Run Like A Woman Challenge - Day 2

It’s Day 2!  Just the fact that you are here means that you are an ACTION TAKER, and if there’s anything I know from all my years of coaching - Action Takers get results! Just showing up and being willing to try something new is the best first step to achieve anything in your life.  

Remember: 

Strong over skinny. 

Building over losing. 

DAY 2:  IMPROVE MOVEMENT QUALITY

As runners, it’s easy to get caught up in the quantity game…what distance are you running? What’s your pace? What race are you training for? 

Let’s face it - running can be a numbers game for a lot of people. 

It’s easy to focus on quantities, but how often do you think about the QUALITY of your running?

Have you ever considered the quality of your movement? 

If you’re like most of the people I start working with, the answer is likely no.

Most runners just focus on the numbers, thinking that if they want to be a better runner, they just have to improve the obvious measureables.

But like you’ve started to discover, this challenge is different. 

Starting today, you are going to get one mobility test per day to help you assess the QUALITY of your movements.

It’s not just about whether or not you can complete the test. We want to look at HOW your body is moving.

So for each test, notice how your body moves. 

Is it easy or hard to perform the movement? 

Where do you feel limited?

Does one side feel different than the other? 

You will also get an action item to help you start to improve your mobility. These will include things to improve the mobility of both your joints and your soft tissue. 

ACTION ITEMS: 

1. Perform the overhead squat test as shown here in this video.  I recommend recording yourself performing the test so you can go back and analyze it. Film yourself from the front, from the side, and from the back.

This test is going to reveal if there are mobility restrictions in several areas of your body. I’ll be talking about those in the live training today, as well as what to do about them. 

2. Check out this short video to assess your soft tissue mobility in your calves and learn a very effective technique to remove those restrictions.

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Don't forget: The information on this website is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition or to provide medical advice. It is intended for general education in the areas of health and wellness. All information contained in this site is intended to be educational in nature. Nothing should be considered medical advice for your specific situation.

