Aligned Athlete

The Superhero’s Conundrum

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I saved the world yesterday. It’s true. Without a cape, mask, or neatly coordinated color scheme, without a sidekick, nifty gadgets, or getaway car I saved the world. And here’s the thing…no one knows it. Everyone woke up, brewed their coffee, checked their phones, took their showers, or whatever it is that people do in the morning time, and continued on with their day like it was any other day. No one got down on their knees and looked up with tears in their eyes praising the Almighty that the world was still there. No one savored every sip of their coffee like it was a miracle. No one stopped to appreciate that breathing is a beautiful thing and not to be taken for granted. It was just another day hustling to get the kids out the door to school or get off to work in time or convince yourself to stop slapping the snooze button.

Ok, I didn’t really save the world. Or did I? How do you know one way or the other? If I saved the world it’s still here just like before, no different. Unless you were there for the action-packed cinematic superhero extravaganza (or perhaps it was a lot less fantastic than that) whereupon I saved the world you wouldn’t know that it even happened. This is a conundrum. Destruction is the only thing that can be proved. Prevention is elusive, not provable, slips through our fingers when we try to hold it.

In my Structural Therapy practice, after helping someone to heal from injury, I often counsel that prevention is the best strategy. Don’t wait for injury again and then set about healing it, prevent it. Check in daily with conscious stretching and movement, come in for Structural Therapy treatments or some other good bodywork at the very least seasonally for a tune-up, use your body well staying true to alignment and biomechanics, eat well, etc. Don’t wait for it to come to you and pile up until you can’t ignore it anymore; instead, deal with it ahead of time.

Healing from injury is frustrating in one sense because sometimes there is fear that it might never heal, there is pain and discomfort, and there is a time period where your life is altered because it prevents you from doing certain activities. The strange thing is that healing from injury can be easier in some ways than prevention. As you heal from injury you get to observe measurable progress, notice an increase in range of motion and a decrease in pain, and experience a return of your life as your ability to do certain activity returns. Whereas when you prevent injury it’s the same as it was before- yesterday you weren’t injured and today you’re still not injured.

Did the stretches and exercise prevent it? You can’t prove it. Don’t let that stop you. If the superhero decided to slack off on saving the world because no one would know it even happened the comic book would read as a tragedy.

Create an environment that’s favorable for what you want and unfavorable for what you don’t want. Be proactive. Save the world.

Sea Turtle Tactics

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More than a decade ago I spent some time living in the jungle of Hawaii. The shack we lived in was right on the big ocean side of the island. Waves collided into the sharp black lava rock exploding rhythmically and there was a perch I sat on that was like the bow of a ship where you could survey the scene. One day I went with a group to a fifty foot cliff. One by one we jumped off into the roughest part of the sea. It was my turn. Jumping was not easy but it turned out that it was the easiest part. Once in the cold salty swells I realized that my identity as a “good swimmer” was suddenly false. I was a good swimmer in pools or lakes. I was not a good swimmer here. The ocean rocked me up and down in its gigantic swells and my perfect swimming pool freestyle barely moved my position. Then I remembered the sea turtles. Earlier while surveying the ocean I had noticed the sea turtles. They seemed so calm. The ocean rocked them up and down, up and down. They didn’t seem to mind or even have an agenda. But then I noticed that if they wanted to get somewhere they just waited for the right moment. Within the swells there was a sweet spot. They would expend their energy in the sweet spot working with the ocean’s natural tendency and then rest waiting for the next sweet spot. I had been swimming against the entire ocean’s force trying to win; of course I wasn’t going anywhere. I calmed my desperate swimming and waited. I let the ocean rock me up and then down in its swells. Once I had the rhythm I waited until the next sweet spot and then swam until the ocean was pushing against me again. I repeated this until I made it to shore exhilarated and not nearly as exhausted as I would have been if I had just blindly pushed regardless of timing.

