The Food Medic - S7 E2: Running slow to run fast with Emma Kirk-Odunubi

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

In this episode Dr Hazel sits down with running coach and footwear expert Emma Kirk Odunubi. Emma is a running biomechanics nerd who matches the perfect footwear to the individual runner, and takes pride in being known as the trainer geek. Day to day she coaches treadmill classes at Thirdspace and on a 1-1 level works with a variety of sports men & women, seeking to crush their running goals with her and her partners business Bulletproof Athletic. Find out more over on www.bulletproofatheltic.com.This episode covers:- Where to start if you’re new to running. - How to build up distance beyond 5km- How to get faster.- Advantages of using heart rate training zones in running. - Common running problems - shin splints and knee pain - Strength training for runners- What to look for when finding the right running trainers.- Staple exercises for your warm up and cool down routine. If you loved this episode make sure to give it a review, rating (hopefully 5 stars) and share it with your friends and family. Make sure to subscribe so that you are first to hear about any new episodes, and if you would like to submit a question to the podcast - on any topic related to health, fitness, nutrition, or mindset - please send your voice recorded question to [e-mail]. @thefoodmedic/www.thefoodmedic.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Food Medic podcast. I'm your host Dr. Hazel. All right, this is the running episode. So many of you have messaged in to ask that we cover running and I have the perfect guest to help me out with this. Emma Kirk O'Danuby is a very good friend of mine but she knows more about running than many coaches I've spoken to due to her unique experience and background. So Emma is a footwear expert and graduated sports scientist who has been in the running industry for over 15 years. Day to day she coaches treadmill classes at Third Space and on a one-to-one level works with a variety of sportsmen and women seeking to crush their running goals with her and her partner's business, Bulletproof Athletic.

Emma is a running biomechanics nerd who matches the perfect footwear to the individual runner and takes pride in being known as a trainer geek. She's also an avid runner herself and big into CrossFit and uses her knowledge as an S&C coach and a trainer at Tracklife London to educate the runner on injury prevention techniques and form. Honestly, we cover everything in this episode from where to begin as a new runner, how to build up speed, how to build up distance, finding the right trainers and why strength training should be included in every runner's program. Grab a notepad, let's start running. Okay, it's the start of a new year and I know some people are looking to make some healthy

changes, be that moving more, eating more greens or taking up running. One switch I made last year was cutting down on alcohol and as a result I swapped in kombucha as the perfect alternative. I used to brew my own and sometimes I still do but it's a bit of a labour of love and so now I have the fridge stocked with Remedy Kombucha for times when I fancy something a little bit more exciting than still or sparkling water. My personal favourites are the ginger and lemon and apple crisp flavours but they have loads to choose from. Remedy is also unpasteurised, raw and jam-packed with live cultures and contains no sugar due to the long-age brew. If you want to try some for yourself, use the code FOODMEDIC20 for 20% off

your first order on RemedyDrinks.com. Thank you to Remedy for sponsoring the Food Medic podcast. I just want you to start by telling us more about you. Obviously, you and I are very good friends, so I know you quite well. I know you personally and professionally, but for the people listening, who are you and what do you do? So my name is Emma Kirk Odenooby. I am a, where do I start? Instructor, first and foremost. So I teach at some of the gyms called Third Space around London, focusing on treadmill classes, strength conditioning, and also just informing people about running generally. My background is I used to be a footwear buyer for a place called Profeet where we looked at gait analysis and running and focusing on injury prevention through the use of strength and conditioning work in souls but also running trainers as well and then if we keep going back have a degree in sports science focusing on all the biomechanical side of things from running and

all that jazz so sciencey basis but yeah rolled into some of the fitness fun side of stuff because that's what I really have a passion for yeah absolutely and your experience is so niche as well like you know when it comes to footwear and gait analysis which I think you know there's obviously lots of really good S&C coaches out there and PTs but your experience with runners and specifically is why I wanted to get you on the podcast and chat about this and you and I I mean you helped me with my own running journey so I remember it well which wasn't that long ago no so for background it was like new year's 2020 and I was like Emma I want to start running obviously I was quite fit and healthy but I I just had this mind block and I was like I want to just run 5k

comfortably that was my goal and was like okay I'm just going to take you out and we're going to run in intervals um so we do like one minute on one minute off jogging and then running and we built up pretty quickly I think it was like over six to eight weeks I was running 5k really easily yeah no I remember you were you were in your own stride I think it's I say you will probably say it everyone does but when you kick start once you realize that you can actually do it that positive even after just one run you were like okay okay I think I can do this yeah and that's the power of it simply absolutely so that was January 2020 and then January 2021 we ran our