Transcript

0:23

All right y'all welcome to day two of the run like a woman challenge I'm, super excited that all of you are here with me I'm so excited because, there's over 500 women registered for this challenge. Y'all that's freaking amazing. I'm so excited that all of you have decided you want to run stronger this year, letting go of losing weight, focus on building, not losing. Love it. What other takeaways did you have? Alright, I love that you guys have all of the right takeaways from day one. Strong over skinny, building over losing, really focusing your mindset. Because, and why do we talk so much about a mindset shift on day one? It's because your thoughts Guide all of your actions. You cannot do anything Unless you truly believe at least part of you believes That it's going to work. At least part of you believes in that thing. Your brain just won't do it. Okay, your thoughts guide all of your actions. Even if that's just a little curiosity, which is one of my favorite emotions to tap into. Those of you that are members of the team and the membership, you guys understand that curiosity is one of my favorite things that we can tap into as People and as runners, and that's how it allows us to get over judging ourselves and allows us to start to let go and releasing Some of those old limiting beliefs that are holding us back So we have to start with the way that we're starting to think about our bodies think about our training think about menopause perimenopause in this next phase of our life because your thoughts about a thing will determine your experience of it. I'm going to say that again. Your thoughts about something will determine your experience of that thing. And so if you want to have a better experience through perimenopause and menopause, you have to start thinking about it differently. First, you have to start seeing the possibility. You have to start being curious on what is my body able to do in this phase of life? Not focusing so much on all the things I can't do are all the ways that my body's. Failing me, right? How many times have I heard that my body's failing me, your body's not failing you, your body's changing, right? And if you have kids, those of you that have kids, your kids grow up, right? As much as we don't really want it. my kid, my girls are 15 and 12 now, which is insane to me, but they grow up and they change. And we don't love them less, right? We just have to change the way we handle them. We have to change the way that we parent. We have to change the way that we love them. We still love them with everything, every part of us, but it changes. And we still have to love ourselves and love our bodies for everything that it is, everything that it's able to do, everything that it's done for us for the past 40, 50, 60 plus years, right? We can honor those things. And still want to get stronger, still want to build more, still want to do more things with our running, right? It can be both. And that's such a beautiful thing. Okay. So today we're going to talk about the test. We're going to talk about the overhead squat test. We're going to talk about more about mobility. I'm going to get into the different types of mobility. Like I mentioned in the email, we're going to talk about joint mobility and soft tissue mobility. And we're also going to talk about that the pains that a lot of people are experiencing during menopause, right? So those of you that read the email, I started talking about how as runners, it's very easy to get caught up in the quantity game, right? Quantity numbers, because running is one of those things that is very easily quantifiable, right? We can look at our pace. it's very easy to get caught up in numbers, right? Because it's so easy. As a runner, you look at distances, you look at paces, like the numbers are right there staring you in the face. And if you've got one of these little watches or apps on your phone, it's like glaring at you, right? So it's so easy. for us to look at numbers. And that's a beautiful thing, because numbers are a very easy way for us to track our progress, right? It's, they're very black and white, letting us know whether or not we're getting quote unquote better, right? But that's not the only thing that matters. Because if we're focusing just on the numbers, there's so many things that we're ignoring. Like, how do you feel in the process, right? you can push yourself really hard and you can achieve some numbers, but how do you feel in that process? How often are you thinking about the quality of your running? Have you ever considered The quality of your movement. And now, some runners have, right? A lot of people think about running form when they're talking about movement quality. They're like, let me look at my running form. Let me adjust my running form. I'll work on my cadence. I'll work on this. Again, getting back into those numbers games, right? How many steps am I taking per minute? Is it the right number of steps? Am I at 180? Am I at 170? Like all these things, right? But running form is not the only way that we can look at the quality of our movement. That is one way. Okay. And when we look at the quality of our running form, that can give us insights to where we are having difficulty and restrictions with mobility and strength. Okay? This is one of the reasons why I never, immediately tell people to change their running form. Because if you tell somebody, and give them cues to change their running form, okay, they might be able to do it for a short period of time, but if they don't have the mobility or the strength to actually maintain that running form, it doesn't matter how many times you think about where your foot's hitting, or how many times you think about keeping your pelvis level and your shoulders back, if your muscles are weak, you're not going to be able to maintain that. So we always have to start with strength and mobility first. And that's really where quality of movement comes in, right? And if you're like a lot of people that I work with, a lot of people haven't even thought about the quality of their movement. So a lot of runners are just, again, focusing on those numbers, thinking that if I want to be a better runner, I just have to improve the obvious measurables. I just have to run more. I just have to, Push harder so that my pace number looks better so that my distance looks better. But as you've probably already started to discover, this challenge is different. We're not just going to look at those obvious numbers and those obvious measurables. Because when you focus just on the numbers, and you focus just on running more, just on pushing harder, just on doing more, That's how you end up more tired, more, aches and pains, more soreness, and probably not getting