3 Tips To Running Without Knee Pain

Knee pain is really common among runners (about 40% will experience in a given year). 

So...rather than ignoring it and hope its goes away...here are 3 simple tips to help you keep your knees tracking smoothly and efficiently :

1.  Increase your cadence

Research suggest a small increase in your cadence (increasing step frequency by 5%) leads to a decrease in ground reaction force. 

Essentially, shortening your stride takes the stress off your legs and taps into your 'spring system' that is more efficient and less impact on your knees. 

The average runner's cadence is approx 160 steps per minute, and the research shows increasing to 170-180 can make a big difference.

Be warned though, this style of running will put a greater load on your cardio-vascular system - so you may need to keep an eye on your heart rate and take breaks as needed.

Download free Metronome App here

Some GPS watches track your cadence.

Otherwise you can download a free metronome to help you.  I like to use the metronome for a few minutes at the start of a run to help get my rhythm in place...starting at 170bmp and then up to 180bmp for a few minutes.

2.  Strengthen your glutes

"Strong glutes makes everything better" - Perry Nickelston

The glutes are the main protectors of the knee.  When they become weak or inhibited they allow excess pressure on the knee joint and the muscles that surround it such as the ITB. 

When running, the glutes should take most of the load.   The gluteus maximus is the biggest and most powerful muscle in the body.  But in the presence of pain, injury or excessive sitting it 'switches off' and other muscles are forced to compensate.

Here are some of our favourite exercises to get your glutes back online and functioning:

• clam

• bridge

• single leg bridge

• reverse lunge

• squats

• split squats

If you think your glutes might need some work...then you should join our weekly Pilates class...click here to reserve your place (spots are limited). 

Bridge:  Tuck the pelvis under lift your hips - look for a straight line between knees, hip and shoulders.  Breathe and relax the shoulders.  Hold for 1 minute x 3 sets.

3.  Foam roll AFTER you run

The muscles in your legs have to work pretty damn hard during a run - absorbing up to three times your body weight every time you land. 

Muscles such as the outer quads, ITB, calf, hamstrings and adductors can get tight and knotted up and have a lot of trouble relaxing back to 'normal' after a hard run. 

This tightness can lead to increased pressure on the patella (knee cap) and cause ongoing tracking issues with the knee. 

A quick full body tune-up can be completed in less than 90 seconds (see video below) and help iron out tight spots around the knee.  

Of course, if you are tight in a particular area, you should spend longer working out the knots.

Is Pain or Injury keeping you from being as active and healthy as you want?

4 Steps To Better Movement

Moving better is like learning any other SKILL. The brain controls movement and loves moving in HABITS.

1. "Unconscious incompetence"

Habits of repetitive movement patterns get engrained in the central nervous system. Often happens through sustained postures and repetitive tasks. Predictable patterns develop in response to pain and stress; some muscles tighten & others become inhibited.

2. "Conscious incompetence"

Becoming aware there's a problem. Pain is the major trigger to making you aware something isn't right. Other early signs might be - feeling of tightness, stiffness, inefficiency of movement, fatigue, poor sleep or digestion.
Your Physio / health care professional can help you identify certain patterns that are getting overloaded. Also meditation and performing a body scan can help.

3. "Conscious competence"

This is where the training comes in.
In the early stages, mindfulness, concentration and patience are needed. Quiet introspective practice. Lots of mistakes, each time learning and inching towards mastery. Internal and external feedback. Play and having fun with your movement journey sparks learning.

Building new motor patterns and neural pathways in the brain takes time. Aerobic exercise (like running) helps stimulate new neuronal growth. Good food and sleep assist the brain in laying down the new pathways.

4. "Unconscious competence"

Muscle memory becomes entrained and becomes a new pattern, online & available for use. The brain has more options and variability in movement. The goal isn't to move the 'right' way all the time, rather to have many options, depending on the circumstance.

What are your thoughts on this 4 step process? 

I'd love your comments and feedback...

3 Biggest Mistakes Starting A New Fitness Routine And What To Do Instead

Hope you had a great Christmas and new year break!

Do you have any special health and fitness goals for 2017? The start of the year is always a great time to make some positive changes and start feeling good.

Today I wanted to share with you a few tips to help make your 2017 a healthy (and injury free) year.

Mistake 1.  Not getting started. Most of us know what to do. It's the DOING part that can be tough! 

TIP:

Start with small steps - it might be a 10 minute walk after dinner or parking your car as far as you can from the entrance of the shops. Also commit to meet a friend (or join us here) and you'll have less chance of backing out. Find something you can do that's fun and doesn't necessarily feel like exercise. Once you get a taste of how good it feels to move your body, the motivation comes easy. 

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - Lao Tzu”

Mistake 2.  Doing too much too soon.

Some of us go the other way and have massive amounts of motivation. This can overwhelm our bodies capacity and lead to injuries and a frustrating cycle of pain and inactivity.  We can forget that our bodies aren't getting any younger and it does take longer for recovery. 

TIP:
Channel your motivation and pace yourself by gradually increasing your intensity and time by no more than 10% per week. Also focus on recovery and building your foundation through foam roller stretches and core strengthening Pilates exercises. The better your foundation, the less likely you'll end up needing treatment.