longest run together which was 25 kilometers it's amazing it was amazing it was incredible how far it's come but you must find that with like a lot of people in that like it's more psychological and that like I can't do it I can't do it mentality definitely and for me that's one of the things why running is so special so like my own story as such getting into running I actually really found my love of it alongside trying to get out of a very bad mental headspace. So my love for running actually came as I was battling grief and depression. So I used it as a tool to kind of go, right, what can I control in my life right now? I can control my runs. And when I went out and ran, I almost processed all the thoughts that was going on, all of the things I was struggling with, and then came back and felt

that euphoric feeling like I've managed not only to achieve something for myself in this but actually process stuff that I was trying to get through in my head so yeah as you were saying in terms of like that success and achievement as I mentioned even just one run doing that and realizing oh wait a minute I can actually do that that you don't have to wait ages you just finish the run you're like I did the run amazing yeah absolutely and I think what you said there in terms of like it came to you at a point in your life where you really needed something and I think for a lot of people around lockdown it was like one thing that we could all do because it was outside and in our control and so we see like this huge surge in runners and a really big interest so

for someone who's a complete newbie where should they start so first thing I would say is to realize that just by literally putting on a pair of shoes that you can run in and getting taking a step outside the door you've already made that decision that you're a runner right you've already decided in your head that's where you're going to go, that's what you're going to do. Now for a lot of people, this could be as simple as one minute on running and one minute off. Now that run doesn't even have to be a run. If you're really brand new to any form of exercise and you're like, right, I need to get out and start going, it could be a one minute really fast walk and a one minute gentle walk. And then what you do week on week is you slightly elongate the running or fast walking segment of that. So

you will then do the week after, you can either do two minutes of running, one minute off, or you can then just extend the amount of blocks that you do. So simply put, if you do five times one minute on one minute off, that's 10 minutes total then the next week you're like okay i felt all right with that so you might then add on an extra minute of running so you end up then only running 12 minutes and so week on week if you keep building that by the end of six weeks you're doing 20 minutes in intervals and then you can start to make the choice right okay now if i can do 20 minutes of intervals can I run for 10 minutes non-stop and slowly that confidence will build and my biggest bit of advice which is why I did it with you is trying to find

somebody who maybe even you can run with because that will really help you to kick start that that feeling of running and understanding how it feels because it can be scary I 100% understand that for a lot of people yeah I think what a lot of people do especially what I found I do is I panic and then I can't control my breathing and what was really useful with running with you is we were speaking the whole time which can be kind of stressful in itself but it teaches you to regulate your breathing it's my biggest bit of advice for beginner runners is trying to do that and people look at me and are like are you sure how am I supposed to breathe and talk and make my body run like what happens and as you said when we talk naturally day to day we don't have to stop and think about our breathing it naturally adjusts to how you're speaking so if

you imagine as you're running and you're trying to talk to someone even if it's a really slow it doesn't have to be a hard run I think people see the word run and we imagine these Olympic athletes like sprinting down the track no run is just anything that's a little bit more of a pickup than a walk right so it could be a really gentle steady little trot but you're holding conversation the whole time and yeah you'll gain that confidence from doing that yeah absolutely and so when someone has built up to say 5k which is I guess a lot of people's goal middle of the road goal how do you go beyond that how do you go to 10k how do you go to half marathon it is a really good question because after lockdown I had a lot of people message me about this and ask me, right, I've done the couch to 5k. I've even done it twice because I wanted to, you know, try and build stronger. Now, where do I go? I kind of feel a bit lost. And my biggest advice thereafter is then if it's not already part of your training, trying to either go along to a run club of sorts saying, you know, run that 5k this is where i'm up to they will

do really small little runs community orientated as well that you could do other things as well is even reaching out to coaches that can give you advice on what that next step could be so it could just be again you know what 5k distance feels like the The next time you go out, maybe you try and go a little bit further than 5K. You go 5.5K and then you still follow the same pattern. So I would say my biggest advice there is not to do too much too soon. People think, right, I can do 5K. I'm just going to keep running hard all the time.

Add some variety in. Don't always go for the distance constantly. Pull it back, enjoy the run. Don't always try and keep pushing and pushing. But ultimately, yeah, to build up beyond that distance, you're going to want to add the small little increments so that you don't get injured and don't end up running too much.

And obviously that's when some of the strength work comes in as well. Absolutely, which we'll get onto next. And then, you know, so obviously a lot of people, distance is a big goal for them. But the other thing for some people is speed. And, you know, when people have been sharing, you know, on their stories that they're getting whatever time, there was a lot of people trying to get like sub 20 minute 5ks, which is just super fast. And some some people are getting that that's amazing but for a lot of people that is very daunting but if you are at a certain time on your 5k and you want to bring that down a bit what would be the best thing to include in your training to increase the speed so this is again one of my favorite questions. And in order to run faster, you have to run slower. Now, that probably sounds really counterintuitive. But what it means is you have to have a base level of aerobic fitness.