Be like the sea turtle. Work with your environment instead of against it. Work with the inner environment of your body. Listen to it’s message. Push when it’s time. Slow it down when it’s time. Move with your heartbeat and breath instead of against them. Work with the outer environment of the terrain and weather. Hot, humid, cool, crisp, cold, freezing, warm, raining, mist, rocky, flat, soft, hard, uphill, downhill, roots, pavement, grass, ….move accordingly.

Combine the information from your inner and outer environment and shape yourself to the moment.

This is how to avoid short term and long term injury when you run. This is how you enjoy a run. Believe it or not, this has the potential to make you more powerful and faster as well. Careful, though, because if you’re too focused on the power and speed you’ll be too distracted to be aware of the sweet spot.

Slap, slap, slap the tired runner’s feet slap the pavement. Can’t hear it because earphones blast upbeat music, can’t feel it because the monotony of flat ground and unchanging speed gives very little feedback, can’t change it because….wait, this doesn’t have to be this way.

What would happen if we stepped outside the runner’s box? What if we allowed ourselves to do whatever we felt like while running?… even if it meant not running. If you’re tired and you don’t feel like running, walk. If you’re walking and it’s a down hill slope that looks like it would be fun to run, run. If you see a root or rock that might call out to jump off of, jump. If you feel like grabbing that smooth beach tree and spinning around it, spin. If you want to lie in the bed of moss, lie in the bed of moss. Sing, scream, huff, puff, be silent, listen to your breath, talk, cry, laugh, grunt, hum, run, walk, jump, lie down, jump up, crawl, roll….do anything but the same old thing over and over again without variety. If we allow variety we will wake up on our runs. We will notice our body and it’s response to terrain. There is a natural tendency for us to move. We flow according to the terrain. We need freedom to do this, though. We need to free ourselves from the chains of pace. There are moments of jogging, stream line running, long stride walking, short stride walking, explosions, fast jog, slow motion. If we do this, free ourselves to variety, something curious happens. We begin to listen. Heartbeat and breath become something more than just an obstacle to surmount or strengthen; they become the music that propel our steps. Muscles tell when it’s time to let up and when it’s time to pick it up and fly. We begin to collaborate with our body’s messages instead of plug our ears and ignore them. Something amazing can happen if we collaborate with our own self. We begin to have some kind of fun. If running or walking is fun we are naturally curious about what happens next. Awareness rushes in. We notice and enjoy the terrain. We adapt to the differences of uphill and downhill. We are more likely to notice that interesting tree up ahead or that mushroom on the ground. We are more likely to feel a fast car approaching behind and get off to the side in time.

What if you’re training for a race or getting in shape for a particular sport? Here’s the big secret. Not only does listening to terrain and your body and freeing yourself from pace make it more fun it also can make it more effective.

It’s not a fight; it’s a sync. If you want to push, by all means push. Just push at the right time. Push with it not against it. I’ve worked with gold medalist Olympic athletes, phenomenal musicians, etc.. They all have a common goal – performance. Peak performance is a high; it’s a sweet spot. Those chill sea turtles are rock stars/ gold medalists of their own sort. They are hitting the sweet spot over and over again. Be like the sea turtle. Listen, prepare, wait, and then hit it.

To gain your future goal – be in the moment.

Obstacles

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Now that the dust has settled and the Obstacle Course Race is finished I’m in the grind of day to day life.  Three kids are feeling like twenty in moments partly because the moment I have a system figured out..poof…they change.  Just like that, and suddenly all my tricks of the daddy trade are worthless.  While I’m developing new tricks the show must go on.  The dinner must be made, the kids need to be kept alive, the diaper must be changed, their souls must be nourished and supported….easy right?  Then there’s the horses, farm animals, gardens, building the hoop house before fall, securing 4 cords of wood before fall, my Structural Therapy practice, my wife’s work….It’s very easy to say I don’t have time.  I don’t have time to walk several miles, I don’t have time to do restorative exercise, I don’t have time to be good and true to my body.  But just as the dust of one obstacle course race is settling the new obstacle course becomes apparent.  The obstacle course that is everywhere all of the time.

