Your Peak Potential

The 1 thing you need to prevent painful injuries

Julie Tod — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 10:55:29 +0000

Are you nodding yes to 1 of more of these?

Are niggles, aches, pains a regular feature in daily life?
Are you currently unable to exercise due to pain or injury?
Are you taping up a knee, ankle or shoulder so you can train or even just get through the working day?
Are you having regular physio or massage just to feel comfortable in your body?
Have you suffered more than one painful condition or injury – like anything ending “itis” or “opothy”?

If so, then a lack of stability is the number 1 reason for your pain.

Stability is the number 1 thing we all need in order to:

Be free from aches and pains on a daily basis
Resolve any injury for the long term, so the pain doesn’t come back
Prevent injuries instead of leaving it to chance

And yet, frustratingly very few physical therapists or trainers talk in any great detail.

Yes, I know it doesn’t sound…. exciting, or sexy. But improving your stability is a massive game changer when it comes to getting out of pain and fixing injury for the long term.

72% of lower back injuries are followed by a neck or shoulder injury within 5 years.

The reverse in true for neck and shoulder injuries, within 5 years there is a 72% chance of a lower back injury. I experienced this exact problem. This pattern isn’t limited to your back it is mirrored across the whole body.

Stability is the only way to prevent this

I was fit, active and even teaching yoga but I had a chain of painful muscles and frustrating injuries. It felt like a constant battle. A bulging disc in my lower back was bad enough but it was followed by a trapped nerve in my neck with rotator cuff pain within 2 years. Both meant months being unable to do all the activities I loved.

It was miserable and I could not understand it.

Learning how to restore my full body stability was a massive gamechanger.

It fixed the neck injury. But more than that, my neck and shoulders that had been tight forever were comfortable and loose. It felt like a new body!

I was free from daily muscle aches and pains I had been accepting as “normal”.

The massive bonus was how it unlocked physical capabilities I did not know I had. It is my secret advantage. Instead of giving up running, I ran an ultra!

It’s given me back control over how my body feels every day. On occasion, if I get a tight muscle, I can deal with it then, so it doesn’t escalate into pain.

Stability can do all this for you too.

How is this different to traditional treatments?

Most of the time, when you get treatment, it focuses on hands on therapy at the site of the pain. But pain is only a symptom, it is not what is causing the problem. If your treatment stops at this point it is only pain relief – like taking a pain killer.

You may occasionally get 1 or 2 exercises that focus on the injured part to help strengthen it. This again is only a partial fix. The injured part not only needs to be re-conditioned it needs to be integrated back into the whole body. So it is able to work with other muscles to create systems. Any compensations that came about due to the injury need to be corrected.

Everything is connected – no bit of your body works in isolation. To fully rehab your body so pain doesn’t come back AND to prevent new issues cropping up you must take a full body approach and ensure stability is restored.

That way you will be resilient to withstand the pressures of everyday life and deal with added stress of training without unnecessary issues and injuries.

What is stability?

It’s a term that gets thrown around but what does it actually mean and why does it matter?

Stability is being able to carry out any physical task and manage the load or forces associated with that task, efficiently and safely.

By having necessary strength, flexibility, joint mobility and muscle control to be able to maintain correct, healthy alignment of all your joints (when standing still and moving) you can transmit any forces out of the body. Using muscles that are designed for dealing with that load.

Maintaining good alignment will feel effortless and natural.

Why have I lost my stabilityI

You developed this as a child but its highly likely you have lost this ability due to extended periods of inactivity (we all have them), doing the same movements over and over again, previous injuries, poor exercise technique, stress, unatural footwear….

You can get it back with deliberate practice, the right exercise selection and technique and movement skills.

Test yourself

Arrange yourself with the best standing posture you can like on the video.

How easy is that to maintain?
Does it feel natural?

With good stability, standing this way would feel effortless and natural. You would maintain this alignment as you moved effortlessly.

And that would minimise wear and tear.

Ever ridden a bike with bent wheel, crooked spokes and stiff chain?

You probably wouldn’t dream of it! But that is what you are doing with your body.

Good stability is like riding a well-maintained bike, with straight wheels, aligned spokes, smooth chain.

Moving without good stability would be like riding a bike with slight buckles in the wheels the chain with kinks in. It still moves, but it far from comfortable and is not efficient. Its harder work than is necessary and it won’t be long before it breaks down and stops.

It is the same in your body.

