Patryk Piekarczyk Gave Me A Strength Program to Boost my Run Performance… And Things Got Saucey (#54)
Client Testimonial
Patryk Piekarczyk Gave Me A Strength Program to Boost my Run Performance… And Things Got Saucey
The ingredients
New Year (fickle resolutions, anyone?)
New state
New job
New technical training
Fitness level ground zero
The demand to be better than ever and crush my military Physical Fitness Assessment
Strength based performance programming
A little bit of saucey encouragement and tweaking from Pat
The result?
My fastest 1.5 mile time ever
I would run. A lot. My workout regime consisted of hitting the streets with a fire playlist and running for as long as I could. I didn’t have any regard for tempo, pace, intervals, and would especially scoff at the thought of ever picking up a barbell. It was not surprising then that when the stress of all that “newness” piled up, my run (and fitness) TANKED. This all just on the brink of a fitness assessment in which I was competing against my peers during technical school.
So I called Pat.
The next day, an 8 week program hit my inbox. I was pumped! Should I expect tempo runs? HITT? Maybe a taste of endurance distance training?
Wrong. The program had three days designated for the iron, and a mere two days for “cardio, dealer’s choice.” How the heck was this going to work?
But it was all laid out there for me, programmed by an expert, and my goal numbers were shining front and center. Having a program took away the guess work all while providing a productive work demand… all I had to do was follow it. After a little sass from Pat, I made the lazy decision and did just that; I followed the program.
Here are the snapshots
The program was incredibly FUN (say whaaaa)!
The structure kept me engaged, and the variations on the movements taught me how to activate different muscles to produce power and gave me greater awareness of which muscles were activated during different phases of movement. The program fundamentally helped me move better.
The exercises were comprehensive and easy to follow
Commitment and self-motivation don’t come easy to me, but the program pacing made it effortless to consistently do the work
The program was dynamic. Pat kept a close eye on the numbers, listened to my feedback. And adjusted accordingly
I ran my own schedule. Virtual training meant I could train when I wanted, where I wanted.
I lost weight. I ate better. It wasn’t necessarily because Pat was telling me to do it, but it was this amazing phenomena of good feeling momentum!
I ran my best mile and a half time EVER (10:45)
And the sauce to top it all off
I was strong AF.
Seriously. Check these working weight transformations
All in all, Pat’s strength-based running performance program still stands as my favorite training.