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Booting up a running routine was pretty simple: get on the treadmill, warm up, find comfortable-stride speeds at walking, power-walk, jog and running paces, and then find the speeds that I can sustain for measured bursts, in terms of leg and cardiopulmonary endurance. In subsequent sessions, push those limits: Lengthen my stride a little. Run a little faster. Run a little longer. Trim the recovery phases. Fiddle with grades.

Bootstrapping a program of spot-training specific muscle groups has been less simple for me, but I think I've read enough web and watched enough video to put together a safe, effective starter routine. For the induction sessions, focusing on doing them slowly, fully, and most important: excruciatingly correctly.

1. Calf raises
The calf raise works the gastrocnemius (the big, superficial, bifurcated muscle mass at the back leg just below the knee joint), the soleus (a deeper muscle beneath and extending below the gastrocnemeus), and the flexors and tibialus anterior and posterior muscles of the foot. These muscles are crucial for balance, and "spring" the stride during walking and jogging.

Standing calf raises are done facing and leaning slightly at forearm's reach against a wall, or with a handrail for balance. At simplest, raise yourself up onto the balls of the feet in a slow, controlled movement while exhaling, then inhale as you lower back to a flat-footed posture, without rocking back onto the heel. The knee should be slightly flexed throughout, not locked, and the back should be kept straight ("neutral" position, not hunched or arched). The challenge level and range of motion can be increased by standing with the ball of the foot at the edge of a step, allowing the heel to dip further than it would on the floor. I find an old phone book works for a step, and cushions a bare foot a bit more than an uncarpeted stair would. The challenge level can be bumped even more by doing it balanced on one foot at a time.

I did 10 one-legged calf raises per leg to start; I could have done more but I could already feel the burn and didn't want to traumatize my calves.

Squats
Weighted squats are an iconic exercise commonly associated with competition weightlifting. Many bodybuilding programs consider it a foundational exercise; at least one trainer makes the claim "if you could only do one exercise in the gym, that exercise should be squats". The squat primarily works the erector spinae (deep muscle of the lower back), gluteus (butt), quadriceps (four muscles of the front thigh), and hamstrings (pairs of muscles along the rear thigh). These muscles, especially the gluteus, power the stride at running and sprinting speeds. Secondarily, and especially with weights, squats also engage the lower legs, upper back, shoulders and abs to control the load and maintain balance.

Because it engages so much of the body, it is crucial to perform the exercise properly. Dipping too low raises knee injury risk. Poor breath control, balance or positioning of the weight can risk back injury. It's very possible to shoulder the weight properly and start a squat only to find the weight is unmanageable at some point in the dip.

For a no-weight squat: start in a comfortable/natural angled foot stance, feet just over shoulder-width apart, knees unlocked. Keeping the back in a neutral position, looking straight ahead, balancing weight on the heel of the foot rather than arch or ball, lower as if you were going to sit down until the hips and knees reach a plane parallel to the floor. Sport medicine research suggests that "deep squats", that is, lowering the hip below that parallel plane, increases the risk of knee injury without increasing benefit to the muscles. There's a lot of dispute about this from lifters and trainers, but I trust the ivy-league sport medicine research eggheads a lot further than I trust the competitive-lifting machismo-worshipping muscleheads. Also, the flex of the knee should keep the whole leg in line with the foot angle, not knees-together (forcing a forward-leaning posture) or knees-apart (enabling arching of the back).

These guys make it look easy. I did 8 squats just to get a grip on form and feel how they felt; most of the burn at that point was in my quads and a bit in the lower back.

Sit-ups and crunches
In theory, the abdominal crunch removes the action of hip flexor muscles from sit-ups to isolate the rectus abdominis (superficial ab muscle that hypertrophies to become "six-pack abs"). Some sport scientists argue that the hip flexors and transverse abdominis activate automatically anyway, and this activation can only be inhibited by the Janda variations of the crunch and sit-up (activating the neurologically reciprocal muscle: the hamstrings).

Most of us grew up with sit-ups from grammar school on in phys.ed. class. It's hard to injure yourself if you keep your back straight. I can do a handful of sit-ups, or a dozen crunches without my abs protesting too much. When I reach a moderate level of ab strength, there are lots of variations (e.g. sit-ups and "bicycle" crunches) to increase range of motion and engage adjacent muscles.

Push-ups
The other thing we grew up with from grammar school on was push-ups. Not a big fan; I can do "girl" push-ups (that is, balanced on hands and knees, not hands and feet) without much wrist pain. It moves (but does not remove) the pain if I balance on knuckles instead of flat-handed, or turn my hands in at a 45+ degree angle. Ignoring the pain, I can do ~6 slow push-ups. Supposedly developing forearm strength with wrist flexes and extensions can take some of the pain out of that.