- Morning Trainiacs.
We have a bit of a trip to my favorite gym
in all of Winnipeg, hands down.
Pure Lifestyle.
Good friends, awesome trainers, bit of an injury.
I'll explain.
(electric dance music)
Well, that was good.
That was very good.
Let me update ya.
Okay, I think that that was extremely productive.
I am very excited about what we're workin' on there.
Allow me to explain.
By the way, spirulina SP2 Life,
hands down, best spirulina frozen pods in the business.
I think they're the only ones in the business.
So, the gym at Pure Lifestyle,
originally it started out with two friends that are, like,
friends between themselves, friends of mine,
who we do a lot of riding with,
and they're endurance athletes themselves.
One is a strength trainer who started the gym side of it,
the other was a physiotherapist
who started a physiotherapy clinic.
They took me through the long marathon swim
that I did in 2013 or 2014, 27K,
and kept me healthy there,
and it's just consistently grown year over year
that endurance athletes from all over Winnipeg come here.
So, now what they've got
this is, like, totally unsponsored.
This is just, like, I think where
where gyms are going and where they should be.
So what they've got is a strength-training gym,
a whole bunch of strength and conditioning coaches.
What they have in addition to that,
full physiotherapy clinics,
and then what's really nice is that
because the gym is right attached to it,
they have the physiotherapists that just walk in,
like, they took me in there
and started showing me all
of the strength-training movements.
Sometimes, if there's a bunch of movements,
they'll give you a workout and you go in
and then for 45 minutes after your physiotherapy session,
you go and you do your workout,
and they've got some of the best equipment.
Actually, I forgot,
they've also got a arrangement with Darryl Hurry,
the guy who is doing all the me cycling underwater testing,
he does a lot of his metabolic and performance testing
out of there as well,
and what they've just opened up is a medical clinic
in addition to that for sports medicine.
So what can happen is your doctor can say, "alright,
"well you need physiotherapy."
You can go here.
Then the physiotherapist will say, "alright,
"well here's the rehab work."
You can go over into the strength area
where they've got all the functional movement stuff,
the kettle bells, the medicine balls,
they've got, you know, an olympic lifting area,
they've got a Woodway treadmill,
so jealous of that, bikes that you can warm up with,
and then it's sometimes one-on-one coaching,
sometimes, like, one-on-three coaching,
and then the physiotherapists can also say,
"alright, well maybe you need to go back to your doctor
"because you could potentially do some good by
"seeing these sports medicines doctors."
I like Blake, I like JF, the owners,
despite Blake beating me in a sprint a couple years ago
in a fairly big race,
and JF out-mountain biking me yesterday on the fat bike.
Besides that, great guys.
Alright, let's go swim,
and then I'll bring ya up to speed on this foot issue.
It's not really an issue, just kind of an issue.
(techno music)
You know the best thing
about Winnipeg winters as a triathlete?
It's putting on a swim trunk
that's been outside in your car for a few hours.
Nothin' like cold, damp swim trunks warm the heart.
(dance music)
Rest week recovery swims, thank you, Lord,
i.e. coach Gerry Rodrigues, Tower26, yeah.
2150 meters in 44 minutes, lots of fins, lots of snorkel,
lots of band, lots of pull, not a lot of intensity,
I like it.
Alright, let's talk about my feet.
If you don't like feet, ya might wanna tune out now.
Watch viewership drop off.
Okay, so here's the deal.
You all might be saying, "hey Taren,
"you are always injured,
"you had the Achilles last year,
"you just came off of a slipped disc,
"now you're going in for more foot problems?"
Well, what you might notice
is that I train through all of this.
I also still race and raced successfully,
so it's not like I'm just pushing past really serious,
debilitating injuries,
what I'm doing here is I'm addressing nicks, niggles,
things that come up that just happens
being a triathlete before they become massive injuries.
Lesson number one for the day.
I wasn't planning on that lesson,
but I expected a fair bit of comments from people like,
"Taren, you are just a wreck."
No, I'm addressing things before I become a wreck.
Okay, let me explain the foot right now.
So I present you with a foot.
Typically what happens in a running stride
is your leg bends forward and it comes over top of the toes
and that places stress on the Achilles tendon.
Now, in my case, because I sprained my right ankle
so many times as a kids skateboarding, when I'm running,
the lower leg isn't able to move
quite as far as the left leg
and instead of all of that stress
being placed on the Achilles,
it's now all of a sudden being placed
on the top of the foot.
So I get a little bit of pain right in between the big toe
and the second toe because that is what is
apparently taking all of the load,
and it's like I'm still running,
I can still run normally, I don't feel it at all,
but it's just like, it's like a little bruise,
and I know that with feet
because there's so many things going on
and they take so much pounding as triathletes,
I wanna get that bruise taken care of
before it becomes an issue.
So for my pals up here, I've got these three movements
that I wanna show you.
This is, I'm hopeful about this, okay?
Here, let me just show you what I mean.
With my left foot, I can pull it,
we'll go this far away from the wall
and easily touch my knee to the wall,
and let's say that is
that goes all the way to that point on the Apple pencil.
With the other foot, I can only go about
that far away from the wall.
We're talkin' here a difference of an inch,
but when we're talking degrees of range of motion,
quite significant.
Here are the movements.
First thing the guy says is, "do you have weights at home?"
I'm like, "you know who you're talkin' to?
"Ya, of course."
What we're gonna do is,
right foot we're tryin' to increase
that range of motion to go forward,
so I get my leg up on a bench
and then I take a heavy weight,
put it on top of the knee,
make sure that the heel stays down on the bench,
and I lean forward.
Oooh yeah.
Keep that heel down and just rock back and forth
and that is going to just slowly increase
the amount of movement that I've got
flexing that knee forward.
Next one, I take a tennis ball
and where most people have done a little bit of foot work
with, like, a spiky ball or a trigger-point ball,
we're doing something a little bit differently
with a tennis ball.
Instead of stepping on the tennis ball
and rolling it out which you need a really hard ball for,
instead we use it for compression.
So, look at how wide my foot is right now
and then we grind into the tennis ball
and you see that my foot just got a little bit wider?
That is basically taking all of the metatarsals
and it's forcing them to be just a little bit spread out.
So, it's kinda taking the pressure off of that middle space
in between the big toe and the second toe
that is currently causing just that little bit of bruising,
and then the third thing is that I am a fan of toe yoga.
On the virtual camp this weekend,
I prescribed toe yoga to just about every athlete
that was there.
Let me explain.
Avert your eyes if you don't like toes.
Toe yoga is where you try to press down
with your big toes while lifting up your piggies
and then going from that to pressing down the piggies
and lifting up the big toes
and then doing about 10 reps of pressing down the big toes
and lifting up the piggies
and going back and forth like that is,
again, spreading out all of those metatarsals in each way.
Last thing that I'm gonna do.
This wasn't from the physiotherapist,
but he said, "I like that idea."
I have good ideas sometimes.
I spend like all day everyday walkin' around in these
Oofos just to take a little bit of load off the feet,
but I think it's probably got to the point
that my feet could use a little bit of movement
throughout the day.
So, in the morning, in the evening, I'll wear these,
and then I just bought myself a pair of Vibram FiveFingers.
I am not, am not running in them,
but I'm just using them to walk around throughout the day
just to give my feet a little bit of undulation
as I'm walking around here,
going back and forth inside the house,
and that'll just give my feet
a little bit more chance to move.
There.
That's what's up right now.
So, ladies and germs,
make sure that you address injuries
before they become injuries.
Nicks and niggles need to be taken seriously.
Rule of thumb, if you feel something for three weeks
or longer, go get it looked at
because there's some sorta underlying issue
that's causing that.
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hit the subscribe button below,
and if you are subscribed,
a little tidbit for ya,
I was voted best feet in grade nine,
and you know what? The physiotherapist today,
I took off my socks,
and he was like (exhales),
"you got yourself some nice feet."
And I'm like, "I know,
"I've been hearing it since grade nine."
Now you know.
Later Trainiacs.