Stability is not the same as strength

If you are thinking “I do strength work, I am strong so must be stable”. Not necessarily. Strength and stability are not the same.

Do you have any muscles that are tight everyday?
When you do a lunge is your torso leaning one way and your leg wobbling around?
If you balance on one leg are you wobbling around or putting your foot down before 30 seconds is up?
Do you feel uncomfortable standing still for a while?

If you answered yes to any of these this is a lack of stability.

Being able to run a marathon or squat your body weight is one thing. But stability should be the foundation that you build your strength and speed on, so that you can perform safely.

Is your exercise making you more suseptable to injury?

Exercising or training without good stability and with common dysfunctions like rounded shoulders, flat back, knees that are out of line then there will be a price to pay. That price will be pain.

Loading the body with reps, sets or clocking up regular mileage without the stability you need to manage them is a major factor leading to your injuries.

Imagine a car with the tracking out

The car still moves forward, but it may pull to one side, the tyres wear more in certain areas and that is what is happening in your body.

Why does stability cause wear and tear?

Everyday our body has to deal with forces and loads. The best way to do that is to direct them out of the body and we have many clever systems designed to do just that.

Let’s use walking as an example.

When you walk each foot landing is equal to your bodyweight in force. If you weigh say 60KG, then that is like dead-lifiting 60KG every time you place your foot down on the floor.

When the body is stable, the joints are well aligned, your body uses that force to propel you forward. Then, that force is directed through and out of the body by slings of muscles working together. If you are not stable, the sling systems are not working as they should. The force gets stuck in your ankles, hips knees or backs.

Running increases the force. It is at least 3 x your bodyweight as each foot lands on the floor.

Even at a low cadence, say 160 steps a minute, that is 4800 steps at 60KG in a 30 minute 5k.

Greater force, increased steps so much greater wear. force comes quicker and greater wear.

So stability means we can move and achieve physical tasks, efficiently so we can do more with less perceived effort. Without creating unnecessary wear, tear and damage to your body so you are preventing injury.

Is this ringing bells for you? Curious to see how stable you are? Our new mini MOT will test your stabiity and provide some key information as to why you are suffering any aches and pains.

For just £25 get a stability health check and find the root cause of your pain.

3 things people get wrong about injury rehab

Julie Tod — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 18:53:45 +0000

There are common held misconceptions about how to fix an injury… Things I hear all the time that are just not true….

From rest to magic bullets – Are your injury rehab strategies leaving you open to furthe rinjury?

5 reasons why you get injured even though you are fit & active

Julie Tod — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 18:33:04 +0000

Are you having regular massages, physio or time off resting to manage painful muscles and joints?

Do you feel frustrated by injury after injury, just manage to get one fixed and another one comes along?

When we get these types of pain, often they start small, as a niggle then either, the pain gets worse or it spreads so you end up with mutiple areas of discomfort and pain. Most of the time you will be told there is no specific reason or cause or told it is simply wear and tear.

When I work with someone they are generally going over and over it in their head, wracking their brains as to what they have done that’s caused the problem. But all too often they are looking in the wrong places.

I hear these myths repeated all the time

It’s just my age
Running is bad for your knees
Injury is just a normal part of training

These are not the reason you are in pain.

Let's look at 5 real reasons you get injured

#1 Tight Muscles

I know you are thinking….. Really! Heard that before…. but stick with me here.

We have been conditioned to think that tight muscles are normal. But it’s simply not true. Not the temporary tightness after exercise, that eases over 1 or 2 days. I mean the muscles that are tight when you get up and are tight all day. Chronic tightness. The tricky thing here is I work with lots of people who are chronically tight but don’t feel it. The shortened state of the muscles has become normal for them so they do not notice tight sensations in everyday life. When I ask them to stretch they feel it then!

It’s easy to think – well it doesn’t matter then, I am getting away with it.

Today is one thing, but tight muscles will cause problems in time. A tight muscle doesn’t work in isolation so there are knock on effects. Ignoring this is setting up the conditions for injuries in the next months or years. And limiting your athletic performance.

Why tight muscles lead to injury

Tight muscles are contracted and over-working even at rest. That in itself can cause discomfort and pain.
They can’t function normally and are more likely to strain or tear.
Tight muscles pull on joints causing pain and impingements.
Tight muscles will reduce your range of movement. So other muscles will have to work in ways they were never intended.

