Posts by stevemagness
The Science of Running Book NOW AVAILABLE! 48hr special giveaway!
The Science of Running book is available NOW! Buy Hard Copy! Buy Kindle Version! What it looks like: Why you should buy? I hate doing the “sales” thing. But one of the reasons I’m asking readers, who are interested, to buy the book is because I’m passionate about it. I poured as much knowledge as I…
Read MoreStaying in an Altitude Tent after workouts- What are the consequences?
A large part of my training philosophy lies in the simple realm of stimulus and adaptation. My mind has returned to these ideas for the past year as I’ve tried to flesh out these ideas. In writing my book, I had to really work to try and turn the ideas in my head into something…
Read MoreExciting Announcement: New Book out February 18th!
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be releasing a book next month. In earnest this project began in 2009 and went on hold for a few years as life got in the way. It’s finally time to release my little passion project, an all encompassing book. The idea was to write the training book I…
Read MoreA Brief History of My Reading Patterns
If you could track my book reading over the past decade of my life, the types of books I have been drawn to for improving performance tells an interesting tale. When I was first getting interested in coaching, I read just about every running/track coaching/training book there was. I started with the basics and…
Read MoreWhy Crossfit works…but really doesn’t. The randomness of adaptation, and why beginners just need change.
Adaptation, regardless of whether it’s to a workout or to a drug, follows a familiar pattern. We react high to an initial new stimulus before tapering off and slowly adapting less and less to the same stimulus. The same workout loses its effects, just as certain drugs might lose their effectiveness over time. Obviously, the…
Read MoreInterview on Training, Zone training, altitude, and other sacred cow myths of training
I don’t normally post links to interviews I do on this blog, as I like to reserve it for original content. However, Mladen Jovanovic interviewed me for his site complementary training and Mladen did a great job asking some really hard, thought provoking questions. We didn’t go over your standard running/training questions, but instead Mladen…
Read MoreWhat changes from High School to College?
A couple posts ago, I asked for help on a survey about transitioning from High School to College running. It’s an attempt to answer the question of why kids success or struggle with transitioning to college. Admittedly, this question is something that strikes close to home, on two fronts. First, I’m a college coach at…
Read MoreDeception, Lies, and Performance
In a recent post on the placebo effect, we delved into the idea of deception being used to boost or impair running performance. I’d like to follow that up with the discussion of a recent review paper published in Sports Medicine by Jones et. Al. entitled “Physiological and Psychological Effects of Deception on Pacing Strategy and Performance:…
Read MoreThe High School to College transition:
Our sport is one of transitions. We have to transition from HS to college and then, if we are fortunate enough, often from college to pro. Often times our success depends on mastering these transitions and making sure they go as smoothly as possible. Way back in the day, I had to make this transition,…
Read MoreThe Placebo Response- belief, expectations, and why it matters in the world of sport
The Placebo Response. Just say the words and you generally get a negative response. People think of a placebo as some no good trick used by devious people to deceive some unsuspecting innocent person. It’s accepted in the medicine and research world as a way to test true effects of a substance or intervention versus…
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