You can make the marathon easier and more efficient to get more speed with only slight adjustments in your workout program. The changes will improve the ability of your body to more quickly eliminate waste products, bring in more energy for use and experience less muscular fatigue during the run.
These are the key elements involved in running a great marathon. To enhance each of these actions you need to develop a greater number of capillaries which play the most important role in the exchange of nutrients and waste products.
In addition, you must improve the functioning of the oxidative enzymes in the most used muscles. This means mainly the calf muscles that are responsible for the pushoff, the quadriceps for maintaining body position in the support phase and the hip joint flexor muscles that play the most important role in driving the thigh forward.
The calf raise and the knee drive exercises can also help you maintain or improve your stride length. Understand that stride length is the most important factor in maintaining or improving your speed during the run.
For example, to increase the number of capillaries and to further develop the oxidative enzymes in these muscles it is necessary to do a higher number of repetitions in one training session of the knee (thigh) drive exercise with Active Cords. In this most important exercise you drive the thigh forward from a position behind your body to approximately 45 to 60° in front of your body. The cords supply the resistance needed to develop additional strength and muscular endurance.
The calf raise can be done in a multitude of ways such as standing on a step and rising up and down while for the quadriceps you should do half squats. The greater the number of repetitions in these exercises, the greater the blood flow and the more the body adapts by increasing the number of capillaries. The greater the number of capillaries the more efficiently waste products can be removed from the working muscles and the more energy that can be brought to the muscle. This allows for faster restoration of the muscles and greater development of the oxidative enzymes.
Probably the best strength training program for execution of a higher number of repetitions is the 1 x 20 RM strength training program. This means that you do up to twenty repetitions of the exercise for one set in each training session. As a result you experience less stress than in the typical strength training program.
In addition, results indicate that when you do this program you develop greater strength, muscular endurance and improved performance on the road in comparison to the common strength training programs that are high intensity. For more information on this program see the book, The Revolutionary 1 x 20 RM Strength Training Program. In reading this book you’ll find that the program has many other benefits that are great for runners. Also see Explosive Running for specificity of strength training