Mistake 3.  Not listening to your body and getting checked out early when something doesn't feel right. 

TIP:
Get on top of your niggles early. Being proactive and getting educated early on in the process can save you a lot of frustration down the track.  A small tweak is often all that's required to get you back on track and feeling your best.

If you have any questions or concerns simply leave a comment below. You can also Book an appointment online here.

16 Things I Learnt in 2016

1.  "The Body Is An Amazing Self-Healing Machine" - Kelly Starrett

Once you set up the right environment - appropriate sleep, food, movement and accurate beliefs you create the perfect conditions for deep healing. 

Many patients tell me they've frequently started an exercise/movement practice with good intentions - only to end up injured.  They feel frustrated that their bodies aren't co-operating.  

My advice is to check your foundation.  

You've got to get to base camp before you start to climb the peak!

**If you're interested in learning more about building the quality of your movement, I'm teaching a free class on January 25th 2017 - limited numbers, you can book online here. 

2.  If you're a runner stop stretching your hamstrings!

As your foot is about to make contact with the ground, the role of the hamstrings is to control the landing.  

This means the hamstring needs to contract AND lengthen simultaneously (otherwise known as am eccentric contraction).

Stretching the hamstrings is likely to send mixed messages to the brain about how you want the hamstring to work.  

If you are attempting to 'increase flexibility' by stretching you are more likely to irritate your lower back and nerves than actually do anything worthwhile.  

If you're keen to safely improve flexibility I would recommend a combination of dry needling, massage and using a spiky ball and foam roller at home. 

Also, I'd recommend a series of hamstring strengthening exercises that will help address the imbalance between the quads and the hamstrings.  Stay tuned I will write a blog in more detail about this in 2017. 

3.  Go within and find your own answers. 

It's good to do research (thanks Google!), but don't let yourself be overcome by analysis paralysis. 

Especially when it comes to food and exercise.  Listen to your body and find out what works best for you.  I learnt that eating low fiber foods was better for my body than high fiber foods.  So I find white bread and animal protein easy to digest, while high fibre/high fructose fruits such as apples, grapes and mangoes are best taken in very small amounts. 

Your body is always changing, so don't get stuck in one way of moving or eating forever.  

Keeping a health journal for a month can be an excellent way to boost your awareness and see your patterns with more clarity.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change - Charles Darwin
”

4.  Become a master of moderation

The middle path.  Buddha had it right.  Exercise, food, thoughts, behaviours.  The 80/20 principle - allow for indulgences, they will keep you sane!

5.  Work you oblique muscles

Attending Perry Nickelston's Primal Chains course was a game changer for me.  He is passionate about the obliques as an important driver of power through the body.  Weak obliques are common and can lead to compensation and overload elsewhere in your body.  

7 exercises to work your obliques:

• side- plank

• thread the needle

• push-up to side plank

• spider man push-ups

• single leg bridge

• bird dog

• dying bug on foam roller

6.  Give up coffee for a week

If you simply can't live without your morning cup of joe - that could be a sign of bigger issues - adrenal fatigue. 

Ingesting caffeine is liking spending money on a credit card.  You're borrowing energy that you don't have. 

Try a week off coffee and (after the withdrawal period) see how you feel. 

7.  As you get older, the proportion of time needed to be spent on building a foundation grows bigger every year

Often we trying to achieve our athletic goals, a lot of time is spent in the 'red zone' of higher level intensity.  This is an important part of training, but if too much time is spent here, we can end up with getting burnt out. 

The thing is our physical foundation is very eroded on a daily basis if we don't consciously address it. 

After the age of 30, we lose 10% of our core strength every year just being alive. 

Stress and poor posture erode our foundation quicker than anything you can think of. 

Building a foundation means going back to basics.  The way you breathe.  Basic low-level core stability.  Foam roller flexibility drills.

Some great exercises to help build your foundation are:

• crawling

• rolling

• rocking on hands and knees

• conscious breathing

• bridge

• turkish get up

8.  Don't eat dark chocolate after dinner

Dark chocolate is healthy - but is is very high in caffeine.  If you suffer any sort of sleep disturbance, it might be an idea to save the dark chocolate for earlier in the day. 

 8.  Dry needling is the gold standard to improve flexibility

This year, I got to assist in teaching a dry needling course with one of my mentors Robert De Nardis, owner of Global Education of Manual Therapists.  It was great to spend three days immersed in the world of dry needling and get up to date on the research on how it works.

Dry needling helps by increasing the range of movement a muscle has. Typically, muscles get tight due to overuse, poor posture and stress. 

Dry needling is powerful because we can release the deeper fibers of the muscle, rather than pushing on the surface of the skin.  

Flexibility can be thought of on a spectrum (see chart).  

Mild tightness can be managed with yoga, massage, heat and foam rolling.  

Moderate tightness develops deep into the muscle, and dry needling is the gold standard to get you back to stage one, where you can manage it on your own. 

Severe tightness is where the pressure builds up on the joints and the treatment is medication, cortisone injections and eventually if things are bad enough, surgery.  

