"How to run faster and longer," that's a double whammy! The individuals that ask this question would clearly like to not only run faster, but also run longer! In my opinion, these individuals would like to improve at running longer distances. They feel as if they could run faster AND longer they would get the benefit of killing two birds with one stone. If they could accomplish both, they most certainly would!
So the next question would be "how?" Most would tell you to either go run sprints or go for a jog. But time and time again, the individuals that train these ways do not get the results they desire; in fact most see their times go up rather than down. Why you might ask? The answer is very simple, "you are either getting faster or slower!"
Let's take both examples and apply them to the idea that you are either getting faster or slower. If one were to attempt to get faster by running sprints, they would simply go to the track and run sprints! The first sprint would go great, the seconds would go not as great, and the third would go not great at all. By the end of the third sprint most people would be completely exhausted. But because they are strong-willed people, they push through the pain and keep running because they want to achieve their goal. But after the first or maybe second sprint, they are running nowhere near their maximum levels. They are running slower and slower each sprint. If we were to ask ourselves, are we getting faster or slower, we would have to agree we are getting slower because we are not always working maximally. Now lets look at distance running. I'm sure by now you can apply this to our ultimate idea, but let's look into it anyway. You go out, jog a mile, do it the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Each day you go out hoping to go further or longer than the previous. But that does not happen. Again, you are not training your body maximally because it is literally impossible to run as hard as you can for a full mile, so you are getting slower.
Fortunately for us, there is a very simple answer to all of this. We need to train from the inside out. We need to train our body to work maximally! We must train our nervous system! But it is impossible to run as hard as we can over and over again, right? Correct, but we can mimic that running motion over and over again through an exercise known as isometrics. These exercises are where you hold a certain position and contract certain muscles as hard as you can for an extended period of time. So what if we could do this in the running position? We certainly can!
