Wednesday, May 16, 2012

THE BODY KNOWS

You want to know the single most inportant factor in monitoring your training and preventing injury? Are you ready? YOU! That's right just like Ali dodging a death blow from Frazier in the "Thrilla in Manilla". Why? Because his body knows instinctively how to protect itself. That's how we're wired. But many people don't listen to their bodies. They just keep going. There's a signal the body gives us. It's called pain. I'll give you a personal example. I went to New Orleans and packed only a pair of Adidas Sambas and a pair of sandals. Now if you don't know what Sambas are they are the most comfortable turf soccer shoe for walking and playing soccer. Not so good for running,pounding the city blocks of New Orleans on an old knee injury. Now, finally, some new research to confirm what we know intuitively about efficiency and inury prevention. Recently presented at the Canadian biomechanics Conference was a paper coauthored by Benno Nigg PHD suggested that those that preferred forefoot running had less adaptive damping forces than those that didn't. Now heres the kicker, those that prefrered heel strike running did better with that. It's how we're wired. THE BODY KNOWS.