It is far easier to do something about tight muscles before they reach the pain or injury stage.

#2 Wear & tear

Why do muscles become short, tight and overworked?

Contrary to popular thought, they don’t celebrate another birthday in this way. It is a sign of imbalances.

Muscles don’t work alone, they work with other muscles and bones to create movement. Where there is a short, over worked muscle there will be an associated underworking muscle. This all changes how we use our body to move. For example, a runner whose hip, quad and ankle are tight cannot extend fully in their stride. Often their lower back will arch instead, causing the lower back muscles to overwork.

How much wear and tear we experience depends on HOW we move.

When we move efficiently in harmony with the body we have limited wear and tear. Imbalances mean we move inefficiently. Not only does it make moving harder than it needs to be, it speeds up wear and tear. Muscles are under more pressure, joints move in ways they were not intended.

It is this wear and tear that is causing problems.

Re-learning to move efficiently, re-training our body will massively reduce and even reverse this excess wear and tear.

It is easier than you think to do this.

Like a hammer chipping away at your joints and muscles

Imagine a little hammer tapping away on your bones and muscles, all day. Each tap is not enough to do damage but overtime, 60 taps a minute, 3600 taps every hour etc wears away until eventually something snaps. This is what is happening in your body when we move inefficiently.

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#3 Muscular Imbalances

The same way tight muscles are common, muscular imbalances are now all too common. Common does not mean they are normal or inevitable. They happen because of how we use, or rather misuse our body, without really knowing. Simple changes can make big differences.

“Change your posture – change your life”

Dee Nichol-Williams

Common misuse adaptations

We all sit for long periods of time. From sitting at desks, in cars, on sofas, at computers, on bikes. Most of that time we slouch. Whilst there is nothing wrong with slouching – doing the same thing for hours and hours a week / month / year changes the body.

Our shoulders round, chest falls and head moves forwards. When we sit like this a lot, the extensor muscles in the back get loose and we lose the ability to extend our torso fully. The chest muscles get short and tight. The shoulder blades change position, moving away from the spine.The spine becomes less flexible, rotation becomes more difficult so the shoulders overwork.

These changes are physical.

It can cause back pain, wear and tear in spine structures, shoulder impingements, frozen shoulder. It can even cause a build up on tissue at the back of the neck so you get a bulge or lump called a dowagers hump. Sitting up straight briefly will not fix it.

The ony way to resolve this is to retrain the muscles to work in the correct way.

No two lives are the same, so no two bodies adapt in the same way. There are similarities and common changes but the detail for each person will be different

#4 Previous Injury

Research tells us…

If you have 1 injury you are twice as likely to get another in the short to mid term.
If you get a lower back or hip injury you are 72% likely to get a shoulder or neck injury within 5 years.

Why is that?

Part of the issue is how the body compensates for that injury. You will avoid moving in certain ways to reduce pain and prevent further damage. These compensation patterns get set into the nervous system as the new “norm”. So once you are out of pain you will not necessarily go back to normal movement patterns. SO more wear and tear. It is a cycle.

Pain relief is NOT pain resolution

Traditional treatments focus only on the symptom – relieving the pain. But symptoms are not the root cause they are simply the sign of the problem. To fix the problem for good you need to address the cause, which may be elsewhere in the body. Whilst pain relief is important, it is only part of rfull rehab. For example, knee pain is often driven by what is happening at the feet or the hips. If we do not address the cause then the problme has not gone away and will likely create other symptoms later on. Failing to correct compensation patterns will not get rid of the wear and tear.

Where are you in this cycle?

#5 Exercise, choice, technique & training

Exercising and training with imbalances and common dysfunctions like

kyphosis (rounding of the upper spine),
“flat” feet (all to often weak feet,
uneven pelvic tilt,
tight muscles

is a major problem. Without knowing it, all your hard work are doing to build a better body can be super-sizing that excess wear and tear with reps and sets or miles.

Remember the hammer, tapping away through the day? Adding reps is speeding up that hammer and increasing the force. It will send you down the path to pain and injury quicker.

Even if you are aware of good technique, the changes in your body will prevent you being able to realise them where you have movement limitations and compensations.

Why do other people get away without injuries?

Why do some people get away with poor posture, sitting, exercise pressure when others seem to get injury after. There will be a number of reasons. Your body can take a lot of abuse and adapt and as long as it has the ability to recover. It will get by, even if it is not able to work at it’s best.

