dam i'm gonna have to try the whole backwards thing, sounds like sound intense stuff. thanks for your other tips too, i've definitely heard 'get your knees up' before without really knowing what it meant, lol.
idk about the whole backwards thing man. if you're a sprinter, you don't need too much mileage I guess so it's feasible, but running backwards left me completely wrecked and I pretty much had to bag the next 2 days (only 1 run each, no longer than 4 miles, as opposed to the usual 2 runs a day of 4 and 8). not helpful in my opinion. if you're a sprinter, you can take lots of days off I guess because it's more about developing strength and explosive power, which sort of responds better to intense bouts of exercise, as opposed to day after day of lots of miles. still, I dunno if it's worth losing the next 2 days. maybe you recover faster as you do more backwards running like that. idk
i've got this problem with when warming up for a run of any sort, and i was wondering if you guys might know what's happening. every time i do a couple of warmup laps of jogging/striding, this muscle on the outside of my lower leg on both of my legs tightens up pretty badly. doing some research on wikipedia, i think it's the peroneus longus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroneus_longus_muscle), but i'm not entirely sure. however after i finish a couple of warm-up laps and stop to stretch it out, it's perfectly fine for the rest of the run. should this be something to worry about, or should i just stretch it out beforehand to try to prevent tightness, or what?
I have the same problem sometimes. I found that on whichever leg is the problem, hopping around on one foot + balancing on a ball with that foot (to get the ankles moving in all directions I guess) makes the problem go away. my lower legs are always the most trashed out of my whole body. so much so that I'm thinking about getting one of those special pairs of compression socks. I don't normally buy into that type of shit but a couple of really fast people (who therefore know what they're doing) say they help. idk. try hopping around and stretching a lot during the day