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Alex Novicov // Endurance & Strength Running Coach

@alexnovicov

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🔥 Helping ambitious men finish 100km+ ultras
strong without destroying their bodies
🏋️ Running, Strength & Nutrition 🥗
⬇️ Free Ultra Training Guide

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The difference between trail runners that finish and DNF UTMB is not training load. It’s not that the people that finished trained significantly more.

Actually data from Training Peaks analysed runners that finished and DNFed and they saw this incredible difference: 5%.
So basically the training more doesn’t help. YES we do need to train of course but we need to train all the elements.

Because the runners that DNF they had the following in common: they trained the whole system. Yes of course there are nuances, yes there are things that can go wrong but what we can focus on is what we can control. External circumstances are not ours to control.
 So if you want to finish strong focus on training the whole body, train with gear, train under all circumstances, train everything you need to train: strength training (RRT), mobility under load don’t look for a magic number: long runs, long runs and vert. They are not the only things that will determine your success.
 I would say focus on training your durability: this will be detrimental to your success in ultra running.

If you want to dive deeper I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you a link to my free guide HOW TO FINISH YOUR NEXT BIG ULTRA STRONG.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Dragon’s Back Finisher 2024 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿380 km run with 16,600 meters of elevation on toughest terrain in six days ✅ The Worlds Toughest Mountain Race is completed.

I genuinely had to dig deep not to give up every single day. From Day 1, I wanted to DNF because of so much mud,bogs. scrambling and elevation we had.

400 runners that started this race and 124 runners finished. It shows us that only 30% of runners finished the race.

But it doesn’t take away from all the brave souls that committed and started in Conwy castle on Monday.

There were more lows than highs in this race, the tears were pilling up as I got two injuries on Day 4 and it was painful to move my ankles.

I’m incredibly lucky to have finished the race for many reasons, one reason is because I had an incredible support from the most incredible people.

You know who you are.

The amazing people at Ourea Events @dragonsbackrace that took care of everything.

Another key part that played a huge role was my nutrition strategy from @torqfitness - I’m grateful to Marcus and Matt for this.

This wasn’t about running 380 km, it was about learning about yourself more in six days than in six years. Self awareness.
A new article is up on my Substack.

#dragonsbackrace2024 #dragonsbackrace #traileunning #runninginspiration by @alexnovicov

There is so much advice and when you see road runners train and the suggestion is for
trail runners… it’s not inherently wrong but you can improve that and become more intentional.

When you are intentional about your training you are more effective. I’m obsessed with being effective.
If you are like me I don’t have 100 hours a day to spend in the gym and train all day… you know we have things
to do and we want to finish our races strong.

So you have to think of your training like an investment: where you will get the highest ROI?

Doing more reps with baby weights like road runners do?
Well unless you are training for podium.. then yes keep doing that.

But if you are man over 35 that has a family and has a hectic lifestyle you need to think about what you do.

here’s what I suggest:
Lift really heavy, so you enter a strength block for 12 weeks; which means you do heavy lifting, really heavy with
4-6 reps and 4-5 sets with ONE rep in reserve. Then after your BIG sets you do accessory exercises:

copenhagen planks
rotational staff
core

and in general you train the whole body, the whole athlete.

If you want to train more effectively, I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

Fitness gets you to the start. Strength gets you to the finish.

More kilometres and more climbing aren’t the whole story. In our free FORGE webinar, endurance running and strength and conditioning coach Alex Novicov will share how to identify your individual weak points and train your body for UTVV’s technical trails, demanding descents and final kilometres.

Whether you’re already signed up for UTVV I Feel Slovenia 2027 or still considering your challenge, join us:

📅 Wednesday, 11 November 2026 🕗 20:00 CET 💻 Online · Free · 60 minutes

You can register in our bio.

•

Kondicija te pripelje na start. Moč te pripelje do cilja.

Več kilometrov in več višinskih metrov še ni vse. Na brezplačnem webinarju FORGE bo trener vzdržljivostnega teka ter moči in kondicije Alex Novicov predstavil, kako prepoznati svoje šibke točke in telo pripraviti na tehnične poti, zahtevne spuste in zadnje kilometre UTVV.