Admittedly, dry needling can be intense.  But it does give motivation to maintain our muscles with the foam roller!

9.  Meditate

Take 5-20 minutes each day to slow things down.  Take breaks.  Create some space. 

““Time is always short, from birth to death. Why? Because we do not know how to stop. “ - Julia Green”

“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day — unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour. - Zen proverb”

10.  Use a pressure cooker

Faster to cook and your food will taste twice as good! 

The beauty of the pressure cookers is that all of the flavours stay in during the cooking process.  

I used to be afraid that I might end up on the news as the man who burnt his face off while attempting to use a pressure cooker for the first time.  Admittedly it did take a few attempts (and hiding behind the couch) to feel comfortable using the pressure cooker.  

This Kambrook model allows you to saute, pressure cook and slow cook, so your meal can be prepared in no time, with minimal effort and washing up.  

11.  Incorporate sprinting into your weekly exercise routine

Sprinting is at the extreme end of building a physical foundation.

Many physical and psychological benefits can be gained and this podcast episode from Franz Snideman really helped my understanding. 

12.  Eat homemade soup every night

Soup is:

• easy and quick to put together

• cheap

• nutritious

• hydrates you

• fills you up so you're unlikely to over indulge in your main meal or dessert

13.  Try stand up paddleboarding

Paddle boarding is a fun way to get out on the water.  Staying upright and powering through the water is one of the best things for your core muscles, especially your obliques.  And standing up is much better than sitting in a canoe or kayak that place a lot of stress on your back.

14.  Beliefs form the foundation of your life

I'm always amazed at how powerful our (often sub conscious) beliefs can have over us.  It's definitely worthwhile to occasionally challenge your own beliefs about your body that could be holding you back.

For example:

• does running really cause knee arthritis or is that just an excuse to not try?

• is your lower back pain better after you've been resting or moving?

• is that MRI really as bad as it sounds compared with someone your own age?

Take a moment to reflect on your beliefs about your body and then ask a trusted health care provider to see if what you believe matches up with reality. 

15.  Turn dead time into learning time i.e. the power of podcasts!

Your commute can be more than flicking radio stations.  On my long runs and hikes I like to switch on a podcast, be inspired and learn something new.  It's amazing what's out there and you can educate yourself on almost any topic. 

Some of my favourites:

• Tim Ferriss

• Stop Chasing Pain

• Ben Greenfield Fitness

• The Primal Blueprint

• The Physical Performance Show

16.  The greatest rewards from life come from helping people

“If you follow your bliss,
you will always have your bliss,
money or not.

If you follow money,
you may lose it,
and you will have nothing
- Joseph Campbell”

What are some things you learnt in 2016?  Please let me know in the comments.

Have a fantastic 2017 - healthy, happy and memorable!

5 Tips To Keep You Healthy This Silly Season

The silly season is well and truly upon us, so I've compiled a quick list to keep you on track, in the hope that you come out the other side in one piece.  Have a merry Christmas and Healthy AND Happy New Year!

1. Keep Moving

Having time off around Christmas is an ideal time to try something new.

Ask your family and friends what they like to do for exercise and you might find something you can enjoy together in the new year.

Some ideas:

• beach cricket with the family
• go for a hike off the beaten track
• try stand up paddle boarding or surfing
• take up running
• work in the garden
• take a Power Yoga class
• join Adelaide Outdoors Meetup
• take swimming lessons
• sign up for a free trial at the local gym
• play tennis
• go snorkeling or diving

Traveling or maybe you're living in the Northern Hemisphere and it's too cold outside?

Download the free 7 minute workout app and get a full body workout.  A great way to maintain your fitness!

Commit to at least 30 minutes of exercise EVERY day and your body will thank you for it!

2. Find Time To Relax

The weeks and months leading up to the silly season can be very stressful with pressure to meet deadlines at work and all the extra socialising.

It's important to take some time to decompress, have some time to yourself and unwind.

Some tips:

• get a massage
• attend a restorative yoga class
• have a warm bath
• take a day trip to a beach or national park
• have a movie day with friends
• do a breath centered meditation
• start a journal
• learn how to play a new instrument
• cook a meal that you've been wanting to try and relax while doing it

3.  Stay Hydrated

It can be difficult to stay properly hydrated with the warm weather and increased alcohol consumption.  Keep an eye on your urine colour; if it's dark you probably need to up your fluid intake.  Some ideas:

• freshly made fruit juices (apple, celery and ginger is refreshing in the summer)
• coconut water
• hydralyte or nuun
• warm lemon and honey water
• good old fashioned water

4.  Drink Peppermint Tea

All the rich food over the silly season can play havoc with your digestion system. 

Peppermint tea can:

• aid digestion
• relieve nausea
• reduce stress
• strengthen the immune system

5.  Enjoy Quality > Quantity Food

Of course this is THE time of year to indulge, so my only advice is to spend a bit extra on the best quality food that you will really enjoy and leave you feeling great, rather than pigging out feeling sick for days after.

Have you got any other tips to stay healthy in the silly season? 

Please let me know in the comments section...and have a great Christmas and New Year!

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