https://stan.store/dobetterfitness

Do Better Fitness, 1844 Market Street, San Francisco, CA (2026)

09/02/2026

👂 If your feet sound like an elephant when you run, you’re wasting energy + loading your joints.

Here’s the Silent Ninja Drill 🥷 to train lighter, faster, pain-free steps.

⚡ Save this drill for your next run.

➡️ Follow DARIOUSH | RUNNING MECHANICS 🏃 for more running mechanics breakdowns.

Comment “do better” to apply to the do better running program 🫡

09/02/2026

If you’re training for a marathon, this is the carousel to save.

I’m walking you through exactly what I’m doing for my CIM build, and breaking down the pieces that could help your training too.

Strength training.
Recovery.
Consistency.
Whether a coach is worth it.
And what I’ve actually learned so far.

Swipe through.

STRENGTH TRAINING:

Strength training isn’t optional if you’re building toward a race.

Minimum 1x a week. Ideally 2 to 3x.

Split it push/pull or full body so you’re hitting everything without wrecking your legs all in one session. That matters more the higher your mileage gets — you need your legs available for the next run.

Want help building this into your training?

Comment PRERUN and I’ll give you 2 weeks free on the live/on-demand workouts and much more 💪😏

RECOVERY:

Strength training means soreness. Soreness is usually where consistency breaks.

This is where creatine monohydrate has helped me.

It’s one of the most well-researched supplements out there, but it’s important to be accurate about what it actually does: the strongest evidence is for strength and power output, and for recovering faster between lifting sessions.

That’s helped me stay consistent with the strength side of this block.

CONSISTENCY:

Before this block I was running 4x a week. This build I bumped it to 6.

Week 1, I missed 2 runs completely.
Week 2, I got the runs in but not the full distance.
Week 3, the goal is both. The run AND the distance.

This is the one that actually moves the needle for the rest of the block. Let’s see if I can lock it in.

SHOULD YOU GET A COACH?:

Having someone else looking at your plan changes everything.

I know how to build a training block. I still don’t hold the line on myself the way a coach holds it for me.

If you want help building your own plan for an upcoming race, comment DO BETTER and I’ll help you put your build together.

Shoutout to my coach Cesar — if you want to see what working with him actually looks like, go check him out.

This is why I’m putting this out publicly. Sharing what’s actually working and what isn’t, in real time, not after the fact.

Comment below if there’s something specifi

08/28/2026

The Collapser…

Over the last few days we covered The Overstrider, The Bouncer, The Weaver, and The Glute Amnesiac.

But there’s one more type. And it’s the one where everything breaks down at once.

The Collapser loses stability across multiple joints in a single stride. Foot rolls in. Knee caves. Hip drops. All at the same time.

This isn’t about being weak or out of shape. Most Collapsers are fit, consistent runners. The issue? Poor proprioception and single-leg control. They can’t feel the breakdown happening.

So they compensate. Mile after mile. Until something hurts.

Knee pain. IT band issues. Achilles overload. Heavy, unstable running.

But here’s the good news: with the right strength training and awareness, Collapsers can become some of the most efficient and resilient runners.

That’s all 5 types. Tomorrow we start talking about what actually fixes them.

Comment DO BETTER to work together 👇

08/28/2026

Fast runners land badly all the time… so let’s practice absorption.

Not because they’re weak. Because running fitness and landing capacity are two different qualities, and almost nobody trains the second one.

Here’s what I look for when someone lands:

→ Where do the hips go? Backward is an escalator. Down is an elevator.
→ Does the knee travel past the toes? If it can’t, the ankle is blocked and the load has to go somewhere else.
→ How much room does the ankle actually have? Dorsiflexion is what buys you time to decelerate.

You can’t return energy you can’t absorb first. That’s why jumping straight into depth jumps and bounding usually feels awful — the tissue is being asked to give back something it never learned to take.

The progression:

1. Knee forward, toes up, load the heel. No jump. Learn the shape.
2. Same pattern, reaching a weight toward the floor. Hold the shape under load.
3. Small jump. Land in the shape you just practiced.

Then you earn the complicated stuff.

Start where you are, not where the internet tells you to be.

Comment “Do Better” to apply to the do better running program for me to help you where you’re at 🫡

DO BETTER.

08/28/2026

Here’s what’s coming in the next 9 slides:

↳ Why sitting culture is behind this pattern
↳ Why your upper body works overtime while your hip stays quiet
↳ How to tell the difference between quad-dominance and glute activation
↳ The OTHER glute most coaches never talk about
↳ The one symptom you should never ignore — even when nothing hurts
↳ Why fixing one gait pattern fixes two others
↳ The one drill that changes everything
↳ The 4-exercise strength routine backed by EMG data

If your runs feel harder than they should — but nothing actually hurts — read every plate.

Quick self-test — the couch stretch check-in:

Kneel in front of a couch. Put one shin up along the seat back, top of the foot flat on the couch. Squeeze the glute of the back leg and try to bring your torso vertical.

Can’t get upright without your lower back arching? Your hip flexors are locked, and your glute has forgotten how to keep the pelvis stacked.

60 seconds each side, once a day. That single stretch — done consistently — starts unlocking the whole chain.

Try this the next time you run:

Notice your arms. If you feel like you’re WORKING them — muscling them front to back, pumping to keep momentum — your lower body isn’t holding up its end.

Efficient running arms feel LAZY. They swing themselves. Because the hip drive underneath them is doing the actual work.

If your arms feel busy and your hips feel quiet, that’s the signal. Your trunk is compensating (core not engaged) for the hinge you don’t have.

