My Top Two Recomendations to Help You Recover Your Stride

This is my 100th post on Recover Your Stride. I have worked extremely hard at becoming a better runner or should I say I have worked hard at becoming a runner that can run pain free, injury free, be more balanced, and run with a more correct running stride. I have tried a lot of different ideas throughout the year and at one point was ready to quit because of the ongoing problem with my hips and left side. The past few months I have have really progressed and I have put together some routines that have allowed my running to feel so much smoother and to start bringing back the balance that I have not had in my running stride for over 20 years. So this 100th post on my blog will begin to highlight the 10 best things I have learned, tried ,or discovered this year. A year that is ending on a high note as just about every run I do now feels so much better than I have felt while running in years. I am getting to the point where running feels fun and free again, rather than it being a daily battle to see if i can get out the door and run in a way that doesn't hurt or feel uncomfortable.

I will start with my two favorite things I have discovered this year. Both have given me a lot of control over how my body feels and responds to running as well as they have both left me feeling so much better in my daily life. My legs are already so much looser and smoother as I continue to implement the changes brought on by working on my muscles and connective tissues. My stride feels so much lighter and younger and my joints, particularly my hips, do not feel so tight, old, and stuck in place.

I will continue in further posts with recoomendations 2-10 as well as where I think I am going next year: as I have a few things in mind and am starting to generate a "plan" for next year. That would be a first because in most recent years I have just been trying to make my body recover my stride but it was always so haphazard and I had no control. I think I am now getting to where I have control over the imbalances in my body so that I can start building on that to further enjoy running (even into my 50's). And hopefully race fast too!

Number 1
The Ming Method found in "The Permanent Pain Cure" by Ming Chew

"The Permanent Pain Cure" is the most recent book I have read and I am using bits of it on top off everything else I am doing as well as still exploring everything else in the book. I wasn't sure if I should recommend something so recent as my top choice of the year. But I think that this book has the most bang for the buck.

What I like about the program that Ming sets forth is that it is fairly comprehensive in that he covers a lot of ground. It covers stretching, strength work, and eating and hydration, but what I find most noteworthy are the self-therapy releases (based on ART) , the spinal decompression work, and the stretches for the fascia. I have not seen these things put into a general book that make them easy to understand and use. Particularly I like his releases based on ART (Active Release Technique). These up the notch a bit for people who use foam rollers, tennis balls, or elbows to a different level because you move your muscles to achieve a stretch and break up scar tissue. It is so much more effective. It has done a great job on my hamstrings and quads and allows them to loosen up and improve my running stride.

I am still playing around with the releases as well as thinking up some of my own based on the techniques. For example there are no calf and lower leg releases in the book. Last night I took out my TP Massage roller and spent just a couple of minutes on my lower leg just beneath my calf. Instead of just rolling my muscle up and down the roller, I held my leg in place and twisted and turned my foot and ankle around and back and forth. This not only loosened my leg up, I felt the effect up into my hip and lower back as they loosened up also. The most interesting thing was when I did my right lower leg, I felt the stiffness at the bottom of my right heel in certain positions. This is where I thought I might be getting plantar fasciitis in the summer. So there might be a tightness in my lower leg's muscles and tendons that could be contributing to the problem near my heel.

Here are my previous posts where I reviewed or commented on this book. I consider it a great resource for athletes (or non-athletes) using some newer techniques that they might want to try.

Stretching Your Fascia Using "The Permanent Pain Cure"

How to Release Your Hamstrings with a Tennis Ball

Number 2
Resistance Stretching

Static stretching has never worked for me. Right at the point where I was about to give up on my running this summer I took out a book I had bought a couple of years earlier. The book was "The Genius of Flexibility" by Bob Cooley. I had quickly looked at the book when I bought it and tried a few of the stretches. Unfortunately I had never read "how" Bob Cooley wanted the stretches to work. I had never used resistance against the stretches. I tried a few stretches after "reading" some of the book this time and noticed something happening that was not happening with other stretches I had tried. I read more and realized this was the method used by Dara Torres on her incredible return to the 2008 Olympics. Upon exploring resistance stretching more (you provide resistance against the stretch) I found it started loosening up my hips and muscles so that running started to become easier again.

