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There are no wasted efforts in nature. Have you ever wondered what the role of essential oils is in seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers and other parts of plants? Essential oils play key roles reproductive, protective, and regenerative purposes. Watch this video and consider the endless applications of these gifts from the earth!
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease.
Budd Coates and Claire Kowalchik
This article was adapted from Running on Air: The Revolutionary Way to Run Better by Breathing Smarter, by Budd Coates, M.S., and Claire Kowalchik (Rodale, 2013). The book teaches how to use the principles and methods of rhythmic breathing across all levels of effort. It includes training plans for distances from 5-K to the marathon, as well as strength-training programs and stretching workouts.
In my early days as a runner, I, like most, didn’t give any thought to my breathing. I took up the sport in high school—back in the ’70s—and as a senior on the cross-country team, I won the individual league championship, a good but not great accomplishment. I continued to run at Springfield College in Massachusetts, where I majored in physical education. We raced often with little time to recover, and as a consequence, I was injured often. When injury constantly forces you to take time off, you lose a lot of quality training time. As renowned coach and exercise physiologist Jack Daniels puts it, “It’s easier to stay fit than get fit.”
I spent lots of time in the college’s physiology building (there were no cross-training facilities) on a Monarch test bike, pedaling away to maintain my conditioning. Afterward, I went digging into the research to find a solution to my predicament. Eventually I came across an article called “Breath Play,” by Ian Jackson, a coach and distance runner, which related breathing cycles with running cadence. Later I found a study by Dennis Bramble, Ph.D., and David Carrier, Ph.D., of the University of Utah, explaining that the greatest impact stress of running occurs when one’s footstrike coincides with the beginning of an exhalation. This means that if you begin to exhale every time your left foot hits the ground, the left side of your body will continually suffer the greatest running stress.
Hmm. My most frequent injury was to my left hip flexor. So I began to think, what if I could create a pattern that coordinated footstrike and breathing such that I would land alternately on my left foot and then right foot at the beginning of every exhale? Perhaps I could finally get healthy. It was worth a try.
I developed a pattern of rhythmic breathing and began using it between my junior and senior years of college. I ran well enough my senior year to earn my one and only varsity letter. I also trained for and ran my first marathon the winter before graduating from Springfield and finished in a respectable 2:52:45.
I continued to work on a rhythmic breathing method of running while pursuing my master’s degree in physical education and exercise physiology at Illinois State University, during which time I trained for my second marathon. I homed in on a five-step pattern for easy training and a three-step cycle for faster running. I used the three-step pattern during that second marathon and ran an incredibly even 2:33:29. Now I knew I could manage my effort through rhythmic breathing with a great deal of success. Since then, I’ve taught this method to the many runners I’ve coached over the years. It can work for you, too.
Healthy Steps
Rhythmic breathing can play a key role in keeping you injury-free, as it has for me. But to understand how that can happen, first consider some of the stresses of running. When your foot hits the ground, the force of impact equals two to three times your body weight, and as research by Utah’s Bramble and Carrier showed, the impact stress is greatest when your foot strikes the ground at the beginning of an exhalation. This is because when you exhale, your diaphragm and the muscles associated with the diaphragm relax, creating less stability in your core. Less stability at the time of greatest impact makes a perfect storm for injury.
So always landing on the same foot at the beginning of exhalation compounds the problem: It causes one side of your body to continuously absorb the greatest impact force of running, which causes it to become increasingly worn down and vulnerable to injury. Rhythmic breathing, on the other hand, coordinates footstrike with inhalation and exhalation in an odd/even pattern so that you will land alternately on your right and left foot at the beginning of every exhalation. This way, the impact stress of running will be shared equally across both sides of your body.
An analogy would be if you loaded a backpack down with books, notebooks, and a laptop and then slung it over your right shoulder. With all this weight on one side of your body, you’d be forced to compensate physically, placing more stress on one side of your back and hip. But if you were to slip that same heavy backpack over both shoulders, the load would be distributed evenly. You’d put your body in a position to better manage that stress, and your back would stay healthy.
