Empire State Building! (Read 743 times)

Friend of mine did a stair race several years back. His main training focus was running up and down bleachers at the local junior high school.

I read these two threads a while ago .. it's got me primed to try one of these races! Good Luck! One guy has a couple of tips in this thread ... http://www.runningahead.com/forums/post/63d475a4c4ed4f68bf6b774b496da44e#focus Race Report... http://www.runningahead.com/forums/post/3f9cedc782224f4bb878c35b4f17dbfa#focus

Surprised no one has mentioned the "Silver Spoons" episode when the Dad and his assistant ran the Empire State Building Run-up. Isn't that upon which we should be focusing? Anybody? Anyway, never ran it, but sounds fun!

As a certified track and field running coach, not only have I taught runners for stair climb races, but I have a group of firefighters that I’ve worked with as well. They asked me the same question and how I would create a training program for them. So here’s how I explain it: First and foremost, you aren’t running, you’re climbing. With that, your balance skills change, and the sequence for firing your muscles in your legs have to change as well. It also requires a much more refined understanding of biomechanics than for linear, or forward motion running than one would expect. Your primary technique shift is to completely remove your natural running dominance of your quadriceps and understand that all of your climbing power is going to come from your glutes instead. In running, you’re pushing yourself forward. In climbing for optimum efficiency, your goal is to pull yourself up to each new step through using your glutes to push your torso over your knee. As taught, athletes are told not to bend their knees more than 90 degrees. Greater angles put more pressure on the knee as your tendons pass from the quads through the kneecap. That difference is crucial to your climbing race. Pulling instead of pushing yourself removes all of the energy wasted by conventional runners to reach the top through increased friction to the femur. Your goal is to keep your torso as still as possible as you pull it upwards. To introduce yourself to the biomechanic change, I offer you the following technique: For climbing biomechanic efficiency, take a piece of masking tape and create a “training line” up your training staircase as well as a separate line at least six feet long on the floor to practice walking before you begin climbing. Easiest of course if you’re doing this from your own home. The most important aspect to uphill climbing is to start training barefoot. Barefoot training will help you tremendously With stair stepping, there won’t be enough of a step shelf to put your entire foot at rest on the step, so you’ll need to develop the strength in your feet to comfortably carry your bodyweight and learn the balance skills necessary to move quickly and (most importantly) as biomechanically efficient as possible. Start with your bare feet on the floor tape with the middle of your heel directly over the middle of the tape. Place your second toe outward from your big toe on the middle of the tape for positioning. Set your second foot heel to touch your second toe of the planted foot and place the second foot in direct mimicry of your first foot in heel and second toe position. What you’ll find is that you’re highly unstable. To find your natural body posture for climbing, let your hips drop to the floor to the point that your back leg knee can roll itself behind your front leg and remain upright and balanced. Keep your torso leaning backward. Just take the time to become comfortable with this posture. You’ll easily feel your body wobble. That instability is merely demonstrating the muscle control you’ll need, and currently don’t have. The running technique looks highly similar to how a professional model walks. I recommend you practice this perspective in front of a mirror so that you can see how perfectly aligned your body posture truly is. If you find it difficult to balance, then you’re identifying the muscles that you need to train to be a good climber. This technique also works well for trail running as well as steep hill running. Remember, that once you get good at a good heel toe stepping process in floor walking, you’re going to have to learn how to walk on your toes to master quick step climbing. If you’ve got the balance skills down, you should be able to walk on your toes with ease… On the floor, practice your weight pull to your lead step and rolling your back leg from around to place it in front of your new weight bearing foot. It will seem awkward at first, but much easier when you transfer that motion to step climbing. The most difficult part to this is learning how to become comfortable with rolling your upper legs inward with each step. Keeping your body to a natural centerline is paramount to efficient climbing. For your fist training steps follow the tape you’ve placed and get used to rolling your knees to your body’s centerline with each step as well as keeping your feet straight in landing. Good step climbing requires your getting rid of natural foot pronation to control lateral sway and energy waste for each step. If you’re successful, then you should find walking with absolutely no arm swing very simple to accomplish. Torso rotation elimination is important to you as a climber, but for a firefighter, the added 60lbs of equipment to carry requires a perfectly still torso. In firefighting, your oxygen supply is limited to your bottle; a reality you won’t face. So for them, every extra motion wastes oxygen. Getting rid of torso rotation and arm swing is vital to a firefighter. For yourself, it will keep your heart rate as low as possible. When you get comfortable with walking on the floor tape, you have to become aware and perfect your weight balance shift to your big and second toe outward for all of your load bearing. Becoming comfortable with stair climbing barefoot is why I recommend it. Utilizing only two toes for bodyweight management. Why only two toes? To manage efficient directional change. Here’s the untold story to stair climbing; your point of least efficient energy consumption isn’t climbing the stairs, it’s the cornering rotation in 180 degree directional change to turn around and climb the next flight of stairs when your lead step hit’s the stair landing. In running, your weight load and balance is in forward lean and pronation of the feet. In climbing efficiently, you don’t want to lean forward, your goal is to keep your center of gravity behind the lead foot of each step. To practice directional change, walk up the last step and when your lead step hits the landing, while in balance on your two toes, rotate your heel outward and let your torso rotation start at your feet and let your torso rotation follow in motion. The last part of your body to rotate for climbing should be your shoulders, instead of beginning with them as runners and basketball players do for example. Train as much as you can barefoot. And for racing, I would highly recommend a pair of Nike Free shoes 3.0 Give that a try and write with your thoughts…

I'm glad you found the entry useful. Have you or anyone here tried my advice? What response or questions do you have?