You might be one of those people who hates running, but forces yourself to do it because you feel like you should get a good workout in. (A for effort, by the way!) Or you hate doing jumping jacks and squats because you feel like you can’t do them well, but your workout DVD or your personal trainer make you do them to burn more calories. Well, I have a crazy idea: why don’t we get better at these things so we can actually do them well? And maybe, call me crazy, start to even enjoy them?
Step 1: Break it Down
Think about what you do throughout most of your day. What’s the one activity that puts the most strain on your body? Is it your 30 minute to an hour workout? Or is it the 10,000 walking steps you take each day? Each time you take a step, you’re actually putting 2-3 times your body weight in force on your body. Multiply that by 10,000 and geez, you are seriously wearing out those poor bones and aching muscles!
So, if we take that into consideration, let’s stop running, and let’s instead practice walking. Yes, that sounds crazy, but it’s true. If you can’t take your joints and your muscles through the appropriate ranges of motion necessary to walk, let alone pound your feet on the pavement, panting heavily as you attempt to run around the block to burn off that saliva-eliciting brownie you couldn’t resist the night before, perhaps you should take a look at how you walk. Take a look at how you move. Are you moving well?
You’re probably thinking right about now, “What the heck is this girl talking about, I walk all day, I move my body in all sorts of ways! Who are you to tell me I might not be moving right??” Well, chances are, just like myself, you might not even know you’re not moving well, or not moving your body and joints enough at all.
Step 2: Learn to Move, Better.
Walking and squatting might feel fine to you right now, but I challenge you to try to move your ankle in a full circle, as slow as humanly possible, without moving any other part of your body. Go ahead, stand up, hold onto something for balance, and give it a try. A FULL circle, no skipping around, no fast jerking movements, full flexion, full extension. I would bet that you are currently struggling. And are quite baffled as to why you can’t do something so simple.
So if you force yourself to run each morning, cursing every step of the way because it just doesn’t feel good, or if you force yourself to do jumping jacks but your feet feel like they’re going to fall off, why would you ever be so unkind to your body as to force it to do that? To move your ankle in a crazy series of movements in conjunction with other crazy movements, if you can’t even move your ankle all by itself, only your ankle, and nothing else. That just doesn’t make sense, and frankly, it’s quite rude to your body! So take a step back, and learn to do the small stuff first.
How about you think big picture. If you can’t run well, think about slowing it down and breaking the movement apart to get better at running. If you can’t squat well, break that movement apart.
The Golden Rule: Get Good at What You Do
My advice to you: don’t be afraid to seek someone out to help you. You don’t need to invest in a personal trainer. Instead, watch videos on YouTube of athletes who do these things really well. Slow the video down. Pause it. Learn to do things WELL before you do them POORLY. Because your body ALWAYS adapts to EXACTLY what it does. If you do something poorly, your brain will adapt and allow you to get better at doing it POORLY.
So let’s strive for PERFECTION! Be meticulous. Because then you will be able to workout that much better! So please, listen to my advice, as crazy as you think I may be, and do things RIGHT so you can get the RIGHT RESULTS!
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