It stands to reason that if one side of the body relentlessly endures the greater impact stress, that side will become worn down and vulnerable to injury. Rhythmic breathing allows a slight rest to both sides of the body from the greatest immediate impact stress of running. But there’s more to it than a pattern of footstrikes, exhales, and inhales that keeps you injury-free. Rhythmic breathing also focuses your attention on your breath patterns and opens the way for it to become the source of how you train and race.
Exhale Stress
Attention to breathing has a long history in Eastern philosophy. Dennis Lewis, a longtime student of Taoism and other Eastern philosophies, teaches breathing and leads workshops throughout the United States at venues including the Esalen Institute and The Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. In his book, The Tao of Natural Breathing, Lewis shares the following Taoist belief: “To breathe fully is to live fully, to manifest the full range of power of our inborn potential for vitality in everything that we sense, feel, think, and do.”
In Hinduism, yoga teaches pranayama—breath work. Prana means breath as a life-giving force: The work of breathing draws life-giving force into the body. And that work is accomplished through diaphragmatic breathing, or belly breathing, which means that as you inhale, you contract the diaphragm fully to allow maximum volume in the thoracic (chest) cavity for maximum expansion of the lungs and maximum intake of air. Rhythmic breathing does the same thing, drawing the breath—the life force—into the body through controlled, focused diaphragmatic breathing. Through rhythmic running we breathe fully and, as the Taoist would say, realize our vitality.
Rhythmic breathing also creates a pathway to a deep centeredness. Practitioners of every style of yoga, martial arts, relaxation, and meditation use breath work to connect mind, body, and spirit. In the martial arts, this inner connection and centeredness allows more immediate and precise control of the physical body.
The same can be accomplished in running through rhythmic breathing. You achieve centeredness first by focusing your mind on fitting your breathing to an optimal footstrike pattern. Then your awareness of breathing links mind and body and creates a smooth pathway to gauging the effort of running. Rhythmic breathing helps you feel your running, and that ability to feel your running allows you immediate and precise control.
Yoga teaches that controlling your breathing can help you control your body and quiet your mind. When we allow ourselves to become distracted by trying to match our running effort to a pace we’ve defined with numbers on a watch, we break that mind/body connection. We open up a gap where stress and tension can enter. And we create a disturbance in the flow of running that hinders our success and enjoyment. Rhythmic breathing is calming, and awareness of breathing draws your focus toward calm. It allows you to remain as relaxed as possible, quieting any stress in the body that could inhibit performance. And if you should feel a twinge of tension or discomfort, you can mentally “push” it out of the body as you exhale.
During moderate or long runs, rhythmic breathing allows me to slide easily into an effort and pace at which everything glides on autopilot. My breathing is comfortable, my cadence is smooth and even, and the rhythm of both combines for that “harmonious vibration with nature.”
From the Belly
Before learning the rhythmic patterns that will take your running to a new level, you must first become a belly breather, that is, learn to breathe from your diaphragm. When you inhale, your diaphragm contracts and moves downward, while muscles in your chest contract to expand your rib cage, which increases the volume in your chest cavity and draws air into your lungs. Working your diaphragm to its fullest potential allows your lungs to expand to their greatest volume and fill with the largest amount of air, which of course you need for your running. The more air you inhale, the more oxygen is available to be transferred through your circulatory system to your working muscles. Many people underuse their diaphragm, relying too much on their chest muscles and therefore taking in less oxygen, which is so important to energy production. The other downside of breathing from your chest is that these muscles (the intercostals) are smaller and will fatigue more quickly than your diaphragm will. To rely less on your chest muscles to breathe, you’ll want to train yourself to breathe from your belly, that is, with your diaphragm. Practice belly breathing both lying down and sitting or standing, since you should be breathing diaphragmatically at all times—whether you’re running, sleeping, eating, or reading a book. Here’s how to learn the technique:
Establish a Pattern
Many runners develop a 2:2 pattern of breathing, meaning they inhale for two footstrikes and exhale for two footstrikes. Some breathe in for three steps and exhale for three steps. Both have the same result—your exhale is always on the same side. Breathing patterns that extend the inhale will shift the point of exhalation alternately from left to right or from right to left, from one side of the body to the other. The singular point of all rhythmic breathing patterns is this: Exhale on alternate footstrikes as you run. You never want to continually exhale on the same foot.