Everyone’s tipping point is different. Once you add enough pressure and the body cannot recover then the niggles start. Simply resting is not rehab. The inflammation and pain may reduce as you remove pressure, but the root cause is still there. Chipping away. The pain may come back or due to compensations it can spring up somewhere else.

The good news

All this is fixable. Your next injury can be the best thing that happens to you. If you let it be.

Choosing to start the process to rebuild your resilient, stable, efficient body will be the best thing for your comfort, health, performance and longevity. It may take a little time but the pay back will be huge. Allowing you to enjoy all the sports and activities you love for the long term.

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5 signs you could be FIT but unhealthy

Julie Tod — Fri, 15 May 2020 11:48:36 +0000

Are you FIT but unhealthy?

Health and fitness are frequently used as one term but they are different things. It is very common to be FIT but at the same time not all that healthy! Lets define the terms:

Fitness – your ability to complete a specific exercise task

Heath – your overall well-being a person’s state of well-being, where all the bodily systems – like digestion, muscles and bones, hormones and immunity – are working as they should.

Here are 5 common signs that your fitness regime is compromising your health.

Sign 1 – Injuries!

You have the kind of injuries that seem to just spring from nowhere. So there has been no trauma,but you start with discomfort then pain which gets worse. Often you can have one after another. It is a sign that your musculoskeletal system (muscles, bones, tissues) are not working efficiently. They are not healthy! This is not a normal part of getting older.

Sign #2 – Quantity over quality

You are more concerned with how often and how hard you exercise, rather than considering the quality of your movement. How you move, so your posture, movement patterns and techniques are key to ensuring a healthy body. Repeating exercises with poor form does matter as it is wearing down your joints and straining your tissues. It is setting poor movement patterns as the norm so you will repeat these in everyday movement increasing the problems. It will lead to discomfort, pain and injury. So more fit but unhealthy!

Sign #5 Breathing

You can hear your breath through the day. Or you get breathless walking, yawn frequently, or breathe with your mouth. Did you know its very common to have a breathing dysfunction?! All your bodily systems cannot work efficiently without functional breathing. The way you breathe also changes the mobility, stability and health of your spine, the central structure of your body. Breath is also crucial for optimal fitness – without proper breathing your oxygen cannot be efficiently be transmitted to your muscles, causing more fatigue, lactic acid. The heart has to pump harder increasing the intensity of the training and stress response.

Sign #3 – Not enough recovery

You don’t understand different types of recovery which is a fair sign that you are not building adequate rest into your schedule. Rest is absolutely key to health as well as exercise performance. The body is broken down during exercise and actually strengthens in periods of rest. You will perform better when you schedule recovery activity in. Inadequate rest causes stress response in the body which leads to inflammation which is bad news for health.

Sign #4 – Hydration

You don’t drink enough water. 0.033l for every KG of body weight. More with exercise.

Our body is over 70% water and all our cells and bodily processes need water to be efficient. Caffeine is a diuretic – so you lose water. Also drink other than plain water has to go through digestion before its able to be used by the body. Water can be absorbed quicker. If you feel thirsty this is a sign that your body is already dehydrated to some degree.

Why health and fitness

Paying attention to these points will help you find more balance in your health and fitness. It will change how you feel everyday. With great health you will have energy everyday, without caffeine, you will sleep well and wake feeling truly rested. Your body will not ache everyday, it will move with ease and when niggles do arise you will be able to address them before they turn into a bigger problem. Your immunity will thrive so you rarely get ill with coughs, colds or infections. This will be evident in your fitness as you achieve more with less effort.

Small changes – BIG impact

Change is best made in small chunks, so make 1 or 2 small changes and let them bed in before you add more. That way it is easier to sustain and those small changes, each small decision you make everyday they compound up in time to make BIG impacts.

Your Peak Potential are an injury rehab, running & sports performance specialist.

How to strengthen your feet for running

philyoung531@mac.com — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 17:06:03 +0000

You may go to the gym to strengthen your chest, back, legs or core, but how do you strengthen your feet?

In just one foot, you have 26 bones, 33 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments.

When you walk or run, every one of these structures plays a vital role. Most foot injuries are not only a result of dysfunction at the foot but are related to imbalance and weakness further up the kinetic chain. Injuries occur when the foot has to work too hard to compensate because the neuromuscular signals from the brain have been dulled or have lost their connection.

