Machines suck!

Machines suck! That is all.

Musings on Barefoot Running (and training) Part 3

Everything I discuss in this article is centered around a barefoot conditioned physiology although it has some bearing for shod training.

Kinda.

Walking is what we all do before we run and walking can play a big part in rounding off any training regime. I do not mean clomping around the city running errands but more like a walking meditation. Walking only at a speed that you can fully control, meaning that our pronation is clean and supports the knee, the pendulum of the legs is smooth, the rotation in the torso, sway of the shoulders and arms are timed and calibrated to length of the stride and vice versa.

When a violinist draws the bow across the strings there is a relationship of friction, speed  and placement that takes place. The more accomplished the player generally the better they are at combining these elements to control the vibration of the string and subsequently which frequencies are chosen for prominence based upon their aesthetic beauty in the context of the piece of music.

If you take walking a path as your piece of sheet music this makes sense, you want the deepest understanding possible of your walk and the way this happens is by allowing it (the path, the walk/run, your piece of music) to build upon itself creating its own context and meaning. Basically by building complimentary archetypal relationships the same way a painter paints, a writer writes or a composer composes.

The point of walking in a very clean form is the exact same as the string control for a musician. We need to control the body's frequency (which is generated by the gait at which we walk) in the same way the musician needs to maintain control of the string. If we move succinctly (not too hot not too cold is a good colloquialism for this) we can walk without losing kinetic energy which leads to being able to create more amplitude and just the right frequency. Which simply results walking and running further and faster without exhausting ourselves while simultaneously building capacity for movement and expenditure which will allow one to walk and run further and faster without exhausting ourselves.

Hows that for fucking circuitous? Its no small shit that basically every culture ever has had an affinity for the circle.

Immediately upon realising this I began to get the results in my runs that I have been wanting which is namely running further faster through better control of my body by envisioning this concept of the body resonating like a bowed string. Our bodies are proportioned in a manner that is approximate to many other plants and animals as well as the harmonic series of a vibrating string (golden ratio). I find this concept plays straight through all of my training that involves me having my feet on the ground (closed kinetic chain ).

Poor control and "ramming" breaks strings and destroys bodies. I have experienced, seen and see the evidence of this everyday.

The only way that I have been able to get to this point of functional visualization was by slowing down and walking so that the movements are easier to "see". Once again to use the analogy of the bow, one does not grip, grab or hold a bow. The more accurate term is that one mounts a bow, the fingers sit atop the stick and the thumb lightly presses the stick into place against the fingers creating a hinge point behind the balance point, if you grab a bow in a strangle hold it will not only sound like ass but the player will literally gas out during performances. I feel that the process of walking (and running) can be rationalised the same way. The outer edge of the foot and fourth and third toe are placed on the ground first and the foot rolls into place across to the big toe which creates the pressure to balance the foot to deliver the mechanical energy up the leg and through the body. We mount the ground with our feet, there are exceptions of course but overall this is the optimal process. All for the same reasons as our hypothetical musician, to control the frequencies of the string length (the human kinetic chain) to generate the perfect frequency and amplitude for the task at hand.

In this case we can almost be described as an auto-stimulated and self regulated wave length.

Yonge st 10k and the fate of Foreign Objects

 So, first off I have deleted the Foreign Objects post until I can re-write it. I was honestly in the midst of really not feeling very well and rather in a brain fog. I re-read the post yesterday and as a result feel that it really wasn't lucid enough so...from the title I bet you thought it was going to be one of those awkward political rants about "immigrants" didn't you! 

(sounds of laughter and knee slapping)

Enough of that let's get on to something a little more fun.

 I run fairly regularly, on average 16 k at a time, but have never gone and taken part in a large scale public run before. My first ever marathon was the 2013 Yonge St 10k here in Toronto. I. HAD. A. BLAST. I ran it the spirit of a fun run taking 53 minutes to complete the course. I think if I had poured on some speed I would have completed in under 45 minutes but honestly I was far more into enjoying the view running down a car free Yonge St with over 6000 of my buddies.

 I maintain a very typical barefoot runners form. Straight back and neck with relaxed, mobile shoulders and hips. The similarities between my unshod, minimalist and shod runners were most apparent in impact as judged by the quality of noise that the runners were making. I definitely freaked out a couple people as I passed because they couldn't hear me. I needed to be sure to make some deliberate noise (y'know, bit of finger snapping and throat clearing before delivering my "back on the left") so that I didn't freak anyone out on the course as I went by.

 Overall I noticed a strong and positive sense of esprit de coeur. It was also really fun to have the "gazelles" come bounding out of the crowd to come have a little talk and a laugh about running with and without shoes  in Canada with its kaleidoscope weather.  Oh gazelles you make me smile still. 