The rhythmic breathing patterns I recommend call for a longer inhale than exhale. Why the longer inhale? Your diaphragm and other breathing muscles contract during inhalation, which brings stability to your core. These same muscles relax during exhalation, decreasing stability. With the goal of injury prevention in mind, it’s best to hit the ground more often when your body is at its most stable—during inhalation.
Let’s start with a 5-count or 3:2 pattern of rhythmic breathing, which will apply to most of your running. Inhale for three steps and exhale for two. Practice first on the floor:
1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
2. Place your hand on your belly and make sure that you are belly breathing.
3. Breathe through your nose and your mouth.
4. Inhale to the count of 3 and exhale to the count of 2. You might count it this way: “in-2-3,” “out-2,” “in-2-3,” “out-2,” and so forth.
5. Concentrate on a continuous breath as you inhale over the 3 counts and a continuous breath as you exhale.
6. Once you become comfortable with the inhale/exhale pattern, add foot taps to mimic walking steps.
When you feel confident that you have the 3:2 pattern down, take it for a walk. Inhale for three steps, exhale for two, inhale for three steps, exhale for two. Finally, of course, try out your rhythmic breathing on a run—inhaling for three footstrikes and exhaling for two. A few key points: Inhale and exhale smoothly and continuously through both your nose and mouth at the same time. If it seems difficult to inhale over the full three strides, either inhale more gradually or pick up your pace. And lastly, do not listen to music while learning to breathe rhythmically. The beats of the music will confuse the heck out of you.
Now Go Faster
You will find that the 3:2 breathing pattern works well when you are running at an easy to moderate effort, which should make up the majority of your running. Let’s say, however, you are out for a comfortable five-miler and about midway you come upon a hill. Because your muscles are working harder, they need more oxygen. Your brain also signals to your respiratory system that you need to breathe faster and deeper. You reach a point running up the hill when you can no longer comfortably inhale for three steps and exhale for two. It’s time to then switch to a 3-count, or 2:1, rhythmic breathing pattern: Inhale for two steps, exhale one, inhale two steps, exhale one. You’re breathing faster, taking more breaths per minute, and this odd-numbered breathing pattern will continue to alternate the exhale from left foot to right, dispersing the impact stress of running equally across both sides of your body. Once you’ve crested the hill and are running down the other side, you might continue in this 2:1 pattern until your effort and breathing have recovered and you slip back into your 3:2 cadence.
When you begin breathing rhythmically, it’s a good idea to consciously monitor your breathing patterns, although it’s not necessary to do so throughout your entire run. Focus on your breathing when you start out, evaluate your breathing as your effort changes—such as when you climb a hill—and then simply check in at random intervals to make sure that you haven’t fallen into a 2:2 pattern. Over time, the 3:2 and 2:1 rhythmic patterns will become automatic.
Not surprisingly, the 2:1 breathing pattern also comes into play during speed training and racing. I originally began to use rhythmic breathing as a way to run injury-free. When I realized it was working with easy and moderate runs, I was afraid to break away from it during hard training workouts, and through trial and error learned to follow a 5-count rhythmic breathing pattern during an easy run or a long run and a 3-count rhythm for interval training and racing. Rhythmic breathing allowed me to complete my last year of competitive college running with moderate success. It would allow me to go on to qualify for four Olympic Marathon Trials and to set a PR of 2:13:02.