Besides reading through the book I bought two different resistance stretching videos. One was Bob Cooley's "The Genius of Flexibility 1.0" and then as soon as it was released I got the Dara Torres Resistance Stretching Video from Innovative Body Solutions. Both DVDs are cheap and go through a 20 minute resistance stretching routine. Some stretches are different on the two DVDs so I mix up which one I use.

I also went to a resistance stretcher named Janet. She worked on my muscles and gave me some stretches and tips on how to do the stretches. I have not had the opportunity to go back as it can be expensive, but I wish I could go for a few more sessions as it felt great to have this work done on my muscles. She was able to stretch my legs and hips in many different ways that I would never be able to duplicate on my own. Resistance stretching has worked great for me and it might be just the type of stretching and strength work (it helps in that department too) to get your body untangled and running smoothly again.

Here is Bob Cooley's book:

You can go to Innovative Body Solutions to order the Dara Torres video or order through Amazon:

or you can go to Meridian Stretching to order "The Genius of Flexibility 1.0" DVD

I have had many posts on resistance stretching.

Resistance Stretching: This is what Dara Torres does!

More on Resistance Stretching

The Genius of Flexibility Video 1.0 Review

More on the Dara Torres Resistance Stretching DVD

The Growing Influence of Resistance Stretching

SNAP!!! What in the World was That? OK don't stretch too hard!!!

Hold Steady and Stay Positive After getting stretched by a professional.

Partner Resistance Stretching

Improving a Hamstring Stretch

Plus I am sure I touched on how resistance stretching has helped my running in many other posts.

Let me know if you try any of these methods and the results you get as I am curious as to how they work on other runners.

Partner Resistance Stretching

I found a series of 15 resistance stretches that Carole Childers has put online. As presented they can be used as both a strength exercise and a resistance stretch as you resist against your partner moving your muscle. These are not the stretches that Janet, the resistance trainer, used with me. Her stretches were more complicated and she had a good sense of what my muscles needed to do. These look pretty basic but they may make doing a resistance stretch easier if you have a partner to try them with. Here is the stretch for the hamstring:

Partner Resistance Exercises: Hamstring Stretch -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

Here are some quadriceps resistance stretches:

Partner Resistance Exercises: Quadriceps Stretch -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

Partner Resistance Exercises: Quadriceps Supine -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

Here is the abductor stretch (the stretch is when your partner presses your leg down and you resist the stretch. You are strengthening when you press up as your partner provides resistance!)

Partner Resistance Exercises: Abductors -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

Here is an adductor stretch:

Partner Resistance Exercises: Adductors -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

You can see all 15 videos including the upper body videos on the expert village website.

If you like the idea of resistance stretching (and it is working wonderfully for me) you should visit Innovative Body Solutions to learn more and order the DVD with Dara Torres. It is a bargain at the price they sell it for. You will easily learn how to do resistance self-stretching and strengthen. You can also go to Meridian Stretching and order Bob Cooley's DVD. The DVD is the same price and it has some similar self-stretches, but some that are different from the other DVD. Both will teach you how to self-stretch with resistance stretching.

The Growing Influence of Resistance Stretching

Here is a short video from the CBS Evening News on the effect Michael Phelps and Dara Torres have had on fitness buffs from little swimmers competing to people wanting to know more about resistance stretching. At 1:35 you can briefly see Dara getting stretched as well as Luther Cowden who sent an email reply last week about running and resistance stretching.



Here is a CNN video explaing how Dara Torres does it. You can see snippets of some of her exercise routines, mashing (people use their feet to massage her muscles) , and resistance stretching (her secret weapon).


Here is an audio interview from Growing Bolder with Bob Cooley who invented resistance stretching and wrote, "The Genius of Flexibility".




Here are some more resistance stretches from an article in FitYoga magazine. It looks at the stretching from a yoga perspective but has some new variations of resistance stretching that I have not previously seen. There are stretches to loosen the quads, relieve pressure in the lower back, stretch the psoas, and unburden the shoulders. Hit the "next' at the bottom of the page to proceed throught the article.