the results that you want. A lot of people start putting on more weight when they're doing it that way as well, especially in perimenopause. And after menopause, and that's because you're throwing your hormones into a state of even more chaos, right? We talked about hormonal chaos that accompanies perimenopause and menopause yesterday. So if you missed that, go back and catch that, catch that replay. But essentially, when our bodies are going through this transition of perimenopause, Our estrogen and progesterone levels, along with a lot of other hormones in our body, are all over the place, right? Because estrogen and progesterone have very widespread effects on the body. They affect our cortisol levels. They affect our insulin levels. They affect every system in your body, okay? So perimenopause and menopause, the changes that you experience are not just hot flashes, and they are not just the loss of your period. There's widespread effects. Alright, so what we need to do, again, is to learn how to take control. What do we actually have control over? Because if we're just focusing on the numbers and just focusing on pushing harder and running more and doing more, that's what leads us to more pains, more injuries, increased soreness, decreased recovery after workouts, the weight gain, all those pains that people experience during perimenopause and menopause. Sometimes those things might happen on their own, but the way that you're training could make it worse, right? Okay, so starting today, this is why. Starting today, you're gonna start getting a test to assess the quality of your movements, all right? So today, we started with the overhead squat test. And again, it's not just about whether or not you can complete the test. We want to look at how your body is moving, right? And the way, the test that you're going to get tomorrow, same thing, okay? Tomorrow's tests are going to be a little mobility and a little bit more strength focused. It's not just, yay, I did it, check the box. It's how did I do it? How did I feel? What did I notice? Are there restrictions? Are there limitations? Was this hard? was one side harder than the other? What am I noticing in my body? So I would love to know in the chat, those of you that are here live with me, what did you notice? Okay? Tell me, what did you notice when you performed the overhead squat test? Was it easy or was it hard? Where did you feel limited, if anywhere? Did you notice that one side felt different than the other? Tell me in the chat, okay? I'll, and I'll tell you guys about my test, alright? So the test, the video that you saw was my husband, who can perform the test perfectly, right? That's why he was the model and not me. Kevin showed you, the way that the test should look. He was able to squat all the way down, keep his feet flat on the floor, and his hands over his head. When I do the test, I fall backwards, okay? I am not able to do a full squat with my arms overhead because I have a limitation at my ankles. And so I, if I stay up on my toes or if I put my heel on a wedge, Then I'm able to perform the test better. Okay, but with me like I know that my ankles I don't have enough dorsiflexion in my ankles to be able to do a full squat Unless my hips are wider and my toes are turned out to the side So those are some of the modifications that I have to make and we're gonna talk about we're gonna be talking about modifications as well throughout this week because it's really about meeting yourself where you are, letting go and releasing the judgment that comes with some of these simple tests, because some of you, I would also love to know, actually, as you're putting down the physical limitations that you noticed, I would also love to know, What did you notice mentally? What were you saying to yourself? Were you, what the heck? were you getting upset? Annoyed? Irritated? That, you didn't do the test as well as you had hoped? What kind of mental thoughts did you guys have going on there, too? Heidi, poor, could not get down. Yeah. I'm not a runner. I'm a walker and a dancer, but I'm in menopause. Yes, Betsy, this is definitely for you. Everything that we talk about can definitely help you here. It's meanwhile working. Okay, cool. All right, let's see what else. Let me, I'm gonna check the chat here. Easy but back limitations. Limited in my ankles. They felt so tight. Yeah, Stephanie, totally get that. that's where I am for sure. Haven't done it yet. No problem. Heather, if you're at a spot where you can squat right now, it's a very simple test. It's like putting your hand over your head and squatting down and see, what limitations you have. The video's two minutes long if you want to take a look at it. But. I guess don't do that while we're on the live can do it about 95 percent arms a little bit forward. Cool. I lean forward. Same. Yeah. So you notice that like when you're leaning forward, that's a compensation that your body is using for you to be able to do that movement. And the reason that this is important is that this happens a lot in our running as well. Our body Our bodies are amazing, y'all. they are so amazing. When we have limitations, when we have weakness, when we have restrictions, our body compensates without us even having to think about it, which is so cool. But when we start compensating, a lot of times we're then wearing out tissues and other muscles and other tissues are doing the jobs that they're not really designed to do. And that's where a lot of the breakdown comes in. That's where a lot of running injuries come in. Because we end up overusing certain tissues. Because they're doing things they're not supposed to be doing. Because we have a restriction or a limitation or a weakness with the other tissues that are supposed to be doing that job. Does that make sense? Struggle to even trust myself to go down very deep in the squat at first. Yeah, so interesting. Easy. A little leaning forward. I did better than I thought. Cool. Knees and hips. Limitations. Yeah. Yeah. Let me know. I was proud that I could squat and stand back up. Awesome. Love it. I can't get down all the way, knees and hips. Yeah, I mean there could be limitations in multiple things, right? And that's part of what we're talking about. So if you had a difficulty getting down all the way, if you notice any pain, it could be limitations in your knees, it could be limitations in your ankles, it could be, In your hips, right? So it could be any of those joints. and when you then do follow up tests, you can figure out which one might be more of the culprit. Does that make sense? Okay. if you're noticing, especially that leaning forward, it's probably a limitation in your shoulders or your thoracic spine, okay? Because, alright, here's a question. Do