Congratulations on your achievement.  As for working out the muscles, you could do those raises (i forgot the actual name) where you stand straight up with your hands holding the weights at your waist.  Then you raise them up at your sides until they're parallel to the ground.  Also, there are the ones you to the same way, but raise in front of you.  You could always do shoulder presses where you you start with you arms bent at the elbow so your hands are next to your shoulders.  Then just press the weights up above your hear until your arms are fully extended.  Sorry if this sounded confusing!

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Good job on the time.

I assume that your coach noticed something about your running that could be remedied by stronger shoulders with more endurance.

I agree, millitary press with the dumbells is a great exercise. I disagree, however with the frequency of exercise. There is no reason you can't train the same muscle group every day. After all, you train the leg muscles daily. (some world class runners train them 3 times per day). As long as you keep the loads light, you can safely develop endurance in any muscle in the body on a daily basis.

Another exercise which I really like are arm swings. Take light weights (5 lb dumbells or plates) and swing them at your sides in a normal but exagerated running motion. Try to swing your arms as fast as you can while still keeping a normal motion. These are great for developing the kind of strength that you need.

Start with a weight that you can easily do 3 sets of 15. As you get more fit, increase the reps and be cautious about increasing the weight. I wouldn't do the same exercise every day, try to throw in some variety. I would also throw in some ab exercises every day. A week may look like this.

Mon: 3x15 millitary press
3x15 barbell curls
abdominal exercises
Tue: 3x15 pushups
3x 1 min of arm swings with 5 lb weights
abs
Wed: 3x15 lateral raises
3x15 triceps press
abs

You get the idea. Remember. Start with weights that seem really light. Be careful about adding weight. You are not trying to build muscle, but enhance the muscles you have to create a better running motion.

Also remember, running is your #1 priority for training. Don't get sidetracked by the strength stuff. If you are having to substitute strength work for running, then back off the weights.

Good luck and let us know when you hit 4:50 !

quote:

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Originally posted by CoachB:

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Interesting.  I have received a lot of criticism for advocating this.  If fact, if a  muscle is unusually weak, I advocate exercising it multiple times a day, gradually phasing to once a day as the muscle gets stronger.   But, lifting once a day, if done properly, will give you unexpected results in time, without  interfering with the main purpose; that of runnning.

I lift semi hard during my base training phase, which i'm doing right now. I lift 3 days a week, monday, wednesday, and friday. Monday and Wednesday I lift for endurance, 3 sets of 15 to 20 reps of straight bench, incline, decline, then I do bicep curls, then I do push-ups and sit-ups and reverse push ups following the same number of sets and reps, but with push ups and sit ups, i'll do 20 push-ups, then sit-ups, then reverse push-ups with no rest in between. On friday I do pure strength lifting, only 3 sets of eight reps and no floor exercises(like push-ups, etc). People say runners shouldn't strength train their upper body's, that's a bunch of crap. Just keep an eye on the scale. When you first start phasing in hard core strength training, you'll probably actaully lose weight. But if you start to gain weight, like over 5 pounds, then it may be time to lay off a little on the strength training. I think if you have week muscles anywhere on your body they are slowing you down. In the last couple of seasons I have lost weight, I weigh 120lbs, yet I can bench 167. There are runners out there that weigh more than me, are slower than me, and think that it is okay, and natural, that they can't even bench 100 pounds because they're runners. They think lifting will make them gain weight. I try to explain to them that by working their entire body they become fat burnign machines, and will probably actually lose weight if they do it right. If they trained their entire body's like I train mine, then they could probably have a chance at beating me. But you're running pretty decent times, you'll only get better from here, and lifting will definately probably help you out. When I was in high school I only broke the 5 minute barrier twice. Now a few years later, I'm going to try to run sub 5's the whole way through the 5K on the track.