For example, the garlic needs to be harvested.  I have the three kids and very little time this morning before I have to get out the door.  Have you ever tried to get out the door in time with kids?  If you haven’t you should watch this so you can share in the laugh…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQfylQ2Jgg

In the past I might give up at the sight of such an obstacle and wait until I had more time.  The thing is, there’s never enough time.  Now is the time.  This calls for a good old Jedi mind trick….  This is not a chore, this is not a chore,  this is….presto… an opportunity.
What I did was bring the kids scattered energy out to the garden.  I gave the oldest the job of shooting pictures and the younger two a mixture of made up dirt digging jobs and some real tasks.  I used the garlic harvesting as an opportunity to explore alignment
….the difference between the hunched shape of someone stressed out in a time crunch

and someone harvesting good alignment as well as garlic.  Good alignment meaning untucking my butt, lowering my rib cage, keeping my lower leg vertical…

It peeked the kid’s curiosity.  Now I had the two oldest harvesting with me.

The garlic was harvested in no time.  Truth be told, I could harvest the garlic solo faster.  I’m not solo, though, and if you add up the inevitable interruptions that would have happened if I was trying to keep them occupied with something else while I harvested it might not have been faster.  They also wouldn’t have gotten the joy of pulling such bounty up from the ground.

Getting out the door in time…well that wasn’t quite as smooth.

Meet The Trainers

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My kids climb, jump, and swing on everyday things…. chairs, stairs, trees, rocks, railings, tables, dad.  The way they relate to furniture, buildings, people, nature, is downright creative.  Kids can see through walls, climb through holes, design elaborate worlds using space in an original way.

We recently put up ropes and rings in our house.  My 5 year old daughter has built up strength and coordination at lightning speed.  Within a week or two she was climbing the rope 10ft up to the collar tie and swinging confidently.  Soon she was doing flips while holding the rings and swinging on the ropes upside down, lifting her whole body weight up to get her feet and legs in the rings and swinging with the grace of a trapeze artist.

She’s now inventing movements with the two ropes that make it look easy and suggest she has the ability to fly.  She swings in circles holding the rope with one hand.  She swings from rope to rope like a monkey.  She’s identified her left hand as the weaker one and is actively working on it.  All this without a single instruction.

My 2 year old son was hanging from the ropes and rings after a week.  Within 2 weeks he was swinging and within a month it was full swings with his legs straight and higher than his head.

We just put the ropes and rings up.  They figured the rest out.

Child trainers aren’t focused on reps, end goals, theory, or numbers.  They are consumed in play.  I mean consumed.  There is nothing else.  They play hard.  Within that play they adapt.  They figure it out.  They evolve.

At first when I couldn’t find a map of the Bone Frog Challenge and clear descriptions of the obstacles I was discouraged.  I didn’t know how to train for something unknown.  After hanging with my kids on the ropes I went on a trail run.  The spontaneity must have been contagious because I found myself high up in a tree without having planned it.  And just like that… the unknown has become fun.   I’ve been taking their lead.

My 3 month old son’s training sessions are perhaps the most intense.

His efforts at rolling, lifting his head, learning to cling when I hold him, and balance are more subtle and completely profound.  Not only do I infuse some of this into my warm up and stretching but he’s challenging me to figure out alignment while holding a baby.  Then there are the moments of holding the baby, helping another kid, and cooking a meal all at the same time.  A domestic gym of sorts.

Finish Line

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There was a rock band, a DJ, a crowd, an announcer with a microphone, nerves, excitement, fear….and then we’re off.  The minute the crowd is out of sight we encounter the first obstacle- the mountain.  There is disbelief, there is awe, and then there is reality.  The mountain is not going away.  It will be with us the whole way through.  The music warbles in the distance as we work our way farther up.  Leg muscles burn, breathing in gasps, my mind revolts…

