Gravity Fx Fitness

Could some of your pain and injuries be related to your shoes?

I recently came across an article on Dr. Daniel Howell, a biology professor who hikes and runs without shoes.  He has been running barefoot for almost two years and has been studying the benefits of going shoeless.

He thinks that shoes can contribute to flat feet and fallen arches.  Women who wear high heels comes to mind.  While working in chiropractic and physical therapy clinics, I saw more than one woman with plantarfasciitis, who wore heels all the time.

Men who wear lace-up boots with a decent sized heel are not immune either.  This can lead to tightness in your achilles tendon, over time.  This can also create problems further up the chain, in your knees or hips.

Besides spending time without shoes, you can increase your ankle mobility with some specific measures.

I’ve worn Nike Free’s in the past and noticed a difference in my posture and how I moved.  You use your glutes more when your foot isn’t supported or elevated.

Howell says that it takes a while to toughen your feet for barefoot running and you need to be patient as this process occurs.  He thinks that hiking without shoes is easier to get used to as your skin gets tougher – not quite as abrasive as concrete.

I also recently read some seminar notes from Dr. Shawn Allen.  His presentation on the different types of shoes and how they affect your feet sounds interesting.  The big picture he painted was that the wrong type of shoe for your foot can cause lots of problems.

Some people are now doing their strength training in minimally supportive “shoes”, like the Vibram five fingers, in order to strengthen the foot and lower leg.

If you would like more info on running barefoot, go to barefootrunner.org.  I think you might find it interesting.

Brian Morgan

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Are you training for anything specific?  Someone asked me this yesterday as they saw me dragging some of my equipment to the abandoned tennis court where I like to get some outdoor workouts.

“I’m just an old guy trying to stay young,”  I replied.  Specifically, I want to feel youthful, energetic, and strong for as long as I live – and the way that I do that is by working intensely with full body movements.

This keeps my lean muscle tissue at a decent level and thus, my metabolism elevated.  I also focus on flexibility and mobility work to keep my joints healthy and minimize the risk of injury.

There are no guarantees in life but you can be sure if you don’t “work at living,” as Jack LaLanne says, you will probably feel old and rundown no matter what your chronological age.  I’ve had my share of injuries from playing sports and lifting weights with poor posture, but I got to admit, I feel no different physically than I did 15 years ago, and I’m in my 40’s.

So what did I do yesterday to “train for a lifetime?”  I did some more rope work, after some stretching and warmup with the resistance bands.  I also did some stair climbing with the sandbags and some kettlebell swings.

I’ve also been doing plenty of upper body stability work to help keep my chronic shoulder injuries from acting up…. and its working!  Bottom line – there are some things out of your control, but if you don’t work at staying young, you give up your say in the matter.

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So what makes flex band resistance bands a great tool for core training?  Simple, every exercise becomes a “core exercise!”

Whether you are doing push/pull exercises in a standing position or some type of agility training, it stresses your midsection.  Instead of isolating your abs by doing crunches on the floor, you force your abs and back muscles to stabilize your spine while you are training your upper or lower body.

When doing a 1 arm pressing or rowing move you put a lot of stress on your obliques, strengthening your core in the process.  You are training all these muscles from every possible angle.

So whether you want flat abs, more yards on your golf drive, or a more athletic body, these resistance bands will get the job done.  They help to teach all your muscles to work together more efficiently.

Besides gaining a body that looks good and performs better, you achieve all this in the least amount of time spent – meaning a quicker, more efficient workout.

Training with them allows you to get more bang for your buck because they eliminate the need to do that 15 minutes abs class, then do seperate weight training and so on.

In most work or sports situations you are on your feet, so by training on your feet you will teach your abs to work with your upper and lower body.  It doesn’t matter how much force your legs can produce if your core can’t properly stabilize your spine.

Most of the time your midsection remains still or moves very little, while everything above or below is moving.  If you don’t care about being more athletic than you will enjoy the fact that the bands will flatten your midsection while spending the least amount of time exercising.

I personally like to combine them with sandbag exercises to hit them with plenty of intensity.  When you are pushing a band that provides 50-75 pounds of pressure, you have the same amount of resistance pulling you backwards.

This really trains all your muscles to work together as a unit – very efficient.

For more info on flex bands go to Resistance Band Training.

Get moving!

Brian

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