"I'm so glad PT's don't like doing their exercises too..."

This is how my husband roasts me whenever I occasionally grumble about needing to get back to my regularly-scheduled maintaince PT exercises.

*yes, even PT's need PT exercises.

Even some of my 1-on-1 runners at the moment have fallen off the exercise-band wagon...just a week. no biggie.

Maybe you have, too.

My point is: it's the end the year.

The grand total of yearly mileage is wrapping up. The off season is in full swing. And holiday events are already starting to crowd your calendar.

It's ok to take a minute a breath right now. (Obviously I have and I need to get back to my own PT program.) A little extra rest can be a good thing right now, especially if you're finding it's actually DIFFICULT to stick with a plan. Often, that's a sign your brain needs a short break after a rigorous race season.

But here's the catch: I need you to plan your break. It needs to have a start and an end date. Especially if you have spring races on your calendar and you're looking to PR them.

Because your spring PR depends on what you're doing right now.

Yes, rest is productive.

Running for run is 100% productive!

So is enjoying your off season and having fun eating hills for breakfast, building volume or mileage, or working on getting faster.

But I need you to NOT let this one thing slide: your off season strength training. Because here is where you make your biggest PR-gains.

I recently got Steve Magness' book Science of Running and he's broken down periodization in a way that's just hitting me differently. And it's making me realize even more that your off-season isn't a throw-away time.

Especially when it comes to strength training like a runner.

Yes, we still lift heavy during marathon training. But let's face it: marathon training season is NOT the time to be hitting 400# back squat PRs. Our priority is running, training our bodies to go the distance, and continuing to build that running-fitness machine.

But your off-season is a sling shot for your spring PRs. And it's the perfect time to experiment! The time to find out what lifting heavy actually feels like for you so that when it's race season, you go in already knowing what to do, how to do it, and what to expect.

Your off season is the set-aside time to let your body get over any soreness. And for you to mentally realize, you won't die.

Your off season is also a great time to get nitty-gritty with the running-specificity of your strength exercises.

Let me explain.

In this week's blog, I wanted to give you something new. So I wrote a strength circuit built for the off-season runner looking to build their running fitness, get ahead of the spring training curb, and who wants to feel physically stronger.

But I added a special twist. I focused these glute, calve, and core exercises on helping you produce power, the kind of running strength you need to run faster and not break and be able to charge up hills (almost) effortlessly.

And they do this because they focus on an often missing link: your big toe.

I explain way more in detail in the blog post about how your big toe is the under-appreciated main character in most of these exercises, but briefly...

You can build the world's strongest glutes, quads, calves, and core...but if you can't actually distribute the weight through your big toe with every running stride,

...all that speed work is wasted.

Don't let that be you. So here's that strength circuit specifically built for the off season runner...

and I can't wait for you to blow your own mind.

Dare to Train Differently,

Marie Whitt, PT, DPT //@dr.whitt.fit

P.S. also...I almost broke myself experimenting with these exercises. So, please go check them out while I put myself back together lol.

Looking for MORE ways to work together?

• ​RUNNING RESCUE CALL: Save your run and your race. Work directly with me 1-on-1 at the first sign of an ache, niggle, or repeat running injury. We'll deep dive into the why behind your injury and create a personalized exercise program that gets you out of pain, keeps you running, and helps prepare you for race day!
• Grab my NEWEST FREE Strength resources for runners: The Calf & Achilles Cure Toolkit, made for marathoners sidelined by stiff, painful achilles and tight, injury-prone calves who want to protect their training cycle and show up to the starting line strong, pain-free, and ready to race.
• ​STRONGER FEET WORKSHOP: Losing the battle to plantar fasciitis, posterior tib pain, or reoccurring Achilles tendonitis? Not with this workshop ;)

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