So a base level, basically, that is very comfortable. What we were just talking about before, conversational pace running right that you feel really easy and you can do but in order to push and grow that top end ability of our speed what you're going to then need to do is add in speed work so simply put those intervals that we spoke about at the start where we go you know that's how you're going to start running that's how you can also get faster so you could have a very steady state pace that you run at and then for a minute you're going to push harder now not necessarily an all-out sprint but just a noticeable acceleration change where you're pushing for an extra minute and then coming back down again now speed intervals are a really great way that we can play with the body to not only challenge it but then also start to get it used to being comfortably uncomfortable,

is what I like to use. And ultimately doing that over time and adding progression, be that increasing the timeframes you're running hard for or decreasing the amount of rest you're getting, that's what's going to help you get faster over time. And as I said, it means that the sessions where you run hard, you run hard. So you might have one session a week where you're going to give 20 minutes all out effort. You might have then another session a week where it's just a 20 minute steady run. But the main thing is variance and variability in your training is going to help with getting you faster. Yeah. And you teach a lot of treadmill classes. Do you think they can be helpful in getting that speed

up because you're doing a lot more sprints and intervals and things like that yeah massively and I personally use treadmill a lot from a mental standpoint you can kind of see the workout and take it off as you go so I say I'm actually at the minute recording some speed interval workouts and what's great about them is one you don't have to think about them because you're being told what to do. And also you can see how far you have to go. If it's a time frame, you can literally see the clock in front of you. And so it almost acts as there's your finish line. And I know that a lot of people sometimes struggle, out on the road doing speed interval sessions

because you kind of can't see your finish line you're going loops around a park or something you're like okay when am i stopping whereas on a treadmill there's a set time there's a set space that you go to and then you can stop and recover and yeah i think a lot of the what am i going to call them running purebreds really don't like treadmills. And I don't like that. I feel like a treadmill is a safe space for people, especially inside a gym, especially in these winter months as well. So for me, yeah, if you're brand new to speed work, start doing it on a treadmill, start playing around on treadmills and, you know, maybe test yourself one minute faster than you think you can go one minute slightly slower back to your normal pace and just see how that variance feels in the body if you're totally

new to feeling a different pace because I know a lot of people are just used to going out at one pace and staying with it yeah and it's so easy to fall into that pattern and this is a slight side note but this week I've seen you speaking about curved treadmills versus like standard treadmills what's the difference there so curved treadmills are quite they look cool firstly um and the way that they work is literally it's powered by you right so as you make that initial contact with your foot on the belt it allows it to pull underneath you and gets you to actually activate your muscles a little more. So there's some research out there. They try and find out the exact number, but I don't think there is. Around, they're saying 20% more effort is required to run on these treadmills because of how they make you move

and how they make you utilize and use the energy that you're creating. So my advice, if you are going to give a curve a go as a treadmill, is one, be prepared to slow your pace down. And with that, think about your form more. Because what's great about that treadmill is you can literally feel how you're moving with every step. So with each step, you might want to run a little bit taller, you might want to feel how you're pulling your heel up to your glute, all those kind of things you'll be very much more aware of on a curve than a traditional now let's not say there's anything wrong with the traditional traditional treadmills are still great still allow you to set speed and run at a faster pace but instead of your body moving the belt and causing that to happen you're

almost trying to keep up with the belt on a traditional treadmill yeah good to know though because i do see like a lot more of those treadmills popping up in gyms even if it's one or two in addition to the standard treadmills and you see kind of a few people kind of they're not so sure about it they kind of step on get off so it's good to have a little bit of uh an overview there the other thing I wanted to chat to you about which I've used in the past is heart rate zone training uh quite a few people are interested in this and I think because you know like watches like Garmin and things like that make it really easy for you to stay within a heart rate zone can you talk a little bit about that and maybe where this might fit or who it might be beneficial for yeah definitely so heart rate zones are really great just across

all training, generally, really. There can be a lot of variance in terms of, you know, where you sit and where your maximal zones are. And say that the traditional is based off of 220 minus your age is going to be your maximum heart rate, right? And then you will be down in bracketed zones all the way up from 90 to 100% all the way down to kind of 50% is your zone one, as they call it. So what you want to be able to do to have a really, you know, strong level of fitness, I guess, is to be able to fluctuate between these zones pretty easily. So you want to have a mix of training in that top end zone where you're pushing super hard. So those 90 to 100%. But for running, do you know what a majority of your runs want to take place in, you know, between 60 to 80% is where I would say, for those that know that in heart rate zones, it's usually the green to yellowish, sometimes even blue as well. So for me,

personally, I have definitely played around with it a lot in my own training. There was a time period definitely where I would always be in the yellow zone, which is just one below that top zone, right? And I would struggle to run and hold a consistent pace in that. And that in myself was like, caused me to go, hang on a minute, I'm supposed to be knowing what I'm doing, supposed to be moving really easily. Why is this stressing my body out so much? So it actually got me to assess how much I was training, and how much percentage of effort I thought I was giving versus what my body was feeling. And it was a really great way for me to tune in with my body more, and almost take my eyes off of the clock because generally as we