More on the Dara Torres Resistance Stretching DVD

Innovative Body Solutions now has an additional preview video up of their Dara Torres Resistance Stretching DVD. I ordered this a couple of weeks ago and they should be shipping it soon (they keep dropping the shipping date back: when I ordered they said it would ship August 22 and now it has been dropped back again and ships September 5). Then I will review it and compare it to Bob Cooley's "The Genius of Flexibility" DVD. They have an additional blurb that describes the DVD : "The Innovative Body Solutions Resistance Stretching DVD introduces a training technique that is beneficial for any age or ability with no equipment required. The DVD features a 25 minute full-body workout, a total body instructional section, and problem-solving tips for tight muscle groups."




I already posted this short video from the DVD that talks about balancing muscle groups. It shows two good stretches fro the quads and hamstrings.



This DVD is put out by Steve Sierra and Anne Tierney who happen to be Dara Torres' stretchers. According to their website, Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin also works with resistance stretchers.

Yesterday I went mountain biking. I tried a new trail off 101A and near Ridge Road on the other side of 101A from the Yuddicky Farms trails and by Lovewell's Pond. I read about a trail called the "spaghetti bowl" set up by mountain bikers. I have run by the entrance the the trails for years but have never explored this area and always wondered what was in there. Now I know! Here is a map of the place.



I biked the two miles from my house. The trail starts out nicely with an overgrown paved road and then some straighter trails and then (well look at the map) I don't know what happened. It goes all around the place. At first it was fun, then it was challenging, and then... I had no idea what it was doing. The route is tight singletrack and it is full of twists and turns and ups and downs and rocks and trees and then these man-made obstacles (bridges, seesaws, and all sorts of wooden stuff that looked fun and a bit dangerous (to beginners). I played around in there for over an hour and then tried to get out. I kept ending up on the same trails. Finally I just cut through the woods to try to intersect a trail that might lead me out. I survived. Maybe I should have read the online reviews better for this trail as it says it is not for beginners. I spent a lot of time stopping and getting off my bike and getting back on. I need to ride with some mountain bikers to learn how they do things. Do they quickly ride through these trails and jump these obstacles? I would have killed myself. Or do they do slow rides jumping up and over things? These are answers I will have to discover. I finally made it out of there with no broken bones but some broken skin on my lower legs and a bit of blood. Did I have fun? Yes!

The Genius of Flexibility Video 1.0 Review

Yesterday the DVD I ordered showing how to do resistance stretching finally arrived. I wrote about resistance (or meridian stretching) here: Resistance Stretching: This is what Dara Torres does! and here: More on Resistance Stretching. This DVD is the one I ordered from Bob Cooley's Website: Meridian Flexibility Center. What little I have learned in the past couple of weeks about Resistance stretching I have learned from from Bob Cooley's book The Genius of Flexibility and the few web sites and videos I have posted in the above two blog entries. This information gave me a start but reading and seeing pictures in a book is not always the best way to learn a stretch, particularly ones that are so new and different. That is where this DVD comes in handy.

The Genius of Flexibility DVD 1.0 includes instructions for 16 stretches for level 1 stretching (you can do them by yourself). Seeing the stretches and hearing the instruction make the stretches easy to understand and accomplish. I could easily do all 16 stretches while watching the DVD for the first time. I never tried them all when reading the book. If was easy to see the movements, the exertion levels, and the range of motion to shoot for when stretching. Two people would demonstrate each stretch. The stretchers looked athletic and like normal people. There was no new age music playing in the background as the stretches were demonstrated. Overall the instructions were easy to follow and I didn't have to be concerned about doing the stretches in a wrong way. The stretches can also be played one by one or in a 20 minute stretching workout. While I don't usually worry about stretching some of the muscles in the video it felt good doing some stretches like the ones for the shoulders. I will definitely keep using the video and should be able to transfer what I learned about resistance stretching to other similar stretches. One thing I wonder about is that I don't think any of stretches are geared towards some muscles that runners use a lot, like the calves of anything below the knee. I might be wrong about this and more advanced stretches may work these areas but I would really like to see a calf and soleus stretch using this method. The DVD was more about the stretching and did not get into all the meridians and the psycological and emotional parts of the stretching that the book gets into. You will have to read the book if that is your interest.