Your feet spend in an average week approximately 40 hours in a pair of shoes or boots, unable to move properly or breathe all day and then you expect them to hold you up when you get home, when you walk, run or play sports.

Feet are pretty durable little beasties, but they will eventually begin to break down, hurt and even deform if you don’t give them a chance to work properly with the rest of your body.

Your feet are your body’s foundation and it’s suspension, they act as both shock absorbers and rigid levers to help propel you when walking and running. Losing awareness of your feet leads to poor movement patterns, poor posture and inevitably pain somewhere in the kinetic chain.

The pain may not be in the feet themselves but appear in the knees, hips or even lower back but eventually at some point the pain will hit home, right at your feet no pun intended.

Runners need foot strength and propriception for performance and effeciency, but the average person needs exactly the same in day to day life. Taking away the role of your foot’s intrinsic muscles leads to over activity of your hip muscles, more pressure on your back and overall worse posture and balance leading to injury or precious time off work or from our sports or outdoor hobbies.

Your awareness of where you are in space largely comes from the feedback your brain gets from your feet, if you dampen that system by wearing confining or cushioned footware you will be doing your posture and your feet a dis-service.

“Our feet have already served us rather well for the last few million years”

The foot is the most successful architectural structure known to man, it is a complex network of bones, ligaments and muscles that create a strong arch. No architect or structural engineer worth their salt would ever put a support directly under an arch, as they are strongest when loaded from the top so why do we feel the need to do so.

Natural Motions of the Feet

Toes are designed to have as much dexterity as fingers. Each toe joint can flex and extend, abduct and adduct.
These are all primal basic motions, but if you try it yourself, you will likely find that lifting one toe without the others is extremely difficult!

Check these feet!!!

You’ll either going to say disgusting or you’re like me be completely fascinated.
These are the feet of an Ashaninka Indian who lives in a rainforest in the upper Amazon Basin of Peru.

His feet look like this because he doesn’t wear shoes! He walks all over the treacherous rainforest in bare feet all the time.
This is what most people’s feet should look like; hard, tough, BIG, ugly, muscular. But our feet are soft, weak.
If I gave this guy a 6cm massage ball he could quite comfortably stand on the ball without wincing, try it all your body weight on one foot in the centre of your foot and balance on the ball, if you can, well done.

This is one of the reasons why so many people get so many injuries and continually have physical pains and aches, (not the ball balancing) their foundations are weak so the rest of the structure (their body) has to take on more stress than it’s designed too.

It’s never too late to train your proprioceptive system

Movement in general is a set of skills that we acquire through trial and error from our infant development patterns and then practice throughout our life. Walking and running are fundamental movement skills that we develop from a young age, but the most important thing that most people don’t understand is that just because you can walk and run, doesn’t mean you are doing it very well. The most important tools our bodies have that gives us the unique ability to balance, walk and run upright, is our feet.

Yet we love covering them up with heavy, clunky, cushioned footwear most of our life that will almost guarantee that we walk and run poorly and inevitably develop pain and deformity in not only our feet, but other parts of the body.

You need to walk before you can run and stand before you can walk. What you choose to put on your feet will affect all three of these skills. We are by no means saying go to work barefoot but encourage you to spend more time barefoot at home or in minimalist shoes (zero drop, no heal or minimum cushioning). We love VIVOBAREFOOT shoes and trainers but there are many more appearing on the market.

So what can we do:

Take our shoes off, often and start trying to move our feet and toes in every imaginable way, have some fun with them.

Wear a variety of different types of shoes throughout the week to keep your feet adaptable and consider buying a pair of minimalist shoes for walking and give your feet the chance to flex around.

Have a closer look at your posture because how you hold yourself in the mid back area will very much effect how you load weight on your feet.

Gradual progression is key for your body to learn
Trusting the process…. it’s much easier to say than to practically follow through, but it’s essential to your long-term development and progression.

Too often we want the results far too quickly and give up on the process before we’ve given it enough time to even know if it was going to work. It takes time to create lasting bio-mechanical movement changes for your body. Equally, it takes time to build neuromuscular control when learning new movements and skills required for walking and running.

Still not sure, why not join us on one of our Intelligent Movement Workshops or join a ChiRunning workshop.

Photo Credit Frans Lanting – National geographic

Yoga reclaims running for Alastair

Julie Tod — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 19:46:16 +0000

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I teach yoga to try and help other people make changes in body and mind so they are able to do more of the things they love.

