On March 23rd Roger Bannister celebrated his 80th birthday. When a reporter asked him if he would go out for a run on his birthday he told him that Monday (23rd) was a weight training day.

His answer gives us an insight into his life long training principles. When Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile record in 1954 most runners were training with the ‘more is better’ approach to the mile. They would keep adding extra miles to their training regime in the hope that this would produce a faster  time.

Rogers outlook was totally different, he believed that it was the quality of his workouts and not the quantity that counted.  His training sessions were never more than an hour and he rested the day before an event. Many sport writers at this time wrote about Rogers training as being lazy and that he ran on pure adrenaline. He was however training smart, believing that less was more by allowing his body to recover and get stronger from his efforts. Over the years I’ve seen people that spend forever in the cardio theater doing the ‘more is better’ approach to their training . These individuals run, step, and bicycle for hours a week with no real fitness progression. They need to follow Roger and include sessions of weight training to keep their muscles strong and flexible, while protecting their bodies from injury. They also need to take rest days that insure recovery.

Roger knew back then that one gets stronger during rest not during a workout. So let me say from all of us at FI, Happy Birthday Roger and thankyou for your inspiration to train smarter and with a more balanced approach . May you have many more years of weight training Mondays to come!!

Josh