you guys think that your shoulder affects your running? Yes or no? Do your shoulders affect your running? Like, why did I have you put your arms overhead when you did that? Yes! Yes! Why? I don't, this is the thing that not, we don't always think about, right? Running is a full body activity. So limitations, and this is the cool thing about your body, is everything is connected. So limitations in one area could be affecting Other areas that you can't, you're not even like connecting the dots, right? A limitation in your left shoulder could show up as pain in your right knee. Weird, right? But that's why it's so important for us to get to the core, get down to the root cause of what's going on in your body. And that's why these tests are so important, so that you can actually start to find those areas of limitations in your body and then start working on them, right? Because I can give you tons of things. I can solve most problems in the body with stretching, with exercises, with like different movement things. But you don't need to do all the things, you need to do the things that are right for you. And that's what's really key here. a lot of you noticed some sort of limitation, right? Even if it was a little one, and that's totally okay. other thing, that I'm curious about is, Do you have, or if you have pain, during your running, during your daily activities, Put the word pain. If pain is something that you've started to experience more of now that you're in your 40s or beyond. Yeah. There's some pains there. Alright. So let's talk about pain. Let's talk about why you're experiencing more pain now that you are in perimenopause and menopause. It's not just because you're getting older. A lot of people think, oh, I'm just getting older, this is just how it is, because that's what we've been taught, right? But that's not what's happening. There is a condition that is, there's a lot of emerging research on this right now, and there's a condition called Arthralgia. of menopause. Now, arthralgia sounds like a fun, fancy term. All it means is joint pain. Okay. Arth is joint. Alga is pain. So it's joint pain of menopause, right? And basically what they're finding is that women have a tendency to experience more joint pain than men. So that's why it's not just aging that this is more of a problem. It's specifically because of the loss of our estrogen and progesterone hormones that lead us to experience more pain. 80 percent of women will experience arthralgia of menopause. That is joint related pain because of the transitions going on with your hormones, okay? This can look like pain, this can look like stiffness of your joints, it can look like frozen shoulder, loss of motion, loss of mobility. And this is why we did the overhead squat test, because like I just mentioned, everything is connected, right? Your shoulder mobility affects how you run. So what do we need to do about this? Knowing that 80 percent of us are going to experience this arthralgia of menopause, what do we need to do and what do we need to know? That's what we're going to talk about today. ingredient number one. Moving with intention. Yes. Ingredient number one, move with intention. That's going to include mobility, which we're going to get into today, and strength, which we're going to be talking more about tomorrow. Ingredient number two is nutrition. And the ingredient number three is nervous system regulation. We have to have all three ingredients if we actually want to address this arthralgia of menopause and a lot of the other symptoms that we're experiencing. So there's two types of mobility that we really want to talk about today. And we'll get into a little bit more. There's joint mobility and there's soft tissue mobility, okay? And so in the overhead squat test, you started to notice where you might have those limitations. So the question becomes, are those due to joint limitations or are they due to soft tissue limitations? And the answer is both. Most likely both, okay, because most people don't have a pure joint limitation without some sort of soft tissue involvement. You can have soft tissue limitations without joint involvement, but most of the time the two go together. Okay, so a little bit about joint mobility. In all of your joints, Okay, a joint is simply where two bones meet each other. Okay, so you've got your shoulder joint, which is where your humerus meets your scapula. Okay, and it's like a ball and socket joint, and the bones roll and slide and glide in the different joints. Then around that joint, there's what's called a joint capsule, and that's made of soft tissue. It helps to deepen the joint. It helps to stabilize the joint. And deepen the socket of the joint as well. And the problem when we get into perimenopause and menopause is that as we lose estrogen in the body, we also, estrogen helps to regulate inflammation. So as we lose Estrogen, inflammation in the body starts to increase and estrogen plays a role in maintaining joint health by reducing inflammation and by promoting the health of cartilage and bones because your cartilage and your bones are constantly remodeling which means we're breaking them down and our body's producing more, okay? Your bones are not the same today as they were when you were six years old. You have completely different bones. It's because part of your bones, like what we do with the stress in our just normal life, little pieces of bone break down and then new pieces of bone build back up. It's like a highway construction crew, Like, when you drive down the highway, it seems like it's always under construction. It's because, They, tear up one, one, piece of the road and then the, construction crew comes in and like repaves it, right? And they just move down the line and then they start back over at the beginning again, right? But that's what's happening constantly with your cartilage and with your bones. But as we lose estrogen and progesterone, We lose some of that remodeling, okay? So we're not building back as much of the bone, as much of the cartilage as we used to when we were younger, which is why our activity levels matter so much more. Because impact activity helps with strengthening and remodeling of bone and cartilage as well. That's why running is actually really good for your joints. If you've ever heard or anybody's ever told you that running is bad for your knees, you can tell them very confidently they are wrong. Okay, there are research studies that show that runners actually have a decreased incidence of arthritis in their knees as compared to non runners. Pretty cool, right? everybody was like, oh, your knees are gonna be bad. No, they're not. Nope. You're actually doing yourself a good thing. by running. It's helping to protect your