I was doing some resistance stretching last night (something I haven't done in a while) in order to to work on my tight quads. When I was done, I checked out the resistance (or meridian) stretching websites (again something I haven't done in a while) and saw a video I hadn't noticed before on Bob Cooley's Meridian Stretching site. I think there are three variations on doing resisitance stretching: one is self-stretching, one is getting stretched by a stretcher, and the other is this wild looking stretching where a bunch of stretchers work on one athlete like he or she is a human maleable pretzel. I have seen a few videos online of this type of stretching before (most notably with Olympic swimmer Dara Torres) and it always looks visually fascinating . The new video shows Olympic speed skater Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. getting stretched before the Vancouver Olympics.
I don't know Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. but I watched her in the Olympics (her Olympics blog). By the time I started attending Wheaton College in 1977, her mom Nancy Swider was a student at the school and already an Olympic speed skater (seventh in the 3000m at the 1976 Innsbruck Games) and had set a world record weeks after the Olympics. Her dad Jeff Peltz was a football player who lived a couple doors down in my dorm one year. Her mom went on to participate in 4 Olympics, and I always marveled when hearing about the many hours she spent in daily training to be an Olympian. These were the days before my college (and many schools) even had a women's cross-country team. Women were just breaking into sports and here was a world class athlete doing unheard of things with incredible discipline and drive. This was also before the time of cross-training being fashionable (in fact it wasn't even a word back then) so besides all the speed-skating and drills she did, she sometimes ran with the cross-country team, swam on the swim team, and she biked. It certainly was eye-opening for someone like me who thought that running was hard work to see someone so intense in athletic ambition and ahead of the times in training ideas. I also have never seen a lady with stronger looking quads in my life!
Here is a blog post interviewing one of the stretchers working on Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr.
Here is one of my posts on resistance stretching that includes links to many other posts.
I also noticed that Bob Cooley's Meridian Stretching site has listed classes at his Boston studio to learn and practice self-stretching. I may have to try going down sometime. I have three videos on resistance stretching, but it would be good to get pointers. The classes are only $20. I went to a stretcher once and it was great to get worked on, but it was ridiculously priced (unless you were extremely rich, it was too unaffordable no matter what the benefits). Here is my post on that experience. I would have loved to have done more, but I am not ridiculously rich.
On the Innovative Body Solutions website there is a new article on resistance stretching. The article comes from Vogue magazine so unless you want to buy a copy of the magazine, you may want to read it there. It is authored by Elizabeth Weil, who wrote this article on Dara Torres for the New York Times and is the author of "Age is Just a Number" a new book on Olympic swimmer and Dara Torres. Of course it was Dara Torres' resistance stretching routine and success at the Olympics that brought a lot of publicity to resistance stretching.
Here is a link to a previous post I made with links to many other posts on resistance stretching.
Elizabeth Weil mentions that she had been a runner for ten years starting in her teens. As she is approaching 40 years old, she decided she wanted to become a runner again and run as fast as she had when she was younger. She was fortunate to get stretched by Anne Tierney and Steve Sierra. Innovative Body Solutions is their site and they are also Dara Torres personal stretchers. In other words they are the best in the business.
In the article Tierney says, "We are troubleshooters. We'll look you over and figure out where your trouble spots are. It's usually a small chain of imbalances that are holding you back. Once we figure those out, everything will open up."
The two stretchers noticed that one of Elizabeth's hips was higher than the other and one muscle making up her quads was not properly firing and they proceeded to go through two hours of stretching all over her body so as to fix her imbalances. It is an interesting read particularly as it relates resistance stretching to running.
I did go to a resistance stretcher last fall and had some good runs afterwards that continued as I did resistance stretching on my own. However I have not been doing it for the past month. Why? I have been doing something similar in application but more directed at my own imbalances. I have been pushing my legs, from my hips, against resistance (although I am not moving the leg through the resistance). This is what is ultimately balancing out my hips to a level that I haven't had in 25 years. I think this is why parts of resistance stretching were working for me. I was starting to get at my stuck hips. Whether you call it resistance stretching, Muscle Energy Technique, leveraging, or whatever I don't care. What I care about is that something is definitely working.
I am still slowly going over the DVDs on The Malalignment Syndrome: diagnosis and treatment of common pelvic and back pain, I haven't used their tests to figure out what is imbalanced with my hips, but I have been directing the "pushing" I was already doing with the guidance and direction from the DVDs so that I have an idea of the why and how of what I have been doing. It is interesting to note that Dr. Wolf Schamberger who developed this technique is a former 2:20 marathoner who used this to fix his own imbalances.
