Stay Injury Free - Part I Movement Prep

I've added a goal to the list for 2011... STAY INJURY FREE.

The irony of this being that I'm limping a bit and my hamstring / glute is throbbing a bit as I type this. I think it was a combo of snow shoveling (I AM SO DONE W THIS WEATHER), spinning hard three days in a row and two epic duathlon workouts. On a scale of 1 to 10 it's maybe a 2 or 3, but it's there... EARLY in the season. So I went to see a chiropractor that also does ART (Active Release Techniques). I've been to  number of chiropractors in my life, but this is the first time one has watched me go through a number of range of motion exercises to look for weaknesses. Granted I first saw him the day after my 14mile run/1hour spin/4 mile run workout. When he told me my glutes seemed weak I told him about this workout and he didn't bat an eye so I'm not sure if my glutes are indeed weak or if they were just fatigued.

Prior to this pain and my visit to the chiropractor I had been poking around at Jessi Stensland's website Movement U and a site she seems to participate in and/or just link to a site called Core Performance regarding strengthening the core, form and preparing for movement techniques (instead of stretching pre run or just jumping right in). There is so much information at both of these sites that I quickly found myself overwhelmed.

I was pretty excited when it all came full circle and the chiropractor demonstrated a couple of moves for me to do a couple of times a day (which reminds me that I haven't done them yet, ugh) and they were THE SAME as some of the moves Jessi talked about. It's all coming together.

So - though they honestly bore me to tears - I know that these exercises are important to keep me doing the ones that DON'T bore me to tears. I've reached out to coach for some strength/range of motion stuff and am also looking things up myself... cause I like to do that. Jessi talks a lot about going through the exercises WHILE PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION TO YOUR CORE! Do the exercises, but only to the degree and length that you can maintain proper form.

There is SO MUCH information out there in regards to how to prevent injuries that I decided to do this in a series. Part I will be:

MOVEMENT PREP!

The best resource I have found is the Core Performance site. I did this movement prep for my last two runs and I have to say that I felt it helped a lot. Normally I feel some aches and pains as my body gets warmed up and things really start to jive after about 3 miles. These past two runs I got right to work after having done the movement prep moves at Core Performance. I also felt that doing them kept me thinking about my core and body alignment during the run. They are worth the time!

These moves include:
Marching Glute Bridges
Hip Rotations
Leg overs
Knee Hugs
Reverse Lunges
Knee hug to forward lunges
Drop Lunges
Lateral Squats
Inverted Hamstrings
Heel to Butt

Each of these moves is shown (complete with videos) very well HERE at Core Performance so I won't try to explain them. I would say all told these moves took me about 10 minutes to do in total. If you don't have that kind of time (you really do you just don't think you don't) then I would say pick some to do each time and rotate them for different workouts.