kind of mentioned before we're a very comparative generation i feel um no matter what it is we're always like oh what did they do in that time oh what did i get etc etc and heart rate zones just totally demolishes that and gets rid of it because it's your heart rate and it's how you're moving right so it takes the ego out and chucks how you're moving, right? So it takes the ego out and chucks that out the window. So for me now, when I'm going on my runs, if I know I need an easy run, I don't want any more than 30% of that run to be in that yellow zone now. So I slow my pace right down. Sometimes I take a look at the number and I'm a little bit scared of how slow it is, but then I know know Emma you're working in that steady easy zone this is the zone that's going to help build your

endurance to make you stronger and give you overall a better element of fitness because yeah don't get me wrong I adore running but I just love generally feeling fit and well so yes I'm going to focus on the the zones for my runs and make sure, you know, I get segments of the red zone. I get a little few of the yellow, but ultimately if I have a overall strong capacity, it allows me to be able to participate in any fitness that I want to do. So if you're interested, a hundred percent, look it up, look up where your heart rate max heart rate zone should be, and maybe even work out your zones um as you mentioned like garmin have the monitors now you've got my zone you've got polar there's so many different ones out there

and also they're becoming more affordable which is great but also totally understand that for some people it's just like heart rate zones what i don't need that kind of thing as well absolutely and i think yeah if you are just want to run recreationally you're not really bothered then it's fine but i think also it's just it's interesting you know like if you are just want to run recreationally you're not really bothered then it's fine but I think also it's just it's interesting you know like if you're running and you know you're just going out in a casual run you're doing a couple of times a week and then you check your heart rate and your heart rate's up in like you know the high you're working at say 90 percent of your max that is not good for you to be doing that all of the time that's that's kind of a constant

stress state and I know you know in the last couple of months I've been injured and so I'm coming back to running and my heart rates are going up super high again because this is something that I might have practiced with so I'm having to go back and do those lower zone training and you do feel like you're almost walking you're going so slow it's just an indication of where your cardiovascular fitness is at as well absolutely so it's it's just it's interesting but it's not essential yeah and so I just brought up the injury which um lots of people have experienced it's a you know there's so many common running injuries and when I put out a question box to say that we were coming on here to chat about running

I mean every second question was like I've injured this can you help with this blah blah blah and so obviously we can't cover all injuries but I think it'd be interesting to cover off maybe two of the common things that come up. So for me, I injured my tibia or my shin. And long story cut short, it's akin to shin splints. And you and I have spoken about this a lot. I actually had an assessment with Emma recently, and we kind of figured out what was happening there. So let's just take shin splints as a common problem how do they happen how can we avoid them what to do if it happens yeah and I even hold my hands up I feel like any runner that has gone through any sort of build or

learning to run has had some form of shin pain but But simply put, shin splints, as you mentioned, is a term that covers all shin pain. The reason it happens is, simply put, you have a muscle run that runs through the front of your shin, but obviously you've then got a muscle on the back of your leg, which is your calf or two calves. We'll go very simple. If you're loading up when you're running and your calves are getting tight, which they will because they help your foot to push and drive off the ground, your shins will naturally overload. So your shins will continue to take the stress. And over time, that stress can start to actually cause a little muscular tissue to slightly pull away. And that's where that pain and that shin splint sharpness that people talk about comes from.

So that's like one version of shin splint sharpness that people talk about comes from. So that's like one version of shin splints. There can be many other types where it presents on the shin. We could be here for a while, but I'm just going to say it's that for now. In terms of why they happen. So firstly, I mentioned when we run, we use our calves a lot. So as you land on the foot, you use your big toe joint and ideally a second toe is your main strongest levers to then push you off of the ground. You've got muscular tissue that attaches underneath the big toe joints that actually wrap around and insert on the inside of the calf. So if you think about it, if we're limited or not able to push off of the toes as well as we possibly can, then your calves are already going to wrap up more tension and that's going to cause more tension in the calves, which is then going to offset

onto the shins. So that's a really classic one. And that can be for two reasons. One, obviously, you might have guessed, if that big toe joint is stiff, right, then you're not going to be able to push over the top of it and be able to generate the power so the calf will tense up. Flip it the other side, it can actually also be if your big toe joint is too flexible because what you want when we push off the ground is some sort of tension, a little bit to help you then propel through. So if that toe joint is very mobile or you're hyper mobile naturally in your joints, you might find that your toes are super flexible which means you're not actually able to engage the foot more to plant and drive off the ground so therefore again the calves get overworked and they end up

getting tight which then offsets onto the shins so they're they're kind of i'd say the two very common reasons why people get them and many of you might be thinking why toes and it's the most overlooked i must be honest the most overlooked area for so many injuries. That's why, especially shin pain, it's the first thing that I look at. And I did with you, didn't I? Yeah, and I have a stiff toe. So yeah, that is the first thing from that perspective. Now, in terms of, you know, how can you treat them as such? I think