Find Your Levels
On your next run, do some “breath play,” as Ian Jackson would say. Start out in a 3:2 breathing pattern at a very easy effort—your warmup. This is a comfortable pace at which you could converse easily with a running partner. How does it feel? Notice the depth and rate of your breathing. After 10 minutes, pick up your pace just a bit to an effort that requires you to breathe noticeably deeper while you continue to run within the 3:2 breathing pattern. You should still be able to talk with your running buddy, but you’ll be glad for those periods in the conversation when you get to just listen. Run at this pace for a few minutes and tune into your body, feel your breathing—your lungs expanding, your belly rising.
Now pick up your pace even further while holding the 3:2 breathing pattern. At this point, you’ll be breathing about as deeply as you can, which makes the effort uncomfortable. You are now experiencing a difficult rhythmic breathing effort. And you’d rather not. So you convert to a 3-count, or 2:1, breathing pattern—inhaling for two steps and exhaling for one. You’re taking more breaths per minute, in a pattern that still distributes the impact stress equally across both sides of your body. Notice that the effort of breathing becomes comfortable again. You will be able to talk some. Running will feel comfortably fast again. Spend a few minutes at this pace and effort, focusing on your breathing and on your body.
Now increase your pace, forcing deeper breathing. You are running at a serious level that does not allow you to talk. Up the pace again. You are breathing about as deeply as you can, but the difference is that you are also breathing about as fast as you can. And, of course, your pace is much quicker. You can’t hold this effort for very long. It might feel like you have no place else to go, but you do—to a pattern of 2-1-1-1, which allows you to breathe faster. You switch to the following: Inhale for two steps, exhale for one, inhale for one, exhale for one; inhale for two steps, exhale for one, inhale for one, exhale for one; and so forth. This is the effort you will put forth for your kick at the end of a race. Or you can use this to help you crest a steep hill during a race.
Once you’ve tested the 2-1-1-1 pattern, slow down, ease up, and allow your breathing to return gradually to a comfortable 3:2. The more you use rhythmic breathing in training and racing, the easier and more automatic it becomes.
As you use rhythmic breathing in your training and racing and tune in to your breathing efforts and paces, you will learn to run from within, in complete harmony with your body. You will discover the natural rhythms of your running, which will lead you to improved performances but also to experience the pure joy of running.
http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/running-air-breathing-technique
The pituitary gland is tied to your optic nerve and is sensitive to sunlight. When light enters your eyes, it triggers your pituitary gland to produce a melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH) that activates your melanocytes to produce melanin. This means that wearing sunglasses can actually cause sunburn.
Our skin is the body’s largest organ, and acts as a barrier between our inner organs and the outside world. It’s made up of essentially two parts the epidermis and the dermis. The epidermis is the outer section and is comprised of a layer of living cells, topped by a layer of dead cells. The dead cells are the skin we see.
Even though the upper epidermis is just a lot of dead cells, it contains keratin, a tough protein that also makes up our hair and fingernails, Keratin is thicker on the bottoms of our feet and the palms of our hands for added protection against abrasions and other intrusions from the outside world.
Inside the dermis is where all the skin’s functioning equipment is located, These include nerves, sweat glands, hair follicles, blood vessels and special cells called melanocytes, which produce melanin, the material responsible for skin pigmentation, hair and eye color. Most humans have about the same amount of melanocytes, some just produce more melanin than others. Albinos, however, produce no melanin at all.
When our skin gets exposed to sunlight (particularly ultraviolet rays) melanocytes begin producing melanin to help protect the dermis, and keep the skin cells from getting fried. The melanin acts as an absorbing agent. So over time, as exposure to the sun continues, more melanin is produced and subsequently the skin becomes darker.
The hair is a different story. Hair color is also determined by melanin, but hair cells are dead, so sunlight doesn’t initiate melanin production but rather begins to break down the melanin already in the hair, and the hair’s color begins to fade or lighten.
Although you can still burn with or without them, when you wear sunglasses you actually are slightly increasing the chances of getting sunburn. When we are in the sun, our pituitary gland produces and releases melanocyte-stimulating hormones (MSH) into our bloodstreams, triggering melanocytes under our skin to produce more melanin, which in turn protects us from exposure of UV rays. (Melanin is also responsible for our skin color- more melanin means a darker color, and better protection from UV rays, while on the other hand albinos lack melanin, and burn easily in the sun.) Our skin produces melanin without the signals from pituitary gland, but it will turn up production when signaled to do so.
