Day 7 of the challenge. One week down (almost) and so much achieved, believe me well done!
How often do you stop to think about your feet and what they do. Did you ever stop to think that your feet are critical to your balance and keeping you upright…not to mention move you forwards. Many of us as for a number of reasons (shoes being one of them) have become flat footed. This means we don’t have or have lost the natural arch our feet once possessed. This subsequently impacts our feets ability to be effective shock absorbers, and be springy…..necessary for propelling you forward.
The connective tissue called the ‘Fascia’ plays a bigger part than we had imagined in how our bodies work. A common myth is that running requires pure strength only. Rather, ‘spring’ is required just as much to run successfully pain free.
For today’s post I want you to think about some exercises that if performed regularly will help you restore that natural arch. Referred to as some simple toe yoga – lift your big toe without lifting or curling your toes. If you do this in front of the mirror you will see your foot arch. Do this regularly and you will notice that it becomes easier, restoring some of that natural arch. Because we wear shoes so often, and rarely do anything barefoot (except for us Aussies that spend all day in barefoot on the beach) the muscles and sensory points in our feet have become dormant, and long story short they just aren’t that strong.
The other exercise we want you to try is to stand on the ball of one foot (hold onto something to steady your balance), and rotate your knee slightly so the weight is on your big toe. Also known as heel raises. You will also naturally find your toes pronate and spread out to maintain your balance. This motion naturally occurs when you run when weight naturally transfers to the big toe to gain power to propel forward.
GM Update.
Today was a good day. Why? ……I think I got some sleep last night. Yes I know I go on about sleep but it is so important and we are going to continue to go on about it. How good do you feel when you get a good 7-8 hours sleep???💤💤😴
Today I felt pretty good and decided to venture out into the sunshine for a run. Focus today for a sprinter like me was to cover 7km with focus on technique, posture and off course landing – given my natural running style is to run on the balls of my feet. This would involve ensuring that I was landing on the ball off my foot and rotating through the arch to minimise the impact on my knees and hips, and distributing impact as evenly as possible. This in turn would help my cadence and stride length.
The other small change I made was to spread my toes in my shoes (Hokka Cliftons). My shoes have plenty of space for my toes to pronate…..this is important for balance especially through your stride.
What did you notice?
I found that my stride and cadence was far improved. I was covering a greater distance in a shorter amount of time, with my first 1km split – 4.30 minutes. My average time would be 5.19 minutes per km over the entire 7km. This was my first run in some time so this was a considerable improvement on my previous run.
Running takes persistence but requires a regular build up over a period of time. You can’t just go and run a marathon without the appropriate training or conditioning. Running will consist of a variety of different trainings working over different distances. Many of us focus on covering the distance only as opposed to how we improve our mechanics, speed and endurance.
We are still in the early days of the challenge, so we will get into more detail as to our training as we go along. What we have done so far is part of the conditioning regime.
Happy training. Don’t forget to share your own challenges with us or tips / techniques that you find useful in your own challenge. We love hearing from everybody wherever you are.
Find your Titan and don’t give up.
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