the first thing to look at is the shoes you're running in. That would be my biggest advice. If the shoes that you're running in aren't right for you, and by right, I mean, you know, not holding your foot in a comfortable way in terms of, you know, is your foot slipping around in the shoe loads? Is your foot, you know, feels uncomfortable when you're running in the shoe? That in itself can cause your body to move in a different way around that discomfort and then cause you to use your feet in a different way. So first things first, gait analysis, which is going into independent stores, seeking out people that know about running gait

and getting them to have a look at what shoes you're in it's the biggest bit of advice i can give for champagne is i'd say 60 of the time from people i've seen is the problem um the next thing is then strength and conditioning work so working on strengthening these calves that we're using a lot, working on, you know, getting some toe mobility if we're stiff, working on strengthening up the foot if we're too mobile, all those kind of little things. And then obviously looking further up the chain. Yes, I always look at the feet, but we can't ignore the hips and the glutes, which you say you can probably, everyone talks about glutes in running as being really important but for me the foot comes first and then you look at the other areas yeah I think that pretty much covers shin stuff oh the last one is going to be gait changes so gait technique so when you hear about how you should run there's a term that is used quite a lot in the running world and it's called cadence simply put it is a foot turnover. So think about it, if you're running on a treadmill at, let's say, 8k's an hour,

if you run in a minute, you might turn those feet over 90 steps per foot, all right, in a minute. But what you could also do is run a little bit slower and take less steps, but still run at the same pace, all right? so you might then take 70 steps. Your cadence is then going to be very much lower, but you're still running at the same pace. So when we have a low cadence, we're actually impacting the ground slightly more intensely than if our feet are turning over quicker. So sometimes when you're getting shin pain, it can ultimately be an impact related injury as well. So if you're adding more force with each step because the steps are slower, that can be a reason why shin pain occurs.

So looking at your cadence and upping it or looking into how you can up it is also a really good thing to take a look at. Yeah, really good and I want to come back to the strength training for runners because I think that's also something that people kind of put strength training and running in separate categories but they should go hand in hand amen um and the other common thing that comes up is knee pain and I think there's also this like misconception that like running causes knee pain and that's just like or damages your knees and that's not necessarily true but there can be knee related injuries so where should someone start if they're starting to get a niggly knee so first things first if your knee is niggling and to be fair i should have said this with shins if you have sharp pain anytime when you're running that is prolonged stop just stop it's not worth it for what could

happen longer term so take that first and foremost you're not a failure for stopping it's nothing wrong you're being smart for stopping once you've then kind of got home have a look at it see how it feels and then again look at the shoes how old are your shoes are they brand new if they're brand new have you had them fitted if you've had all of that and that's all ticked off okay next thing you're going to look at is in terms of if they are brand new are they right and aligned with how your knees are moving so this can get complicated but i'm going to try and simplify it when we run our feet will naturally pronate it's a natural movement that our foot does to help shock absorb. Not everybody has that same

type of pronation at foot level. Some might be a little bit more so than others. Some might even be what we call supinate, which is in the other direction. So your foot lands and then actually the forces go the opposite way. So if that's what's going on at foot level, great. When people fit shoes, sometimes all they focus on is what's happening at the foot. That's always a big no-no. You always want to look at the knees as well. In biomechanics world, when I was working at Profeet and with podiatrists, we always called the knees the slave joint, because if anything above or below isn't working or functioning well, the knees will indicate to you and give you a sign whether that's pain, whether that's movement or discomfort. And what can sometimes happen is even if a foot is slightly, say, pronating and rolling in, someone's knee

might actually be doing the opposite. It might actually be slightly having what we call a slight varus, so out to the outside. So what could be happening is that you're in a shoe that is stopping your foot rolling and bringing you support there but might actually be increasing the forces going out at the knee so this is why for me again back to that gait analysis making sure that whoever has fitted you understands how both the foot and knee interlink because that can be a key reason and a lot of the time i see people with knee pain it can be because someone has fitted them for the right foot function but not for what's going on at the knee yeah so that's another huge one from a shoe perspective but an out and out knee pain other

things that could be a function is a lot of us nowadays especially if we're working from home and things like that the glutes are getting super tight just from sitting or from not you know walking about day-to-day commuting a lot of us are going back into it totally appreciate that but sometimes we're still walking to work and then sitting at a desk so when we then go out and run our glutes aren't switched on or awake to help stabilize the body so again as i said before the knees are the slave joint right so if those glutes aren't able to stabilize that pelvis and that body as we're moving the knees will take the extra stress so that's where you know you can get the classic things like it band syndrome where it links to actually the pain that is coming in the front of the knee it feels like when actually

