On Running, Part 1.
It’s funny, I wrote this article at the beginning of the summer and just hadn’t gotten around to editing, nor sharing it, however, my thoughts haven’t changed — I love summer, I love movement, but I hate preventable injuries, especially stemming from outdoor running in the summertime.
Now, please, please, don’t get me wrong, running is great, it’s inherent in our DNA, it’s elegant, yet powerful, and it’s one of the freest forms of movement. However, especially in this day and age, it isn’t absolved of issues, especially considering the other sources of stress that we subject our physiology too. Therefore, this is less an article about the issues of running, and more so, an attempt to improve your movement practice. So, below you’ll see some tips, techniques, and habits in which you can think about, try out, and learn from, in order to help your running. Hope it helps.
- The warm-up:
The warm-up should incorporate a few things: nutrition, awareness, and activation.
Nutrition: I’ll stay away from the hours and days before your run, instead, focusing on the minutes and hours before nutrition.
Here’s a simple fix: drink water.
Therefore, grab a cup of water, fill it to the brim, and match it with a fruit or two, and snack on that a few minutes before the run. Furthermore, during the run you don’t really need bars, nor fruit juice. If you need that to last, there a larger issues that need to be fixed within your diet. Truthfully, for the most part only two individuals really need snacks, juice, and endless water during their run: the professionals (or established amateurs) or the poorly nourished, not ironically, each end the spectrum.
Self-awareness: I think this is the most important of the three, considering we are either are not self-aware (use to be me), and if we are, we understand how little we know about our own psychology (now me). Therefore, try this.
- Lie down, or situate yourself in a comfortable position and simply breathe. There are various different breathing techniques; however, considering most of us don’t do any, I’ll skip the types, and instead just say, breathe! Welcome to whole new world.
- Before a training session, all my clients know to do this — they close their eyes or the stubborn keep them open, and give me the middle finger, and then they visually and physically travel from head to toe, and move each joint independently from one another. Meaning, they flex and extend their toes, rotate their ankles, eventually moving all the way up to their neck, where they flex, extend, and rotate it too. Pretty much, they’re priming their body for what’s to come. Many videos on this coming soon.
Activation: Moving from self-awareness to activation.
Do some activation.
- No, stretching out your calf muscle, nor pulling your thigh to your butt doesn’t count, instead, try these three exercises: dead-bug, bird-dog, and cobra.
Part II: Coming soon.
