(We could all be) still standing better than we ever did*
Muscle imbalances and cross training at all times
All rise, dear readers, and stand there.
What do you feel? Are there aches? Are there pains? Are there, as there have been for me, strangely lax, non-existent muscle groups? If yes, that probably means you’re either doing it completely right…or there’s something off about the way you stand.
I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, so I was really excited to see Hilary Achauer’s article Why ‘Unbalanced’ Muscles Can Cause You Pain in the New York Times this week. The crux of the article is that anyone who does repetitive actions, like running, cycling, or sitting (also an action) needs to ensure they cross- and strength-train regularly.
Right, yes, absolutely! This is why I write about cross training pretty often. But I’d also like to address the facts that you (a) probably don’t want to cross train as much as you do your primary activity (because otherwise your cross training would be your primary activity) and (b) are frequently simply sitting or standing while not thinking about sitting or standing at all.
Since we can’t and probably don’t want to make more time to cross train, I propose that we pay close attention to the sensations in our bodies when we cross train, and then try to make sure we’re feeling a lower intensity version of those sensations in our everyday lives. Basically, I’m encouraging everyone to try to leverage your cross training in order to sit and stand in more intentional ways to help either prevent or mitigate unbalanced muscles. After all, you’re sitting and standing anyway, why not do it right?
As I alluded to last week, my path to addressing unbalanced muscles resulted from the total body reset that is pregnancy and delivery, but you don’t need to undergo major life events to get the same information. I’ll just tell you about them instead :) Here are two examples of pain resulting from unbalanced muscle pain that I’ve been fighting for years and have finally resolved through cross training:
Tense trapezius
Neck and shoulder pain can be caused by a lot of things. For me, it was caused by pulling up and back when I ran, tensing up my trapezius muscles, which are the ones that connect your neck to your shoulders. This is super annoying, because your traps don’t help you run, so it’s a clear inefficiency. On top of that, I used to grind my teeth at night a lot (a lot!), waking up with sore shoulders and headaches pretty regularly. After having a baby, I simply didn’t have time for extraneous pain anymore, so I went to the UCLA Orofacial clinic to figure out what was happening. In the course of their treatment, I realized that what I really needed was…a stronger pelvic floor.
That’s right: the key to unlocking my traps and jaw was way down in my hips. What I had to do was go to physical therapy and do a series of silly movements, including simply laying on my back with my knees bent and my palms on my thighs at my hip bones and running my hands from my hips out to my knees. It seems like nothing, but what it did was signal to my body what it felt like to tense my pelvic floor. Pretty soon I figured out what it felt like standing and could practice all the time.
This led to my traps releasing in a matter of a couple of weeks, inflammation that I didn’t even know I had calming down, and my jaw unclenching at night. On top of that, suddenly my arms dropped down farther at my sides while I ran, extending my swing and aiding in my back kick and pull through. Almost effortlessly, my stride opened up and I felt like I was flying again, like in my 20s.
Plantar Fasciitis
Like most runners, I’ve had plantar fasciitis off and on for years. My version was so bad that when I got out of bed I would sort of stump around the house for bit until my feet uncurled themselves. That might sound extreme, but I never really did anything about it because pain in your plantar fascia is just part of the deal being a runner, right? WRONG. You don’t need to live this way. Or, at least if you have a sway back like me you probably don’t need to live this way.
The root of my plantar fasciitis started way up in my hips, where frontward pelvic tilt, aka, a sway back, had been a feature of my posture since I was a little girl. What I didn’t realize for years is that I didn’t need to pull up to try to lengthen my back; that just caused those tense trapezius. Instead, I needed to pull in. Like, a lot. I discovered that I basically never engaged my obliques or lower abs, and those are the muscles that push back against a sway back.
I used a combination of squats and planks to figure out what it feels like when I properly pull my lower abs in, and now I can do it somewhat often, though still not without thinking about it. I feel generally better without a sway back, but more immediate pay off is that my plantar fascia pain is entirely gone, even in the morning. I can get out of bed like a normal person, which, wow. What a change!
So in my experience, figuring out muscle imbalances and doing the work to correct or at least mitigate them is one of the keys to running for decades and decades without major injury or increasing pain. I’m so into it, weird movements and all. I want everyone to run with less pain and more joy, so let me know any questions you might have and for today, remember: go run.
*Thanks to Elton John for his excellent song and extremely silly video, I’m Still Standing