Ever wonder why your calves feel like rocks after every run — even after stretching, foam rolling, massage?

They’re not tight because they’re weak. They’re tight because they’ve been doing your glutes’ job for years.

No amount of stretching fixes an overloaded muscle. You have to redistribute the work upstream. Wake the glutes. Give the calves back their actual role — ankle spring, not primary propulsion.

Then watch how quickly the “tight calf” problem quiets down.

The single-leg mirror test:

Stand in front of a mirror on one leg. Just balance for 10 seconds. Watch your pelvis — does the non-standing side stay level, or does it drop?

A quick note on the research: Bramah 2018 found i

08/26/2026

Week 1 of 16. CIM, sub 3:30.

Ran tempo this week in the ANTA Sports C202 7, testing it against my usual tempo shoe, the Brooks Running Hyperion Max 2. More responsive, lighter than expected. Not calling it a verdict off one session, but it’s earned a second look.

If you wanna try them out… link in my bio 🫡

Honest part: I had an easy run on the schedule and just didn’t do it. Not a pattern, not spiraling over it. Real fix is getting easy runs done early in the day instead of leaving them for whenever I find time, since whenever-I-find-time is exactly when they get skipped.

One week in. Onward. 👊

CIM training block journey

08/24/2026

Running mechanics explained… day 49 🫡

Two of these four runners had the right stride… but that’s not enough to make sure you’re running efficient.

Friday I asked which stride was the most efficient. Here’s the answer:

→ Runner 4 — stride too short. All that energy went up instead of forward. Lots of bounce, not much distance covered.

→ Runner 2 — stride too long. Foot lands out in front, and every step puts the brakes on before it moves you forward.

→ Runners 1 and 3 — stride length was fine. That’s the point. Look above the waist and you’ll see what’s actually going wrong.

Because your arms and torso are also very important to push you forward. When they are not used efficiently, your legs produce force and your body sends it somewhere other than straight ahead.

This is why “am I a heel striker or a midfoot striker” is the least useful question you can ask about your running. It’s a detail. What matters is whether your whole body is working in the same direction.

And you don’t fix that by thinking about it mid-run. You build it off the run — strength and movement patterns that teach your body to work as one piece instead of a set of parts.

Comment DO BETTER and I’ll walk you through what the Do Better Running Program actually looks like.

08/21/2026

Only real runners will get this one.

Four strides. One of them is holding up better than the rest.

Some things to look at:

→ Is there a lot of air, but not much forward?
→ Is the foot landing way out in front?
→ Is the hip doing its job, or is something else covering for it?

That’s all you get. Which one looks strongest to you, and what gave it away?

Let me know in the comments 👇 and send this to the runner who thinks they already know — I want to see who’s actually right.

Monday I’m breaking it all down — what a strong stride actually looks like, and why the rest cost you more than you think.

DO BETTER

08/19/2026

Your legs give out before your lungs do.

Most runners answer that with more miles. It’s usually a capacity problem — you run out of ability to absorb force long before you run out of fuel.

5 movements with the highest return per minute in the gym:

→ Deadlift — teaches you to load the posterior chain instead of dumping it into your quads
→ Back squat — raw capacity under load
→ Pallof twists — trains the trunk to resist rotation, which is its job every single stride
→ Front/back lunges — split-stance strength in both directions of travel
→ Single leg RDL — running is a single-leg sport. Load it like one.

If you’re not doing these, start.

No barbell? Not comfortable loading yet? Comment PRERUN and I’ll send you 14 days free in the PRERUN app — dumbbell and bodyweight progressions to build the same patterns.

DO BETTER

08/18/2026

I’m running CIM on December 6th, and I’m going after a PR.

16 weeks from today. And this time I’m not winging it.

Last marathon I showed up on a training block that was all over the place, made peace with it at mile 20, and had a great day anyway. But “had a great day anyway” isn’t a training strategy.

So here’s everything going into this block. Preparation, nutrition, the tools, and all of it in between

I hired a running coach.

Not because I don’t know how to build a block. I do. That’s the job.

The problem is when you coach yourself, you’re the athlete and the coach at the same time, and the athlete always wins the argument. I can look at a plan and know exactly what the right call is. Then it’s a cold Tuesday, my legs are heavy, and suddenly I’ve got a very reasonable case for cutting the session short.

Nobody’s objective about their own training. Not me, not you.

So Cesar is running my block for the next 16 weeks. He writes it, I execute it, and he’s the one telling me no when I need to hear it.

Best coaches I know all have coaches. That’s not a coincidence.

Bad sleep doesn’t just make you tired. It makes you worse at everything else you’re trying to do.

Brain fog all morning. Legs that feel heavy by mile 3 on a run that should be easy. And the one nobody talks about: when you’re underslept, your appetite goes sideways. You reach for fast sugar, you skip the real meal, and then you wonder why your fueling fell apart.

Every pillar in this block sits on top of sleep. Training, nutrition, recovery, all of it.

So here’s my actual fix, and it’s not a supplement. It’s getting off my phone.

I’m using Brick. You tap your phone to it and the apps you choose are gone until you tap back. No willpower involved, which is the point, because my willpower at 11pm is not good.

Phone out of the room. Same wake time daily. 7.5 hours minimum.

The hardest part of sleeping better was never the sleeping. It was putting the phone down.

Nutrition for this block, broken into two lanes: what I eat daily, and what fuels the actual runs.

Breakfast is the same most mornings. Chia seeds, kefir, granola. Fiber, protein, gut

Do Better Fitness

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