In addition to the stretching routines there is an introduction to resistance stretching, some testimonials including Dara Torres, some previews of more advanced DVDs that use partners or equipment and other information. For the price of $20 plus postage I think the DVD is a great purchase if you want to check out resistance stretching. It is so very different from any other stretching routine you may have tried so it is worth seeing it on DVD to get a good handle of the technique. I have ordered another DVD from Innovative Body Solutions but it is not shipping until the end of the month. It sells for the same price and I hope to learn more about resistance stretching and see some different stretches. It is put out by the stretchers who work on Dara Torres. I believe they also helped on the DVD I just reviewed.

So far I am finding more range of motion in my hips and a better balance when running since undertaking resistance stretching. It really seems to start getting out the junk and tightness that is in my hips and is starting to loosen up things more. I also think my stride is lengthening again as my hips are not so tight! Other stretching routines, particularly static stretching where you try to pull and stretch a relaxed muscle, often leave me tight and sometimes in worse shape them before I stretched because it pulls things out of alignment. Resistance stretching, on the other hand, does not leave me stiff or sore, even though so much force is generated as you stretch. This is a marvel to me as it is not what I would expect from such a routine. I even do the stretches before I run and my legs feel fresher because of it.

If I can get this stretching working correctly I feel it may help me in my quest to recover my stride. I have now run three days in a row. I did 8 miles Monday and again on Tuesday (although both heels were a little sore after that run). Today we had a track workout. We were supposed to do 5 miles on the track (yech!) at marathon pace. I finished in exactly 33:00 minutes which is a 1 1/2 minutes faster than the Bil Luti 5 miler I did in July and I was running much more efficiently. I friend even said I looked much smoother in my stride as I was running and if that is true I am pleased. The timed 5 miler was the longest paced run I have done on the track since college when I did a 50 mile solo run once. Fortunately the workout went quicker after the first 2 miles. I have to admire the people who race 10,000 meters on the track. That is a lot of laps!

More on Resistance Stretching

As I posted here I started rereading Bob Cooley's "The Genius of Flexibility" a couple of weeks ago and remain intrigued and frustrated with this technique. I am intrigued because as I play around with the stretches and try them out I am finding some that work for me. I am frustrated because there is not a lot of information out there on the technique (even though it is getting some big publicity -thanks to Dara Torres). I also have not received either DVD I ordered. The DVD from Innovative Body Solutions is not supposed to be released and shipped until August 22nd so I knew that would take awhile. I haven't received or heard a word about the DVD I ordered from from Bob Cooley's site Meridian Flexibility Center yet and it has been almost two weeks. Maybe these places are swamped with the interest in the technique. I would like to learn more so I await the arrival of the DVDs. Here is Bob Cooley's book on resistance streching. It is the only book I have found on the this type of stretching.




Here is a new Youtube video of Bob Cooley doing the hamstring stretch with the help of a partner.



Here is another video I found of a back or lat stretch using resistance stretching.



This ABC News "Person of the Week" profile on Dara Torres has a some brief looks at her stretching.



The other frustrating thing about resistance stretching is that the stretches don't list what muscles are being stretched. They can be listed by the body part, the emotions, or the psychology they effect. I have found that the "gall bladder" stretches seem to pinpoint the muscles I need to stretch. I do the hamstring, the quads, and one that seems to work nicely on my hips is one where (from a sitting or lieing down position) hold one knee with the same side hand and hold the ankle or foot with the other hand. I pull the ankle and knee toward the opposite shoulder as I resist by pushing away with the foot and leg. This does some really good work on my hips. I felt better and stronger when running Monday and Wednesday in the hips area from doing these stretches.

Luther from Flexiblestrength.org has been kind enough to answer some of my questions about resistance stretching with a thoughtful reply. This is part of what he wrote:

"Hi Jim,

I took a look at the pictures on your blog. It's difficult for me to know exactly what's going on with your left leg, but it is clear that the thigh is internally rotated while your lower leg/foot is externally rotated. I'm not sure what is causing this. I can appreciate how you wish to find a way to resolve this issue so you can live the active lifestyle you yearn for. My hope for you is that RFST can assist you in this endeavor. I have worked with many people who had previously resigned to the tension/pain that they were experiencing and had come to the conclusion that it was something they would just have to accept and deal with for the rest of their lives. In many of those cases, me and that person have been able to work together to create permanent improvements in those imbalanced areas which really surprised them.

