Trying to Move Forward rather than Chasing my Tail

There are a few new things I have discovered or am trying this weekend which is really good after the frustration of my last post. I am thankful for the great comments from Paul that you can find under the post. He has a lot of great advice and new things to consider. They are well worth reading through.

I tried a new DVD related to Joint Mobility. It is called Magnificent Mobility. I liked the instruction and the movement related exercises. I felt real good after doing some of them before yesterday's run. The teaching and demonstrations were clear and I learned how to better do some moves like the "hip hiker" which I now get how to do by isolating the gluteus medius rather then the quadratus lumboron or other hip-back muscles. I will report more on this when I have more experience with it.

I saw a Running Cd-Rom on the internet a week ago. It is from HumanLab Sports in England. It promised a lot but I couldn't find many reviews from people who used it. I splurged and it came quickly (a week) from England. You plop it in a computer and it has you do some tests to discover biomechanical weaknesses (what I was really interested in). I did them but wasn't sure on some questions if I answered them correctly. It then provided me with only 3 exercises to do to help get me back in balance. (I may try the tests again with different answers to see if other options are given). Anyhow the exercises seem solid.



The first is similar to a joint mobility exercise I can never get right. It is where you hold your arms straight out to your side and move laterally back and forth. It is a Z-health and a Scott Sonnen drill. However in this case you are told to be seated rather than standing. The next exercise had me sit down and raise one leg 60 degrees and then hold the leg behind the knee and press down for 20 seconds. The third exercise I really like as I feel a lot of tightness when I try it. I was told to sit down and hold my arms out to the side. Then flex the elbows and touch my hands to the shoulders. I was then to rotate back and forth keeping my hips still. You can see a picture from the Cd-Rom above of how to hold your arms-unlike the CD-Rom you can wear clothes while doing the exercise! It tells you to do these for a certain mumber of repetitions three times a day. They are simple and maybe that is good. I guess some ab exercises are added at another point in time on the CD-Rom. We'll see how well these work.



Paul mentioned doing some "cross-crawl" motions to help the nervous system which may even be confused from other activities I have done. I looked it up and saw the simple movements that I saw where very sensible. The video above shows a cross crawl with the hands extended above the head. Most versions do not have your hands so high. I did them before my run today. I did the "Run" Cd and the Magnificent Mobility DVD before my run yesterday and felt a lot more balanced and enjoyed the run. The hips where I little more solid then they have been lately. Today I had another decent run. I did the "Run" Cd Rom and some cross-crawl routines before the run. The hips where trying to be a bit more stable and another nice run. I was able to push the last three miles a bit more and get the breathing rate up a few notches.