Our pituitary gland is tied into our optic nerve meaning that it can sense light, which kick starts the whole process of producing MSH based on the UV our eyes receive. When we wear sunglasses to shield our eyes, we are also shielding the pituitary gland from knowing to turn up our melanin production. This in turn, leaves us at greater risk of the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation.
I put together a blend of 10 drops lavender essential oil, 10 drops frankincense essential oil, and 10 drops peppermint essential oil with some water which helped to soothe and take the heat out of the burnt area.
Most of what I shared in this article I got from reading others’ research and watching some dear Gingers cover up and still get burnt. Please do your own research and protect yourself according to your own convictions. 🙂
by Brian Dalek
If it weren’t for the pain in my legs and my quickly deteriorating coordination, I might appreciate the words of encouragement. They’re all around me at mile 20 of the Philadelphia Marathon. “You’re kicking ass!” reads one sign. “Great job—almost there!” yell spectators. And from speakers somewhere overhead I hear the Rocky theme song, “Gonna Fly Now.”
All lies.
“Looking great!” prod course volunteers (another lie) as I pause at an aid station to shake out the knots rippling through my quads and hamstrings. After pounding the pavement for 2 1/2 hours, every bunny hill feels like an Everest and every mile seems longer than the last. I’ve hit the wall. Hard.
Six miles later, I drag myself to a 3:25 finish. It’s not terrible-—many would call it respectable—but it’s still 10 minutes slower than my goal, and the mental blame game begins almost immediately. But it’s not until 2 weeks later that I discover the real reason behind my poor performance.
“Have you ever focused on your breathing?” asks Budd Coates, a colleague of mine at Rodale and author of Running On Air, as we deconstruct my race after a grueling intervals workout.
Nearly 30 years my senior, Coates regularly kicks my ass in local races—a fact that might irk me if the freakishly fast 55-year-old wasn’t a 2:13 marathoner. He’s also one of only 31 people in the world to run sub-3-hour marathons in five different decades of life—and he attributes his athletic achievements and longevity to rhythmic breathing, a technique he developed nearly 30 years ago.
“By pairing my breathing and my cadence, I found that I could better judge effort, maximize my lung capacity, and reduce wear and tear on my body,” says Coates, who went from being a filler on his cross-country team to qualifying for the U.S. Olympic marathon trials. “Want to learn?”
For the first time in weeks, I feel hope. And knowing that I won’t have to train any harder has me breathing easier, which is my first mistake.
The Science of Breathing
“Inhale through your nose and mouth,” says Coates as he places my hand on my stomach—a reminder to draw air deep into my lungs. My first lesson in rhythmic breathing isn’t out on the road or even on a treadmill. It’s on the floor of my gym, where I’m lying on my back while making my stomach alternately balloon and deflate. “Congratulations,” says Coates after 15 minutes. “You’re now a belly breather.”
Before today I’d rarely given breathing a second thought because, like most people, I don’t have to—respiration is automatic. We breathe in, oxygen diffuses into our blood, hemoglobin takes it to working muscles, and energy is produced. The resulting waste, carbon dioxide, is transported back to our lungs for removal. Easy enough.
But imagine running up a hill. The effort forces your legs to work harder, increasing their demand for oxygen. Your chest heaves more rapidly in response, but eventually it’s unable to keep up with the demand. Carbon dioxide, meanwhile, builds up. Soon your respiratory muscles become fatigued, and because they’re more important for sustaining life, oxygen-rich blood is shunted preferentially in their direction.
“The body has to decide, ‘Do I want blood to flow to my leg muscles for running or to my respiratory muscles for breathing?'” says Robert Chapman, Ph.D., associate director of sport science and medicine for USA Track & Field. “At the end of the day, the respiratory muscles win every time.”
