If you've ever wanted to get faster at your 5K or 10K and you feel like you're missing out on just one workout, if there's something, if there could just be one thing you could do and focus on that, then you could be better. And then a lot of people have told you well, there's not just one thing, there's all kinds of things you need to do. Well, I'm Jesse Funk and on today's episode of Runner's High, I'm going to give you that one foolproof workout that will make you faster at your 5K or your 10K.
If you spend any time with me at all on this channel, you know I say do not rely on silver bullets, they don't work and you've probably heard that from other people too. But you're here anyway so I know what you're up to. You're still looking for that silver bullet. And I'm actually going to break my rule a little bit today and give you a tidbit, give you an effective silver bullet to make you faster at your 5K or your 10K and that is the secret that you’ve been waiting for, that you want to know about his work on your limiter.
I talked about this in other videos on the channel so if you haven't seen those, hit that subscribe button, stay with me, I've got plenty of advice for you to become a better runner. But improving your limiter is the key to becoming a faster runner, especially when you've hit a plateau. Now, I talk about this book a lot, because it has such good wisdom and because of the depth of the knowledge that’s in it, even though it's only a few hundred pages. So, if you don't have a copy, pick up a copy, Joe Friel’s Triathlete’s Training Bible.
Now, it doesn't matter that you’re not a triathlete, if you just run, you will get as much out of this book than if you're a triathlete. It's gonna cover anything you want to know about running and training your own schedule, periodization; all these kind of things I talked about on this channel. It covers those things. Joe is a much more accomplished coach than me so getting advice straight from him is a great way to go. I cover some topics he doesn't in the book, obviously. But he covers a lot of things in depth from a physiological standpoint, it tells you exactly what you need to work on.
So, your limiters, as Joe describes in the book; endurance, force and speed, and you might think force and speed are the same but that's not necessarily the same thing, you have to read the book to know the difference between the three. In my case, in particular, my limiter has always been forced production. I'm simply not good at max power. I'm not going to be a big weightlifter or a huge football guy at any point in time of my life because that is a genetic limiter of mine. I'm great at endurance, I can keep going for a long time, but force is always a problem. I run a 200, I run a 400 not great. I'm not putting anybody to shame with those distances, maybe besides myself.
So, when I work on those things, I work on my max power because I'm not good at it. It allows my endurance abilities that I have much more of naturally to shine. Now again, as I said, you need to pick up that book as Joe talks about how to diagnose specifically what your limiter is. And there's also a step up from that, these other limiters, which are the combinations between the three that are more important as the season progresses.
So, please, please, please pick up Joe's book, it will explain this in a lot more depth than I can without simply plagiarizing him and I don't want to do that. It has a different cover nowadays because I have an older edition, but you can pick it up on Amazon. I'll include a link down in the description if you wanted to go that way. So, if you have any questions for me, please leave them down in the comments below. I'd love to help you with your running, become a better runner or maybe a better person, as in the case with Smart Athlete Podcast. So, I will see you next time on the next episode of Runner’s High.