joints. It's helping to improve the cartilage in your joints. It's giving you stronger bones. It's helping to improve the lubrication of your joints as long as you're training correctly. As long as you're not overdoing it. As long as you're still giving yourself the proper nutrition and hydration and having all the other pieces that we're going to be talking about. Okay? So as we lose estrogen, we can have more joint pain and stiffness. Especially in the morning, especially after periods of inactivity, which is why, if you notice that, your body likes to move, it feels better after movement, that's very common. pains can incur in various joints all over the body. So this is something that we need to be aware of. Okay. So everybody understand what joint mobility is. Okay. That's really at the joints where the bones are meeting. Now, soft tissue mobility is the second type of mobility that we need to talk about and soft tissue mobility. When I talk about soft tissues, I'm talking about your tendons, your ligaments, and your fascia. And as we get into our 60s, as we become quote unquote master runners, we see a shift in injuries. Okay, there are, there's increased tendon injuries in runners over 40. More tendon injuries. Younger runners tend to get more bone stress injuries, things like shin splints. and not saying that we can't get those, it's just that in general. shin splints and bone stress injuries tend to affect younger runners. And so if you are new to your running journey, you might be, also in that category. And we older runners, I'm just going to keep putting quotes, air quotes on everything. we tend to be more affected by those tendon injuries and ligament issues, but more tendons. the tendon is what connects your bone to your muscle. And estrogen helps to maintain the health and the elasticity of our soft tissues. So we start to lose that elasticity as we lose estrogen. That's, again, why this affects women more than it affects men. Alright? So what we notice is that During perimenopause and menopause, we have decreased collagen production because estrogen helps to regulate collagen synthesis, which is really essential for maintaining the health and the elasticity of those connective tissues. Your connective tissues, again, are the tendons, are the fascia, the covering of the muscles inside the body, alright? And as estrogen levels drop, collagen production decreases, Which leads to the changes in the elasticity of your tissues, right? Increased stiffness of your tissues. We also don't hold on to as much water in our tissues because estrogen affects water content in tissues. So with lower estrogen levels, tissues tend to retain less water. which leads to dehydration, which leads to decreased flexibility, and this can lead to that feeling of tightness and reduced mobility. So a lot of times when we feel tight, there might not actually be an issue with your muscle length, right? Everyone's oh, my muscles are too short, I have to stretch. It might not be. You could just be sensing a tightness because you're dehydrated. And if you drink more water, all of a sudden you don't feel as tight. Pretty cool, right? Okay, so there's a lot of things that, we feel that our body's kind of tricking us in a way It's oh I got a stretch I got a stretch like people think they have to stretch all the time most of the time you probably don't Okay, it most of the time you probably just need to drink some water and get up and move Okay so because of This reduced collagen and because of the decrease in elasticity that increases our risk of injury and running is a high impact Activity it's a high force activity With every step that you take during a run you're putting three to seven times your body weight through your tissues All right, depending on how fast you're running, depending on if you're running uphill or downhill or these types of things, so three to seven times your body weight, that amount of force is going through your bodies. So running does tend to lead to injury in a lot of people because they're training too hard, they're pushing too hard, they're not drinking enough water, they're not eating enough protein and carbohydrates to help support their activities, right? So if we're not giving our body what it needs and pushing it so hard every day. There's only so much that our bodies can handle, right? And that tolerance can increase. Which is the cool part. That's what training is for, right? If you right now are able to leave and walk out your door and run one mile, that's a beautiful thing. But if you are currently physically able to run one mile and you go out and you will try to run a marathon and cover 26 miles, the chance of you experiencing pain is pretty darn high. I would say A hundred percent, right? Because even trained people have, get, have pain during marathons. But the point is you can increase your tolerance to activity. You can increase how much, how resilient your body is, how anti fragile your body is, which means that you're training, you break the body down, it builds back up stronger as long as you're giving it the right Environment to do Okay. So with, with the loss of estrogen, we also tend to experience, like I mentioned, increased joint stiffness in pain, which can make your movements feel less fluid. we experienced muscle mass and strength decline. Like I mentioned yesterday, we talked about how at starting at the age of 30, we start to lose lean muscle mass. That's a condition called sarcopenia. and that happens at about 8 percent per decade, unless we're doing things to actively fight against that. And when we start to lose our tissue elasticity, and when we start to lose strength, that's also going to affect our posture and our flexibility, which is going to make it harder for us to maintain proper alignment during our activities like running. And so have you ever noticed how as you fatigue, you're during a run, you tend to get more hunched over, right? And all of a sudden, then you start to get shoulder pain and neck pain. And your breathing is not because it's not as good because when you're hunched over, you're closing down your lungs don't have as much room to expand. So just by strengthening your back muscles and improving your posture, all of a sudden, you're opening up your lungs, you're able to take in more oxygen, which is going to help improve your endurance. Beautiful thing, right? Again, everything is connected here and it's such a beautiful thing. what do we need to do? I'm gonna take a break real quick and ask, do you guys have any questions? Put any questions that you have in the chat right now. I'd love to know. How does joint hypermobility impact? Oh, Eileen! Thank you for asking that. That's such a great question. Okay. Joint hypermobility, for