it's probably starting up by the hips yeah so they're all linked and this is why i always love to use the analogy and say you probably know as a doctor the body is like a treasure map right there's loads of different keys that you've got access to you can be like oh that's what's moving there that key might work if it doesn't you then go on to the next and that's why as i say i always start with the foot because that's the first key I go to. If that one doesn't unlock it, okay, let's go up to the next body part. Let's go hip. Let's bypass the actual area of pain and look somewhere else. So if you are struggling with knee discomfort, and I know a lot of people who, you know, I've worked with clients even who we've gone yet, that's definitely it. And then

they come back to me and go, it was it until about 10k and then it wasn't and so it's trying to find the little intricacies that you know your body is hiding basically um so yeah ultimately knee pain firstly look at your feet then start to look at the hips and then ultimately that wonderful word strength is then going to be a big part of it too yeah absolutely and I guess you know you can reach out to physios who can help you figure out that definitely but like you said you can go to the best physios and sometimes it can be really tricky to figure it out and so that brings us on nicely to strength training for runners you know where should they start I guess for like a lot of us you know we live in this bubble

in London and we strength train in addition to running it's just part and parcel but for some people running is all they do and for those people what exercises or movements would you like to see them including I think my biggest one especially for runners is single leg work so anything where you are lunging or you are side lunging or single leg bridging anything like that is going to be paramount and the reason being if you actually think about it and stop and think about when you run you're only landing on one leg at a time and when you land on one leg at a time you're putting about three to four times your body weight of force is coming back out of the ground back into your legs right so if we're not even strong enough to stand and balance on our leg for 60 seconds without shimmying side to side

how are we going to expect our body to absorb and utilize and function under the forces when we run. So the first one that I give to so many people, if they don't do specifically foot strength, is when you're brushing your teeth in the morning and evening, stand on one leg. 60 seconds on the right leg, brush your teeth, 60 seconds on the left leg. It's an activity we do every day, so you can't tell me you're not going to remember, and especially after this, hopefully you won't um and also you're going to more than likely be barefoot and also you're going to be moving your upper body to brush your teeth so if you're doing that you're naturally adding a little bit of stability work that the ankle has to do by standing on one leg and you're just helping to get that proprioceptive functioning firing in the feet as well. It then, trust me, after about

40 seconds, you'll start to feel it maybe in the knees a little bit, in the glutes a little bit as well. So that's a really easy, if you do zero strength work whatsoever, and you're like, where to start? Morning and evening brushing your teeth, standing on one leg is honestly the biggest one. And I give that to six-year-old kids that I've seen all the way up to 80-year-old adults that are still running that are like, what can I do? And then finding ways to put it into your day-to-day. Maybe you get back from a run and before you take your shoes off, you say, right, I'm going to do a set of lunges on each leg. Just simple little things that you can start to build into your routine. That doesn't mean, you know, I've got to get the weights out. I've got to do this warmup. I've got

to do this stretch before I get into the actual session doing things like that can be great and I mean there are now little workouts coming out that are 10 minutes long there are quick little strength sessions you can add on and yeah my biggest advice is just try and do something that will naturally seamlessly fit into your day-to-day routine because then you're more likely to stick to it yeah and so we talked a bit about like finding the right trainers and I get asked this all the time I'm sure you get asked this all the time I find it really hard to answer because I feel like it's such a personal preference but also it's very specific to the type of runner you are and the type of feet you have and your anatomy

so you know for me Adidas Boost works it's got like you know huge cushion but that suits me and my feet but it wouldn't suit everyone so what kind of checklist should they have in their head when they're looking for a new trainer so when you're looking for a new shoe first things first is size so I always talk about you know in our day to day, everyday shoes, size is very different to then the shoes you'd wear for running. So when you run, your foot, as it lands on the ground, splays out. And as it splays out, it needs to have a little bit of room to be able to do that. So when you're in your trainer, standing up with a little bend in your knees, you want to about a finger to a thumb's width off the end of your longest toe that's going to allow you to have enough space for that foot to wiggle about but not too much space that you feel like your foot's swimming if you are by the way right on the end of your shoe go up at least a whole size if you feel your

toe right pushing on the end if you've got a tiny bit of space but it's not a finger go up half a width or half a size sorry because brands now all do half sizes which is great so we can play around um the other thing with that is not to worry if you've got one foot bigger than the other i'd say of the thousands of runners i've seen i've probably genuinely only seen about 20 people who have exactly the same size feet always go for the bigger foot yeah so that's the kind of first key thing the next is to see what you're actually comfortable in so as you mentioned you know feet are all different sizes so you're going to have brands which will naturally be

shaped to try and accommodate these sizes so you know there's only x amount of brands out there in the world but there's how many of us with how many different shape size feet. So it is going to be not a precise fit straight away unless you're lucky. But, you know, looking out there, some brands are going to be made for more narrow feet. So traditionally, Asics might be a little bit more narrow or, you know, you might have a slightly wider front of your foot where you struggle with width whereas there are brands out there now that do width fittings your new balances your brooks those kind that will have that you know dedicated shoe size for the wider foot so you're gonna have these variances and it's why i say if you don't seek out someone like myself going to an independent running shop is so important because those guys have that