This is it, the conclusion. 

Run lightly and compassionately with respect for the environment and people around you. When in doubt pull off your shoes, get off your ass and go out and run and hike with others as it is our nature.

Barefoot Moe!

Hey all,

Just wanted to write up a quick post on a training session I had with barefoot Moe who has a great blog over at http://barefootplanet.org/. It was really a lot of fun to engage with Mauricio as he is a very open and gregarious guy with a great outlook on life. This is of course coupled with the barefoot experience that he has made the training session a dream.

Usually when I start out with a new client I need to run through a series of assessments to ascertain their level of movement and stability as everything I do is based around these concepts. Mauricio barely needed anything in this regard. In an earlier social meeting he had mentioned flat feet and his subsequent treating of the condition by simply getting rid of the shoes that were creating the disorder to begin with. I was watching when I first loaded him up with the kettlebells and I could tell straight off that from his time barefooting that everything scapula down just needed to be loaded and "woken up" a little. Through the course of our conversation I think I have been left with a good clear idea of what his goals are and how to get him there. I sincerely feel that Mauricio is going to go much further than he suspects as his body awareness and natural "springiness" give him a great base to work from.

Hey Mauricio, get ready buddy you're going to have an ass kicking summer!

Mauricio is a great sport and we definitely loaded and woke up his posterior chain and with some club work his scapula and shoulder joints opened right up as well. Mauricio's time with dance and massage therapy have provided him with good insight into the body as a simple extension or composite with consciousness. This also led us into some interesting conversations around our body's and our body's as a focus for moral judgement.

Mauricio, like most other barefooters I have met, has had some issues with with well intentioned, but misguided, security staff and business owners who feel that there is some sort of by-law in place against barefeet in public places. I would like to assure everyone reading this that unless you are in a dangerous environment (construction site for example) no one has the right to demand that you leave because of your barefeet. There has never been a law of this sort in North America and the only reason that this persists is because of a moral panic that took place in the 60's to keep the hippies away and subsequently has been fed by individuals with a stake in continuing the myth.

To anyone reading this who has, or does, enforce this sort of thing you need to be aware that you are violating peoples human rights and engaging in an embarrassingly outdated form of discrimination. Not to mention the complete lack of reason that this sort of thing exposes as an individual without shoes is far less likely to lose their balance or slip and fall. In terms of hygiene I have no idea how a person with barefeet is "dirty". This again shows the aforementioned lack of reason due to the simple reason that those without shoes are conscious of the state of the soles of their feet. If I am wearing boots I don't care what I track around here and there, the complete opposite is in effect without them. The worst that I seem to track around is a little sweat and anytime I notice a nice dry warm patch of earth I give my feet a little dirt bath on the bottom to clean them up and protect them a little. The research that I have done shows no danger of contracting anything more than a pain free back and overall sense of wellbeing. This contrasted against the fact that people tromp around with dog shit on the soles of their shoes fairly makes my point.

I can feel myself beginning to get a little off the farm so until next time Gadget, next time. 

  

Situational Training Pt.2

    

The first that I heard of this concept was when I was a kid working as a flooring installer with my father on a military base in the prairies. As a matter of course we would get our carpet in massive rolls like you would see in the machines in the flooring departments of larger hardware stores. We would then have to cut off "drops" of material for the different sized rooms. The biggest challenge was to find areas large enough for this practice and the only suitable spots were often parking lots.

In summer or winter the first order of business would be to thoroughly sweep the lot clear of any debris that might dirty the material, not a small job in itself. This all done two people would push the roll out the back of the truck and two more people would pull the roll the rest of the distance so that it fell flat along its length so we didn't damage the material. Next came the cutting and re rolling of the smaller cut offs and reloading them into the truck. Keep in mind this is all in the freezing cold (or alternatively caught in a heat wave, 30 c and up) with a roll of carpet that has a starting weight of roughly a 1000 lbs. Oh, and just to keep you on your toes in the winter the backing of the carpet was frozen stiff giving it the texture of a file and edges that cut like a serrated knife...

But hey, at least you can't bleed on the material in the winter as the blood simply freeze over.

The soldiers began to ask me about the work and were constantly referring to this thing called Situational awareness that I think I likely thought was just soldiers telling random tales. Until I began to notice how quickly people get derailed by their lack of observation, which leads to a lack of adaptation, to their environments.

 I have spent time with people who show levels of situational awareness that almost seem supernatural. These folks are, of course, NOT displaying supernatural abilities and because of this it is all the more impressive. Its simply a matter of being "free", if the will is free the result is a blended notion of personhood, the complete human animal devoid of intersecting lines between mind, body and whatever else can be dreamed up to cut us to pieces.