those of you that aren't familiar with that term, means excessive motion of your joints, right? There are some people that are, Hyper flexible or hyper mobile. You ever seen people that like can put their thumbs? I can't do it, but put their thumbs and touch their forearm or play like jump rope with their arms. We had one girl in PT school. PT school is fun. Physical therapy school is really fun because you find out like all of the things that your friends bodies can do, and all the limitations that everybody has and all of the funny things. And we had one, that I remember one of my roommates, she has, she had super mobile joints. And so she could like, like their elbows can invert and so yes, joint hypermobility, is a thing for sure. if you have a history of being a dancer, I know Betsy, if you're still with us over there on Facebook. Dancers tend to be hypermobile because there's a gymnast, right? Also tend to be very hypermobile. So depending on what you used to do, when you were younger, that can contribute to hypermobile joints as well. it's not that it's bad for running Eileen. It's just that you have to have a different focus. You need to focus on strength and stability, right? Because again, this is one of those, examples of meeting yourself where you are, if you have. Too, quote unquote, too much motion, it can be problematic because there's more like there's not enough stability at the joint. And when there's a lack of stability, it can lead to more, more motion and more movement at the joint, which can lead to wearing down of that joint surface, wearing down of the cartilage, wearing down of the bones. So it can increase your risk of arthritis, and arthrosis problems with the joints. So that's why it's strength training. Becomes even more important for people that have hypermobile joints. Okay, that's a fantastic question Does any follow up questions go ahead and put them in the chat there? But if I hope that answered your question, okay, so what do we need to do? Okay? What do we need to do? To maintain joint and soft tissue mobility. Oh Okay, I got another question here. Thank you, Bliss. What happens when you have a full hysterectomy at age 29? You go into early menopause. That's called medically induced menopause. and unfortunately, doctors have done a really poor job at counseling their patients on what does that mean for you? so basically, you get thrown into menopause early. You, it, it does depend, you said a full hysterectomy here. it does depend on whether or not the ovaries are spared, which in the case of a full hysterectomy, they are not. You, you lose everything. because if the ovaries are spared, then you do have a little bit more time before you go into medically induced menopause, but it does happen faster. I think it's three to five years faster than you would normally, have gone into menopause. But if you have a full hysterectomy where they take the ovaries and the uterus and everything, You get thrown into it immediately. So my first question, Heidi, would be, did you, did your doctor offer you any hormone therapy options, hormonal therapy? hormonal therapy options should be, in my opinion, a necessity in that case. we can talk a little bit about hormone therapy, maybe later in the challenge. We'll see if you guys have questions on it. Okay, so let's talk about how to maintain joint and soft tissue mobility. Heidi, did that answer your question? Please let me know. number one, like we mentioned, step number one, ingredient number one, we have to move with intention, okay? That means regular exercise, we all need to be doing regular exercise, which we all know, right? But here's the interesting thing. Because a lot of people will tell you, Oh, you need to do low impact exercise. That's the way that you're going to make sure that your joints stay healthy. And I want you, obviously, that doesn't work if you're a runner, right? If you're a runner, you love to run. You want to go out and run. Running is a high impact activity. That's a beautiful thing. Impact exercise, like I mentioned already, is very good for bone health, for joint health, for remodeling cartilage, for improving your muscles. there's a lot of benefits for impact activity. So we don't want to cut out impact activity, but we do need to do it the right way. We do need to be able to honor our bodies and meet ourselves where we are. So this includes always warming up. Before you exercise and you guys got one option yesterday with that dynamic warm up that I gave you. You can do that every time, right? You can start to make up your own things. You can start to find those areas where you might feel stiff or tight. and you might notice that. additional areas of restriction. You can start to move into some of those areas. Okay. You always want to allow your body to cool down after exercise. You don't want to just stop and jump in the car and head home. You want to have a period of cool down. It doesn't have to be long, but when you cool down after exercise, you allow everything to start to come back down to baseline. You allow your blood pressure to come down gradually, your heart rate to come down gradually, and that can improve a lot of things. things in the way that your body responds after exercise that can help to decrease a lot of that post exercise soreness if you add in Some cool downs after exercise that can look like walking that can look like some mobility work. You can repeat the dynamic warm up that you did beforehand. You can repeat that as a cool down. That's a beautiful thing. Okay. You also want to think about mobility and stretching. Mobility over stretching, okay? How many of you, as a runner, have ever been told or have thought, You just, I just need to stretch more. Or maybe I'm just not stretching enough. Give me a yes. If you've ever talked about, or if you've ever thought about, Oh, that, I need to be stretching more. Oh, this is probably hurting because I'm not stretching enough. Runners are obsessed with stretching and they don't need to be. Stretching is not bad, okay? A lot of runners are just stretching the wrong way. Okay. Alright, we want to think about dynamic mobility, which you can call dynamic stretching if you want to use that word, totally fine. But there's a difference between dynamic and static stretching. Static stretching is what most people think about when they hear the word stretching, which is where you move into a position where you feel a pull, and you hold it for an extended period of time. That's called a static stretch. Now, static stretching is fine to do after exercise, if you like it, if it feels good for you, but it's not required for a lot of people. Alright, if, because most people, your muscles are long enough already, when you're