I had a flare-up of Iliotibial Band Syndrome (my first one), in my left leg, about six weeks ago. The pain occurs when I run, usually 1.5-3 miles into my runs. Not being one to enjoy the interruption in my training, I have researched the hell out of ITBS to find the answer, but I have been disappointed to learn that there is no fast cure, recovery can take months, and frequent recurrence is common. read more…
After my third week of ChiRunning practice, I have a little new progress to report, but my body is still catching up with my form.
I talk about ITBS and calf tightness in my updates on ChiRunning practice, but I want to emphasize that I have not perceived them as being a major obstacle to my running since I began ChiRunning Practice. Before ChiRunning practice, my ITBS would become like an ice pick stabbing into the outside of my leg, just above the knee with every step of my left foot. It flared up within 2 miles of the start of my run, and after the run would become several times worse, so that it was difficult to walk and especially to walk down stairs (although by later in the same day, it usually felt back to normal after some icing). The tightness in my right calf also occurred before ChiRunning, so that is also not new. It has not generally been bad enough to force me to stop running, although I find it better to err on the side of caution and stop when my sense of ITB twinges of tightness in my calf pass a certain threshold. I do not try to be a hero. If I feel it and it seems not be improve when I make the recommended and logical adjustments in my form, I cut the run short. I’d rather run less voluntarily than to injure myself and have no real option to run. So, here are the updates on the two types of injuries or physical problems I tend to experience when running that I am hoping ChiRunning will help me eliminate. So far, it seems to have helped me manage the ITBS, but I still have some work to do with regard to my calves. read more…
While doing some research on the internet, I came across a website that was interesting, called Two Hundred Situps. It turns out there are a series of these pages set up. There is one for One Hundred Pushups, another for Two Hundred Squats, and one “coming soon” for Twenty-five Pullups. Each provides a suggested training program designed to help you reach the the lofty goal named in the title. I have looked at these plans and they seem challenging, but not unreasonable if you already exercise some. If you view these sites as training guides, and an information resource on each of the exercises, they aren’t bad at all.
But hold on… “Aren’t situps bad for your back,” you ask? read more…
There is some of evidence that there is an energetically optimal cadence at which athletes can cycle or run that allows for better performance in endurance events.
Cadence became a big deal in cycling with Lance Armstrong’s return to the sport after his battle with cancer. His style involved a lot of “spinning” at higher cadence, particularly on hills. As his performance improved and peaked, other cyclists caught on, and began to work on increasing their cadences as well, and now sustained cadences of 90-110 rpm’s (sometimes more) are common among cyclists in longer races. Less getting up out of the seat and muscling up hills with brute strength of the quads, and more sitting in the seat and spinning in lower gears.
Cadence is also important to runners. Indeed, cadence is related to running speed, and there has been research showing that trained female runners are most energy efficient when running at about a 9 min/mile pace, while trained male runners are most efficient at about a 7 min/mile pace (on a treadmill). As increasing your running speed requires either a change in stride length or cadence, or both, depending on individual biomechanics, it can be inferred that an optimal cadence is approached in trained runners at these optimal speeds. read more…
If you are overweight, you should use both diet and exercise to improve your health (duh!), but if you have to do one or the other (diet or exercise), you should choose diet first. Here’s why.
Strength training burns very few calories, and despite all the marketing hype out there about how extra muscle burns extra calories even when you’re sitting around, it really doesn’t burn that much extra in a day to have a few lbs. of extra muscle mass unless you live a very active lifestyle. But If you are overweight, I’m assume your lifestyle isn’t very active. read more…
That’s right. It’s not difficult to figure out what you need to do to improve your fitness, but it does require some effort. We are bombarded by clever marketing schemes that tell us it’s getting fit is a simple prospect, but too often we confuse “simple” (not complex), with “easy” (requiring little effort). We embark on a fitness journey and run into all sorts of difficulties along the way. Because we have the mistaken impression that it should be easy, when it’s not we sometimes think there must be something wrong with us. I think that’s why so many people are full of excuses about why they didn’t stick with their fitness regime, or why they aren’t losing weight. Worse, if we assume there is something wrong with us, we may then waste a lot of time and money talking to a range of health care practitioners only too happy to charge us money and sell us remedies we don’t need for imbalances or maladies we don’t have at all (or which may not even really exist). read more…
I conducted an informal survey of some friends of mine who exercise regularly (or have in the recent past) to find out how people stay motivated. My goal was to summarize and share some of the wisdom they have gained through their experiences. Some claimed to be motivated by an addiction to endorphins (e.g., the runner’s high), but most people employ one of a number of other strategies as well. Ironically, most also report that they have also had periods during which they stopped exercising or that they had not exercised for awhile, so perhaps the strategies people use do not always help. Or perhaps, like most things in life, we just go through periods in which our exercise practice feels more natural and easy, and others when we feel like exercise of any sort is a great effort, regardless of the motivational tools we employ. Maybe it’s just a sign that we need to change up our strategies to remain motivated now and then. read more…
Chi is essentially ‘life force.’ Whether you think of inefficient biomechanics as spilling life force, or simply wasting energy, the forms taught in ChiRunning are intended to improve your biomechanics. ChiRunning is based on the assumption that the typical adult runner has poor biomechanics and inefficient running form that both waste energy and perhaps make them more susceptible to a variety of injuries. ChiRunning enthusiasts claim that the approach cures and prevents a variety of overuse injuries of the foot, ankle, knee, hip, and even the back, through improved posture and running technique. read more…