Most of us make that win easy. “We use only 50 to 60 percent of our available lung capacity,” says Alison McConnell, Ph.D., author of Breathe Strong, Perform Better. The reason: We rely too heavily on our chest muscles when we breathe.
“Those should be your backup,” says Coates. “You want to make your diaphragm the bigger player.” Contracting your diaphragm fully during each breath maximizes the amount of oxygen you take in and the amount of carbon dioxide you remove, delaying fatigue. What’s more, training your respiratory muscles to be more efficient can reduce their oxygen consumption, according to a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology. “And the less they need, the more you can direct to working muscles,” says Chapman.
Bringing your diaphragm into play, however, is only the first step in rhythmic breathing. Step two: pairing it with cadence, or foot strikes.
Relearning to Run
Running might appear to be a low-impact sport, but every time your foot hits the ground, you rock your joints with a force equal to more than twice your body weight. This stress is compounded at the start of each exhale. “When you breathe out, your diaphragm and the muscles around it relax, reducing core stability,” says Coates. The less stable it is, the greater your risk of injury all over.
It gets worse. “Most runners breathe evenly with their cadence, inhaling every two steps and exhaling every two steps,” says Coates. “That means they begin each exhalation on the same foot.” Ever notice more pains on one side of your body than the other? Now you know the reason.
Rhythmic breathing disrupts that process by extending inhalations to a count of three while keeping exhalations at a count of two. “By inhaling longer than you exhale, you stay in a ‘core solid’ position for the majority of your run,” says Coates. You also begin each exhalation on a different foot, distributing the impact force equally between both sides of your body.
“The five-count pattern is best for slow to moderate running,” says Coates. “For faster running, shift to a three-count [two in, one out] pattern.”
These two patterns unlock the third benefit of rhythmic breathing: measuring effort. Using one pattern for long runs and another for races and intervals gives you an internal pacer that ensures you don’t run out of fuel too early or finish with too much left in your tank. “Running is all about efficiency,” says Coates, “and the better you are at measuring your effort, the faster you’ll get.”
Racing on Air
My first sign of improvement comes during a spring 10K when, to my utter amazement, I place in the top five. By fall I’ve slashed 30 seconds off my 5K and posted a previously unthinkable 1:27 half marathon. But these races are only preamble to my ultimate test: the Outer Banks Marathon.
The starting gun sounds at 7:20 a.m. on a warm November morning and I start out slowly, enjoying the salty air as I weave through the streets of Kitty Hawk. I feel relaxed—surprisingly relaxed—and soon find myself returning the waves of families having breakfast on their front porches as I hit 7:30 mile splits. A dull ache crops up in my left foot as I pass the Wright Brothers National Memorial at mile 8, but I shrug it off.
The next 18 miles fly by. Not even the Washington Baum Bridge—a notoriously steep overpass at mile 22—can slow me down as I cruise to a 3:19 finish, beating my time in Philadelphia by 6 minutes. It’s not an earth-shattering improvement, but I’ll take it, and not just because I completed all 26.2 miles without walking.
“You have a stress fracture,” says my podiatrist a few weeks later when I have the pain in my left foot checked out. I’d injured it before the race during a clumsy run-in with a tree limb, and chalked up the lingering ache to a minor bruise. “I honestly don’t know how you ran a marathon.”
Had I known the extent of my injury, I wouldn’t have. But by distributing the impact force equally between both sides of my body, rhythmic breathing helped me not only complete the race but also snag a new personal best. Now fully healed, I’ve set myself a new goal: finishing my next marathon in under 3 hours.
http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/i-got-faster-by-breathing-better
by Jenny Hadfield
Here are three simple ways to improve your running efficiency.
Get Strong. It’s not uncommon for runners to acquire muscle imbalances that create more work for the body when we ask it to run or move (inefficiency). In fact, even runners that strength-train regularly can fall victim to muscle weakness if they’re not addressing the imbalances directly.