Although it is my left hip that usually is the "sore hip" I think that my right hip is the hip with an upslip. That means that it is higher than my left hip (which explains why this is my short leg) and probably why my left leg takes more of the stress (and reacts with its own twisting) when I run. To correct this I bend the right leg at the knee and I push the right leg against the pressure of my arms. I don't push it as hard as I was doing on my own. Then for the left leg I pull the left knee towards my chest as I resist against the pressure with my arms. Both of these are exercises I had discovered on my own but now I know the how and why of doing them (and which leg to do them on). I also am starting a few exercises for the rotations of my hip (one is farther forward than the other). Is it working? I have already mentioned that I feel better than I have in 25 years when not running. As my hips come into a better balance all the aches and pains as well as tension in my muscles throughout my body from feet to upper back seem to be leaving. In basic terms, I feel loose and I am not spending my day trying to figure out how to get rid of the pains and imbalances that I normally feel. I also don't pay much attention to my body being out of balance as I feel more solid and steady in posture.
As for running? I took a test run yesterday at the Freeze Your Buns 5k race. I did this race to see if my hips would stiffen at a faster pace of running. I must say despite a slow time compared to previous years of racing, that this is the best I have felt in a race in years. Was it perfect? No, but I was so much more balanced that I am used to and I felt like I was running smoothly and with a proper running motion. I haven't felt that good in a long time! I just hope that the path I am on continues, because I would like to see how I can really do as a runner when I am not fighting my own body as I run.
The other thing I continue to do each day is the Turkish get ups with my kettlebells. This exercise is helping my hips strengthen and increases the mobility through the movement of my hips. The funny thing is I used to spend hours a day trying to figure out what was making my body so uncomfortable and trying to relieve the discomfort. I now am spending hardly any time at all, just a few things thoughout the day and I am good to go.
As for the race, I thought I was running hard (so I probably was) but I was disappointed at the time I saw at two miles. I did put on a long surge during the last mile and caught up to and passed the lead female runner, Amber Cullen. I made up about 10-15 seconds. Maybe she was having an off day, but I rarely catch people near the end of a race. It was very helpful to be pushing with her at the end because it got me under 20 minutes for the race. This is a much better time than my first 5ks last year.
Here are the result of the Freeze Your Buns race.
5K Results 2009-March-01
Name Town Age Sex Time
Ferreira, Danny Concord, NH 26 M 0:17:36
King, Andy Lowell, MA 33 M 0:17:42
Wade, Michael Nashua, NH 40 M 0:17:47
Indruk, Greg Nashua, NH 28 M 0:19:09
Hansen, Jim Nashua, NH 50 M 0:19:53
Cullen, Amber Concord, NH 26 F 0:19:54
Snow, Ken Merrimack, NH 53 M 0:20:11
Kane, Brian Merrimack, NH 47 M 0:20:29
Cullen, Gregory Westford, MA 56 M 0:20:33
Rouleau, Stephen Nashua, NH 30 M 0:21:00
Burnett, Jim Canaan, NH 59 M 0:21:31
Lee, Stephen Concord, NH 45 M 0:21:49
Poublon, Danielle Nashua, NH 10 F 0:25:58
Hiatt, Melissa N. Hampton, NH 11 F 0:26:50
Gallagher, James Merrimack, NH 42 M 0:26:51
Welts, Bob Hollis, NH 75 M 0:32:35
Adams, James Nashua, NH 35 M 0:33:13
The January 2009 issue of Men's Journal magazine has an article on resistance stretching as well as a guide to some of the stretches. You can go to the Innovative Body Solutions website here to read the article online. Just find "The Better Way to Stretch" article on the front page and click on "read the article". This is the website where you can also buy the "Resistance Stretching with Dara Torres" DVD, a very worthwhile and inexpensive investment if you are interested in learning how to do resistance stretching.
One thing I learned from the article is that there are two different types of muscle tightnesses according to Andy O'Brien, the strength and conditioning coach of the Florida Panthers hockey team. He says there is "adaptive shortening" of the muscles due to scar tissue or injury. He's says this is a permanent shortening of a muscle. It doesn't say it here, but I guess this is where you may need a therapy like active release technique (ART) or something I have never tried called the Graston Technique. The other type of shortening he calls "tonic shortening". This would be when your muscles get tight due to excessive work, like running a marathon or a hard workout. In this case it is your nervous system tightening up your muscles and thus your range of motion. He suggests that resistance stretching helps you to train your nervous system to relax and thus it allows you to be more flexible.
Here are some other posts I have made on resistance stretching.