The obstacles, scattered all over the mountain, were made of hefty timbers dug into the ground, timber locked, bolted, and braced.  They used thick boat worthy rope, high quality wire, heavy metal bars…it was solid construction.  The SEALs that stood ready at every obstacle were clear spoken and encouraging.  Each obstacle challenged me in a different way.  One of the most difficult ones involved swinging from handles hanging on rope at different heights.  I had to sustain my body weight with one arm and gain momentum enough to reach the next one at a different height.  It didn’t help that some of the handles had slipped into a vertical position.  I barely made it across, throwing myself toward the finish and landing with a roll to disperse the fall.  Another obstacle involved balancing on a wet log to make it to a cargo net suspended over a pond.  A gigantic fan sprayed mist at us while we had to traverse the cargo net and then either drop into the pond and swim across or climb across on a guy wire.  I decided to try the guy wire.  In hindsight it would probably have been most effective to throw my feet up on the wire in front of me in order to disperse my weight.  Instead I was hanging from my hands with my full body weight below.

There were monkey bars 2′ apart that scaled up and then down rafters.

There was a deceivingly tall hurdle covered in tires.  If you hit it too low the tires would roll you back from whence you came.

Rope was for swinging, climbing, traversing…

At a certain point I realized that I was alone.  I was leading the pack by a good distance.  It wasn’t until about the last quarter of the race that I sprang a wicked leg cramp that had my toes curling.  It brought me to my butt literally.  I sat on the gravel and worked my leg until it went away (using an impromptu version of Structural Therapy…a type of bodywork/ massage/ physical therapy that is my path and career.  It worked; I was up and moving again.  That leg cramp was a blessing in disguise.  It slowed me down and soon I came across several other people cramping.  I performed several brief treatments.  The treatments were muddy impromptu sessions but they seemed to work.  I was now seeing the race in an entirely different way.  It wasn’t about getting a good time.  It was about finishing and helping people along the way.  At a particular obstacle that required us to jump from stump to stump there was a spot that was slightly out of range for a group of bone froggers.  I stood at a strategic stump to lend a helping hand.

My wife and kids were waiting for me at the last obstacle…the fire.  Leaping over fire I put on a show of flying followed by somersault down the hill.  A few more strides and I was through the finish line.  There were kind old men, retired SEALs, there to knight me with a metal and a handshake.

Now that I’ve met the challenge the sky is limit.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the folks that made it possible…

My wife:
Her champagne laughter can bubble into the deepest depression infecting it with humor.  She’ll lay down the law and break the law all in the same day.  She’s a rock.  She’s a storm.  She’s the calm.  She’s my love.
Without her support I wouldn’t have been able to do this.  She has my back and to that I am grateful.

My trainers:
My kids have challenged me in ways I couldn’t have invented.  They love me and teach me beyond my previous capabilities.

The Navy SEALs:
As a boy I looked up to the SEALs as the baddest of them all.  We would tell stories of the SEALs in the flicker of the campfire.  They were legend.

I may not glorify war the way I did as a boy but the SEALs definitely lived up to legend and then some.  They not only designed an awesome obstacle course but they were well organized and gentlemen about it the whole time.

Billy the dog:
My dog Billy ran along side of me for most of my training never complaining and always ready to fetch sticks, chase deer, or race me in a sprint.

In the end I got soaked, muddy, bloody, and brought to my own limitations.  There were ropes, monkey bars, cargo nets, barbed wire, tires, walls… It was an adult jungle gym.  It was a labyrinth of coordination, perseverance, fitness, guts, strategy, and pace.

Travel

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Surrounded by twisting branches, jagged cliffs, protruding roots….the idea of a perfectly flat surface is aloof…unreal.  There are no level pull up bars, level and parallel dip bars, flat moving treadmills, or TV screens placed neatly in front of me to distract me from what I’m doing.

The thing is…I don’t want to be distracted.  I don’t want it level and parallel.  I want asymmetry.  I want function.  Pulling myself up over and over again on a level bar is far less exhilarating and true to the purpose of my body than climbing a tree.  When I climb a tree the branches typically grow up toward the light but often have twists and turns.  They are marked, sometimes rough, sometimes smooth, at times with moss; they are survivors.  They have adapted to changes in the forest light and survived violent storms.  I climb each tree differently keeping my eye out for dead or dying branches that might break.  I generally keep close to the trunk because I can trust it more than the branches not to break.  I work upward taking time to get a good grip and involving as much of my body as possible.  There are moments when I propel myself upward with only upper body and core strength but those are the exception and only because there wasn’t a branch or ridge in the trunk for my feet.

