I have recently decided that I need to do some exercise. I can discuss the triggers in a separate post. What I want to write about here is the way in which the ten years or so of yoga that I have done influences the way in which I am approaching jogging.
As I was jogging this evening (4.2km, 35 mins), I was focusing on the same issues that I have been focusing on in yoga recently - primarily posture and specifically the idea of opening my pelvic area (yes, that's my groin).
In yoga, particularly for men - who for some reason seem to be much more closed in the pelvic region than women - there is a great deal of importance to this. The idea is to try to roll outwards (open) the part of the legs from the thighs down the knees, and to counter that (so that you don't walk like a duck) by rolling inwards (close) the part of the legs from the knees down to the feet.
I have been trying to apply this equally to jogging (as well as walking in my day-to-day life) and feel that it is quite a good thing. It has also made me realise that part of the process in improving my jogging will be strengthening the muscles in my inner thighs (yes, that's my groin again). Basically, I was feeling that I need to lift my entire leg (in order to properly lift my knee) from those muscles. I believe that without doing this I would be compensating using other muscles, leading to bad running posture and then the whole thing would go to crap (bad feeling, ineffective running).
One thing that I realised during this jog is that there is a tension between three essential elements in running - speed, breathing and posture. If you push the speed to much, you can easily lose the breathing and posture. Breathing and posture for people who practice yoga quite go together, and thus in jogging counterbalance only against speed, however I can imagine that people who don't practice yoga, good breathing and good posture could also theoretically work against each other.
The overriding element in the tension is strength. As we build up strength in the relevant muscles (in my case, starting with the inner thighs) I believe that I will be able to increase speed without losing breathing and posture. I am interested to see if there are other factors that I notice over time that feature in this equation and which influence the overall benefit of the run.
End of post, thank you for your attention.
As I was jogging this evening (4.2km, 35 mins), I was focusing on the same issues that I have been focusing on in yoga recently - primarily posture and specifically the idea of opening my pelvic area (yes, that's my groin).
In yoga, particularly for men - who for some reason seem to be much more closed in the pelvic region than women - there is a great deal of importance to this. The idea is to try to roll outwards (open) the part of the legs from the thighs down the knees, and to counter that (so that you don't walk like a duck) by rolling inwards (close) the part of the legs from the knees down to the feet.
I have been trying to apply this equally to jogging (as well as walking in my day-to-day life) and feel that it is quite a good thing. It has also made me realise that part of the process in improving my jogging will be strengthening the muscles in my inner thighs (yes, that's my groin again). Basically, I was feeling that I need to lift my entire leg (in order to properly lift my knee) from those muscles. I believe that without doing this I would be compensating using other muscles, leading to bad running posture and then the whole thing would go to crap (bad feeling, ineffective running).
One thing that I realised during this jog is that there is a tension between three essential elements in running - speed, breathing and posture. If you push the speed to much, you can easily lose the breathing and posture. Breathing and posture for people who practice yoga quite go together, and thus in jogging counterbalance only against speed, however I can imagine that people who don't practice yoga, good breathing and good posture could also theoretically work against each other.
The overriding element in the tension is strength. As we build up strength in the relevant muscles (in my case, starting with the inner thighs) I believe that I will be able to increase speed without losing breathing and posture. I am interested to see if there are other factors that I notice over time that feature in this equation and which influence the overall benefit of the run.
End of post, thank you for your attention.
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