Here is a newspaper article on resistance stretching. It is from News 8 in Autsin, Texas. Cat Fitzgerald is the resistance trainer. There is a video on the site where you can see how he stretches rock climber Andrew Higier.
"The concept is really simple: resist when you stretch," Cat Fitzgerald, a certified RFST trainer and director of Hara Health in Coral Gables, Fla., told Ivanhoe.
Unlike regular stretches, which hold muscles in a passively stretched position, RFST actively lengthens muscles by stretching while moving them through their natural range of motion. Many people overlook stretching as a nonessential part of their workouts, but experts say it is the key to maintaining a youthful and healthy body."
I have lots of cool things happening and a lot to digest and put together. The last two days have been very busy. Today I had my first resistance stretching session with a trainer. Yesterday the new DVD on resistance stretching arrived in my mailbox as well as another running DVD, so there is a lot to be excited about and loads of new information.
I received the DVD from Innovative Body Solutions. I haven't watched the whole thing yet but I started watching it yesterday and got through the first bit and I am very impressed. The founders of Innovative Body Solutions, Steven Sierra and Anne Tierney (who visited this blog and offered some good advice), are very good teachers and I was learning a lot more than the little I had already found on resistance stretching. I will fully review the DVD later when I have viewed and watched it a bit, but the biggest thing I learned was how to not only stretch but to strengthen the muscles using resistance stretching. I know this was in Bob Cooley's Book, but seeing and being shown how this works made it very easy to understand and implement. I also liked how the training taught first how to strengthen a muscle, then to stretch it, and finally to put the two together and do both stretches continuously. I only got up the the calf stretch on the DVD. I mentioned before that I hadn't found a resistance stretch for the calf and here was one right on the DVD. I also liked how they reference the names of the muscles being stretched. As an athlete I like to know the names of the muscles (my wife says I just like to say the big fancy names) but I know runners talk about certain muscles and we expect a stretching program to talk our language. I look forward to viewing and using the rest of the DVD. I enjoyed the Bob Cooley "Genius of Flexibility" DVD and found it well worth the price paid. This is the same price and already it is quite the bargain. I know how much other DVDs are sold for from other programs I have tried and this is well worth the cost.
Having seen a bit of this DVD yesterday, today I went down to Massachusetts to meet a stretcher named Janet and to be stretched out and learn more about how this all works. Janet did a lot of stretches with me and just like on the DVD there were both the strength and stretch portions. I learned I was doing it too hard on my own. She evaluated and worked on different meridian groups (I have got a lot of work to do to figure this out!) to find out which needed the most work. She was explaining the stretches as she went along, which I really like as I am very curious and want to know what is happening. She pegged the muscles groups that were really tight or weak. She moved my muscles through the stretches as I resisted and they did not hurt or really stress anything, but I could feel the right places stretch that needed to be stretched in some very new and different ways and directions. Things (fascia or scar tissue?) were giving way and making little pops as the stretching continued. I had much more mobility after each leg was stretched. She was packing a lot in, and at the end did some stretches on my lats and shoulders. She really noticed that they needed the stretching. She gave me lots of notes and it was a really positive experience. I do think that that this resistance stretching is on to something. It is very different from tradional static stretching and seems to have an immediate impact. I like it!
Last night I watched an pre-release of an update of the Building a Better Runner: Building from the Ground Up. The first edition and this was put out together by Jay Johnson, who is the middle distance coach at the University of Colorado, and Mike Smith, who is the head cross country coach and middle distance coach at Kansas State University. Jay sent a pre-release copy of the DVD and I thought it was very fascinating. I watched the whole thing last night, taking all sorts of notes. What I found interesting is that most of what is on this DVD is covered in many of the pages on this blog. I have been searching out all kinds of routines and therapies and here they were in a completely different form on one DVD and it is put together for runners. I saw how many of the drills were similar to the joint mobility work I have been playing around with. Some of the sand drills and other drills reminded me of Z-Health. Other information like implementing movement through all 3 different planes of motion reminded me of Scott Sonnon's DVDs like "Ageless Mobility", "Intu-Flow", and "Flow-Fit". A lot of the drills reminded me of Eric Cressey's "Magnificent Mobility" and even the dynamic flexibility drills in Matt Fitzgerald's book "Brain Training for Runners". I even saw some resistance stretching particularly of the lower legs for runners. As Jay and Mike say in the DVD they didn't invent all this stuff but they put things together in a unique way. I am not saying they even got their ideas from the other DVDs and books I mentioned. In fact they do things in very different ways. I just noticed the connection to so many of the things I have been finding and trying and it looks like they are arriving at a similar solution even if they went a different direction to get there. What I like is that these drills are particularly directed at runners. I just wish I had found this DVD earlier as I think their emphasis on preventive work and routines is so important. We didn't do these things when I was running in high school and college. This is a treasure trove of knowledge and exercises that should be a welcome addition to the collection of any serious runner, injured or healthy.
