Time: Take Time to Fix Your Body

This is the 604th Blog Post on this Blog. This may be the most important post ever. In the last 2 days I've talked to 10 runners or so. Virtually every conversation was about Injury. Not mine but theirs or at least someone they know. What makes me the magnet to all of these injured runners, I'm not sure but there is a history here. Not to long ago I worked at Road Runner Sports. In the late 90's or early 00's a magazine was started for the very large Run America Club. One of the Publishers (Bob Babbitt) asked me to host a column in the magazine that would be a Q & A. He said, "it will be great, they will send in questions about running shoes, and you'll answer them, we'll call you Super Dave." I was not super excited about the idea but I've always been proud of the fact that I'll do what it takes. So the magazine went out and the questions rolled in. But 70-80% of the questions had nothing to do with running shoes. They were all questions about running injuries. Using my spare time like I do here I researched every injury and tried to answer the questions. The feedback was amazing, people used what I said and liked it. I still have all the questions and answers and by the time the magazine stopped publication there were over 5,000 injury questions that had been answered. So although I'm not a doctor, a coach or anything but a shoe guy, I've got some experience with injured runners.

Here's what I found out:

1. Running hurts runners - Running too fast, too soon, too long or too stupid injures runners. 
2. Running shoes won't cure it - Not even those Moon looking running shoes that all the old guys are swearing by right now. Because of #1 even in those shoes Runners will get injured. 
3. Once you are injured it sucks and it's hard to get rid of it. 
4. The best way to stay injury free is run smart and spend the extra time on your body. 

The subject of this post is Take Time to Fix Your Body

Here's the short list.

1. A good chiropractor
2. A good Massage Therapist
3. A good strength/balance trainer if your are not in balance
4. Becoming a Supple Leopard

I was first introduced to Dr. Kelly Starrett on the internet. He does these great videos called MobilityWOD. I have written about them in the past. His belief that comes from years of working with athletes in his gym and around the world  is that if you spend 15 minutes a day working out the kinks you will become much more adept at doing the things you love. If you don't work out the kinks and spend time running too fast too soon, too long,and or  too stupid you will get injured. Just recently Kelly released a Book about all of this. Go to your local book store and buy it. It's the best $58 you'll spend on your running.

The book works like a home repair book. You find the body part that is stiff and let's face it you are a runner or a triathlete it's most of your body, and you'll find a description of your pain, a description of what you should really feel like and then a progression of work you can do on the stiffness. I have a standard set of parts of my body I work on. I've done it since I met MobilityWOD. But now almost daily I notice something else and I go to the book, look it up and add it to my routine. I also use many of the techniques before I run and swim. Especially on my feet. It works wonders to make those first 5 minutes of either effort so much nicer.

If this post helps one person stay injury free this year than it's been a wild success.