I think there are some health problems that are difficult, if not impossible, to reverse, but am confident that most of the biomechanical problems that people experience can be resolved with RFST. Again, it's difficult for me to give you definite advice on your situation, but I can offer you a bit of what I know about the "shifts" you may be experiencing.

When there is a muscle in the body that is tight or weak, other muscles are recruited to make movements for the tight/weak muscle group. We call this substitution. When this occurs, the bones are pulled out of their proper alignment. This creates a twisting in the body that can cause all sorts of problems.

When you practice Resistance Stretching, you begin to take tension out of the chronically tight muscle groups while strengthening the weak muscles. Relieving the tension allows the muscle to execute it's proper designated actions. For example, the action of the lateral quads is to flex, abduct, and externally rotate the leg. If you were to Resistance Stretch the quads, you would ideally resist by flexing, abducting, and externally rotating the leg, as another person extends, adducts, and internally rotates the leg. Chronic tension would be removed from the quads as you do this and as a result, the bones that had been pulled out of alignment by the substituting muscles would return to their ideal resting position. This may explain the "shift" or little pop in the capsule area you experienced.

However, it takes many repeats of resistance stretching on the chronically tight muscle groups to retrain the muscles permanently. So, as a result, the substituting muscles may once again pull the bones back out of alignment after your stretching session. Additionally, it really requires assisted stretching with another person to make the changes permanent, as it takes twice the force to stretch a muscle as it does to strengthen it, which is something you can't do on your own. Plus, when stretching yourself, you won't be able to resist in all three planes at once. For example, when doing the quad stretch at the wall, you are mainly getting extension and flexion at the hip, without much or any adduction/abduction, internal/external rotation. Unfortunately, I don't know of any trainers in New Hampshire, but there are some in Massachusetts and New York.

However, you can still accomplish quite a bit with self stretching. At the very least, you should be able to prevent your imbalance from getting worse. You have the right idea by stretching the target muscle group and then the balancing, the medial hamstrings. Remember not to push yourself through the stretch. When you get to the point where you can no longer resist, or it feels too tough or painful, stop, do a repeat, and try stretching the balancing muscle groups.

Hopefully this helps you out. Let me know if you have any other questions, and I wish you the best.

Luther"

What impresses me so far about resistance stretching is that it doesn't hurt or tighten my muslces like traditional stretching. Despite all the force that is generated during the stretch it seems to be "good" force that in my case seems powerful enough to undue all the damage in my muscles and hopefully move things back to the place where the muscles start working the way they are supposed to work.

On Luther's site you can also order for under $10 variations on the stretches. It is a good way to check out the stretches and find ones that work for you. I ordered them and they are then all them posted online for you with pictures and descriptions. The stretch I really like can be seen on one of Luther's free preview pages. Look for Gall Bladder stretch.


I have kept way from running for the past week except for Monday night and Wednesday night. Monday I did the last trail 5k race. I am still about 1 1/2 minutes behind last years time at these races. With my heel still somewhat sore (still don't know if it plantar fasciitis or something else) I have been just mountain biking. The break from running feels good and my body feels good without the stresses of inefficient running.

Monday nights trail race was a race where you start depending on your best time in previous races. The fastest guys didn't show up which meant I started last and by myself. I wore my Nike Free v5 shoes that I have been walking around in all summer. They are so comfortable I didn't want to use them running. So this was my first run in them. They felt OK. I don't know how good they are for racing but my hips felt a bit better than they had been. I think I just missed breaking 20 minutes but it was hard to run by myself until I caught and passed people.

Wednesday I did the track workout. I did 8 X 800m all between 2:55 and 3:00 (except the first which was about 3:03). I used the Nike Free v3 without insoles (they are a bit small). Again I liked the feel. I have used Frees a couple of years ago for some training (up to 16 milers) but never for intervals. After 3 intervals I switched to the Asics Hyperspeeds because the frees were a bit small. They felt clunkier but I went faster. However I am wondering if the bottom of this shoe is too rigid. I had been wearing these for the few weeks before my heel started hurting.