All the drills, however, are not for all runners and this is mentioned. There are over 100 drills and many would not be good for someone starting out or probably with an older body. But there are so many very useful drills and routines that would benefit the smart runner. I can't wait to try some of them. The athletes doing the drills are young, strong, athletic, and elite runners. Yes, that is Christian Smith doing many of the exercises. He finished third in the 800 meters in the 2008 Olympic Trials and earned a trip to Beijing with his last second and truly exciting dive to the finish line. I wonder if he practiced a diving drill. The 800 meters was the most exciting race of the Olympic Trials this summer as the first three finishers raced for Oregon teams and the trials were in Eugene. The stadium was rocking at the dramatic finish!'
Here is a video of the race from a fan inside the stadium. Listen to the noise!
Here is the televised video (very inspiring!):
So there is a lot of exciting things going on. As I was riding to my stretching session today I plopped a new Cd I had heard about into the the Cd player. I enjoyed listening to "The Hold Steacy- Stay Positive" on the trip down and back and now I will equate those songs with resistance stretching. This is not a music blog (maybe I need to start one) but I have to like a group that plays with the sonic blast of Bruce Springsteen and with his storytelling power as well as reminding me of the spirit of Mike Peters and The Alarm as well as the Alarmish "Whoahs" throughout the title song. You have to like lyrics that look into all sorts of dark corners and then hint at some redemption...
..."there's gonna come a time when the true scene leaders
forget where they differ and get the big picture
cause the kids at their shows, they'll have kids of their own
the sing-a-long songs'll be our scriptures,
we gotta stay positive ..."
or in another song,
..."we gonna build something this summer
we're getting back together
raise up a giant ladder
with love & trust and friends that hammer...
...Let this be my annual reminder
That we can all be something bigger""
Anyhow good music from a singer that looks like Elvis Costello. I also listened on my mp3 player as I had a very loose and enjoyable run this afternoon after today's stretching. Things had really loosened up in my hips quite a bit and I had a rare bouncy feeling as I ran. I felt like things were lined up so much better and my run was so fun I extended it a couple of miles to do 10 miles. If resistance stretching can leave me feeling this loose as I run I will be very happy.
One last thing for Chris B. when he reads this- that was a really good track workout on Wednesday. Thanks for pushing me throughout the set of intervals. It was tough and enjoyable Most of the guys were not running due to the Reach the Beach Relay this weekend. The workout was 5 X 1 mile with a lap rest between each. It was supposed to be at 1/2 marathon pace. We decided 6:30 pace would be our goal. I like being a front running "Kenyan" when I run. Some runners like following such as the "Ethiopian" runners and finishing strong at the end. Chris and I worked well together as Kenyan and Ethiopian. He ran off my shoulder and that kept me on an ever increasing pace. We did the first mile in 6:27, then progressed to a 6:21, a 6:17. the 6:11, and finally on the last one the Ethiopian runner took off. I told Chris not to worry about staying with me if he wanted to go faster. Chris broke 6 minutes and I did 6:02. It was a really good workout and with only each other running a similar pace we ran the workout to perfection.
I have been laying low, running as I feel and getting a sense of resistance stretching and trying out different stretches with it. I was feeling good and having some nice runs and felt like the track workout last Wednesday would be great. I felt good and did some stretching before the workout-maybe I stretched too hard. I didn't get into a rhythm while doing 5 X 1000m and didn't keep up with the people I wanted to keep up with. I was a bit disappointed and my hips were a bit off and sore again. I saw a friend the next day and he said my stride has been looking better the past couple of track workouts. That made me feel a bit better.
I biked then ran the next two days but felt out of balance again. I stretched. Was I stretching too much? too little? the wrong muscles? the right muscles? I did my longest run in a few weeks two days ago. I went 11 miles but still was imbalanced. Then yesterday the hips were sore, but I ran anyhow and did my fastest 8 mile loop of the year (in the low 55 minutes range).
