Flexible Bodies or Flexible Minds: Less down time for runners

No matter what your age, level of experience, or current fitness level is wouldn’t you like to experience less downtime as a runner or hiker?  Though our ages may vary across a wide spectrum, and our structure may be unique, there is a common factor that we all possess, a common resource that we all have.  It is the brain. We can use both the conscious and unconscious processes of the brain to improve. Perhaps you follow the commonly recommended ideas about stretching and strengthening. Simply doing static or even dynamic stretching cannot improve your skill level. Only by increasing your awareness of the details of what you are actually doing, can you engage the learning process and use your best resource, your own brain and nervous system, to help you keep going in the long term. 

“I desire not flexible bodies, but flexible minds” – M. Feldenkrais

 Here are some tips:

1.  Put your feet on the ground. Whether you are a walker or a runner, you can only improve through experience.

2.  You move as an entire system, not a collection of parts. Notice the terrain above. It is rather rocky. It is not only the feet that must adapt to unusual terrain or circumstances but the entire body from head to foot. Stand on two feet and leaving your feet where they are begin to turn a little to the left and the right as if to look over your shoulder. Notice that there is movement from the foot to the head. Everything moves. Sometimes when you run, shift your attention back and forth between one part, say your feet, and your entire movement pattern. Shift back and forth between the part and the whole. Make this a habit on some of your runs, what does a shift in the use of the arms do to the entire pattern?  What does a shift in one part do to the overall sensation of ease? How do you feel the next day and how does your feeling relate to the details of what you were doing, to the tiny experiment you did. Keep learning.

     3.  Who are you? Know yourself.  Are you older, younger, taller, shorter, heavier , lighter, a speed athlete, an endurance athlete, currently rested, currently exhausted, injured or frequently injured, healthy, competitive, stressed, male , female, weekend warrior, consistent trainer. What is your current attitude toward running, toward life?  Be honest with yourself.

 

     4.  Know the difference between long and short term goals.  Do not sacrifice long term goals for shorter term ones. Look at the big picture.

      5.  Learn the word incremental.  Changes often occur and need to occur much more slowly and consistently than we think. Keep moving forward but do it incrementally with awareness. Sometimes the starting point is to visualize the movement you want and then only begin to do it a little at a time. 

      6.  Know that the more you know and can feel what you are doing, the more you can use the environment of running and walking as a way of healing instead of something to be laid off from while you heal or as a medium to injure yourself.  Running and walking provide good circulation and good strengthening and learning environments after an overuse injury but only if you know what you are doing, only if you know what to change.

 

S     7.  See a Feldenkrais practitioner for Awareness Through Movement® lessons and Functional Integration® lessons. 

       8.  Contact Transcendent Running with questions and to schedule sessions at:  scottrun400@yahoo.com
      Download our e-book at  www.transcendent-running.com
      Get Started working with Scott at:  www.transcendent-running.com/get-started
      or call Scott at 541-536-4821.

The Neglected Resource: Our Body/Mind

“We act according to our self image” –M. Feldenkrais 

What an idea this is. What a statement and what possibilities it opens for us.

Our action, our movement embodies everything we think and are. If we change our action, our movement, we have a way of changing our self image. What we often think of doing is “changing our mind”. But here is something else. What if we try to change our mind but leave our actions unchanged? This leaves us somehow short of what we want to do. But in changing our actions we have a way of changing our habits and affecting real expansion of our options. Notice the lead runner, Sebastian Coe, in the photo above. Notice the long stride which is created by the coordination of every part of himself in the running movement. See the long spine, the whole body spiral and the confident, powerful posture.

 Now look at the second runner. Can you see what he might be feeling through his action?  He seems to be looking downward, straining somewhat in the neck muscles, collapsing the chest slightly. Does this posture seem as confident?  Is it as powerful? What is this way of acting expressing? At this very moment in time is he expressing, ease or struggle? 

All Olympic runners have spent years training. What if we only practiced quality? This would include times and distances, but also perfecting our movement, our action, our thinking. What if our training included better acting and not just more? What if quality and single mindedness were fundamental elements instead of add-ons? Win or lose you will find that Seb Coe maintained great form and great presence. Perhaps by changing our actions we could learn more to “change our minds”.   Integrated action and a unified mind is the mark of greatness. 

What if we changed our minds about training altogether?  What if training was not merely a physical activity but a body/mind activity, a learning process?  What if we turned the traditional training pyramid around?  Here are the “old fitness pyramid” and the new model.

The old pyramid:  go for it and roll the dice.

The new pyramid! Build a foundation and succeed.  The difference between the two is the emphasis on the brain as the organizer of intention and on the learning process and the cycle of improvement before success. In the traditional pyramid success is achieved through force, i.e. adhering to rigid training and using will power without awareness.  In the second pyramid success is achieved through self- knowledge, unifying the will more deeply and improving body organization.  You can see why there are plateaus and injuries in the first model, as more and more force is applied without and real improvement in action. In the second model there is no end to learning. -Till next time, Scott

Please feel free to leave us you comments and input in the comment section of this blog.  We'd love to hear from you 

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The Prevalent Myth Of a Tight Core

You need to strengthen and tighten your core. Is that not one of the most prevalent, familiar, popular and persistent teachings of modern exercise, fitness, and rehab? When we speak of the core, we are speaking of the strongest muscles in the body. 

While it is true that the core, the muscles that control movement around the center of the body is extremely important, forming a habit of keeping these muscles tight is not necessarily beneficial. In fact this idea can rob us of our potential.  

People are encouraged to keep “a tight core”. Occasionally, people are encouraged to keep certain specific muscles tight. . Sometimes the instruction is to keep the core partially engaged when you run.  But you do not need a tight core. What you need to move well is a well coordinated core.

Try this:

Place your finger tips on the front of yourself below the waist. The bones you feel there are the top of the pelvis. Now let your arms be at your side and take a walk. Your walk should feel normal to you. Now begin to consciously engage your core. Now as you walk place you fingers again at the top of the pelvis in the front of yourself. If you are keeping your core consciously engaged you may notice very little pelvic rotation. Does this feel like your normal habit? Notice also that if your feet, ankle, hip joint, and back have a fairly coordinated relationship you might be able to walk this way quite a while. Some people do this all the time.  Notice how your feet, ankles and knees feel!  I did this focus exercise this morning and was surprised to find how little pelvic rotation I had.  Functional strength in the core is not achieved through holding it tight but through using ourselves in more efficient ways. 

Now have no focus on tightening the core. Walk forward with your hands on the front of the top of your pelvis again and consciously move one side of the pelvis forward, say the right side of the pelvis forward to initiate the movement of the right leg forward. Go back and forth between these two types of walking, holding the core tight with no or minimal pelvic rotation and coordinating the core in a way that freely allows and causes, and energizes pelvic rotation. How much pelvic rotation you want, and how you coordinate with the rest of your movement depends on you and what you are doing at the time. Go back and forth until the difference between these two types of walking feels clear. Can you make the differences between the two ways of acting more and more subtle and still feel the difference? Now notice that when you have pelvic rotation you have added an extra element that could be used to soften your walk or run and with practice take stress off the feet, ankles, knees, hips. 

Look at the photos at the top of the article.  Can you see that in the side view, you are getting a good profile of the face yet an angular view across the buttocks? This is due to pelvic rotation. In the front view of Usain Bolt it is clear that one side of the pelvis has advanced in front of the other side. Clearly Bolt is allowing the pelvis to rotate and the spine to twist in a very powerful way. This is not a core that is being kept tight. This is a core that knows how to produce a strong spiralic action through the core.

Experiment and enjoy-

Scott

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