So, i love when clients tell me how yoga is changing their life!

Alastair has been a regular attendee of my Monday night yoga class for over a year now and his dedication is really paying off. In the past, he competed in triathlons and endurance events, but didn’t pay much attention to recovery or stretching. When he retired from competing, his muscles were tight, joints were complaining and flexibility was limited. He did not think running or competing would be part of his life again.

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Since starting yoga, I have seen his movement improving week by week and could not fail to notice a great deal more comfort in his practice. Of late he has been enjoying achieving more challenging routines and postures especially tricky balances.

Seeing changes, Alastair began to practice at home and didn’t miss when he was on his recent holiday, even practicing by the pool. Commitment to maintaining a regular practice is key to achieving results. Sounds obvious, but it can be easy to skip when life gets hectic. And results are what he has achieved – so much so he has been able to start running again.

“Following retirement from competitive triathlon through injury I started yoga to improve flexibility and maintain core fitness. Julie’s knowledge of body mechanics and how to reduce the likelihood of injury shine through in the classes and the result is I’m now significantly more flexible, have improved posture and balance and have improved the levels of comfort in my body.

I have been able to take what I have learnt and confidently practice at home too. I’ve seen such an improvement that I have been able to start running again and have now signed up for a triathlon for the first time in 6 years.”

Physical improvements aside, Alastair has been surprised at how yoga has led to an improvement in his overall feeling of well-being. His wife noticed too commenting on his improved mood after work calling yoga his “grumpy man class”.

“With a stressful job role and a busy family life, the weekly class gives me valuable time to re-set. The feeling of deep relaxation and gentle contentedness following the class is superb and overall I have an improved sense of well-being.”

Are there things you have had to stop or give up, things you love? However big or small, from taking part in a sport you love or just being able to sit on the floor with the kids.

You do not have to accept limitations as you get older. To find out how you can begin to reclaim what you love, drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you.

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Cathy Woods conquers manchester marathon with ChiRunning

philyoung531@mac.com — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 20:59:58 +0000

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My ChiRunning adventure began about 2 and a half years ago with my decision to run a marathon.

I was already at a level where I had run several half marathons, however, I had a chronic nagging pain in my hip and down the side of one knee. As soon as I experimented with increasing my mileage it became clear that I wasn’t going to cope with the distance. I looked around for Plan B, which appeared as a Facebook advert for ChiRunning. I bought the book and then the Marathon book. I followed the plan. Strange things started to happen. My plantar fascitis (that I’d had for all of my 5 running years) stopped, I stopped wearing my orthotics, then reduced the support of my trainers, then ran in minimalist shoes.

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Last year I ran my first marathon – Wrecsam Marathon.

Unfortunately, something wasn’t quiet right as I injured a tendon on my foot on my last long long run before the race and for a while thought I wouldn’t be able to run it. I had to return to my support trainers until I healed. I decided to get some help and to do a couple of basic Build the Foundations ChiRunning workshops.

“My measure of a good workshop, whether for work or play, is that if I can take two things away from it that I remember and that change the way I do things for the better, then it has been worth the money. I took four things away from Phil’s workshop”

Shortly afterwards I did a workshop with Gray in London. It was a revelation. The biggest thing that I got out of the workshop (and it was a big thing) was that I had been trying too hard (I think the books encourage this).

I went back to basics, improved my form, started running with my mouth shut, got back to my minimalist running shoes and really began to enjoy running again.

More recently I attended another Basics workshop, this time in Bury with Phil.

We had our video observations first so Phil could see our current running form. This was very useful. It showed that I was doing a little twist with my right foot when I lifted it, probably due to a weakness in my right side. I have hopefully corrected this now. Following the workshop, I have also made a slight adjustment in my running cadence and this has been helpful too.

Back to the nasal breathing. I had slipped with this. Unfortunately, in Prestatyn in winter the wind is strong, it comes off the sea and is spikey and full of salt. It makes my eyes and nose run. I find it mostly impossible to nasal breathe.

In Bury, even on a slightly snowy afternoon the air was soft. I was encouraged enough to nasal breath as much as I could when I got home, enough anyway for me to work out that my nasal/aerobic running pace was about the same as my aerobic pace on my Garmin. This is a lovely pace to run at and after the workshop I have run at least 80% of my runs at this pace, my true aerobic pace and I’m getting faster. Finally – arms and shoulders. The workshop helped me to relax my shoulders better, although I still need to practice this – it’s a journey not a destination!