Pridruži se nam, ne glede na to, ali si na UTVV I Feel Slovenia 2027 že prijavljena, pripravljen ali o svojem izzivu še razmišljaš:

📅 sreda, 11. november 2026 🕗 20.00 CET 💻 spletni seminar · brezplačno · 60 minut

Prijaviš se lahko v našem bio. by @alexnovicov

If you are a trail runner living in a city with no mountains… it can be challenging because
you think you need mountains, you need hills to train and finish strong.

You see YES of course HILL training is the best way to train, it’s specific, yes BUT life is not linear.
I love trail running and personally want to do trail races, I’ve been living in a city my whole life.
There are a lot of athletes and PRO athletes that don’t live in the mountains and they find a solution.

Except the obvious… travel once a month to a location like Snowdonia, or Peak Districk or abroad where you can
do hill training… but here are three things you can do without leaving your town:

1. Kenyan HILLS on a a treadmill: run for 90 seconds at 10% incline and then immediately walk at 0% grade for 90 seconds. Do that for 15 minutes and then recover for 5 minutes. This will improve your lactate threshold and it will teach your body to run after a hard effort. You see the body doesn’t know this is ‘not a hill’ it thinks of effort.
2. RRT Strength training is a must. You have to lift heavy: deadlifts, squats, rotational exercises: you need to make this a priority. And if you say you don’t have time…well drop a run (YES!) and do strength training. When you show up at a race trained your legs will thank you for this especially after 50km.
3. STRIDES: find a baby hill and do hard effort strides, the hill doesn’t need to big huge, it just needs to have a small incline, every city has a small baby hill. Do strides for 15 seconds for 6-8 reps and then walk back down.

If you do this you will show up at your race day STRONG and most importantly you will finish strong NOT destroyed.
Save this video so you remember it for your next workouts.

If you want to train more effectively, I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

If you a trail runner that is over 35 and has lower back pain the
solution is NOT to stay home and do nothing. Actually that’s the opposite of
what you should do is actually movement.
 You see when we don’t do anything we make it worse. Muscle atrophy happens, we actually want to
move and find the right movement.
 This is what happened with a client I was coaching: he felt pain after running 5km.. for a year he struggled.
He would start and stop running.. and he wanted to keep running but it was painful. He wanted to do the BIG
distances you know, he wanted to join the BIG boys club… I’m joking. No he wanted to run obviously.

He tried different PTs, different methods, different sofas at home and nothing worked.

here’s the solution:
Find movements that are not very hard, train your hips, upper back, hamstrings, adductors, abductors.
Train the whole body. Train with progressive overload.
 That’s the solution. We used a traffic light system:
RED: any pain from up to 6 or 7 it always depends on the individual you don’t do the exercise.
YELLOW: any pain from 4 to 6 you do it but with caution.
GREEN: any pain up to 4 you do the exercise normally.

Here are some exercises you can do:
1. Smith machine squat with heels elevated
2. Goblet squat
3. Upper body: pull ups (assisted)
4. Copenhagen planks
5. Trap bar deadlifts (TRAP BAR ONLY!)
 BUT any severe pain you need to see a physio or a doctor. Don’t push it too much! ALWAYS use common sense.
 P.S The client in the video is Tom, I coached him but is not the runner I mentioned in the story!

If you want to train more effectively, I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

The thing is DURABILITY is actually way more important because where
are you going to do all the speed sessions if you are injured?

Right. nowhere.

The solution is DURABILITY is top priority. Because when you are durable,
you can train consistently, when you can train consistently.. you can become fitter and faster.

So, progressive overload for trail runners is a must, strength training is non negotiable and recovery
must be treated as training.

If you want to train more effectively, I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

Here’s the plan: you as a trail runner over 35 you stay injury free. You don’t think
of injuries, you don’t get injured. You run, you enjoy races, you challenge yourself and you finish
your races strong not destroyed.

To achieve this plan you need to understand that it’s a skill. Like anything in life, to acquire a skill you
need to take time and learn. In our case the first thing you need to do is develop patience.
The second thing is don’t sign up for any A races for the next 6/12 months.
You can sign up for fun or at least like give yourself ONE whole year: let’s say you say in a year time
I have this RACE that I want to do which is 100 miler and you have time to actually work on your strengths and weaknesses.

In order to learn the skill you need to see what are your weaknesses, what do you need to work on, is your hip mobility,
is your strength, is it your running engine? You need to look objectively and see what you need to work on.