knowledge and the more that you can detract the stress off of you from trying to make that choice and put it in the hands of someone who knows what they're talking about that will put your mind at ease because yeah there is so much information out there on the internet and we all try and look and search and is this going to be the right one my mate's got that shoe they say that's great should I run in it and yeah I always like to use the analogy of glasses when you go and get glasses you might get the same frames that someone gets but you're not going to get the same lens because you've got completely different eyes and the same goes with the feet you might go the same brand that your mate has but it might not be exactly the same shoe because they don't run how you run.

So comfort is the biggest key. And if you are not comfortable in that shoe, you are not going to run in that shoe. So, yeah, getting a gait analysis, be it online, be it in store with somebody, that's going to help take away that stress from you. And then you can just worry about having fun running yeah that's good advice and it's so tricky to get this across on an audio platform but what are some of the staples in your warm-up and cool down that people should be doing because that was one question that crops up quite a bit and I mean there's so many great videos out there people doing that but I think a lot of us are skipping those like really key parts which also are leading into you know worse recovery

increased injury rate and things like that so it's like almost just as important as the run itself no 100% hear that and I think one movement that I utilize a lot across any of the classes I teach or even use in my own warm-up is starting in some sort of downward dog so if you start in a plank position then you shift your hips high to the sky with your legs nice and straight right there you're going to get into your hamstrings there's a nice little stretch to start you can then pedal your calves a little bit to get into the calf so we can start to wake those up and then if you shift those hips forwards and come into an up dog where your hips are towards the ground, we can open up through the hips a little more.

Even looking over the shoulders as well, you can start to push into each hip a little greater. And that just moving in and out of those two positions, five, six times is just gonna slowly start to open up space. And I think for me, that's a really, as you said, over audio is a really easy one that you can envisage yeah and see yourself doing and then lastly at the end is just some

little activation stuff so we always talk a lot about you know mobility and warming up not the activating the waking up of the muscles so one that i do constantly in my classes and have done since day dot is I get people to do explosive jump squats, five, six reps, taking rest between each one, wakes up the calves, it shoots the glutes on and opens the hips powerfully. And it even braces the core as you jump to drive out the ground. So doing that is a real nice one to do before you head out on a run. And then another one which you can do pretty easily is walking on your toes, walking on your tiptoes. Again, a nice little calf activator just to get those little muscles firing and realizing they're about to be used rather than just opening the door and running straight out. from like down dog, up dog flowing, and then into those sort of tiptoe walks and jump squats is something just really easy you can tick off your list and then be like, call them out the door. Don't get me wrong, if you've got time to go through a full 10, 15 minute warm-up, it will,

and there's research out there, it will help to benefit and reduce your chance of injury risk because the muscles and body is primed. if you have the time do seek it out but if you don't just taking those small ones off the list is going to be better than doing nothing at all and trust me you'll actually feel a little bit more ready for your run as well yeah you feel so much better in your run especially now that we're going into winter and it's a bit like colder and it takes a little while for your body to like defrost before you run. And it's also like sending your brain a message like we're going to run now. So get ready. Yeah, I like that. And then for cooling down, what kind of things do you would you like people to be stretching out afterwards?

So definitely your glutes getting into those. So real easy one from a standing position just bringing one leg and one foot onto the opposite knee hold on to something and then just sit down into your glutes so keeping the chest tall so then you just find that space because even if you haven't felt them you will definitely have been using them so that's a really important one and then of course the calves they're going to have been utilized a a lot in your running. So again, back in that down dog position, you can pedal the calves out, give them a hold a little bit this time. So now as we're cooling down, you can have a few more static stretches where we just hold rather than keep moving through. And if you're out on the road and you want to stretch before you go in, a really good one is, and I remember we used to do it it hanging our feet out of the doorsteps like just

as we're finishing wrong have a little catch up at the end just hanging your heel off the bottom of the uh road paving or your front doorstep for eight to ten seconds and then once you're then there little bend in the knee just so you can get down into the bottom part of the calf as well so switching over left to right and they're the key for me anyway one of the key areas um yes hip flexors massive one as well just grabbing your foot and pulling it to your glute real easy one for the hips making sure though as you do that that you squeeze your glutes so that you open up that space of the hip flexor otherwise it's very easy to sit in a bit more lazy position where your kind of shoulders are hunched over instead of extending and opening your body up.