And then there’s the view.  After 30 pull ups in a gym you’re still looking at that TV screen and inhaling the stench of people hustling to pack their entire day of movement into 60 minutes.  After a tree climb you’re high above the trail viewing the landscape from a fresh perspective.  After an hour of walking or running on the treadmill you’re still in front of a TV.  After a trail run you’ve traveled, felt the variety of terrain, caught the smell of pine needles warming in a patch of sun, muddied your shoes, stuffed wild raspberries in your gob, torn your skin on brambles, broken through spider webs as though they were a finish line.

I push back to go forward when I walk.  I push down to go up when I climb.  I do a pull up to get higher.  I push back to go further.

If I deny myself these basics I’m fooling my mind and body.  I need to work out, yes.  I need to work honestly, though.  No cheating,  no zoning out in repetition without context, no watching television to distract from the sensation.  This is the original work out.  This is travel.

p.s.If you want further detail on the biomechanics of treadmill vs real walking check out Katy Bowman.  Her blog post http://www.alignedandwell.com/katysays/junk-food-walking/#sthash.nMd3wL4l.dpbs nails it.

Need more evidence….press play

Here Goes Nothing

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Why write a blog? Do we need another blog? Aren't there enough already?

The same questions can be asked of books….why write another book? Does the world need another book?

It can be asked about music, plays, movies, etc.

As much as a Shakespearean play will resonate for centuries with people it is also true that we crave something fresh, hot off the press. There is nothing new under the sun and yet every moment is new, entirely unique.

Here goes nothing…nothing at all.

I am a dude, a father of three, a Structural Therapist, a farmer, an ex carpenter, a black sheep. I am off the grid, my kids are off the charts, my kids explode my mind and soul daily, I am on a tangent, in a groove, out of the rut, I feel it in the gut, try to put it to words, come out with it pursed on my lips, stumble and knock the wind out of me, and it escapes as a grunt, something it wasn't meant to be. Please bear with me. I have a lot to learn.

Recently I decided to begin training for an obstacle running race. It's called the Bone Frog Challenge and it's happening just down the road from me at Berkshire East in Charlemont, MA. I've never raced in anything like it. I've been tempted by the tough mudder but tempted and doing it are two separate things. I posted that I would be running the bone frog in order feel the pressure and commitment that comes with a public announcement.

Not easy. After years of being on FB it's was my second status ever. The first one being a cartoon where a kid asks his Grandfather…"tell me again about how you let your freak flag fly." Drastically different posts. I resist posting because I have too many sides. Never the less, it worked. I successfully committed myself to the race and began training.

How do I train? These obstacle runs feel like a fairly new phenomenon. In fact, the popularity of running feels new. I remember being a freak in high school because I would run up to 20 miles. I wasn't racing. I was surviving. It was the only sound way of finding the space I needed to grow. I stopped running, though, for close to two decades. Last year I began dabbling and now with the bone frog ahead I'm falling in step with a familiar rhythm.

How do I train for the obstacles? I need an upper body condition in dynamic equilibrium with my lower body. I need to be able to overcome the unpredictable obstacle. I want to run up to the obstacle, overcome it, and continue running again in a seamless manner.

Hold on…dynamic equilibrium? Back up, slow down, wait a second, just a minute. What is that? It's one thing to say something like that. I can say it all I want and still never come near it. Talk is cheap. How do I actually achieve it? Is there a website? Is it for sale? I think not. I think, instead, it can only be achieved through a deep physical, mental, and spiritual integrity. I will not be finding this in a bottle. It won't be in a pill. There is no particular formula. There is work. There is honest work. Physical work that brings me to my knees, to my elbows, to my wrists, to my hands, to my feet, up into the trees, on to the mountain top, in the mud, in the swamp, through the fields, across the river, to my senses. And there I will meet the mind and I will meet the soul. There in the dirt I will have an opportunity. Will I take it?