights, you're going to get bulky.
[22:39] And if you're just a runner, then, you know, running burns
[22:42] all your muscle mass. So that myth came from the
[22:45] interference effect theory, which suggests that the
[22:49] endurance and strength signals in your body cancel each other
[22:52] out. It was believed incorrectly so
[22:54] that runners should be doing high reps and low weight toning
[22:57] exercises to to avoid weight gain.
[23:00] But yeah, so there was a study that I found on the National
[23:03] Library of Medicine, which is called the effects of heavy
[23:07] Strength training on Running Performance and Determinants of
[23:10] Running performance and female endurance athletes.
[23:12] And the purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of
[23:15] adding strength training to normal endurance training.
[23:19] And this is particularly about heavy training, heavy strength
[23:22] training. And the conclusion states that
[23:25] adding heavy strength training to endurance training did not
[23:28] affect 40 minutes, all outrunning performance and
[23:31] running economy compared to endurance training only.
[23:33] I think better determining factor would be your weight.
[23:36] You know, like if your strength training, it's probably good for
[23:38] you overall, but if you're significantly increasing your
[23:41] weight to the strength training, it might slow your running speed
[23:45] down a bit. Yes, but just to kind of get
[23:47] back to the lifting heavy thing, so not just lifting for reps,
[23:51] lifting heavy, there are studies and you know I've mentioned one
[23:54] of them, the effect of strength training programs and middle and
[23:57] long distance running, the effects of strength training on
[23:59] running performance in general. It says that if you're lifting
[24:02] at more than 80%, with reps being 3 to 5 Max, that
[24:09] significantly improves your running economy, muscular power
[24:13] and time travel performance and runners without causing
[24:16] excessive. Hypertrophy.
[24:18] And this approach is more effective than lightweight high
[24:22] Rep training for boosting endurance with two to 8%
[24:25] improvements in your running economy.
[24:27] And you know, we've, we've seen the study before.
[24:31] I remember we had podcast over the last few years on it and
[24:34] then we went into topics as to how to lift and what exercises
[24:39] to do. But yeah, this is just for the
[24:41] people who have not heard about this yet that I may be new to
[24:45] running or I wondering that because I guess there's a lot of
[24:48] people that are Googling this topic.
[24:50] Yeah. I mean, I think it's good that
[24:52] you can lift heavy and you can strengthen your muscles and be a
[24:56] good runner at the same time. Yes, and one day I will practice
[24:59] without preach, I guess. You know what I also learned
[25:03] while I was reading all this stuff and thinking that I never
[25:07] do any kind of weight lifting? There was a tip on one of the
[25:11] websites and it says consistency beats complexity, meaning that
[25:15] you don't need a complicated bodybuilding split.
[25:18] Maybe just do some consistent sessions of some exercises that
[25:22] are heavy and just try to be consistent, because if you're
[25:25] not consistent then you're not going to do it.
[25:28] Is that it? Yeah, I guess that wraps up the
[25:31] foremost Googled questions from runners.
[25:34] I hope that this is helpful to somebody listening.
[25:37] If not repetitive, or even if it is repetitive, it's sometimes
[25:41] good to hear things over and over because it kind of
[25:43] reinforces that in our brains. Yeah, I think it's good to
[25:46] revisit the topics. If they don't change, then that
[25:49] means the research is pretty good.
[25:50] But sometimes the research changes and so if we revisit
[25:54] then we'll find that out. Yes.
[25:55] And if anything changes, we have our finger on the pulse and we
[26:00] read those studies or I make Ryan read them, so then that way
[26:03] we can have good information. Medical studies are just really
[26:06] hard to read. I think I'd rather be reading
[26:09] law studies or cases. I mean, we're just looking at
[26:12] stuff that's interesting to us and there's not as much, you
[26:14] know, studies related to running only, But if you go into more
[26:19] detail, you can see which ones are actually good studies, which
[26:22] ones are not, and stuff like that.
[26:23] But we're kind of just figuring out as we go along, you know,
[26:27] the stuff that's interesting and related to running.
[26:29] Yes, and I always try to see how many participants the study had
[26:33] and also remember correlation is not causation.
[26:37] Yeah. So a lot of times the study will
[26:39] show something and it'll show a correlation between two things.
[26:42] And usually most studies that are good will say this needs
[26:46] more evaluation or further studies can help determine if
[26:50] this is true. And those are the keywords.
[26:53] Taking something from a study or a correlation that's seen and
[26:57] immediately determining that that's the cause is dangerous.
[27:02] Absolutely. All right, so that wraps it up
[27:04] for today. Thank you so much for tuning in
[27:07] next week. Well, we're going to have a pre
[27:09] recorded episode because I am traveling, as Ryan just learned
[27:12] today, I'm going to the Boston Marathon.
[27:14] And again, our website, marathonjournal.com has all the
[27:18] information on all the best shakeout runs and gatherings.
[27:22] So obviously, you know, take it with a grain of salt.
[27:25] If you're running Boston, make sure that you don't do 20
[27:29] shakeout runs before your marathon unless you're just
[27:31] doing it for fun anyway. And then I encourage you to do
[27:34] that, OK? And with that.
[27:35] Have a great week of running. You've been listening to the
[27:38] Marathon Running Podcast by Marathon Journal.
[27:41] If you've enjoyed the show, check us out at
[27:43] marathonjournal.com or follow us on social media.
[27:46] Happy training.

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