My two applications of this pre-theory at the moment:
1. Stretching
-No one knows how to optimally stretch; no one ever says 'never stretch'
2. Sugar consumption
-No one knows the right amount; no one ever says 'eat only sugar'The stretching piece is really interesting to me. Utilizing a technique I mentioned in my reading review for The Case Against Sugar to make a case for reducing sugar consumption, I looked for top athletes who value stretching and studied their results. Tom Brady, once more, appears on the list. His recent workout routine is getting a lot of attention thanks to its unusual result (keeping a forty-year old man at the top of a profession traditionally limited to far younger players).
Ichiro Suzuki, a longtime favorite of mine, is another example. All Ichiro seemed to do in his career was slap infield singles, throw out runners with his laser-beam arm, and stretch. I went to a game one time and sat a couple hundred feet away from him. I had a clear view of him stretching throughout the nine innings he stood in right field. Ichiro was rarely injured over almost two decades of elite performance.
I've always been relatively flexible (1). But of course, measuring myself against others is problematic, especially if my peers are all inflexible. Low performers often fool themselves into considering themselves high performers simply by comparing themselves to even lower performers. I might also not be taking into account my own athletic needs. Just as not too many people I know consider running twenty miles a week 'low mileage', what is flexible for my peers might not count as flexible for me.
The evidence against my flexibility was always there whenever I cared to look. I injured my IT band in 2011, a hip-based strength imbalance injury manifesting with a sharp stabbing and pulling sensation through the outside of the knee. Unlike most of my injuries, this was literally impossible to run through. My recovery, still ongoing, has covered many years and involved many false dawns.
I recently added foot pain to my injury list. The Morton's neuroma in my left foot was barely tolerable to run through and showed no signs of abating. On very bad days, it reduced my walking speed to a crawling pace. I tried a lot of different solutions with no success.
Both of these injuries have shown significant recovery progress since I resumed a stretching program in early May. My twice-daily routine is based around three components: regular stretching of major muscle groups, targeted stretching to address specific injuries, and strategic stretching to counteract lifestyle induced stiffness.
The first group is familiar to anyone who took gym class in junior high school. The three age-old leg stretches address the main running muscle groups: calves, quads, and hamstrings.
To deal with the injuries to my hip and foot, I simply found stretches for the hip and foot. Currently, I do a hip-flexor stretch for the left side and stretch my toes and foot around the neuroma injury. Since starting both of these stretches, the pain in these injured areas have steadily subsided (2).
Finally, I looked up stretches designed specifically to mitigate common lifestyle-based tightness. For me, a big one is sitting. I often sit for two hours at a time. I found a yoga pose (with many variations) called 'the pigeon'. This stretch is designed to release the hip and core muscles which often bunch together during prolonged sitting. These stretches do not address any current injury but, again, the idea is preventative. By proactively fighting against my lifestyle's tendency to stiffness, I hope to avoid creating the flexibility imbalances which will manifest unexpectedly through an overuse injury during a future run.
In addition to my current routine, I also have an eye out for muscle groups where stretching one side is more difficult than the other. In these cases, I would only stretch the more difficult (or 'stiffer') side. The idea is to address flexibility imbalances today to prevent future injuries caused or accelerated by running on unevenly working muscles.
Combining the entire routine together gives me a maintenance program I do once in the morning and once in the evening. It keeps pressure off my joints, helps my muscles recover from running, and (much to my surprise) has had therapeutic effects on long-nagging injury problems. It's the best I can do in an area where the consensus on exactly what to do is murky yet the general idea about the best practice points in only one direction.
And so far, the results have been very positive. Other than at least two of the most successful athletes in world history, who knew?
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. So what was it Stephen King said about description?
I do think I was flexible, or at least flexible enough, and I count my lack of injury problems as sufficient evidence. At the other end are examples of those who I never considered flexible. These included basketball teammates who seemed to pull muscles every week or always had trouble making off-balance shots.
These days, I also always note the older folks who have trouble moving around. They all seem to share a lack of flexibility and overcompensate for tight muscles by placing undue stress on their bones, joints, or ligaments.
By the way, there is also less, er, official support for my conclusion. One former basketball coach once remarked that if I were just a little more flexible, I could 'pleasure myself', a remark serving as a fine testament to my overall flexibility and perhaps evidence of my relative superiority to others in this area. Most importantly, though, it serves as a reminder to us all regarding the extent to which humor matters when stating something semi-controversial.
2. Not quite a one-way street, but close...
The key idea was to try a self-massage technique. Like with the examples above, there is a 'one way street' with self-massage: some swear by it and others are indifferent- the notable feature is a lack of direct opponents. The suggestions are, again, traveling one-way.
I used a technique called trigger-point. The idea is to isolate pressure points in the muscle that respond painfully to pressure. The pain level should be a six or seven out of ten; any higher and it is a real injury requiring a doctor, any lower and it is merely soreness. Rubbing or pressing on the point is the key to the technique. The idea is to relieve bunched portions of the muscle by using low-grade pressure from the hands and fingers.