Then you do a nice old excel and write down a periodisation plan: BLOCK 1: 12 weeks of building my hip mobility, or
maybe it’s body composition, maybe it’s learning to eat more protein and managing carbs… I don’t know.
There are hundred of things you can work on.

Once you build a strong foundation, then you can start doing more races, but always think: train the whole body.
Do strength training. RRT!

If you want to train more effectively, I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

You will not bulletproof your knees with doing only knee exercises. You see the knee
always takes on everything if there are other parts of the body that is not strong.

So let’s lay you have weak glutes, weak hips, weak shins and a core that only knows
bodyweight crunches. So trail runners over 40 think that they need to do MORE knee exercises
because it makes sense.

Here’s an example, I had one client at Gymbox when I was training people in the gym that came to me
and said he had knee pain for years and he couldn’t ‘fix it’. We started working together and at some point
he said that he felt better (after around 2 months I think) but he noticed that we didn’t do a lot of knee exercises
as he tried to do by himself.

This is what we did, we trained all the other muscles and we focused on body composition goal (as he had to lose body fat)
because when we are overweight we are adding even more weight on our knees, lower back and so on.

He said he though it was his age… but it wasn’t. A lot of men over 40 blame the age, it’s not the age. The structure
and the programme is the problem.

Train the muscles that protect the knees, add load, mobility under load.

If you want to finish your next big ultra strong, TRAIN the whole body… not just ONE part of it.

If you want to train more effectively, I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

Runners who want to finish strong, who want to feel great when they finish a race,
they shouldn’t be doing bodybuilders workouts.
 I assume this is what you want to achieve, you want to finish your races strong not destroyed.

Way to many trail runners spend too much time in the gym (well some don’t spend at all) …
but THOSE that do, don’t need to spend so much time. The key is being effective and efficient.

You see I’m obsessed with efficiency, I know that we don’t have all day being in the gym, you know we have a
life outside training, we have a life outside running.

So all you need is 1, 2 or 3 hours in the gym per week. That’s it.
You can be super effective in those hours.

You see in fitness there are many nuances so it depends a lot on what stage you are and what are your goals.
BUT I assume you are intermediate.

So you do ONE day UPPER body and CORE, but not crunches but bracing, rotation and anti rotation.

Then day TWO you do LOWER body and CORE, where you focus on flexion, extension and side flexion.

When you do UPPER body you need to think if you are anterior or posterior dominant. If you are working in an office then most
likely you are anterior dominant so your ration in PUSH PULL needs to be different. So you need to focus more on your BACK MUSCLES.
Which means you need to focus on PULLING!

If you want to train more effectively, I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

When you are training so hard you want to make sure that you are training
the whole body, you are not just focusing on LEGS.

This is what a lot of trail runners over 40 do: they get obsessed with legs, obviously you need leg strength,
you need to focus on long runs, and vert and all the good staff…

BUT if you want to be more efficient and finish your next big ultra strong, not destroyed you need to focus on training
your core as well. Not just sit ups, but loaded CORE.

When you have a strong core your running form late in the race will improve, you will not be collapsing, you will be able
to run more efficiently with your strides you will be able to enjoy trail running even more.

So train your core with variations of exercises, here are 3 you can start today:
Cable single arm rows.
Heavy wood chops.
Rotational step ups.

If you want to train more effectively, I have a free guide, comment the word GUIDE and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov

Some runners are trying to optimise everything but not the world class basics.
Everything except what matters most to their health.

Should runners have creatine? NO if the world class basics are not in place.
What is the point of trying to optimise everything when your sleep, nutrition, hydration, recovery,
training is not in place? There is no point in doing that.

The best thing we can all do is focus on world class basics, focus on trying to do the basic things.  I know it sounds boring, and we think the solution is somewhere there…it’s a magic pill somewhere.
It’s in creatine, or the new XYZ drink that will give us wings.
No it’s not.

The basics will always win! Sleep, recovery, hydration, protein, veggies… quality training.

Now, If you want to dive deeper and learn how to train holistically , I’m hosting a free webinar end of this month (28.10.2026 19:00 GMT).

Comment the word WEBINAR and I will send you the link.

#trailrunning #trailrunningcoach #endurancerunningcoach by @alexnovicov