actually stretching and you're doing static stretching, You're actually trying to increase the length of your muscle, right? And a lot of people don't, you don't need a longer muscle. Again, you can feel stiff because you're dehydrated. You can feel stiff because of the hard exercise that you went through. It doesn't mean that your muscles aren't long enough. That's why dynamic mobility, in my opinion, Is, trumps is much more important than static mobility, static stretching, okay? The other thing we need to do with exercise to move with intention is to be mindful and intentional about your effort levels, okay? If we want to help to decrease our joint stiffness and improve joint and soft tissue mobility, you have to be aware and mindful of your effort levels. And we're going to be talking more about that on Thursday. Okay, you can't be pushing yourself hard every single day. You have to have a balance of hard and easy days. And we're going to go more into that on Thursday. Okay, the other thing that you can do are massage and myofascial release. And that was the second video that you all got today. I'm just giving you all sorts of resources here, right? So the second video that you, received in your email today or on the Challenge Replay page was a link to a video where I talk about the importance of doing self tissue mobilization. All right, because your tissues can Like, as you work out, every time you work out, especially if it's a hard workout, what you're really doing is you're creating micro tears in your muscle. And the way that your body repairs them is through scar tissue. And when scar tissue gets laid down, it gets laid down in a very haphazard fashion. Like I, I think about, you guys remember that game pick up sticks? where you like drop the pickup sticks and they just all fell all over the place. That's what scar tissue looks like in your body. All right. So when you find those areas, like if you've ever had a knot, or a trigger point, that's an area where the tissue gets bound up, and we need to start to release some of that stuff. All right, to help our muscle fibers glide and slide. Much more, fluidly, all right? So I showed you a technique where you can start to assess the health, and I give you the example using your calf muscles, because, most likely, if you're a runner, you're going to have something in your calf. Has anybody done it yet? Has anybody checked their calves? I know I have, like, all sorts of spots in my calves. I need to pay attention to my calves. especially with that limitation in my ankles that I was talking about. And again, this is about knowing your body, right? Finding those spots. So that's why I always go to the calves because it's very easy to find something in the calf, right? But the technique that I showed you, you can do at any point in the body. And there's different tools that you can use like tennis balls and foam rollers and other things as well that you can use to loosen up the glutes, loosen up the hamstrings, the quads, the hip flexors, right? We want to do the whole body and kind of figure out where those limitations are and start to loosen some of those things up. And again, you guys, this doesn't have to be, An hour long mobility session, it can be if you have it, fantastic. But you can get a ton of benefits just doing this like 5 to 10 minutes a day, okay? So by finding those spots of restriction and using techniques like foam rolling, massage, myofascial release, like I was showing you in the video, that can help to improve your circulation, reduce muscle tension, and enhance tissue mobility. Sounds good, right? Ingredient number two that you need to maintain joint and soft tissue mobility is nutrition and hydration. You need protein in your diet, especially as a perimenopausal or a menopausal woman. Protein becomes even more important because, again, we've lost estrogen, or we're losing estrogen. So our dietary choices, our nutritional choices matter even more. So we need to make sure that we are focusing on protein. To help rebuild muscle, rebuild tendons, rebuild the cartilage that we're breaking down during our workouts. Our body can build those things back if we give it the proper building blocks, right? If you're trying to build a house, you have to get, you have to have concrete block, you have to have lumber, you have to have cement, right? There are certain ingredients that you need, and there's no way you can build a house if you don't have the proper ingredients. And there's no way your body can build back stronger muscles, stronger joints, stronger tissues, if you're not giving it the ingredients that it needs, okay? We also need to make sure we're drinking enough water. Water and electrolytes help to improve the lubrication of your soft tissue. They also help to improve the lubrication of your joints. It is extremely important that you're drinking enough water. and electrolytes throughout your day, right? Plain water does not do the best job hydrating you. Water plus electrolytes does a better job of hydrating you. That doesn't mean you need to drink electrolytes all day long, but it is very beneficial to have electrolytes in your water. That's like sodium, magnesium, and potassium. Those are the big three. and the third ingredient that you need to improve hydra or to improve joint and soft tissue mobility is sodium. is nervous system regulation, okay? We need to start moving our bodies out of that constant stress mode that so many of us are in. Because your body keeps the score. Has anybody heard about that book? There's a book called Your Body Keeps the Score. It is true. And I remember there was one year, I was working as a physical therapist in an outpatient ortho clinic. And this woman came in and she told me she had, 12 out of 10 pain, like she had, I think it was back pain, like I think it was lower back pain that she had. And she was, oh, her back hurts so much, nothing's been able to help, it's been there for so long, nothing is helping me. So I'm talking to her. And I put her on the table and I start to do an evaluation and kind of feel around her back and figure out what's going on. I have her go through some certain motions. I'm doing my evaluation to figure out what the heck is going on, that this woman is in such severe pain and how can I help her? And so as she's on the table, I just start talking to her. And I found out she's a bus driver and I find out other things in her life. And I just asked her, what else is going on in your life? And she starts to tell me this story. About how someone very important in her life betrayed her and she starts telling me this story And I'm just listening and I'm doing some soft tissue work in her back area and after maybe 10 minutes I said, okay, let's see how you feel. She gets up from the table and she says, Oh my God, it's a miracle. You've cured me. And I was like, now, I know I'm a good physical therapist, but I'm not that good. I didn't, there's no way I took this woman from with what I did. I know what I did, There's no way that was a physical pain. There was a piece of it that was physical, of course. But so much of it was her releasing the scene. The story that she had about this betrayal that was Just weighing so heavily on her and causing actual physical pain in her body because these things Stress the emotional stress that you're under if you're under, career stress financial stress family stress all of those things Manifest in your body. All right, and if we are just looking at the physical body we are doing ourselves a disservice and this is one of the things that like became so You evident to me as a physical therapist because I'm, I was trained in the body, right? I know the body inside and out. I can understand. I can talk to somebody for five minutes and have a very good idea of what might be going on with that person and what's causing their pain. But we don't always understand the emotional and psychological impact that of pain, right? Of like how all these other stresses in our life are contributing to our pain. And that's why Understanding our nervous system, understanding stress, understanding how some of these deeper things affect the way that our body feels is absolutely critical to addressing joint pain, soft tissue pain, and some of the symptoms, the anxiety, the brain fog, the depression, the other things that are going on in our lives because we don't have estrogen and progesterone helping us out anymore. So smaller things affect us more. And those manifest. In a lot of those symptoms like that I just mentioned, right? The brain fog, the depression, the anxiety, those kinds of things. But they can also manifest physically in our body as well. And that's why really understanding how the, how your thoughts affect your body, how your thoughts affect your actions. Reducing stress and learning how to shift your body out of that sympathetic state into that parasympathetic state is going to contribute to improved tissue health. Question on the squat challenge. I'm limited at the knees. They are tight. I also have dish, so my arms, shoulders goes forward too much. I talked to my GP about PT to help with it. Great. Great. So Sabrina, do you have a question about it? Sometimes they contribute to our actual running attitude. Absolutely, Rebecca. Yeah, our mental side, our mental, health contributes to everything. the way that we handle everything, it's all connected. What do you recommend adding to water for electrolytes? Yeah, I like Element too. Lori just, I saw Lori answer that and, Recommended element. I do like that, but yes, thank you for sharing that, Lori. That's, you have to be careful with it. Yep. Any recommendations to help with the knees? Yeah, you need to do more mobility. I rarely see other runners stretch after a run. If I don't stretch, I get cramps. Yeah. Stretching is great. Recommendations to help with the knees, Sabrina. Mobility. you need to do more mobility work. And again, that's joint mobility, that's soft tissue mobility, and then that's strengthening as well. You need to strengthen your knees. And we're going to be talking more about strength training tomorrow. I'm a vegetarian. Eat lots of legumes, beans, but not as protein dense. I hate stressing over protein, but I doubt I get enough. How worried should you be? Eileen, I don't think that worry is helpful. In any circumstance, because if you're worrying about your nutrition, you're increasing your stress, and you're increasing your cortisol levels, and you're going, that, that's going to make you break down more muscle and hold on to more fat, right? So I don't think that you should be worried per se, but I do think that, My, my follow up question would be, why are you a vegetarian? is it like a moral and ethical thing to you? Is it because you just feel healthier that way? why is it that you don't eat animal products? That would be my next question. Lori, thank you. I will see you in 10 minutes. All right. Those of you that are The, joining us on our team call, we've got that in 10 minutes here, so I, also will probably just go grab a little drink of water while I fill up my water anyway. All right, what other questions do you guys have? So Eileen, if you want to let me know that I can advise a little bit more, but I do think that protein, the research keeps showing more and more the importance of protein. Okay, for overall health, for muscle building, for lots of different things. alright, so for health and ethical, health, I think that, there's a lot of really good research that shows that animal based products are good for health, okay? You want to have the majority of your food intake coming from, protein and plants. Right? Plants are very important. That's why I like to think of having a plant based diet. Everybody uses the word plant based a little bit different, but we need to be eating lots of plants, all right? But I don't think that means that we need to not eat animals, okay? We as humans are, Omnivores, that's how the wonderful creator made us as omnivores, right? so I do think that when we choose to go vegan or vegetarian, that can lead to nutrient deficiencies. you have to be more willing to supplement as a vegetarian. there are, Vegan or vegetarian protein powders that you can use to supplement, and yes, those are highly processed, but something's gotta give at some point, right? Ethical becomes a little bit harder to, I'm not, I'm never gonna argue with you on an ethical, belief, but I will say that if you do choose to continue to be a vegetarian or a vegan, that does mean that you should be looking at supplementation options. Okay, to make sure that you get enough protein. how many grams of protein per day? Nicola, there are different recommendations out there. The recommendation that I believe is the best is your ideal body weight in grams of protein per day. So if you want to, weigh 130 pounds, you should be aiming for 130 grams of protein per day. All right. I think we've gotten all through all the questions. but again, Nicola, remember the protein is just one piece of it too. Okay? And we as runners need carbohydrates. We need other things as well. this is why like the keto diet, the carnivore diet, like all these diets. if your diet has a name to it, it's probably not a sustainable diet. All right. Thank you guys for joining me. stay tuned for day number three tomorrow. We're gonna be talking all about strength, which is absolutely essential for us as runners. Thanks for joining me live and I'll talk to you guys later.