For example, prolonged sitting can cause the glute medius on both sides to weaken or shut off, causing instability and lateral shifting in the hips. This weakness hinders your running form via wasted lateral movement and can also cause overuse injuries like Iliotibial Syndrome and other issues down the chain.
The key is to not only include the typical functional multi-joint exercises for runners (squats, lunges), but to also include the more simple exercises (like the clam) that might not seem like they’re doing much but are helping you activate and strengthen a weak, inactive muscle. Here is a list of exercises that will help balance your body strength and better stabilize to run more efficiently with less wear and tear.
Get your power on. Adding plyometrics into your regular routine will boost strength and speed by improving the elasticity of the muscle via the stretch-shortening cycle. That is, when the muscle is stretched before an explosive contraction, like bending through the knee before a single leg jump, it contracts more powerfully and quickly.
Because these exercises are explosive in nature, it is best to weave them into your program after you have established a solid base of strength-training, once per week, and in rotation with your strength-training program. Perform these exercises after your runs to focus on good form, as performing plyometrics with sloppy form can quickly lead to injury. Here are three plyometric exercises for runners. By the way, plyometrics are a little like child’s play once you get the hang of it.
Improve your stride rate. Your stride rate is simply the number of steps you take in a minute. To find it, count the number of strides on one foot for one minute and double it. The goal is to have a stride rate of around 180, or 90 per foot. If it’s much less (170) than that, it likely means you’re creating more vertical energy (oscillation), projecting more upward motion than forward, and you guessed it, wasting energy. It also means you’re employing braking forces with every stride rather than rolling quickly over the ground. The key is to practice patience while increasing your stride rate and decreasing the time you spend on the ground.
To improve your stride rate, you can run to a music mix at 180 bpm, invest in a metronome (musician’s timing device), or add the following drill to the beginning or end of your runs (it makes a great active warmup). Although this drill (and running with a faster cadence) may feel awkward at first, that just means you’re creating new neuromuscular patterns that will soon start to feel more natural. It’s important to note that when running to music or a metronome, it’s best to focus on taking shorter strides and increasing the cadence gradually. If your stride rate is 170, for example, you could set it to 174 and progress slowly from there.
Striders: On a flat straightaway, start running with short, quick strides. Gradually increase the length of your stride while maintaining quick turnover for 30 seconds. Slow down gradually, walk back to the start, and repeat a total of four to six times.
It’s important to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and optimal running efficiency isn’t, either. The good news is a little time invested with these exercises can make a significant difference in your running performance down the road.
Happy trails.
http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/three-simple-ways-to-improve-running-efficiency
Ladies,
This oil is for us! Like many oils it is a balancing oil that normalizes many women’s issues.
ACNE: Place a drop on your skin over your ovaries once a day and say goodby to acne.
In today’s video Dr. Axe is going to talk about how essential oils can naturally balance your hormones. He will talk about specific oils that can benefit progesterone balance, estrogen balance, thyroid issues, and naturally boost low testosterone.
The three main essential oils we will cover are clary sage, thyme oil, and sandalwood oil. Clary sage’s biggest benefit is that is helps balance out estrogen in the body. If you have infertility or estrogen cancer, clary sage helps balance out your estrogen levels and hormones. Thyme oil helps benefits the body by producing more progesterone, which helps balance out the body’s hormones.
Finally, sandalwood oil helps balance out testosterone levels in both men and women. A few additional essential oils that help balance the body’s hormones are rose oil, lavender oil, and chamomile oil. And for thyroid issues, one of the best essential oils to use is frankincense oil.
Runner’s World
By Liam Boylan-Pett
Disappointment after a bad race shouldn’t linger in adults, right? After all, we have real things to worry about. But according to sports psychologist Michael Sachs, it’s natural to be upset by a subpar performance. Running is important to us; we feel like we have control over the outcome, so when races don’t go well, it’s a let-down. Plus, the results are so concrete.
Even though adults usually have an easier time than teens in understanding that a race is not a big deal in the larger scheme of things, they sometimes need extra help in bouncing back. Sachs offers these strategies: