- [Taren] Morning trainiacs. Coach Pat is in San Fransisco
for spring break, and that means, that we don't have
a crushingly long swim this morning.
(upbeat techno music)
Yeah, Monday was just a scant 2,000, today,
maybe a little longer. 25-ish, relatively,
that's not bad. No orange kickboard?
Go black, next fastest. Wee little swim, and then
I want to show you the assessments to figure out
what exercises you should be doing from Jay Dicharry's
book, "Running Rewired." It's good stuff, really good.
(upbeat techno music)
Nice try, Garmen, not 3250; 2500.
Alright Andrew, do you want to go pose in front
of our picture?
- [Andrew] You should.
- You should. You're on there too. Showing off
your nipples, who does that? So why in the world
would you put these unattractive individuals here?
- [Woman] Do you like it?
- Oh, I love it. I think it's beautiful.
- Really? I have two of them. That's when we do all
of our registration and everything, we put it out.
- And it doesn't scare people off?
- No. I think it's so good, I take it everywhere with me.
- Well, I would too. I don't blame you.
When you're done with them, I would like to put it
above my bedroom.
- Absolutely.
- Good looking poster there guys. I tell you.
She put it at the end of the lane, I had a hard time
concentrating.
Now, let's assess your limiters, like becoming a
better athlete. Short snack.
Okay, before we go inside, look at what Mel brought!
Hey Bud. Haha big earn.
(upbeat techno music)
Let's get you running in a fast, efficient,
and hopefully injury free way.
This, is a book, that I'm not being paid for,
I actually paid for this book.
This is written by Jay Dicharry I mentioned this
just recently. Now I'm going to read you something
from this book here, to explain what it's about.
(throat clear)
There are specific skills that you should have in
your running tool box. The repetitive nature of
running means that many of us take a body that really
doesn't know how to move at its best,
and rack up the mileage.
Through years of repetition, you wire your body
to move one way and run one way.
Then, when someone comes along and tells you
that you need to improve your form,
or move a different way, you simply can't do what
they're saying. You haven't built the muscle memory
to move differently. Even subtle changes to your
running form feel awkward and hard.
You can't help but notice that your form still looks
nothing like that of the Kenyans,
and your times aren't improving.
A lot of runners have conducted this experiment and
failed concluding, that focusing on form
is a waste of time.
Well, there is a better way to run better.
So, essentially, what Jay is saying in this book
is that it's not just a matter of;
let's say somebody saying "Alright, well you need to
strengthen your glutes, or you need to tilt your
pelvis better and lean forward."
I don't know who would have said that.
Just there over the last few weeks.
You actually have to train your muscles
to fire in a different way,
and that's going to be very hard if all you're doing
is thinking about it. You need to rewire
the firing pattern that sends the signals from
your brain to your muscles.
There are seven tests that I'm going to walk you through
right now that are going to basically unlock your ability
to move freely, and then Jay can get you healthy and fast.
So the first test there is no real test for,
it's about are you able to stand upright with a nice
straight back, do you have tightness in your back,
are you slouched forward, do you have tightness in your
chest, and are you impinged there.
And essentially, this test just says, have you had
tightness in your mid back?
This guy really has.
And if you do, then you're not even going to be able
to have good posture on the run.
Now the next test is a hip mobility test,
and he recommends that you do this in a door jam,
but we don't have a door jam here.
And what you do, is you go up to the door jam
on the inside, you make sure this femur is vertical,
and this shin is vertical. You stick your butt
up to the door, put your top back up to the door,
and then you level out your back so that your entire
back is touching the door jam.
And, if you are like me and you have tight hips,
from sitting at a desk for years, you're gonna feel
a really big pull there, at which point, your hip
isn't mobile enough to have that nice fluid running stride.
(groaning)
The bones!
The next test is a test for ankle flexibility.
And what you do in this case, is you go up to a wall,
and you'll do this two times, and twice on each ankle.
First one you do, is you put your toe up to a wall,
and you see if your knee can touch the wall.
I can. Good. Then you move it back about five
centimeters, and you see if you're still able to get
your knee to touch the wall. Do that on both sides,
and if you find that you can't touch the wall without
a serious amount of tightness, you've got calf
tension, and your foot is going to be constantly
fighting that tension, and it's not going to be loose
enough or limber enough to have a nice running stride.
Now the next test is a very simple posture test.
You literally just stand, and see where your weight is
on your feet. Is it on the tip toes?
Is it balanced mid foot? Or is it on your heels?
In my case, it's on my heels, so that means I'm
leaning too far back and I've got to train myself
to lean more forward.
Now this next test should be fun for all of you.
It's a balance test, or a foot mobility test,
and it's to assess how, I guess,
how interactive our foot is with the ground.
Can it adjust to little micro movements in your
balance and in the terrain? For this,
close your eyes, try to balance on one foot,
and this should be hilarious for you all.
Do this for 30 seconds, and then do it with the other foot,
and see if there's a difference
in one foot versus the other.
Now, I'm actually not too bad at that
because as I'm brushing my teeth,
I'm trying to balance on one foot and then the other.
Life hacks, baby!
Now, the next test involves some bare feet.
And if you're wanting to find out if your big toe
has the ability to stabilize your foot strength.
And what you are doing here, is you are seeing
if you can move your big toe down,
and press it into the ground
independently of the other piggies.
You're also going to see if you can move the other
little piggies up independently of the big toe,
and that's going to let you know, basically,
if your big toe is awake and active
and firing well enough to run well.
And the final test is to assess if your kneecap has enough
mobility to move back and forth and not create impingement.
And what you do with this is you bend your leg at about
a ten degree angle, and then you take a theraband,
and you wrap it just above your knee, going up the waist.
And you want this to be nice and tight.
And then once you've got it wrapped a fair ways up,
tuck it in. You do 20 squats,
and then once you've done that,
you take this off, and if you had knee pain before,
but no knee pain after, odds are good that you need
to work on your knee mobility.
And then after doing that, you've got a sense of:
do you even have the mobility to be a good runner?
If you pass all of those tests, good,
go one to some mobility and strengthening and
functioning and form exercises,
but if you don't correct those limiters before
you start thinking about building a form.
And in this book, all of the corrective movements are
in there, and I'll say that in just the week or so
that I've been doing these exercises,
I've found that when I get onto the treadmill I can
feel myself in particular, pushing myself forward
quite a bit more easily, activating those glutes,
and being more stable on my foot,
as apposed to pulling myself with my foot,
which is inefficient, and activating my quads,
which are a smaller muscle group than my badonkadonk.
So I'm a fan, let's try to get Jay on the podcast.
So there you go triathlon trainiacs,
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go check out the triathlon Taren podcast,
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