He was a stickler for it, and you didn’t do it, oh boy were you in trouble!
I didn’t have a lot of contact with the head honcho of my martial arts federation. He was always a distance away, sitting at the top table, overseeing everything at championships or international seminars.
Whenever he addressed the whole room, he always had something to teach, and it was usually about getting the basics right (in his Malaysian accent it always sounded to me like “bay-shicks”).
He’d go to great lengths to demonstrate where your feet had to be in a given stance – and if you got it wrong…oh boy were you in trouble!
I watched for many years as he made examples of those who were getting it wrong (fortunately I managed to escape his eagle eyes), and it got to the point where I just thought he was being fussy.
But one day he explained WHY, and everything changed.
It wasn’t about doing right for HIM, it was to help US improve. He explained that if your feet were hip distance apart, rather than shoulder width or narrower than hip width, you could balance better and your movements would be quicker – which could mean the difference between being kicked in the face or not!
Whenever anyone talks about getting back to basics, I’ll always be reminded of him and his attention to detail in the “bay-shicks”.
And that’s exactly what we’re discussing today…the basics of running.
Now, I’m not talking about the mechanics of running.
I’m talking about even more basic stuff than that…the basics of human instinct and movement.
Because if we don’t address THESE basics, it doesn’t matter how much attention we put on speed and endurance and all those other things we get distracted by, we’ll STILL be running slowly.
What on earth am I talking about?
Well, there’s a few inescapable truths about the human body, that if we don’t address (and most people don’t), then we’re guaranteed to have technique, performance and injury problems at some point.
Truth #1: Your Animal Self Needs Movement
Every living creature, even down to a single-celled organism needs movement to survive. Without it, we cannot eat, flee from danger, reproduce or any other perform any other task that is built into our DNA. And when it comes to humans, that means every joint needs to be able to move without restriction in any direction. An inability to do this causes stress which increases the tightness of our muscles and further reduces our movement capabilities.
Truth #2: Human bodies are built a certain way
If you look at any anatomy textbook, you’ll find detailed pictures of where our bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments are – but what you might not see, is that they are positioned so that their direction is from the spine (centre line) outwards. This is important for your running because it means that any increased tightness in the muscles will draw your bones towards your centre line (rotate them inwards).
Why? Because this is a position of comfort for human beings. It’s how we were born, it’s how we sleep and it’s where we put an injured limb (or even another being) if we’re trying to be comforting. And in just the same way that’s you’d bring an injured hand close to your chest (rather than waving it around so it’s at risk of being injured again), the body draws the ends of the muscles (where they attach to the bones) closer together.
This creates a rotation effect on your bones, and THIS is what causes ALL your running problems.
If you don’t believe me, just try it.
Try running with your arms rotated inwards…do you feel faster?
What about running with your legs turned inwards…do you feel strong?
Didn’t think so.
And I don’t know about you, but I don’t need science to “prove” to me that this is true. It just is.
The thing is, this simple inward rotation is where ALL your technique problems, your speed, endurance, power, balance and much more problems come from – not to mention your aches and pains too!
Unfortunately, not everyone can see this happening, so we get dragged into the never-ending cycle of trying to deal with each seperate problem individually.
We’ll spend time on drills to try to “correct” our technique.
We’ll spend time on each individual element of fitness, trying to get faster, stronger, and all the rest of it.
And then, on top of all that, we’ll spend time on dealing with the aches and pains when THEY show up, in an attempt to get back to being able to run comfortably again.
But the great news is that I KNOW that the ONE cause of ALL these problems is that one simple rotation of your bones.
Often times it’s so small you don’t even notice it, but it’s there.
If you’re starting to feel “old”, your joints are becoming a bit achy or even creaky and you’re struggling to run like you used to, then it’s definitely happening to you.
So, what’s the solution?
We encourage the body to move in ways that unwinds this inward rotation, which restores a more efficient movement pattern, allowing you to run much more freely, with better technique, less pain and most importantly FASTER!
I’ve been using this process for many years now, bringing outstanding results to people who had lost all hope of ever being able to improve their running or get rid of their pain, and I’ve put all my movements on video, so all you have to do is follow along!
One of the best places to get started is my FREE Adductor Tightness Video Playlist. In it, I’ll walk you through some simple and easy to do movements that you can do whenever and wherever to improve your running, get rid of any existing nagging knee pain AND prevent pain from happening in the future!
Grab your FREE Adductor Tightness Video Playlist today and let’s get started!