My heel area was OK during the intervals but at the end of the workout (just like the race on Monday) it tightened up.

I will keep from running for a bit to see how things react or hopefully heal.

Resistance Stretching: This is what Dara Torres does!

Last Monday I took out a couple of stretching books that I bought a couple of years ago to flip through again to see if I could learn something new or helpful to help with my misaligned hips and legs. I first checked out "Stretch to Win" by Ann and Chris Frederick. It is a book that presents stretching in a well-thought out way with some interesting moves but I remembered doing these before with the the results that I needed to fix my biomechanics. I would recommend it however to someone with good biomechanics that needs to work on their whole body flexibility.


I then took out "The Genius of Flexibility" by Bob Cooley. I am not sure I had delved much into this book before because after buying it I noticed it didn't really tell you which muscles were being stretched, however it did list all sorts of psychological and emotional benefits you would get from each stretch and it seemed a bit far-fetched to precisely claim all these benefits from doing stretching exercises. Reading the stretching parts carefully I noticed that there is a difference in how you perform the stretched compared to what you would think when looking at the pictures (where they may look like traditional stretching).



I read that this is something new called "resistance stretching". To stretch a muscle this way you contract the muscle you are stretching as you stretch it out. "To stretch muscles, you start in a position where the muscles are as short as possible and then CONTRACT the muscles while elongating the muscle as far as possible until the muscles can no longer contract." I decided to try two stretches on Tuesday night. I did the hamstring stretch and the quadriceps stretch. I have found an example of both stretches here:



While doing the quadriceps stretch I heard a little pop from around my left hip capsule and a lot of the tightness in there disappeared. I felt real good after both stretches and did them again Wednesday before the track workout. I had a real good workout and my stride felt better than it had in a long time. I did 4 X mile in 6:09, 6:07, 5:59, 6:02. I was pretty happy with those results and the feeling of a somewhat better stride. I then headed down to Falmouth for the Road Race on Sunday. I went out for runs on Thursday and Friday but felt extremely tight. I was still doing the stretches and a few others. I notice that I feel better without the tightness in my hips when sitting, walking, or sleeping, but my running stride was still very tight and awkward. I didn't stretch much Saturday (or run) and started loosening up more by nighttime. I felt somewhat loose before the race on Sunday but my hips and muscles are very much limiting me as I run.

I ordered the DVD on this stretching system from Bob Cooley's website as well as one from this website that uses the same method and now are the people working with Dara Torres. Yes that is right. You have probably heard about Dara Torres extreme and expensive fitness routine that helped her get to her fifth Olympics in swimming. You may have heard about the $100,000 of yearly expenses that she has that includes hiring two personal "stretchers". Well "resistance stretching" is the type of stretching that she does. It can be done as a self-stretching routine, but I guess it is most powerful when someone else stretches you. After all it is claimed by the resistance stretchers that is takes twice as much force to stretch a muscle as it does to strengthen it. By turning around resistance stretches, you can do strength exercises.

I like how my muscles around my joints feel after I do the stretches. They feel warm or hot like a fire is burning in them. I don't feel like I am ripping something apart like I sometimes feel when doing static stretches. I also think that with my ingrained patterns of muscle movement while running and moving that I need something very powerful to get me back into proper form and movement. This type of stretching seems to offer that. I will give it a shot. It is new and different (and thanks to Dara Torres) something that will be looked at a lot by athletes and others. I didn't find much web information or impressions of other people who use the program yet, but I did find some interesting links.

First, here is a New York Times article on Dara Torres that is very interesting. If you go to that article you can find a video of Dara doing some resistance stretching or you can find it here. Here she demonstrates some self-stretching exercises.

Here is a video on Dara Torres from the E-60 television show. Near the end you can see some of expensive training routines including a bit of stretching with her stretchers.



This video show Dara in 2000 when she first started using Resistance Stretching. It shows Bob Cooley and others stretching Dara. This is a very different form of stretching than most people are used to seeing.



If you really want to see an interesting video of Bob Cooley and others stretching an athlete in Holland check out this video.



Here is a recently published article on resistance stretching from Time magazine.

Here is a commentary on the article that includes a post from Dara Torres' trainers.

Here is a 2006 Running Times article on resistance stretching.