My measure of a good workshop, whether for work or play, is that if I can take two things away from it that I remember and that change the way I do things for the better, then it has been worth the money. I took four things away from Phil’s workshop – Correct foot alignment, running at my true aerobic pace, breathing nasally when I can, Cadence and the way I move my arms. It was definitely worth the money!

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Fast forward a few months and I have completed Manchester Marathon.

I achieved my goal for the marathon – to run without injury and accomplished my race strategy of running it at my aerobic pace.

I enjoyed it!

There are a couple of things I need to work on – keeping my cadence up after 10 miles or so and relaxing my shoulders/keeping my elbows in– so I’ll be looking for an advanced ChiRunning workshop to do before my next marathon.

The adventure continues!

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Gray Caws tells us all about Oxygen Advantage

Julie Tod — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 16:26:24 +0000

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We are very proud to have Gray Caws from Adventures in Movement London presenting the North Wests 1st Oxygen Advantage workshop at Your Parinama’s Studio in Bury on the 21st October 2018

Gray is also Co- hosting Phil’s 1st Chi Running Foundations Workshop again the 1st Chi Running workshop in the Northwest so no pressure!

So a little background on Gray, have a look at his introduction to Get the Oxygen Advantage workshop and book a seat you won’t regret it.

Hope you can join Phil, Gray and Myself for both workshops, I’ve seen these two amazing coachs in action and you will learn new ways to improve not just your running technique, your sports performance but things you can do in your everyday life, now thats a benefit in itself.

See you soon – Julie – Yourparinama

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“True health and inner peace occurs when breathing is quiet, effortless, soft, through the nose, abdominal, rhythmical and gently paused on exhale” Patrick McKeown

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Gray Caws
Personal Trainer | Director Chi Running UK and Ireland | Chi Running Master Coach | Oxygen Advantage Instructor

Gray trained as an Oxygen Advantage Instructor with Patrick McKeown and became the first UK certified instructor in 2016, teaching a programme of breathing exercises that help to maximise oxygen carrying capacity and delivery for aerobic and anaerobic improvement.

Qualifications:

• Level 4 Active IQ Certificate in Specialist Exercise (Management of Lower Back Pain)
• Active IQ Level 3 Certificate in Advanced Personal Training
• Active IQ Level 3 Diploma in Exercise Referral
• Master Chi Running Instructor
• Master Chi Walking Instructor
• Oxygen Advantage Instructor
• Master Kettlebell Instructor
• Spiral Stabilisation Instructor
• Active IQ Level 2 Certificate in Gym Instruction
• Nutritional adviser

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The Can’t Crone – The Power of Positive Thought and Mantra

Julie Tod — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 09:20:30 +0000

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In last Fridays Yoga for Runners we spoke about being mind aware….

Just as we have looked at how we can begin to be more aware of what is going on in our bodies, on and off the mat, we can bring this awareness to what is happening in our minds too. Being more aware of our mind and understanding that we are not out thoughts can help us to recognise unhelpful thought patterns, make more choices before we just react to thoughts, create space in the mind away from the crowded constant chatter and reduce stress responses.

Using a mantra

a chosen word or phrase that we repeat, can help us to focus our mind and not let it run away with unhelpful thoughts and patterns. In our running this can help set the tone for a run and help us through when things are not going to plan or when we are getting tired. By choosing a positive mantra to repeat when we are running we can use the power of positive thought to help create more positive outcomes.

So I shared my rather embarrassing run mantra which I use when I start out to quiet down the “can’t crone” in my head. “I am strong, I am powerful and I can do this”. I may not fully believe this when I start but the more I choose to rest my focus on this the more I relax into the run and start to believe in myself. So when faced with a huge hill instead of the can’t crone ruling my head and me stopping half way up I have a tactic to quiet her down and then have more chance of making It further up or even to the top.

We looked at how we can employ a similar tool in our practice to help focus the mind in our asana work which will help to bring the mental space in our crowded chattering mind that can help us find more ease, both physically and mentally.

We may call it different things in yoga but this is all the same as sports psychology – employing mental tactics and tools to create those small changes and improvements. If we can use these in our chosen sport and see the benefits imagine how you can benefit from them in very day life…

This week we will continue our exploration of this and also start to look at how we can use visualisation to further this practice.

Look forward to seeing you on the mat!

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