 Magicians use this sort of ability to read the crowd and to play on the average attention span to influence an audience's perceptions of the events on stage. If the attentive span is properly judged by the performer an individual's attentional window then becomes influenced resulting in the aforementioned changes in perception. The easiest example of this sort of manipulation is in the old joke of telling someone they have a spot on their shirt and then tapping their nose. For the *"joke"* to work the best the persons attention needs to be properly manipulated and there attentional window fixed on the illusionary spot.

 We can use these kinds situational abilities in our physical training by utilising closed chain kinetic exercises in a variety of conditions. As the overall malleability of the self increases we begin to be able to manipulate our own attention spans and attentional window, thus allowing us the freedom to perceive events as they are rather than how we project them to be. The best part of this for me has been to realise that a lot of our perceptions about pain or what is painfull are way off base and actually quite damaging in themselves.

 Thus my swinging a kettlebell in lake Ontario in -5c barefoot and up to my shins in water. It was cold and the footing was not what could be called stable. As I swung I was actually sinking into the lake bed and having to really manipulate feet to be sure that I could recover should I came across something sharp. Or as happened in a couple of cases I broke through a hard layer of ice and into softer lakebed below. The beauty of it was the challenge of maintaining my footing while still "taming the arch" while running through two handed hard swings to soft style one handed swings, clean and press and finally to move to the snatch.

 I have worked and trained in a myriad of different settings through the years and as a result when I was in the lake my situational awareness did its thing for me. As I had no shoes I ALWAYS knew where my balance was or where it was going (look here Centre of Pressure) . I also knew as a matter of course which direction to fall or toss the kettlebell should I lose my balance during a swing or fixation phase. Physically for me this was easy to "crush" but the central nervous system load was beyond belief. I gassed twice in less than the space of 20 minutes from the cns load and knew it was time to step back.

I suspect that there will be many parts to this series.

See you all next time.

*As an aside if you use that "joke" you're an asshole. If its in the past and never touched again for the shame of being an asshole, you're fine. If you use it as a matter of course and as a way of "making friends and influencing people", you're an asshole and nothing except not being an asshole will take that away.

Pinion and Press

I wanted to write up a little piece on one of the best exercises that I have ever been taught.

Pinion and Press.

 The movement is as follows, lay face down on the floor in a push up position. Next step is one push-up with the best form that you can muster, stop at the bottom of the movement, fixate, then push off with your hands so that you rotate your body to the right.. While in rotation you will need to bend at the waist until you are in a seated position with your your back vertical with your legs straight out in front of you. Next step is to rotate back to the start position, repeat the series, only this time rotate in the other direction to a seated position.

Sounds simple right?

 Well, the devil is in the details. In order to complete this movement cleanly you will need to have a very good sense of where you are in space to capitalize on the rotation correctly. Bracing in the form of the arms being back on the floor in the seated position is likely at first. The goal is still a clean movement dependent upon the transfer of rotational movement with hands in front of your sternum at the top of the movements.

 The pinion and press has a multitude of real world uses that has kept me coming back again and again. By real world I mean slipping on the ice and recovering so that you land on your feet rather than... well anywhere else. I have noticed the benefits with traditional lathe and plaster style work as it promotes healthy energy transfer and believe me, if you start to just grind through a wall's worth of plaster you are going to be unemployable really fast. The biggest reward has to have been carrying sheet material, plywood and drywall. Each sheet is four feet by eight feet and vary from 30 lbs up 140 lbs's, not a huge amount of weight until you take into account that each sheet has 32 square feet of surface area effectively making it a sail. If you get hit by a gust of wind while carrying these materials you have to have the rotational strength and control, meaning from the feet up to the hips and shoulders, to right yourself confidently. I could go on and on about other real world applications but I think that likely I have communicated the kind of base that results .

 The pinion and press can be a bit of a bear to get together at first, and it is deceptively intense, but more than worth the rewards that are reaped.

 My recommendation is to start easy. 3 sets, 2 reps per set. As you begin to develop a cleaner technique increase reps but don't charge off and do a bunch, There is a lot more going on with this movement series than meets the eye. The deep core activation and central nervous system loads are pretty substantial and I've found that anytime I've been away from the pinion and press I need to take my time and build into it.

As is always the case please feel free to drop a comment.

Comments Section Now Functional!

If anyone has read my earlier posts they will know that I am new to the blogosphere (is that even still a term?). Anyway this is just a quick post to say that comments section is good to go and anyone who wishes to get a conversation going can "have at it"!