Today my hips were still off so I tried to focus stretching on the quads and the psoas muscle. I did the quadriceps resistance stretch where your push your back leg against the wall as you lunge forward on your front leg. Then I moved up a level in the "Genius of Flexibility" book. At this level you hold your back foot in a lunge position. You resist against your hand as you pull the foot towards you and you lunge forward. You also (I think-if I read it right) tighten up the front quad and hip of the backwards leg. I did this and it created a powerful stretch with a LOT of force. Maybe too much force! This is somewhat the way it looks.
As I resisted into the stretch I felt my quadriceps pull and tighten. AND THEN. SNAP! What was that? In what seemed like a thousandth of a second. I had the distinct feeling that something broke in my leg. I even think I heard a snap. My daughter who was in the room later said she heard nothing. Instantaneously I had a picture in my head and the strange and powerful feeling in my back leg's quad. Something quickly moved and shook that muscles in my quadricep from the front of the hip halfway down the quad. An immediate picture formed in my mind as I had this strange jolting feeling. I "saw" the muscle at the top of my quad detatch like it was a thick rubber band that had been stretched too far and broke and then it curled and snapped back and forth inside my leg. My quad seem to shake with that feeling like a slinky had been snapped in there. Now I know this isn't what really happened but I am amazed at how my mind tried to make sense of this sudden snap before I could even look down.
I was shocked and jolted and I think I was off the floor and in midair to a standing pose quicker than I had ever moved before. What was that? I have never felt a muscle inside my body move and jolt me like that in my life. I still was clueless and startled my daughter who was sitting on the couch as I burst up into the air and probably blurted out something in shock. I wasn't even sure what happened. I yelled out to her, questioning, "What was that?" I felt my leg. It was there. I put pressure on it. No problem! I looked around. I saw her field hockey stick on the ground. Had it fallen from somewhere and whacked me? In truth it felt like someone had belted me with the stick. No, the stick had not moved. I walked around, but I was still unnerved by whatever had happened to my leg. I couldn't figure it out. I had a hard time explaining the sudden and large jolt within my leg. My wife said I was disoriented for many minutes after.
Nothing, however, seemed to be wrong in the leg. I decided to go on with my planned run. I didn't know if this was smart, but I took off. The muscles around that hip joint felt looser and not as cramped but they felt a bit warm. That leg even felt better than the right one as I ran. I did my workout still unsure of what had happened. There was no pain and there was no movement that I couldn't do as I ran.
After I was done and I sat done. I felt a light tingling pain in the front quad near the outside insertion point. It got more tender as the evening wore on. Who knows how it might feel tomorrow.
I am still not sure what happened. I have never pulled a muscle like that. Maybe just a few muscle fibers pulled and it just feels huge when that happens? Maye something happened to a nerve? Did some muscles or scar tissue suddenly become unstuck? Did a muscle that was tight or stuck suddenly move position? I have no clue. That was the strangest thing! Hopefully that is the end of it. I don't think I will be revisiting that stretch anytime soon.
I am in contact with a resistance stretcher in Massachusetts and am trying to find a place and time when an expert can stretch me out and teach more about what muscles need stretching and how to do it properly (before I pull my leg apart!).
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).
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.
. The first edition and this was put out together by Jay Johnson, who is the middle distance coach at the University of Colorado, and Mike Smith, who is the head cross country coach and middle distance coach at Kansas State University. Jay sent a pre-release copy of the DVD and I thought it was very fascinating. I watched the whole thing last night, taking all sorts of notes. What I found interesting is that most of what is on this DVD is covered in many of the pages on this blog. I have been searching out all kinds of routines and therapies and here they were in a completely different form on one DVD and it is put together for runners. I saw how many of the drills were similar to the joint mobility work I have been playing around with. Some of the sand drills and other drills reminded me of Z-Health. Other information like implementing movement through all 3 different planes of motion reminded me of Scott Sonnon's DVDs like "Ageless Mobility", "Intu-Flow", and "Flow-Fit". A lot of the drills reminded me of Eric Cressey's "Magnificent Mobility" and even the dynamic flexibility drills in Matt Fitzgerald's book "Brain Training for Runners". I even saw some resistance stretching particularly of the lower legs for runners. As Jay and Mike say in the DVD they didn't invent all this stuff but they put things together in a unique way. I am not saying they even got their ideas from the other DVDs and books I mentioned. In fact they do things in very different ways. I just noticed the connection to so many of the things I have been finding and trying and it looks like they are arriving at a similar solution even if they went a different direction to get there. What I like is that these drills are particularly directed at runners. I just wish I had found this DVD earlier as I think their emphasis on preventive work and routines is so important. We didn't do these things when I was running in high school and college. This is a treasure trove of knowledge and exercises that should be a welcome addition to the collection of any serious runner, injured or healthy.