So I'd say they're my three go to for sure after I finish a run. Again, if you've got time, there's awesome little videos out there on YouTube and things where it's like seven minute cool down after you run. But I also appreciate we are very busy humans and I hold my hands up. Sometimes I literally run in the door. I'm in the lift. I'm doing like my little calf stretches and then I'm walking into the front door and I'm in the shower and I might be giving myself a little hip opener like it's literally like I've got no time stretch right exactly shower stretch and I say it in my classes as well I'm like guys if you need to go and do some shower stretches go for it yeah but yeah like just finding areas and ways that you can build it

into routine as i say yeah if that is right when i stand in the shower i need to give my legs a little stretch then that becomes part of your routine so yeah they're my they'd be my go-tos yeah absolutely you know like i took kind of give myself a good talking to i was like hazel you're not 15 anymore you gotta stretch we feel it We feel it. We are feeling it. And yeah, you feel it more the next day when you don't stretch. It's like trying to get up from a chair and you're like, oh, my hips are really feeling that right. Yeah, definitely. That was such an informative podcast. We've gone through so many questions, but we finished the podcast with three big questions, which I want to go on to next and I'm

so excited to hear your answers so the first one is what is the number one takeaway you want people to take from this podcast I think it's that no matter your age ability wherever you are in your fitness journey whether you're right at the beginning or you feel very accomplished you can run right a lot of people like oh running's just not or you feel very accomplished, you can run, right? A lot of people are like, oh, running's just not for me. That's not my, you can run. Anyone can begin running, whether that's a little two minute trot, whether that's running a marathon, right? Anyone can do it. And you don't have to enter races to say that you run. You don't have to, you know, post the biggest and fastest time if you take time out of your day to put your trainers on lace them up and head out the door then you're a runner so I

just want to encourage people that it doesn't matter what level of experience you have or don't have I love that question two if you could go back and give your 18 year old self one piece of advice what would it be i know hazel um i think to not be afraid of who i truly am would be mine we spend a lot of time i say especially probably sound really old now kids of today um but like thinking oh what's that person gonna think or is this the right thing to do? Am I going to fit in by doing that? You're just going to waste time not being able to find who you truly are and what makes you happy if you're wasting it by trying to please other people. So true. I love that one. And finally, what is one book that you recommend everyone reads and why? It's one that I'm actually, oh, two you can go with two so currently I'm listening to um David Goggins audiobook and it's just so motivational daily to hear what he does and

how he's overcome so much yeah and it gives me that little kickstart to my day hearing you know he's done some crazy run or something that I couldn't possibly imagine. So for me, that's it's a great book because you see him and you think, oh, he's, you know, he's just worked a bit hard. No, his life has been incredible. And the amount of stuff he's had to go through and overcome is one of the most incredible stories I've ever heard. So for me, that's a really inspiring one. And then the second is Happy Sexy Millionaire by Stephen Barlet. Absolutely love it. It just goes against everything that everyone says, you know, that when you think you've achieved something and

you become CEO of your company that you've just hit the creme de la creme. And he's actually like, no, you haven't. And it's the stark reality of realising the simple things in life are actually the most important. And some absolutely amazing quotes throughout that book that I think I will happily read again and again. Very good book. That's a good one. Amazing. Well, I mean, after this, I'm sure there's everyone wants to know where to find you. And also if they can book in with you. And, you mean, after this, I'm sure there's everyone to know where to find you. And also if they can book in with you and, you know, you're doing programs now as part of Bulletproof Athletics. So where can people find you and all of that? All the good stuff.

All the good stuff. So on Instagram, it's Emma Kirkio is where you'll find kind of me specifically. As Hazel said, I can do online foot consultations which was great i set it up in lockdown and was chatting to people from sweden to the caribbean islands and it was just amazing so yeah access for everyone via that um i also do in-person analysis as well if it's something people are looking for and then um with my partner we set up bulletproof athletic which is basically trying to empower people using running but also combining strength work as well to become their best running selves whatever that looks like for you and the most exciting thing audio runs which we are launching end of this year so in terms of those speed runs we were talking about i've been recording busily away audios that you can jump on a treadmill

and go through a speed session with. So yeah, lots of exciting things coming. So yeah, you can find us at Bulletproof Athletic. Perfect. And so by the time this episode comes out, which will be early 2022, that should be available for people to tap into. Yes, it definitely should be.

Yeah, all the information will be there. Amazing, amazing. Well, thank you so much for giving me your time today. Absolute pleasure. I'm sure we'll have even more runners this new year. Okay, so hopefully you're coming away from this podcast feeling inspired and motivated to lace up and get outside for a run.

Emma honestly was the driving force behind my own running journey and believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. So I want to pass on the baton and tell you guys at home that you can be a runner too and that you got this.

So thank you so much for tuning in today. Make sure to subscribe so you're first to hear about any new episodes. And if you would like to submit a question, quick reminder to send any questions to ellie at thefoodmedic.co.uk. And finally, if you are enjoying the show, please consider leaving a five-star rating and a review so we can keep doing what we're doing and reaching as many people as possible.

That's all from me and I'll see you again next time.